The lab-on-a-chip toolkit is replete with techniques for microparticle manipulation. The use of ultrasonic waves to impart forces on particles, referred to as acoustophoresis, is one particularly powerful yet gentle option. Traditionally, piezoelectric transducers have been coupled with acoustic resonators in order to sustain standing waves for aggregating, sorting, and sensing applications. However, there are several drawbacks to these setups. First, the construction techniques underpinning resonators tend to be expensive and laborious. Secondly, the acoustic impedance of piezoelectric transducers is much higher than the aqueous medium in which microparticles are suspended. This requires the use of impedance-matching layers to adequately couple acoustic energy into the medium. Finally, piezoelectric materials tend to be incompatible with traditional fabrication methods for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). This can significantly impact the use of piezoelectric materials in more complex lab-on-a-chip type platforms where many processes beyond sample manipulation may be necessary. Over the past two decades, another type of transducer, known as the capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT), has been challenging the dominance of the piezotransducer. However, this competition has been occurring primarily in the arenas of non-destructive testing and medical imaging. Given some of the unique attributes of CMUTs, it is surprising that they have yet to be fully realized in acoustophoresis, especially because acoustophoresis is popularly practiced within a microfluidic setting. We first present a highly cost-effective and cleanroom-free technique for prototyping piezo-equipped, transversal acoustophoretic resonators. Simple bifurcation and trifurcation microchannels suitable for acoustophoresis in microscopy applications are fabricated and demonstrated. The second focus of our research looks at the suitability of CMUT microarrays as platforms for acoustophoresis. We address the following: issues surrounding their implementation; modeling of potential resonator designs; and possibility of foregoing resonators altogether. Several CMUT devices are then fabricated and tested, using travelling-wave ultrasound to demonstrate aggregation within droplets as well as sequential capture and separation within flows. A unique phenomenon of bead aggregate palpation is encountered, the physical underpinnings of which are attributed to magnitude changes in lateral gradient forces with frequency. Finally, we attempt to perform standing wave manipulations of particles using the CMUT microarray, and describe the difficulties encountered in doing so.


Mental toughness (MT) has been increasingly associated with successful performance in several stressful and competitive environments (e.g. the military, business, academics, medicine, sports). Being physically active (PA) may compromise sleep quality (SQ). Research has reported conflicting associations regarding PA and MT. Regarding SQ and MT, a bidirectional association has been reported. However, research has not yet focused on the combined effects of PA and SQ on MT. PURPOSE: To characterize the association and the effects of PA and SQ on MT. The authors hypothesized that: (a) PA and SQ are negatively associated; (b) PA and MT are positively associated; (c) SQ and MT are negatively associated; and (d) the interaction effect of PA and SQ on MT will be buffering. METHODS: Sixty-two participants (age 25.4  6.0 SD) completed inventories related to SQ (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and MT (Mental Toughness Index). PA data were collected according to American College of Sports Medicine guidelines. Main and interaction effects of the responses were analyzed using factorial ANOVA. Significance was set at p < 0.05. All analyses were performed using SPSS. RESULTS: PA was positively correlated with SQ (r = .009, p =.473) and with MT (r = .246, p = .027). SQ was negatively correlated with MT (r = -.470, p = .000). PA (F1,58 = 10.939, p = .002, η2 = .159) and QS (F1,58 = 23.051, p = .000, η2 = .284) had a main effect on MT. The interaction of PA and QS had a buffering moderating effect on MT (F1,58 = 12.394, p = .001, η2 = .176). CONCLUSION: Evidence was found for all but the first hypothesis. PA-participants tending to be mentally tougher than the non-PA ones. Poor sleepers, on average, were mentally tougher than the good sleepers. The buffering effect indicates that the non-PA individuals with poor quality of sleep are the mentally toughest ones, followed by PA individuals with poor quality of sleep. Non-PA individuals with good quality of sleep present the lowest MT levels. In regards to developing mental toughness the authors suggest that: a) PA should be prescribed to good quality of sleepers and b) in poor quality sleepers focus should be placed on sleep before PA. Such findings may be useful to exercise and health-related practitioners when prescribing PA in a wide variety of individuals that report sleep quality issues in relation to MT capacities.


Cuba was first added to the State Department's list of states sponsoring international terrorism in 1982. At the time, numerous U.S. government reports and statements under the Reagan Administration alleged Cuba's ties to international terrorism and its support for terrorist groups in Latin America. Cuba remains on the state-sponsored terrorism list with four other countries: Iran, Syria, Sudan, and North Korea. Cuba's retention on the terrorism list has received more attention in recent years in light of increased support for legislative initiatives to lift some U.S. sanctions under the current economic embargo. Supporters of keeping Cuba on the terrorism list argue that there is ample evidence that Cuba supports terrorism. Critics of retaining Cuba on the terrorism list maintain that the policy is a holdover from the Cold War and that Cuba no longer supports terrorism abroad.


Acrokeratosis verruciformis (AKV) of Hopf is an autosomal dominant condition characterized by multiple flesh-colored or lightly pigmented flat or convex warty papules over dorsa of hands, feet, knees, elbows, and forearms. It affects both sexes and is usually present at birth or appears in early childhood. Two forms of the disease have been described, namely, classical AKV and sporadic AKV. Histological examination differentiates it from other similar conditions. Superficial ablation is the treatment of choice. We represent a case of a young female with extensive lesions over contralateral limbs, of classical AKV interspersed with multiple hypopigmented macular lesions of AKV.


In autumn 2015, the international community drew up 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These were followed by National Action Plans established at the national level to ensure the goals could be achieved by 2030. However, climate change now stands in the path of achieving the SDGs and will specifically affect the poorest populations in the countries that are most at risk from climate change. Although extreme weather events such as tropical storms, droughts and floods threaten these people's harvests, income and livelihoods, climate risk insurance can help to reduce their vulnerability. In the event of a disaster, insurance can quickly provide funds to help the injured parties deal with their situation as well as to bolster emergency responses and strengthen social protection systems.


Objective: To compare head to head the indices of left ventricular contractile reserve assessed by high-dose dobutamine in the five-year prognosis of patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Design and setting: Prospective study in a tertiary care centre. Patients: 63 consecutive patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Interventions: High-dose dobutamine stress echocardiography was performed in progressive stages lasting 5 min each. Wall motion score index, ejection fraction, cardiac power output and end systolic pressure to volume ratio were evaluated as indices of left ventricular contractility. Main outcome measure: Five-year cardiac mortality. Results: During the follow up of 59 patients, 27 (45.8%) died of cardiac causes. According to Kaplan–Meier and receiver operating characteristic analyses all indices of contractile reserve differentiated patients with respect to cardiac death. Wall motion score index achieved the best separation (log rank 21.75, p < 0.0001, area under the curve 0.84), followed by change in ejection fraction (log rank 11.25, p  =  0.0008, area under the curve 0.79), end systolic pressure to volume ratio (log rank 14.32, p  =  0.0002, area under the curve 0.75) and cardiac power output (log rank 9.84, p  =  0.0017, area under the curve 0.71). Cox's regression model identified wall motion score index as the only independent predictor of cardiac death. Conclusions: These data show that all examined indices of left ventricular contractile reserve are predictive of five-year prognosis, but change in wall motion score index may have the greatest prognostic potential.


Caulerpa lentillifera is a kind of edible seaweed, known as 'sea grape' or 'green caviar'. It is used in fresh salads. However, it is sensitive to low temperature and osmotic pressure, and is easily spoilt by storage in a refrigerator or washing with tap water. That is the reason why it is difficult to prevent food poisoning, especially due to Vibrio parahaemolyticus. In this study we investigated of marine bacteria and V. parahaemolyticus in C. lentillifera and cultured them in order to develop effective control of bacteria in commercial farms. The sixteen farms in the Okinawa Islands were investigated from August to September in 2006. A total of 176 samples were collected from eleven points during the cultivation processes and from the products. About 10(3) cfu/mL of marine bacteria were detected in the seawater used in the tank culture, but after cultivation of C. lentillifera the number had increased to about 10(6) cfu/mL. The number of marine bacteria in C. lentillifera did not change significantly through the process of planting to the final product (about 10(7) cfu/g). V. parahaemolyticus was detected in seawater from all processes and C. lentillifera was isolated from 56% of seawater, 25% of seed-stocks, and 18.8% of product samples, though but thermostable direct hemolysin gene was not detected from enrichment cultures or isolated V. parahaemolyticus strains. These results indicate that for prevention of food poisoning by V. parahaemolyticus in C. lentillifera, it is important to establish a suitable sterilization procedure for each process.


Spirituality is widely covered in both the counseling (e.g., Benda & McGovern, 2006; Cashwell & Young, in-press; Morgan, 2007; Sori-Ford, 2008; Young, Wiggins-Frame, & Cashwell, 2007) and addictions counseling literatures (e.g., Cashwell, Clarke, & Graves, 2009; Ciarrocchi & Brelsford, 2009; Cook, 2004; Dyslin, 2008; Juhnke, Watts, Guerra, & Hsieh, 2009; Laudet, Morgen, & White, 2006; Morgan, 2009; Morgan & Jordan, 1999). The inclusion of addictions counseling within the latest standards of the Committee on Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP; 2009) presents new challenges and opportunities to improve the profession, especially in the area of spirituality. The CACREP addictions counseling standards highlight the importance of spirituality in two sections. Section C.4. states the need to understand "the role of spirituality in the addiction recovery process" (p. 18) and section G.3. states that an addictions counselor needs to understand "the assessment of biopsychosocial and spiritual history" (p. 22). What does it mean, however, to understand or assess spirituality? Similar to the debate on how to include spirituality into the counselor education curriculum (e.g., Briggs & Rayle, 2005; Curtis & Glass, 2002; Ingersoll,1997; Leseho 2007) there still exists questions on how to effectively integrate spirituality into addictions counselor training (Morgen, 2009). Perhaps it is not a surprise then, given the possibilities and the explosion of knowledge available in this realm, that students and even more experienced counselors are somewhat nervous about how to incorporate spirituality into addictions counseling training and practice, even if they are convinced that it is a good idea.


Over the last two decades, the various attempts to "radicalize" Levinas have resulted in two interesting and often separated debates: one the one hand, there is the debate regarding the relationship between Levinas and colonialism and racism, and on the other hand, there is the debate regarding the relationship between Levinas and Judaism. Whether scholars interested in issues of colonialism disregard Levinas's Judaism or use his "subaltern" identity to challenge European hegemony, they do not take seriously the Jewish content of Levinas's thought. In this essay, I challenge the prevailing postcolonial orinetation of the Levinas-colonialism conversation, approaching Levinas's phenomenology from an anticolonial perspective. I will use Frantz Fanon's dualistic understanding of the colonial world to evaluate the adequacy of Levinas's phenomenology in describing the ontological structure of the colony and the historical experience of the colonized within it. Levinas's incomplete understanding of the Holocaust as colonialism contributes to his failure to recognize the dividing line of colonial ontology, the zone of nonbeing, the non-human status of the colonized, and ultimately contributes to the insufficiency of his phenomenology to describe the colony. Because my purpose is not to reject Levinas's thought in general but to encourage a new approach to his work, in the conclusion I will gesture toward the need for an anticolonial reading of Levinas's project for Jewish education.


SILBERT, SAMUEL H. (15 Apr. 1883-18 Feb. 1976), lawyer and long-time common pleas court judge, was born in Kiev, Ukraine, to Joseph and Nurious (Brook) Silbert. He came to Newark, N.J. at 6 with his widowed mother and worked selling newspapers and in an ink factory. By 16, Silbert was a state champion amateur boxer. Moving to Denver, he worked as a train news butcher before coming to Cleveland in 1902. He worked days, attending school at night. Silbert graduated from Cleveland Law School and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1907. In 1912 he was appointed assistant police prosecutor by Mayor NEWTON D. BAKER, serving until 1915. He established a conciliation system credited with settling over 29,000 disputes. In 1915 Silbert won election to the municipal court bench, where he introduced several judicial novelties, including a water cure for alcoholics by which defendants could avoid the workhouse by downing 10 glasses of water each day. In 1923 he was defeated for chief justice of the municipal court. Elected to the common pleas court in 1924, Silbert continued serving at that post, also serving as chief justice (1955-63), until his retirement on 1 Jan. 1969. Most of the time he served in divorce court, handling almost 100,000 cases in his career. As a nationally recognized authority on domestic relations, divorce, and marital problems, Silbert reconciled thousands of couples. His popularity was so great and his vote-getting ability so formidable, that he often ran for reelection unopposed. Silbert married Anna Weinstein in 1909 in Steubenville, Ohio. The couple had no children. Silbert died in Cleveland and was buried in Mayfield Cemetery. Samuel Silbert Papers, WRHS. Silbert, Samuel. Judge Sam (1963).


In Reformation studies, the printed Bible has long been regarded as an agent of change. This dissertation interrogates the conditions in which it did not Reform its readers. As recent scholarship has emphasized how Protestant doctrine penetrated culture through alternative media, such as preaching and printed ephemera, the revolutionary role of the scripture-book has become more ambiguous. Historians of reading, nevertheless, continue to focus upon radical, prophetic, and otherwise eccentric modes of interaction with the vernacular Bible, reinforcing the traditional notion that the conversion of revelation to print had a single historical trajectory and that an adversarial relationship between textual and institutional authority was logically necessary. To understand why printed bibles themselves more often did not generate unrest, this study investigates the evidence left by a subset of Bible readers who remained almost entirely unstudied -that is, early modern Catholics. To the conflict-rich evidence of ecclesiastical prohibitions, court records, and martyrologies often employed in top down narratives of the Counter-Reformation, this project introduces the alternative sources of used books and reading licenses. What these records reveal is that Catholic lay readers were not habituated to automate critical reading practices in the presence of biblical texts; what they demanded from ecclesiastical authorities and publishers instead were books that could provide them with access to their church's sacred rituals and to its public expression of exegesis. The liturgical context of appropriation apparent in these Catholic books became visible in their evangelical counterparts enabling a cross-confessional history of sacred reading. This broader story is situated within the annotated Bible of one Catholic reader, Thomas Marwood (d.1718). The components of his book expose his overlapping reading communities and the disparate social and institutional contexts that structured them. Contextualizing each part illuminates the extent to which the conditions and traditions for reading the scriptures were shared across confessions and contested within them. This dissertation recovers a place for Bibles and their readers not only within early modern Catholicism, but within the Reformation era generally. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Margo Todd


The performance of policy gradient methods is sensitive to hyperparameter settings that must be tuned for any new application. Widely used grid search methods for tuning hyperparameters are sample inefficient and computationally expensive. More advanced methods like Population Based Training that learn optimal schedules for hyperparameters instead of fixed settings can yield better results, but are also sample inefficient and computationally expensive. In this paper, we propose Hyperparameter Optimisation on the Fly (HOOF), a gradient-free algorithm that requires no more than one training run to automatically adapt the hyperparameter that affect the policy update directly through the gradient. The main idea is to use existing trajectories sampled by the policy gradient method to optimise a one-step improvement objective, yielding a sample and computationally efficient algorithm that is easy to implement. Our experimental results across multiple domains and algorithms show that using HOOF to learn these hyperparameter schedules leads to faster learning with improved performance.


Back End of Line Nanorelays for Ultra-low Power Monolithic Integrated NEMS-CMOS Circuits Jesus Javier Lechuga Aranda Since the introduction of Complementary-Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the chip industry has enjoyed many benefits of transistor feature size scaling, including higher speed and device density and improved energy e ciency. However, in the recent years, the IC designers have encountered a few roadblocks, namely reaching the physical limits of scaling and also increased device leakage which has resulted in a slow-down of supply voltage and power density scaling. Therefore, there has been an extensive hunt for alternative circuit architectures and switching devices that can alleviate or eliminate the current crisis in the semiconductor industry. The Nano-Electro-Mechanical (NEM) relay is a promising alternative switch that o↵ers zero leakage and abrupt turn-on behaviour. Even though these devices are intrinsically slower than CMOS transistors, new circuit design techniques tailored for the electromechanical properties of such devices can be leveraged to design mediumperformance, ultra-low power integrated circuits. In this thesis, we deal with a new generation of such devices that is built in the back end of line (BEOL) CMOS process and is an ideal option for full integration with current CMOS transistor technology. Simulation and verification at the circuit and system level is a critical step in the design flow of microelectronic circuits, and this is especially important for new technologies that lack the standard design infrastructure and well-known verification 4 platforms. Although most of the physical and electrical properties of NEM structures can be simulated using standard electronic automation software, there is no report of a reliable behavioural model for NEMS switches that enable large circuit simulations. In this work, we present an optimised model of a BEOL nanorelay that encompasses all the electromechanical characteristics of the device and is robust and lightweight enough for VLSI applications that require simulation of thousands of devices. To verify the performance of the proposed model, complex logic circuits built exclusively with relays, and also, hybrid CMOS-NEM circuits are simulated and verified. Finally, these novel topologies are reviewed and discussed as low-power alternatives to current CMOS topologies.


A self-addressable, self-assembling microelectronic device is designed and fabricated to actively carry out and control multi-step and multiplex molecular biological reactions in microscopic formats. These reactions include nucleic acid hybridizations, antibody/antigen reactions, diagnostics, and biopolymer synthesis. The device can be fabricated using both microlithographic and micro-machining techniques. The device can electronically control the transport and attachment of specific binding entities to specific micro-locations. The specific binding entities include molecular biological molecules such as nucleic acids and polypeptides. The device can subsequently control the transport and reaction of analytes or reactants at the addressed specific micro-locations. The device is able to concentrate analytes and reactants, remove non-specifically bound molecules, provide stringency control for DNA hybridization reactions, and improve the detection of analytes. The device can be electronically replicated.


For William Dean Howells, the 1880s throbbed with literary warfare over theory and criticism (realism), and social justice. But the terrible climax was more personal and came in the death of his daughter in 1889. The blow altered him radically. Among other changes, a poetry new to him emerged, a poetry in the modern tradition. This new poetry is available now as never before in Pebbles, Monochromes, and Other Modern Poems, 1896-1916. It is metaphysical, agnostic, and ironic with a modernist voice. Praised at the century's start by figures as notable as Stephen Crane, Henry and William James, W. E. B. DuBois, and Hamlin Garland, Howells arises again at the end of the century, hailed by the likes of John Updike and Gore Vidal. This rich cache of modern poems by W. D. Howells, lost for so long, is now made accessible under the editorial eye of Edwin Cady. Its significance is central to the understanding of the literary history and culture that defined the modern era and to the progeny that grew from that fertile soil.


Objectives This study aimed to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation among young and middle-aged adults, and explore the risk factors that affect suicidal ideation. Methods A descriptive study design was used for secondary data analysis. A total sample of 5,214 was drawn from two waves (2012–2013) of the 7th Korea Health Panel (KHP) survey. The KHP data were collected by a well-trained interviewer using the face-to-face method during home visits as well as self-report method. Descriptive statistics of frequency, percentage, chi-square test, and logistic regression analysis were performed using SPSS 22.0. Results The prevalence of suicidal ideation in young and middle-aged adults was 4.4% and 5.6%, respectively. For young adults, suicidal ideation risk was higher among those with low income or heavy drinking habits. In middle-aged adults, low income, poor perceived health status, negative perception of peer-compared health status, and negative social perspective were the major risk factors. Conclusion There is considerable risk of suicidal ideation in adulthood. Opportunities for increased income, avoidance of heavy drinking, and the construction of positive subjective health status and social perspective should be considered in suicide prevention interventions for Korean young and middle-aged adults.


The period between 1867 and 1914 remains the greatest watershed in human history since the emergence of settled agricultural societies: the time when an expansive civilization based on synergy of fuels, science, and technical innovation was born. At its beginnings in the 1870s were dynamite, the telephone, photographic film, and the first light bulbs. Its peak decade - the astonishing 1880s - brought electricity - generating plants, electric motors, steam turbines, the gramophone, cars, aluminum production, air-filled rubber tires, and prestressed concrete. And its post-1900 period saw the first airplanes, tractors, radio signals and plastics, neon lights and assembly line production. This book is a systematic interdisciplinary account of the history of this outpouring of European and American intellect and of its truly epochal consequences. It takes a close look at four fundamental classes of these epoch-making innovations: formation, diffusion, and standardization of electric systems; invention and rapid adoption of internal combustion engines; the unprecedented pace of new chemical syntheses and material substitutions; and the birth of a new information age. These chapters are followed by an evaluation of the lasting impact these advances had on the 20th century, that is, the creation of high-energy societies engaged in mass production aimed at improving standards of living. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/0195168747/toc.html


Although estrogens exert a pronounced protective effect on multiple sclerosis and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), their therapeutic application has been limited by undesirable side effects thought to be mediated primarily through estradiol binding to intracellular estrogen receptor α. In this study, we found that signaling through the putative membrane estrogen receptor, G protein-coupled receptor 30 (GPR30), was sufficient to mediate protection against EAE, which was significantly impaired in GPR30 gene-deficient mice. Treatment with G-1, an agonist that selectively activates GPR30 without engagement of the intracellular estrogen receptors, retained the ability of estradiol to protect against clinical and histological EAE without estradiol-associated side effects, deviated cytokine profiles, and enhanced suppressive activity of CD4+Foxp3+ T regulatory cells through a GPR30- and programmed death 1-dependent mechanism. This study is the first to evaluate the protective effect of GPR30 activation on EAE, and provides a strong foundation for the clinical application of GPR30 agonists such as G-1 in multiple sclerosis.


The bidirectional solar-optical properties of a fenestration system are necessary to accurately determine its luminous and thermal performance. Bidirectional transmittance and reflectance can be determined experimentally for fenestration systems of arbitrary complexity using a scanning radiometer, after which the total directional absorptance can be calculated. However, for the case of multilayer fenestration systems, this approach does not provide information about the net absorptance of each layer. Moreover, the same layers can be ordered in more than one way, resulting in fenestration systems with different solar-optical properties, the determination which requires additional experimental procedures. This paper describes a mathematical model for the calculation of the bidirectional solar-optical properties of multi-layer fenestration systems, using the bidirectional solar-optical properties of each layer. The model is based on the representation of the bidirectional solar-optical properties using matrices. Matrix operations are then used to calculate the bidirectional solar-optical properties of any combination of layers, considering the interreflections between them. This approach offers two advantages: (1) the reduction of the experimental procedures to those required for the determination of the bidirectional transmittance and reflectance of fenestration layers, rather than complete fenestration systems, and (2) the determination of the net absorptance of each layer as part ofmore » the fenestration system, rather than the total absorptance of the complete fenestration system. 7 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab.« less


The aim of this study is to undertake an up-to-date assessment of market power in Central and Eastern European banking markets and explore how the global financial crisis has affected market power and what has been the impact of foreign ownership. Three main results emerge. First, while there is some convergence in country-level market power during the pre-crisis period, the onset of the global crisis has put an end to this process. Second, bank-level market power appears to vary significantly with respect to ownership characteristics. Third, asset quality and capitalization affect differently the margins in the pre-crisis and crisis periods. While in the pre-crisis period the impacts are similar for all banks regardless of ownership status, in the crisis period non-performing loans have a negative effect and capitalization a positive effect only for domestically-owned banks.


Mixed bundling - the conditioning of discounts in one market on the purchase of products or services in another market - is a pervasive business practice that is attracting attention because of its potentially exclusionary effects on competitors. The practice has been analogized to anticompetitive tying and, as with tying a generation ago, the reasons for its existence have been misunderstood. In most cases, mixed bundling benefits consumers. Firms adopt mixed bundling pricing strategies for many procompetitive or competitively neutral or indeterminate reasons, including achieving efficiencies, responding to demand by powerful customers, price-discriminating, and playing behavioral games with customer psychology. Courts and the antitrust agencies are struggling to formulate legal tests capable of addressing mixed bundling as a potential monopolization offense. The prominent sacrifice test - under which an act is considered unlawfully exclusionary if it makes no rational sense absent the exclusion of competitors - cannot be meaningfully applied to most mixed bundling schemes in a litigation context because there are too many variables that determine the "rationality" calculus. But nor do theories of exclusionary bundling without profit sacrifice provide a compelling reason to be worried about the competitive effects of mixed bundling in most cases. Given the generally procompetitive effects of mixed bundling and the propensity of plaintiffs strategically to misuse monopolization law to stymie vigorous price competition, courts should be reluctant to create new prohibitory rules and should, at most, use existing predatory pricing principles to assess the practice.


This paper aims to understand the links between migration and poverty at the community level. Most of the research to date on the links between migration and poverty has been conducted at the micro level, while research related to migration and development more broadly usually focuses on the specific micro or the broader macro level. This paper adds to the existing literature by focusing specifically on the community level using data collected in the second half of 2011 in 180 Moldova communities. This paper examines four dimensions of poverty at the community level, namely: 1) infrastructure, 2) education, 3) livelihood and 4) health. We look at different rates of poverty by migration/remittance prevalence and country destination. We find that communities with higher rates of migration are significantly associated with a higher level of deprivation in infrastructure and the multi-dimensional index, while we find no significant results for remittances sent to the community. Community size and average income as well as region and proximity to the capital all show significant results of the different dimensions of well-being.


Since the European summer heat wave of 2003, considerable attention has been paid to the impacts of exceptional weather events on terrestrial ecosystems. While our understanding of the effects of summer drought on ecosystem carbon and water vapour fluxes has recently advanced, the effects of spring drought remain unclear. In Switzerland, spring 2011 (March–May) was the warmest and among the driest since the beginning of meteorological measurements. This study synthesizes Swiss FluxNet data from three grassland and two forest ecosystems to investigate the effects of this spring drought. Across all sites, spring phenological development was 11 days earlier in 2011 compared to the mean of 2000–2011. Soil moisture related reductions of gross primary productivity (GPP) were found at the lowland grassland sites, where productivity did not recover following grass cuts. In contrast, spring GPP was enhanced at the montane grassland and both forests (mixed deciduous and evergreen). Evapotranspiration (ET) was reduced in forests, which also substantially increased their water-use efficiency (WUE) during spring drought, but not in grasslands. These contrasting responses to spring drought of grasslands compared to forests reflect different adaptive strategies between vegetation types, highly relevant to biosphere–atmosphere feedbacks in the climate system.


In the context of welfare state change and European Union and national debates on activation, this article engages in a systematic analysis of the reconciliation of work and family policies in Poland, and their implications regarding the gendered division of labour. Examination of three areas of reconciliation, that is, childcare services, maternity and parental leaves, and parent-friendly organization of work, reveals strong tensions between the unpaid labour of care and paid market labour. Reconciliation of work and family appears challenging for mothers and fathers alike, but the nature of the problem differs - women face greater obstacles to paid employment and men to involvement in family and care. Assessed against EU prescriptions in this area, Poland's performance is mixed. Based on policy developments and practice, Poland is far from achieving Barcelona targets for the provision of childcare services, it complies with EU regulations on maternity and parental leave arrangements but also compares unfavourably with the member states which provide special arrangements for fathers, and, finally, lags behind employment goals and parent-friendly organization of work. Although participation in the Lisbon Strategy has proved important for raising the visibility of the reconciliation of work and family policies on the national political agenda, recent policy reforms have been either inconsistent or too modest in light of EU policy goals. Therefore, it is too soon to argue that parents' ability to reconcile work and care has improved or that greater equality in the gendered division of labour has been attained.


A low diversity fauna of unusually large (individuals of two to three times the normal size) agglutinated and calcareous benthic foraminifera is recorded from the Late Campanian – Early Maastrichtian Chalk sequences of two boreholes (Shell 49/19.1 and Shell 49/20.2) in the Southern North Sea Basin. Associated planktonic species are extremely rare. This distinctive assemblage provides a useful local stratigraphical marker.


The current classification of scleractinian corals based upon gross morphological features has been found unsatisfactory due to additional information from skeletal microarchitecture and microstructure. It is necessary to investigate microstructural details and limits in morphologic variation within and between different coral clades before a revised classification is constructed. Variations in morphologic characters and microstructural details from a population of Dimorpharaea de Fromentel, 1861 (Family Microsolenidae) from Upper Bathonian (Jumara Dome) strata in Kachchh are described. The data used include the diameter (D) and height (H) of the corallum, number of corallites in the colony (NC), number of septa in the mother corallite at the center of the colony (NS), minimum distance between centers of central corallite and corallite of the inner ring (C1), minimum distance between corallite centers of the outer ring (C2), septal density (DS) and trabecular density (DT). The principal components analysis reveals that most of the variation is explained by "size" related characters (D and H) while corallite density (NC and C1) and septal structures (DS and DT) contribute to the second and third principal component axes, respectively. The microarchitecture and distribution of characters observed in the Kachchh Dimorpharaea require a re-evaluation of familial-specific concepts and suggest that the population belongs to a single species, Dimorpharaea stellans Gregory, 1900, rather than four nominal species (D. stellans, D. distincta, D. continua and D. orbica) as has been assumed.


In this article, I use the 5Ps Framework for Ethical Problem Solving to begin meaningful discourse on the ethical problems in cultural property law pertaining to indigenous descendants of creator cultures. I use the divisiveness in the cultural property debates and the recent passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a backdrop, highlighting points of tension between indigenous interests and those of other cultural property stakeholders.I identify three ongoing ethical problems in international cultural property law: (1) that indigenous peoples are persistently underrepresented; (2) that the current cultural property model inappropriately ties possession/control to beneficial interest, such that arguments against indigenous peoples getting control of artifacts prevent them from receiving a beneficial interest; and (3) that unsolicited representation of indigenous interests reinforces the damaging idea that they are in need of custodial care, undermining the argument that they are competent to control cultural property.I conclude with a recommendation that stakeholders proceed to the second level of ethical decision making, exploring what options will address these ethical concerns. Indigenous involvement in this process in crucial. I suggest that better recognition is given to indigenous interests as distinct from those of other stakeholders, especially source nations. I further propose that indigenous peoples are more effectively involved in resolving international cultural property disputes.


Background: A substantial portion of Australians view internet pornography (IP), coinciding with the widespread adoption of high-speed internet in Australian homes. However, the effects of viewing IP are only beginning to be revealed including the negative impact on the brain from viewing IP. However, what are the effects on people's sexual attitudes and sexual behaviours?

Method: A structured literature review was undertaken to collate peer reviewed literature concerning IP's effect on sexual attitudes and behaviours, synthesising and reporting on articles that met the inclusion criteria published within the last three years.

Results: The main result identified across the literature was IP as a gender issue. There was a significant difference between male and female IP use. Effects are greater for men, especially for frequent users who watch IP with violence and male patriarchal and dominance themes. However, female partners of male users are directly affected with many negative consequences to their sexual attitudes and self-belief.

Conclusion: The critical synthesis of the literature establishes IP's overarching adverse effect on sexual attitudes and behaviours. The review of the literature indicates IP's consistent association with male patriarchal and dominance attitudes, permissive sexual scripts, riskier sexual behaviours and less relationship satisfaction and more distress. There is a clear gender difference in the use and effects of using IP. These effects combine to affect relationships with both genders reporting less relationship satisfaction and more distress. These findings reinforce the need for increased awareness of the effect of IP. Counsellors must address co-occurring problems in male individuals who are regular users and be on the lookout for IP as an underlying issue in relationship distress and dissatisfaction.


This paper tests the cyclicality of fiscal policy in Israel. We find that government deficits are mildly counter-cyclical, mainly in recessions. Expenditures, and in particular, public investment, are pro-cyclical. However, we find that both the government deficit and expenditures have become more counter-cyclical after 1985, a period that is characterized by improved fiscal discipline, following the Economic Stabilization Program. We interpret this result as an indication that Israel is nowadays in a transition from pro-cyclical fiscal policy, as in many developing countries, to counter-cyclical fiscal policy, as is more common in developed countries.


Walliserdeutsch is a Swiss German dialect spoken in the south west of Switzerland. To investigate the potential of automatic speech processing of Walliserdeutsch, a small database was collected based mainly on broadcast news from a local radio station. Experiments suggest that automatic speech recognition is feasible: use of another (Swiss German) database shows that the small data size lends itself to bootstrapping from other data; use of Kullback-Leibler HMM suggests that phoneme mapping techniques can compensate for a grapheme-based dictionary. Experiments also indicate that statistical machine translation is feasible; the difficulty of small data size is offset by the close proximity to (high) German.


To date, there are no published studies or official papers on mycobiota in coastal Bosnia and Herzegovina. In light of this fact, the author conducted a brief mycological study in the Mediterranean part of the country in February 2016. This paper offers a morphological description of the rare Mediterranean species Ciboria brunneorufa, an analysis of microscopic characters and a comparison with data of other authors. It also discusses the global distribution pattern and abundance of C. brunneorufa. An increased level of negative anthropogenic influence is expected on the Klek Peninsula in the future. In order to conserve this habitat unique in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to protect C. brunneorufa and other fungal species, it is necessary to make an environmental risk assessment and to carry out further systematic mycological field studies.


The "cerrado" sensu stricto is a savanna woodland physiognomy which occupies most of central Brazil, with the degree of canopy cover varying from 10% to 60% at a site with trees reaching up to seven meters high. It occurs mostly on deep and well-drained soils but can also be found on shallower ones. The diversity and structure of the "cerrado" sensu stricto on shallow and rocky Cambisols and Litosols were studied here. Sixteen 20 x 50 m2 plots were sampled in a random design over patches of this vegetation in northern Goias State and southern Tocantins. All stems from 5 cm diameter at 30 cm from the ground level were measured. Vouchers were collected and deposited at the IBGE herbarium. A total of 87 species in 65 genera and 33 families were found. Diversity index was 2.87 nats ind-1, density was 836 stems ha-1 with a basal area of 8.4374 m2 ha-1. Sorensen's index indicated higher similarities between plots at the same site indicating a geographical gradient influencing the floristic composition of the "cerrado" sensu stricto on rocky soils. Czekanowski's index confirmed this trend. TWINSPAN classification final groups were defined by preferential species of more fertile soils, in opposition to those typical of dystrophic soils and to common species to gallery forests occurring on sloping terrains with gullies.


The aim of the current work is to assess the challenges that gamification in education are facing nowadays. Benefits and disadvantages of using gamification in classroom are both discussed to offer a clearer view on the impact of using gamification within learning process. Exploratory study cases are provided to investigate the relation between motivation and engagement of the students and gamification in training. Following this idea, a survey was conducted to assess how students behavior and motivation is affected by introducing a single, specific gamification element during a semester learning process. To stimulate competition among students, a ranking type plugin was introduced within the university learning management system used for extramural education. The results prove that motivation decreases by comparison to the previous semester.


Title of dissertation: MONUMENTS AS A NATIONAL PRACTICE: THE DILEMMAS OF LIBERAL NATIONALISM Avital Shein, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation directed by: Professor Ronald Terchek Department of Government and Politics Professor Vladimir Tismaneanu Department of Government and Politics At first glance, the very idea of liberal nationalism appears to be an oxymoron. It is dedicated to universal liberal values but it maintains that a nation, a particularistic entity par excellence, is a justifiable, legitimate, and even beneficial entity. Liberal nationalism, in other words, tries to reconcile two seemingly irreconcilable values: national and liberal ones. However, if one thinks of liberal nationalism as a set of practices, it becomes clear that liberal nationalism is both possible and actual: it exists, and it is articulated in diverse spheres that touch our everyday lives as well as the foundations of liberal polities. In this study, I consider nationalism (and liberal nationalism in particular) to be a set of practices that continuously create and define the image of the nation, its boundaries, and the meaning of national identity. This dissertation focuses on one of these national practices: national monuments. I argue that as an example of a national practice in the built environment, they are appropriate grounds for exploring the intersection between space and nationalism and, more specifically, between space and liberal nationalism. At the heart of my discussion is the assumption that as a national practice, monuments must operate not only in a traditional (e.g., ethnic) national context, but also in a liberal national one. Therefore, I argue that within a liberal national context, monuments would construct an image of a liberal nation—a nation that melds together national and liberal values. To do so, I first examine how monuments construct an image of a nation; specifically, I focus on the politics of memory and death. This, in turn, leads to my discussion of liberal monuments. I explore the ways in which national monuments can be liberal, as well. Overall, the dissertation seeks to show that liberal monuments capture the dilemmas of liberal nationalism, and that they articulate these dilemmas in space. MONUMENTS AS A NATIONAL PRACTICE: THE DILEMMAS OF LIBERAL NATIONALISM


The 2016 wildfires in Alberta, Canada, created numerous challenges for families with children under five years of age, due to the limited postdisaster access to early childhood development (ECD) programs, resources, and supports. In the immediate aftermath of the wildfires, families struggled to balance recovery activities with childcare responsibilities, which adversely affected their overall recovery. In this article, we discuss three main challenges experienced by families with young children after the wildfires: inadequate access to childcare services, a lack of availability and funding for ECD programs and resources, and limited long-term recovery support for families. Because of their early developmental stage, young children are especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of a disaster and dependent on their adult caregivers, thus it is essential to understand the unique challenges families face after a disaster. Children's prolonged exposure to the stress of a disaster environment is compounded when parents have limited access to crucial programs, resources, and supports during the most crucial periods of rebuilding and recovery. The findings we report in this article provide insights into the critical role disaster and emergency preparedness and planning play in ECD service delivery and infrastructure, and into the need for recovery efforts to "build back better." We advise all levels of government to consider ECD and the provision of child care to be essential services during natural disasters, crises, and pandemics. We further advise them to make the financial investment needed to ensure sustainable recovery operations, including infrastructure, provision of ECD services, and hiring of educators who can deliver high-quality, affordable early learning and child care in postdisaster environments. Received March 2, 2020; revised June 19, 2020, and September 4, 2020; accepted March 17, 2021; electronically published June 2021. Journal on Education in Emergencies, Vol. 7, No. 1 Copyright © 2021 by the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). ISSN 2518-6833


This thesis describes our research on aliphatic poly(urethane-isocyanurate) (PUI) networks. Currently, these materials are widely applied in the coatings and adhesives industry. However, owing to their generally high toughness, excellent optical properties and good biocompatibility, aliphatic PUI networks are attractive materials for biomedical applications as well. In this work, we investigate the synthesis and material properties of aliphatic PUI networks as well as their potential application in a biomedical context. In the first part of this thesis (chapters 3 and 4), the viscosity of liquid aliphatic isocyanurates is investigated. These compounds are important industrial precursors in the conventional 2-component production of PUI materials. Viscosity is a key parameter for their industrial processing. Despite that, surprisingly little is known about the chemical interactions that dictate the viscosity of isocyanurate liquids. Using series of model compounds and a combined experimental and computational approach, relevant (inter)molecular interactions present in isocyanurate liquids are identified. Thereby, we provide a first framework for describing the previously poorly-understood viscosity characteristics of these liquids. In the second part of this thesis (chapter 5), focus is gradually shifted from liquid precursors towards polymer materials. The process of PUI network formation and the microscopic network structure of PUI materials are investigated. We present a newly-developed synthesis method for producing PUI networks with a well-defined microscopic network structure. Thereby, we aim to address some of the drawbacks that are typically associated with the conventional 2-component synthesis of these materials. In the third part of this thesis (chapters 6, 7 and 8), we explore the possibilities and limits of our newly-developed synthesis method in terms of resulting material properties and potential applications. Several new PUI networks and hydrogels are presented, demonstrating useful (combinations of) material properties for biomedical application. Relevant properties include water uptake, elastic modulus, ultimate tensile strength, toughness and crystallinity. Finally, we show that certain PUI type hydrogels are suitable for application as contact lens materials owing to their beneficial combination of high toughness in the water-swollen state, excellent optical properties and good biocompatibility.


Complex wavelet structural similarity (CW-SSIM) index has been recognized as a novel image similarity measure of broad potential applications due to its robustness to small geometric distortions such as translation, scaling and rotation of images. Nevertheless, how to make the best use of it in image classification problems has not been deeply investigated. In this study, we introduce a series of novel image classification algorithms based on CW-SSIM and use handwritten digit and face image recognition as examples for demonstration, including CW-SSIM based nearest neighbor method, CW-SSIM based k means method, CW-SSIM based support vector machine method (SVM) and CW-SSIM based SVM using affinity propagation. Among the proposed approaches, the best compromise between accuracy and complexity is obtained by the CW-SSIM support vector machine algorithm, which combines an unsupervised clustering method to divide the training images into clusters with representative images and a supervised learning method based on support vector machines to maximize the classification accuracy. Our experiments show that such a conceptually simple image classification method, which does not involve any registration, intensity normalization or sophisticated feature extraction processes, and does not rely on any modeling of the image patterns or distortion processes, achieves competitive performance with reduced computational cost.


A rapid and accurate spectrochemical method is presented for the determination of ferric oxide and silicon dioxide in alumina. This method is much more convenient than time-consuming gravimetric methods in which fusions are necessary for dissolution of the sample. The spectrographic method employs the use of finely divided germanium metal and graphite powder as buffers. The addition of germanium yields uniform, reproducible spectral lines. Data on the reproducibility of intensity ratios are included.


The intensity noise properties of Brillouin fiber ring lasers are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The fluctuating parameters that have the dominant influence on laser intensity noise are the pump rate and the cavity reinjection rate. The transfer functions that relate the laser intensity noise to the fluctuations of these parameters are determined in a theoretical study that is performed within the framework of the usual three-wave model of stimulated Brillouin scattering. The theoretical predictions are confirmed by experiments performed in a Brillouin fiber ring laser operating in a low-finesse cavity. Finally, the ability of all-fiber Brillouin lasers to reduce intensity noise of pump sources is discussed.


The principle of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) was drawn into the emulation research of an Automatic Train over speed Protection (ATP) drivermachine interface (DMI). To realize the functions of the DMI, a new method based on the MDA principle was raised. Specific to the requirement of the DMI, the ICV (Core Interface-Frame Controller-View) model was proposed. This is the Platform Independent Model of the ATP driver-machine interface. ICV is a View-centred GUI model that includes a Core Interface and a Frame Controller. The View was used for the description of interface visualization. The Frame Controller accomplished the communication between the driver and the on-board vital computer (VC) by the display of different views. The Core Interface provided the information bridge among View, the driver and VC. Then the detailed transform rules from the Platform Independent Model to the Platform Specific Model were drawn up. The transform rules were separated into two parts. One part realized the core communication function to ensure the accuracy of the system communication interface by the auto-transform method and, according to the definition of the Platform Independent Model, the other part built each module of the ICV model using manual mode. The ultimate complete ATP driver-machine interface system satisfied the emulation requirements, and has been used for the research of the evaluation and testing on the CTCS-3.


REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY
Recombinant (r)-hirudin is a specific inhibitor of thrombin that is independent of the activity of antithrombin.

OBJECTIVES
To evaluate pharmacokinetic properties and coagulatory changes of r-hirudin in healthy horses.

METHODS
Two clinically healthy horses received a single i.v. bolus of 0.4 mg/kg bwt r-hirudin and 6 clinically healthy horses received the same dose subcutaneously (subcut.) q. 12 h for 3 days. Coagulation times and r-hirudin plasma concentration were determined over 720 mins and 3 days after i.v. and subcut. administration, respectively.

RESULTS
In all horses, treatment with r-hirudin was not associated with systemic or local side effects. After i.v. injection, the 2 horses showed an elimination half-life of 58 and 80 mins, respectively. After subcut. administration, maximum plasma concentration of r-hirudin occurred at 128 +/- 55 mins and declined with a terminal half-life of 561 +/- 364 mins. Maximum response of activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) occurred 1.5 h after administration of r-hirudin. A prolongation of 1.9 +/- 0.2 times the pretreatment value was noted.

CONCLUSIONS
Pharmacokinetics of r-hirudin in healthy horses were similar to those in man and other animal species.

POTENTIAL RELEVANCE
The results of this study indicate that r-hirudin can be used in horses, but further studies should be performed in order to prove its effectiveness in diseased horses.


The objectives of this research were to find the most compatible coating formula for rice seeds (Experiment 1), and to evaluate the effect of coating formula on viability, vigor and storability of the seeds (Experiment 2). This research was conducted in Laboratory of Seed Science and Technology at IPB, Bogor and Laboratory of Seed Technology at PT East West Seed Indonesia, Purwakarta from December 2010 to February 2011. In Experiment 1, the ten coating materials (formula) were arranged in single factor of Completely Randomized Design with four replications, i.e. uncoated seed, 3% alginate + 1% talc, 3% alginate + 1% gypsum, 3% alginate + 1% peat, 3% arabic gum + 1% talc, 3% arabic gum + 1% gypsum, 3% arabic gum + 1% peat, 1.5% CMC + 1% talc, 1.5% CMC + 1% gypsum, and 1.5% CMC + 1% peat. Experiment 2 used Split Plot Design with four replications. The main plot was storage periods i.e. 0, 1 and 2 months. The seeds were stored in two storage conditions: ambient and air conditioned room. The subplot was coating formula (same as in Experiment 1). The results of Experiment 1 showed that the most compatible coating material for rice seeds were 1.5% CMC + 1% talc, and 1.5% CMC + 1% gypsum, these formula were able to maintain vigor of the coated seeds. In Experiment 2, coating formula of 1.5% CMC + 1% peat generated higher seed vigor than uncoated seeds after two months storage, 3% gum arabic + 1% gypsum was able to keep vigor for one month storage in ambient condition. The coating formula of 3% alginate + 1% peat was able to keep viability and vigor of the coated seeds for two months in air conditioned room. Keywords: seed coating material, seed quality, seed storage condition, seed storability


University administered Student Evaluation of Teaching surveys, while used primarily by educators and their managers to review and improve the quality of courses and teaching, can also be used by universities' marketing campaigns and websites as a means of stressing their institution's student friendliness and responsiveness to students' needs. Changes in assessment practices is one way that tertiary institutions are responding to students' preferences. However, there is a lack of understanding of the underlying factors that moderate decisions about assessment changes. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not a meaningful body of research concerning student 'choice' in higher education assessment exists, and how the extent of student 'choice' may change in the future. Emphasis has been placed on the assessment methods adopted in law and professional degrees in Australia. However, a broad review of international research from other relevant higher education discipline areas has also been undertaken in this paper.


The personal benefit element of the tipping violation established in Dirks v. SEC has been misunderstood. Courts, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and criminal prosecutors have broadly construed it to create liability for insiders who received remote, speculative, immaterial, or intangible returns after disclosing confidential company information. Several situations, such as an insider's gift of confidential information to a relative or friend or an intention to benefit the recipient of the information, do not require the insider to receive anything at all. The drafting history of the majority opinion in Dirks in the papers of its author, Justice Lewis Powell, reveals that the current wide interpretations of personal benefit in tipping cases are not consistent with the test the Court intended. The principal test of personal benefit was to be the insider's receipt of cash or something of value within a short time. The special fact situations mentioned in Dirks, including a disclosure as a gift or with an intention to benefit, were not independent and sufficient grounds for finding that an insider received a personal benefit. They were situations that often could create an inference of personal benefit. The drafting history and Powell's previous opinions show that Powell carefully used the word "inference" in the final opinion. He wanted proof of a fact situation to allow but not require a fact finder to conclude a tipper received a personal benefit. He did not intend proof of a fact situation to create a presumption or ultimate liability. Lessons from the drafting history show that the Supreme Court misapplied the gift situation in Salman. They also show that the Second Circuit's recent Martoma decision misinterpreted the intention-to-benefit language in the fact situations.


The statistic known as Moran's I is widely used to test for the presence of spatial dependence in observations taken on a lattice. Under the null hypothesis that the data are independent and identically distributed normal random variates, the distribution of Moran's I is known, and hypothesis tests based on this statistic have been shown in the literature to have various optimality properties. Given its simplicity, Moran's I is also frequently used outside of the formal hypothesis-testing setting in exploratory analyses of spatially referenced data; however, its limitations are not very well understood. To illustrate these limitations, we show that, for data generated according to the spatial autoregressive (SAR) model, Moran's I is only a good estimator of the SAR model's spatial-dependence parameter when the parameter is close to 0. In this research, we develop an alternative closed-form measure of spatial autocorrelation, which we call APLE, because it is an approximate profile-likelihood estimator (APLE) of the SAR model's spatial-dependence parameter. We show that APLE can be used as a test statistic for, and an estimator of, the strength of spatial autocorrelation. We include both theoretical and simulation-based motivations (including comparison with the maximum-likelihood estimator), for using APLE as an estimator. In conjunction, we propose the APLE scatterplot, an exploratory graphical tool that is analogous to the Moran scatterplot, and we demonstrate that the APLE scatterplot is a better visual tool for assessing the strength of spatial autocorrelation in the data than the Moran scatterplot. In addition, Monte Carlo tests based on both APLE and Moran's I are introduced and compared. Finally, we include an analysis of the well-known Mercer and Hall wheat-yield data to illustrate the difference between APLE and Moran's I when they are used in exploratory spatial data analysis.


The SLUGens pack for SuperCollider 3 is a collection of
novel algorithmic sound synthesis and processing UGens. This
paper describes various non-linear dynamic oscillators, buffer data processors, breakpoint set synthesisers, and miscellaneous filters. Non-standard sound synthesis has been neglected in modern research programmes concentrated on spectral and physical modelling synthesis. Its goal is not the modelling and reproduction of sounds from perceptual or physical acoustical data but the potential of any algorithm, cast into the audio range. Yet where the composer seeks novel sound generation and control possibilities, much interesting territory remains available to explore in the context of what might be termed errant sound synthesis.


The problem of pressure driven infernal type perturbations near the plasma edge is addressed analytically for a circular limited tokamak configuration which presents an edge flattened safety factor. The plasma is separated from a metallic wall, either ideally conducting or resistive, by a vacuum region. The dispersion relation for such types of instabilities is derived and discussed for two classes of equilibrium profiles for pressure and mass density.


In this paper we present a collection of high level workflow activity patterns based on the semantic of specific business functions (e.g., notification, task execution request, approval). In particular we discuss three pattern samples (approval, unidirectional and decision patterns). Moreover we gather the results of an analysis of their adoption on a wide set of real workflow processes (models). The analyses showed that the patterns are not only enough but also necessary to model all the 190 workflow processes which were subject of the investigation. We also show and discuss specific sequences or combination of patterns which were more often in the workflow processes analyzed. In larger research we apply these patterns as well as the analyses results in the development of a suite for process modeling and normalization.


The aim of this thesis is to develop novel receptors for the recognition of anions and ion-pairs.
The guest binding and sensing properties of the receptors are studied by spectroscopic and
electrochemical techniques. The ion-pair receptors described herein incorporate amide or urea
functionalities for anion binding and crown ether moieties for alkali metal cation
complexation. In addition, many receptors contain redox- and/or photo-active groups capable
of sensing guest binding events.
Chapter One introduces the field of supramolecular chemistry. A review of synthetic cation,
anion and ion-pair receptors reported in the literature is undertaken, and the formation of selfassembled
architectures is discussed.
Chapter Two details the synthesis and study of a range of new upper-rim functionalised
calix[4]arene anion and ion-pair receptors. The anion and ion-pair binding and sensing
properties of the receptors are investigated by ¹H NMR spectroscopy, electrochemistry and
luminescence spectroscopy. Two ion-pair receptors display a positive cooperative ion-pair
effect, whereby the presence of potassium cations causes an enhancement in the strength of
anion binding via electrostatic interactions and conformational effects.
Chapter Three centres on ion-pair receptors incorporating an azacrown group for alkali metal
cation complexation together with amide functionalities for anion binding. Receptors
containing either ferrocene or transition metal dithiocarbamate groups are capable of
electrochemically and/or optically sensing the binding of anionic guests.
Chapter Four describes disulphide-appended receptors designed for self-assembly onto gold
surfaces. A ferrocene- and disulphide-appended calix[4]arene receptor incorporating
hydrogen bonding moieties forms self-assembled monolayers on gold electrodes which
exhibit a surface sensing amplification in the electrochemical recognition of anions. In
addition, the assembly of receptors onto gold nanoparticles is explored with the aim of
producing UV-VIS spectroscopic sensors for guest binding.
Chapter Five reports the experimental procedures and characterisation for all products. The
Appendices provide information on experimental techniques, list the crystallographic data and
summarise all the receptors studied.


"Poor Sinning Folk": Confession and Conscience in Counter-Reformation Germany. By W David Myers. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1996. Pp. xiii, 230. $35.00.) David Myers' new book fills an important gap in our understanding of the processes of Reformation and Counter-Reformation and the role that penance played in those transformations. Myers focuses primarily, although not exclusively, on the Duchy of Bavaria, that firm bastion of Catholic piety long cited as the epitome of the central European, counter-reforming state. Before Myers' book, English-speaking historians often relied on the research of historians such as John Bossy and Jean Delumeau to reconstruct the social history of confession in places like this.These works primarily examined early-modern France, a state whose counter-reforming trajectory was hardly typical by European standards. Now historians of Germany and Central Europe have Myers' exemplary study, a work that will hopefully inspire other forays into the local history of the sacraments and their function in early-modern Catholicism. Too often, Myers concludes, scholars of late-medieval and early-modern religion have judged confession from the standpoint of its presumed effects instead of examining it within its social milieu. Before 1970, the school of religious sociology inaugurated by Gabriel Le Bras quantified confession and communion like any other social behavior. The startlingly low rates of participation that Abbe Toussaert discovered in late-medieval Flanders, for instance, became proof for an enduring lay disregard of clerical orthodoxy. By the 1970's, English-speaking scholars had entered into the debate and had shifted the nature of its discussion.Thomas N.Tentler's judicious Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (1977) explored the prescriptive literature of confessors' manuals, showing how late-medieval penance could give rise both to moral rigor and effective consolation. In his famous The Reformation in the Cities (1976), Steven Ozment had already attacked those conclusions, instead insisting that penance was the source for a widespread spiritual anxiety among the laity. Rather than concentrating on those questions, Myers hopes to shift the nature of the discussion once again: he wishes to reconstruct the ways in which penance functioned in the late-medieval Church and the precise changes that the Reformation and Counter-Reformation produced in its practice. Myers consequently grants the penitential system primacy, exploring its permutations over two centuries.The resulting text is concise and well written. And although this book does not exhaust all questions concerning penance in the earlymodern period, it is an excellent starting point on which other scholars will be able to build.The first of Myers' two sections,"Late-Medieval and Reformation Confession," explores the environment in which late-medieval penance functioned and deftly treats late-medieval and Reformation-era theology and praxis. Instead of characterizing confession's role as an amorphous "communal sacrament in the manner of John Bossy, Myers relies on thick description to reconstruct the public world in which penance was practiced. At the end of the Middle Ages, Myers observes, confession in Germany was primarily a seasonal rite limited to Lent. Any anxiety confession produced was thus an ephemeral phenomenon and "not a continuous source of guilt, fear, worry or joy" (p. 59).At this time confession may have been a secret rite conducted between priest and lay people, yet since the rite was conducted in public, complete secrecy was never really achieved. While Myers agrees with John Bossy's characterization of the substance of early-modern innovations-privacy and internalization-he avoids setting up a too dramatic dichotomy between the later Middle Ages and the seventeenth century. Early-modern changes grew out of late-medieval theological discourse, and that discourse was in turn transformed by the Protestant upheavals of the half-century after 1520. …


: Chemical sensitivity of cortical neurones to acetylcholine and noradrenaline was studied in cats at different stages of automatized instrumental food-procuring reaction. A technique was used, consisting in microionophoretic application of biologically active substances to neurones of the visual cortex in free behaving animals. It was found that separate stages of integral behaviour involve different chemical sensitivity of cortical neurones to acetylcholine and noradrenaline which determine the dynamics of spike activity.


This paper discusses Latino immigration to the rural Midwest as one micro effect of the macro process of economic globalization. Impacts of Latino immigrants moving into rural communities, and what communities have done in response to immigration are identified from case study literature and other sources. The author presents a summarized inventory of community impacts and responses, compares these trends to recent demographic changes in Missouri, and identifies opportunities for research and policy development in areas of community and economic development.


Natural science collections are accepted globally as critical research assets. A total of 71 zoological collections in South Africa, consisting of over 15 million specimens housed at 22 institutions, were assessed to determine their current status and to make recommendations for their future security. The two greatest challenges to the sustainability of the collections are (1) that natural science museums report to departments with an arts and culture rather than a science mandate and (2) staffing. The total staff complement within these 22 institutions is 115, with many collections understaffed or not staffed, and the loss of a single staff member often leaves a collection neglected and unused. Consolidation of collections so that there is a critical mass of staff is essential to address understaffing and would also allow for the establishment of a more dynamic research and curation environment. Consolidation under an appropriate department would also enable concentration of resources rather than dilution across all institutions, which would improve the storage environment (currently 28% of collections have reliable temperature control and only 8% (five collections) have humidity control), and increase the efficiency of the use of available funds (the curation budget was R1.08 million in 2009/2010 for all 71 collections). Consolidation could also ensure the improvement of data storage, management and dissemination, thereby increasing accessibility to the collections and the use of the collections for research.


Background Critically ill patients are characterised by hypercatabolism, representing a higher risk of malnourishment. In these patients, both nutrient deficits and overfeeding are harmful. Parenteral nutrition (PN) is an alternative approach when it is not possible to use other routes. Purpose To analyse the management of PN by prescribers in the intensive care unit (ICU) of our hospital, and their observance of the guidelines of scientific societies ESPEN and SENPE. Materials and methods A retrospective, observational study of ICU patients with PN support from June to August 2013. Data were collected from the Kabisoft 2012 PN software: age, diagnosis, duration of PN support, calories and protein supplied, types of lipid emulsion provided, addition of glutamine, and management of volume and hyperglycaemia. Results 21 patients were studied, median age was 70 (49–83). Reason for ICU admission was postoperative (9), septic shock (6), hypovolemic shock (2), traumatism (2), acute pancreatitis (1) and acute renal failure (1). Median number of days with PN was 8 (1–46). Calories provided were fewer than 25 Kcal/Kg in 85.7% of patients and 25–30 Kcal/Kg in 14.3%. Regarding protein input, 76.2% patients received less than 1.3 g/Kg and 23.8% between 1.3–1.5 g/Kg. Forty patients (66.7%) received mixed MCT/LCT lipid emulsion, 5 (23.8%) fish-oil enriched emulsion, and 2 (9.5%) received both lipid emulsions. 38.1% PN bags were supplemented with glutamine (less than 0.2 mg/Kg). Prescribers tried to reduce the volume in 42.8% PN, and 28.6% added insulin to the PN. Conclusions Clinical practice patterns related to PN management in ICU did not follow ESPEN and SENPE guidelines in most of the cases. According to Jeejeebhoy K. N. 2012, an adequate protein delivery is required to obtain an optimal benefit, independently of whether energy goals are reached. In our study, a high percentage of patients were underfed, receiving an amount of both calories and protein lower than recommended. No conflict of interest.


Data from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project covering Central America, the Caribbean Sea, the eastern tropical Pacific and northern South America are used to compute four indexes that describe characteristics of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone: the latitudinal center of mass of precipitation, the longitudinal center of mass of precipitation, the average precipitation in a region bounded by 10° S–25° N and 100° W–55° W, and the spread of the precipitation patterns. A very strong correlation is found between summer latitudinal center of mass and a summer index of the Caribbean Low-Level Jet suggesting connections between Pacific and Caribbean climatic processes. The sign of the correlation implies that when the jet is stronger (weaker) there is a lower (higher) latitudinal center of mass and at the same time less (more) precipitation in the Pacific slope of Central America. The connection between the Caribbean and Pacific climate is not only related to high-level wind convergence, but it is proposed here that local convection and the establishment of a zonal circulation may be playing a role in the process. The circulation seems to be consistent during years when latitudinal center of mass is lower than normal, apparently reinforcing the jet, and presents weaker strength during years of high latitudinal center of mass. The proposed mechanism is explained in some detail.


One of the important challenges of the European Union (EU) at the beginning of the 21 st century is its enlargement. After the integration of the 12 countries in 2005 and 2007, the EU continues its strategy for stability, security and prosperity in Europe. The new candidate countries, at different levels of development, are Western Balkan countries and Turkey. The objective of the paper is to investigate the differences among the EU candidate countries according to the current measures of welfare/sustainability and to find their similarities and differences. This analysis of the differences and the similitude between candidate countries is done by using multidimensional scaling method (MDS) and hierarchical cluster analysis of sustainability, which takes into account, at the same time, economic, health, standard of living, people and environmental variables, as part of the multivariate statistical analysis technique - one of the basic methods of multidi- mensional scaling. Furthermore, MDS method allows a standardized (transformed) analysis of the data collected in different scales. This study is based on the data standardized by means of Z score transformation. The main conclusions of the analysis light up the differences between candidate countries and could be an important tool for the policy makers to focus their efforts on the difficult goal to join the European Union.


"A welcome addition to the literature in this important area of work, that builds on...the empirical studies which have illuminated our understanding of the requirements of effective service provision. The final section...is, in a real sense, a call for action, for all of us in the field and for public officials and 'opinion makers' to respond to the need for 'Social Care' now and in the new millenium."--from the foreword by Rose Dobrof, DSW, Brookdale Professor of Gerontology, Hunter College, and James R. Dumpson, PhD, Chairman of Policy Center for Aging, New York Community Trust Based on two groundbreaking studies of older people in an urban setting, this important book focuses on access to social services for different ethnicities. Cantor and Brennan review different models and provide the theoretical base for the book in Part I. They describe ways in which the complementary roles of informal and formal systems change as a function of the health status of older people. In Part II, they illustrate the ways in which ethnicity, class, and culture affect the roles of the formal and informal systems by focusing on specific case studies of African American, Latino, and Jewish elderly.


Fructose consumption has dramatically increased worldwide over the past decades. There are numerous clinical, experimental, and epidemiological studies evidenced that increased consumption of fructose negatively impacts carbohydrate metabolism and lactate formed from fructose can also affect whole-body energy balance. Excessive fructose intake stimulates endogenous glucose production and lipid synthesis in the liver. Currently fructose is believed to be a major contributing factor to chronic metabolic diseases, including obesity, insulin resistance, hypertriglyceridemia, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hyperglycemia, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. These new findings bring challenges to researchers today because of what is still to be discovered, and how to apply what has been discovered to modern health. Further investigation should seek to analyze and understand specific mechanistic effects of fructose in metabolic pathways, and how to apply this knowledge to our daily lives. Conducting this monosaccharide research is important to improve the diet of the general population and to attenuate the epidemics of metabolic disease and associated diseases. Here, we focus on the mechanism and role of fructose in diseases as well as its potential as a dietary interventional target.


Recent global economic meltdown has opened many avenues of discussion and leaving various questions with its affects. One of them is fate of quality management and its necessity during and after the economic recession. It is established fact that management commitment is one of the most critical success factors to achieve best possible results of quality management implementation. So quality of management is not only crucial for effective quality management but also to foster organizational culture to achieve excellence. Strateg ic Quality Management pave the road for effective operational management, therefore role of strategic level management is decisive for developing, enriching and enhancing quality culture within organization. This paper will try to highlight some vital issu es related to quality of management at strategic level to reflect that it's not only the seed i.e. Quality management but also the soil i.e. fertile management soil is important for excellence culture. So based on literature review and author's experiences, the paper will draw attention to the factors related to strategic management level, turbulences they may generate and link it with department tectonic activity (DTA) establishing how it disturbs organizational culture to achieve excellence. The surve y results will reflect that what strategic level management feels more important among education, development, deployment or monitoring for addressing the factors and enhancing effectiveness of quality management / excellence model implementation at their level. Finally relevant recommendations will be shared.


Great customer service is rare. In fact, one survey found that while 80 percent of companies described themselves as delivering ?superior? service, consumers estimated the number at a mere 8 percent. The problem, according to service expert Steve Curtin, is actually quite simple. When asked what their work entails, most employees list the duties and tasks associated with their position. Very few refer to the true essence of their job, which should be their highest priority?to create delighted customers who will be less price sensitive, have higher repurchase rates, and enthusiastically recommend the company or brand to others. Without this customer focus, all that exists is a transaction?and transactional service does not make a lasting positive impression or inspire loyalty. In Delight Your Customers, Curtin reveals three elements common to all exceptional service experiences. He also makes a compelling case that attention needs to shift from monitoring service activities to modeling, recognizing, and reinforcing the behaviors that actually create happy customers, such as expressing genuine interest, offering sincere compliments, sharing unique knowledge, conveying authentic enthusiasm, providing pleasant surprises, and delivering service heroics when needed. Illustrated with real-world stories and examples, this refreshing guide helps readers everywhere take their customer service from ordinary to extraordinary.


Path planning is often a high-dimensional computationally-expensive planning problem as it requires reasoning about the kinodynamic constraints of the robot and collisions of the robot with the environment. However, large regions of the environment are typically benign enough that a much faster low-dimensional planning combined with a local path following controller suffice. Planning with Adaptive Dimensionality that was recently developed makes use of this observation and iteratively constructs and searches a state-space consisting of mainly low-dimensional states. It only introduces regions of high-dimensional states into the state-space where they are necessary to ensure completeness and bounds on sub-optimality. However, due to its iterative nature, the approach relies on running a series of weighted A* searches. In this paper, we introduce and apply to Planning with Adaptive Dimensionality a simple but very effective incremental version of weighted A* that reuses its previously generated search tree if available. On the theoretical side, the new algorithm preserves guarantees on completeness and bounds on sub-optimality. On the experimental side, it speeds up 3D (x,y,heading) path planning with a full-body collision checking by up to a factor of 5. Our results also show that it tends to be much faster than applying alternative incremental graph search techniques such as D* to Planning with Adaptive Dimensionality.


Hedley, Melanie. (2010). Lived experiences of children with disabilities in various movement programs. Master of Arts Thesis, Brock University. This research offered children with disabilities the opportunity to express their voices in the description of their movement experiences. Three children aged 10-13 shared their experiences in school physical education and adapted physical activity. Observations of participants using interactive media activities in an adapted physical activity program were used to supplement interviews. The aim of this research was to discover how future professionals are prepared to design and implement physical activity and physical education programs for children with disabilities. A document analysis of Ontario university course calendars in the fields of physical education and kinesiology, disability studies, and teacher education was utilized. Data from each data context underwent four levels of reduction: 1) content, 2) categorical, 3) thematic, and 4) indigenous typologies. Findings are presented at each level leading to the presentation of indigenous typologies. Typologies of Forbidden-ness and Dichotomous Thinking were identified in the research.


This edition of Dreiser's work consists of thirty-four uncollected magazine articles published between 1897 and 1902. In this period, before wrting 'Sister Carrie', Dreiser contributed 111 freelance articles to various popular magazines, such as 'Success', 'Truth', 'Metropolitan', 'Cosmopolitan', 'Ainslee's', 'Demorest's', 'Munseys', 'Puritan', 'New Voice', 'Great Round World', 'Harper's Weekly', and 'New York Times Illustrated Magazine'. A great majority of these magazine articles have been collected in two previous editions;, including 'Selected Magazine Articles of Theodore Dreiser: Life and Art in the American 1890s', published y Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Yoshinobu Hakutani is Distinguished Professor of English at Kent State University.


One of the central features of Western existence is the objectification and use of other beings in creating the subjectification of human beings. My argument is for a Christian veganism that rejects the dependence of the subject on the object status of other beings. The roadblocks to recognizing the necessity for Christian veganism I call the pedagogy of the oppressor. I propose that one way to change the subject-object relationship is a poetics of Christian engagement. Christian veganism may seem a radical position theoretically and pragmatically, but I will offer suggestions for expanding Christian engagement with other animals and for the food and environmental justice movements of which veganism is a part.


This research deals with verification of the high dynamic range for a heterodyne radio frequency (RF) front end. A 2.6 GHz RF front end is designed and implemented in a hybrid microwave integrated circuit (HMIC) for worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) receivers. The heterodyne RF front end consists of a lownoise amplifier (LNA) with noise cancellation, an RF bandpass filter (BPF), a downconverter with linearization, and an intermediate frequency (IF) BPF. A noise canceling technique used in the low-noise amplifier eliminates a thermal noise and then reduces the noise figure (NF) of the RF front end by 0.9 dB. Use of a downconverter with diode linearizer also compensates for gain compression, which increases the input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3) of the RF front end by 4.3 dB. The proposed method substantially increases the spurious-free dynamic range (DRf) of the RF front end by 3.5 dB.


Requirements for developing a mathematical model of unsteady flow in wetlands are suggested. An equivalent continuum approximation is appropriate to avoid problems of describing the turbulence behavior between stems of vegetation, which cannot be properly resolved in densely packed vegetation. Vertically integrated models are practical for most types of studies, but care must be taken to account for variation of the marsh resistance characteristics with water depth. The model should be applicable over a range of spatial resolutions, so that the degree of resolution can be adjusted to fit the modeling problem. The finite element method offers several advantages over other numerical methods for applying a wetland flow model to real systems.


According to received opinion in constitutional criticism, the Supreme Court's current commerce power doctrine, as formulated in its Lopez and Morrison decisions, is a mess. This doctrine, say the critics, is inconsistent both with other post-New Deal case law and with John Marshall's classic doctrine set forth in cases like McCulloch and Gibbons. It resembles nothing so much as the doctrine of pre-New Deal cases like Hammer v. Dagenhart, the Lochner of commerce cases. As a result, these opponents of the Court also reject the theory of federalism which accompanies, and arguably motivates, the Court's commerce power doctrine. But received opinion here is wrong. The Court's current commerce power doctrine is consistent with both other post-New Deal cases and with Marshall's universally praised opinions, while it is no kin to Hammer and its like. How can all these commentators be so wrong? Mainly because they and our legal culture have forgotten the doctrine of implied congressional powers formulated by Hamilton, Marshall (especially in McCulloch), and Story (as well as the notion of federalism that goes along with it). Under this doctrine, congressional power over the channels and instrumentalities of interstate commerce is plenary, while the power under the substantial effects test is only telic (means-ends limited). In this way, plenary congressional commerce power is vindicated, yet federalism is maintained. And the Court's current commerce power doctrine finds a better justification from some old federalists.


The study was designed to test the hypothesis that, among drivers of the same age, risky driving behaviours become more frequent with increasing driving experience. The involvement of New South Wales drivers in accidents and traffic offences was analysed as a function of age, experience and sex. The results of both the accident analysis and the offence analysis supported the study hypothesis. It appears that novice drivers either learn through experience that potential hazards rarely eventuate or they become more confident of their ability to negotiate the hazards successfully if they do eventuate. In particular, there is evidence that an increasing tendency to speed leads to increasing involvement in certain types of accident during the first few years of driving. The findings suggest that the widespread use of combined speed and red light enforcement cameras at signalised intersections may be effective in reducing the frequency of 'right turn against' accidents. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E211985.


OBJECTIVE: In the United States, data from federally funded genomics studies are stored in national databases, which may be accessible to anyone online (public release) or only to qualified researchers (restricted release). The availability of such data exposes participants to privacy risk and limits the ability to withdraw from research. This exposure is especially challenging for pediatric participants, who are enrolled in studies with parental permission. The current study examines genomic research participants' attitudes to explore differences in data sharing (DS) preferences between parents of pediatric patients and adult patients. METHODS: A total of 113 parents of pediatric patients and 196 adult participants from 6 genomics studies were randomly assigned to 3 experimental consent forms. Participants were invited to a follow-up structured interview exploring DS preferences, study understanding, and attitudes. Descriptive analyses and regression models were built on responses. RESULTS: Most parents (73.5%) and adult participants (90.3%) ultimately consented to broad public release. However, parents were significantly more restrictive in their data release decisions, not because of understanding or perceived benefits of participation but rather autonomy and control. Parents want to be more involved in the decision about DS and are significantly more concerned than adult participants about unknown future risks. CONCLUSIONS: Parents have the same altruistic motivations and grasp of genomics studies as adult participants. However, they are more concerned about future risks to their child, which probably motivates them to choose more restrictive DS options, but only when such options are made available.


Background/Context Early childhood education joined the standards movement in 2002 with the Good Start, Grow Smart initiative, with advocates arguing that standards were a tool for creating more continuity and coherence in Pre-K systems. Critics posed concerns about a perceived poor fit between standards-based and developmentally appropriate practices, pointing to standardization and pressure from the K–12 system. With growth in public Pre-K programs guided by state early learning standards, we set out to understand what guides Pre-K programs. Setting We sampled two states with mature Pre-K programs: New Jersey (NJ), a targeted, highly regulated full-day program for 3- and 4-year-olds and Wisconsin (WI), a universal, local control half-day program for 4-year-olds. Both programs implement Pre-K programs in schools, Head Start, and child care classrooms. Purpose/Focus of Study The purpose of the project was to compare the role of standards in Pre-K programs in NJ and WI, analyzing standards conceptualization and enactment by district administrators and teachers. Research Design We designed a multi-state, comparative case study including interviews with state actors who identified rural, midsize, and urban districts for fieldwork, weekly observations of Pre-K classrooms in elementary schools, Head Start, and childcare centers and interviews with the teachers in these sites. Conclusions Policy and standards alone were not very good predictors of the Pre-K programs' enacted practices. The logic of practice embedded in standards evolved through policy enactment in the local context, through the work of actors, like local child care advocates, the administrative designs of district leaders, and the policies of the adjacent K–12 system. The nonlinear implementation of early learning standards in this study shows the importance of looking beyond policy inputs and child outcomes and the need to include the administrative and instructional practices between if we are to understand how to best support young learners and their teachers.


This is the Climate Finance Advisory Service (CFAS) Daily Briefing. Produced at key meetings and negotiations by the CFAS expert team, the Daily Briefings try to provide a concise, informative update on key discussions that have taken place at each day of the meeting and give an overview of substantive points of action or progress. Please note that this is an independent summary by CFAS and not officially mandated by the GCF Board or Secretariat.