Corporate compliance is becoming increasingly "criminalized." What began as a means of industry self-regulation has morphed into a multi-billion dollar effort to avoid government intervention in business, specifically criminal and quasi-criminal investigations and prosecutions. In order to avoid application of the criminal law, companies have adopted compliance programs that are motivated by and mimic that law, using the precepts of criminal legislation, enforcement, and adjudication to advance their compliance goals. This approach to compliance is inherently flawed, however — it can never be fully effective in abating corporate wrongdoing. Explaining why that is forms this Article's main contribution. Criminalized compliance regimes are inherently ineffective because they impose unintended behavioral consequences on corporate employees. Employees subject to criminalized compliance have greater opportunities to rationalize their future unethical or illegal behavior. Rationalizations are a key component in the psychological process necessary for the commission of corporate crime — they allow offenders to square their self-perception as "good people" with the illegal behavior they are contemplating, thereby allowing the behavior to go forward. Criminalized compliance regimes fuel these rationalizations, and in turn bad corporate conduct. By importing into the corporation many of the criminal law's delegitimatizing features, criminalized compliance creates space for rationalizations, facilitating the necessary precursors to the commission of white collar and corporate crime. The result is that many compliance programs, by mimicking the criminal law in hopes of reducing employee misconduct, are actually fostering it. This insight, which offers a new way of conceptualizing corporate compliance, explains the ineffectiveness of many compliance programs and also suggests how companies might go about fixing them.


Several fixed-dose combination inhaled corticosteroid (FDC ICS/LABA) inhalers are licensed for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in the UK. This study compares effectiveness of Fostair 100/6 (BDP/FOR) metered dose inhalers (MDI) against other licensed FDC ICS/LABAs, namely; Seretide Accuhaler 500 (FP/SAL) dry powder inhaler (DPI) and Symbicort Turbohaler 200/6 and 400/24 DPI (BUD/FOR) in a patient group with recent exacerbations and poor lung function. A historical cohort study using data extracted from the Optimum Patient Care Research Database. Patients with diagnostic read codes for COPD, smoking history, age ≥35 years, postdose FEV1 percent predicted <55%,≥1 previous long acting bronchodilator ever, and ≥1 previous exacerbation in the 18 months prior initiation of FDC ICS/LABA therapy. The observation period consisted of one year after the initiation of FDC ICS/LABA for follow up and one year prior for patient characterisation. Patients were excluded if they switched or halted ICS/LABA treatment during the 1 year follow up period. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with ≥1 exacerbation. The non-inferiority margin was defined as 20%. Patients were directly matched 1:1 on categorised age, smoking status, FEV1 percent predicted and exacerbations. Mean total costs consisting of medication/resource costs were compared between treatment arms after adjusting for confounders. Out of the patients prescribed BDP/FOR (n=537) and 537 FP/SAL (n=537), the median age was 70 and 69 respectively and 41.7% were current smokers. In the BDP/FOR (n=540) and BUD/FOR (n=540) comparison, the median age was 70 and 69 respectively, and 42% were current smokers. The risk of ≥1 exacerbation in BDP/FOR group was non-inferior during the year following the initiation of ICS/LABA compared to FP/SAL (OR 0.89, 95% CI: 0.67–1.19) or BUD/FOR (OR 0.79, 95% CI: 0.58–1.08). Cost was significantly lower for BDP/FOR versus FP/SAL (adjusted mean £730.0 versus £850.1 respectively, p<0.001) and lower for BDP/FOR versus BUD/FOR (adjusted mean £732.4 versus £757.2 respectively, p=0.054). Treatment with BDP/FOR is non-inferior in terms of exacerbation risk and is additionally associated with a lower point estimate of exacerbation risk, a lower cost compared to FP/SAL and BUD/FOR, and a lower ICS dose compared to FP/SAL.


A major barrier preventing the wide employment of mobile networks of robots in tasks such as exploration, mapping, surveillance, and environmental monitoring is the lack of efficient and scalable multi-robot passive and active sensing (estimation) methodologies. The main reason for this is the absence of theoretical and practical tools that can provide computationally tractable methodologies which can deal efficiently with the highly nonlinear and uncertain nature of multi-robot dynamics when employed in the aforementioned tasks. In this paper, a new approach is proposed and analyzed for developing efficient and scalable methodologies for a general class of multi-robot passive and active sensing applications. The proposed approach employs an estimation scheme that switches among linear elements and, as a result, its computational requirements are about the same as those of a linear estimator. The parameters of the switching estimator are calculated off-line using a convex optimization algorithm which is based on optimization and approximation using Sum-of-Squares (SoS) polynomials. As shown by rigorous arguments, the estimation accuracy of the proposed scheme is equal to the optimal estimation accuracy plus a term that is inversely proportional to the number of estimator's switching elements (or, equivalently, to the memory storage capacity of the robots' equipment). The proposed approach can handle various types of constraints such as communication and computational constraints as well as obstacle avoidance and maximum speed constraints and can treat both problems of passive and active sensing in a unified manner. The efficiency of the approach is demonstrated on a 3D active target tracking application employing flying robots.


A novel molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) sensor based on a composite of graphene (GR) and a co-polymer of 4-amino-3-hydroxy-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid (AHNSA) and melamine (MM) has been fabricated for detecting melatonin. The MIP film was fabricated by the deposition of a graphene layer on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) surface followed by electropolymerizing AHNSA and MM in the presence of melatonin. The morphology of the sensor was characterized by using Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The electrochemical performance of the imprinted sensor was investigated by using cyclic voltammetry and square wave voltammetry. The electropolymerization conditions, method of template removal, effect of template to monomer ratio and incubation time were optimized. Electrochemical results showed that the oxidation peak current increased linearly with the concentration of melatonin in the range 0.05 to 100 μM L−1. The detection limit of the imprinted electrochemical sensor towards the melatonin determination is calculated to be 60 × 10−10 mol L−1. The suitability of the GR/MIP based sensor has been demonstrated in detecting melatonin in biological samples.


Wheat straw is a suitable raw material for ethanol production since it has high cellulose content. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of cellobiase and surfactant on the enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials. For this purpose, wheat straw was first pretreated by organosolv digestion. The chemical s of raw and pretreated wheat straw were analyzed. Much of the hemicellulose and lignin were removed, and the relative cellulose content of pretreated wheat straw was 26.57% higher when compared to untreated wheat straw. Cellobiase was added into hydrolysate to improve the hydrolysis efficiency. Through experiments and analysis, the optimum cellobiase dosage was found to be 1/10 of the cellulase loading. Surfactant was also added into hydrolysate. Nonionic surfactant (Tween 80) exhibited better effect on improving enzymatic hydrolysis. When 0.06 g/g dry solids (DS) Tween 80 was also added into hydrolysate, the yield of glucose in hydrolyzate could reach 486 g/kg DS.


Securing wireless ad hoc networks in an untrustworthy open environment is always a challenging problem. Lack of central auditing on security and weak incentive for cooperation among nodes in an open network scenario demand a distributed security management scheme preventing selfish and malicious behaviors. In this paper, we present a security enforcement framework for wireless ad hoc networks. This framework is built upon a hybrid and integrated architecture of trust management and intrusion detection, merging the merits of both to guarantee correct services and guard against security attacks.


Drawing on the expertise of leading researchers from around the globe, this pioneering collection of essays explores how geospatial technologies are revolutionizing the discipline of literary studies. The book offers the first intensive examination of digital literary cartography, a field whose recent and rapid development has yet to be coherently analysed. This collection not only provides an authoritative account of the current state of the field, but also informs a new generation of digital humanities scholars about the critical and creative potentials of digital literary mapping. The book showcases the work of exemplary literary mapping projects and provides the reader with an overview of the tools, techniques and methods those projects employ.


In this study, the type of literary work that is used is short story, and the amount of
the short stories used are three short stories. They tell about loneliness, which is the
effect of the incompleteness of human needs. The purpose of this study is to analyze
the human needs incompleteness that happened in the characters of the short stories
written by Katherine Mansfield, and how these characters compensate such things.
The theory used in this study is ERG theory or Existence, Relatedness, and Growth
theory. This theory was founded by Clayton Alderfer, which is the revised version
from Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory. These two human needs
theories are included in motivation theory, which is also included into
Psychoanalysis.
The objects of the study are the three short stories entitled Miss Brill, The Woman at
the Store, and The Canary written by Katherine Mansfield. This study focuses on the
analysis of the incompleteness of human needs that the characters in the stories had
and how these characters overcame it. The data used in this study were analyzed by
using descriptive qualitative method. These data were in the form of sentences and
phrases that showed the human needs types that have been completed and not been
completed by the characters of the stories. In this study, the data were collected and
classified into four categories: existence needs, relatedness needs, growth needs, and
the compensation. Then, these data were analyzed by using human needs or
motivation theory in Psychoanalysis Approach.
The result of the study shows that the characters of the stories had completed the
existence needs, but not the relatedness and the growth needs yet. In addition, they
tried to do some things they really like to distract the feeling of loneliness as a result
of such incompleteness of human needs.
It is hoped that this study will be the useful reference for other researchers who want
to analyze the same topic with the topic that the writer uses in this study. However, it
is expected that those researchers should see other perspectives or use other objects.


Schizophrenia is a chronic, debilitating psychiatric disorder that has an immense impact on the patients, their families, and the entire society. Schizophrenia is characterized by positive symptoms (e.g., hallucinations, delusions), negative symptoms (e.g., apathy, reduced emotional response), as well as a variety of cognitive dysfunctions. While positive symptoms are often successfully treated with antipsychotic medications, negative symptoms and cognitive impairments tend to be more treatment refractory. Moreover, the occurrence of persistent, systemic side effects in schizophrenia patients taking antipsychotic medications significantly affects their compliance. Thus, more targeted, symptom-specific treatment interventions are critically needed in schizophrenia. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) allows to directly and noninvasively reach the cortical surface. TMS can therefore target specific cortical areas, which are involved in some of the symptoms or cognitive dysfunctions commonly experienced by schizophrenia patients, while at the same time minimizing systemic side effects. Furthermore, it has been shown that repetitive stimulation (rTMS) delivered at low frequency (≤ 1 Hz) or high frequency (>1 Hz) can respectively increase or decrease neural excitability, including the brain regions involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Because of these unique features, over the past two decades there has been a burgeoning of studies investigating rTMS as a treatment tool in schizophrenia. In this review, we will systematically analyse these data, focusing on studies that examined the effects of rTMS on positive, negative and cognitive symptoms. Specifically, we will present main findings from these rTMS studies, highlight their strengths and pitfalls, and we will then discuss how these findings may contribute to develop more effective, TMS-based treatment interventions in schizophrenia.


Background. Interprofessional education (IPE) can be seen as the vehicle to address the health and social problems of society through collaborative approaches. Since IPE should be facilitated by educators who are skilled in this area, faculty development initiatives should be based on the principles of IPE and collaborative practice (IPECP). Objective. To explore academics' knowledge and experiences of IPECP. Methods. The study used an exploratory descriptive design and the appreciative inquiry framework underpinned data gathering and analysis. The data were collected using workshops, and the participants of the workshops shared their knowledge and experiences of IPECP, which were audio-recorded and analysed using thematic analysis. Ethical clearance was obtained from the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. Results. The analysis revealed three themes: knowledge of IPE; experiences of IPECP; and enablers of IPECP aligned to the dream and discovery phases of appreciative inquiry. The findings revealed that academics were knowledgeable about the concept of IPE and that their experiences with IPECP ranged from clinical supervision to research. Regarding enablers of IPECP, they provided important input, which could facilitate IPECP in a university faculty. These included competencies for IPECP, professional development and a common practice framework. Conclusion. The academics who attended the faculty development workshops were knowledgeable about the concepts of IPECP. They concluded that for IPE to be effective, a common practice framework should be adopted in the faculty to inform specific teaching and learning strategies and outcomes.


Groundwater dependent ecosystems are recognized as biodiversity hotspots, being,apart many negative human impacts, highly threatened also by ongoing climate warming. Clitellata (Annelida) are dominant invertebrates of permanent fauna in spring habitats, representing a heterogeneous group including both specialized cold stenothermic and ubiquitous eurythermic species. Therefore, they seem to be a good model group to compare the effects of local spring water temperature (recorded in situ by data loggers) and mesoclimate (i.e., local) air temperature. By the analysis of clitellate assemblages at 41 isolated Western Carpathian spring fens, we found that their species composition was significantly driven by mesoclimate air temperature and springwater temperature independently of other important environmentalvariables (i.e., water mineralization, oxygen content, and total organic carbon). Theeffect of various environment related and temperature related variables on thenumber of clitellate species was analyzed separately for two categories, that is,substrate dwellers (endobenthic species) and surface active (epibenthic) species. The decrease of the number of species with the increasing amount of inorganic particles in substrate was observed in the substrate dwellers. Mesoclimate air temperature had no significant effect on the number of species of substrate dwellers.However, water temperature, specifically its daily fluctuation, turned out to have a strong effect. Only the sites with no or moderate fluctuation were inhabited by cold stenotherm spring specialists and cold water species. In contrast, no significant response to any temperature parameter was found for the number of surface active species, which was driven only by other environmental variables. Our results suggest that climatically induced increase in temperature fluctuation of spring waters can result in notable reduction of cold adapted clitellate species (mainly the family Lumbriculidae) at the expense of eurythermic species. Such a scenario predicts compositional changes leading to clitellate assemblages with a dominance ofgeneralist and semiaquatic species.


Spike sorting is a critical first step in extracting neural signals from large-scale electrophysiological data. This manuscript describes an efficient, reliable pipeline for spike sorting on dense multi-electrode arrays (MEAs), where neural signals appear across many electrodes and spike sorting currently represents a major computational bottleneck. We present several new techniques that make dense MEA spike sorting more robust and scalable. Our pipeline is based on an efficient multi-stage "triage-then-cluster-then-pursuit" approach that initially extracts only clean, high-quality waveforms from the electrophysiological time series by temporarily skipping noisy or "collided" events (representing two neurons firing synchronously). This is accomplished by developing a neural network detection method followed by efficient outlier triaging. The clean waveforms are then used to infer the set of neural spike waveform templates through nonparametric Bayesian clustering. Our clustering approach adapts a "coreset" approach for data reduction and uses efficient inference methods in a Dirichlet process mixture model framework to dramatically improve the scalability and reliability of the entire pipeline. The "triaged" waveforms are then finally recovered with matching-pursuit deconvolution techniques. The proposed methods improve on the state-of-the-art in terms of accuracy and stability on both real and biophysically-realistic simulated MEA data. Furthermore, the proposed pipeline is efficient, learning templates and clustering much faster than real-time for a ≃ 500-electrode dataset, using primarily a single CPU core.


BACKGROUND
National Health Insurance (NHI) is currently high on the health policy agenda. The intention of this financing system is to promote efficiency and the equitable distribution of financial and human resources, improving health outcomes for the majority. However, there are some key prerequisites that need to be in place before an NHI can achieve these goals.

OBJECTIVES
To explore public perceptions on what changes in the public health system are necessary to ensure acceptability and sustainability of an NHI, and whether South Africans are ready for a change in the health system.

METHODS
A cross-sectional nationally representative survey of 4 800 households was undertaken, using a structured questionnaire. Data were analysed in STATA IC10.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
There is dissatisfaction with both public and private sectors, suggesting South Africans are ready for health system change. Concerns about the quality of public sector services relate primarily to patient-provider engagements (empathic staff attitudes, communication and confidentiality issues), cleanliness of facilities and drug availability. There are concerns about the affordability of medical schemes and how the profit motive affects private providers' behaviour. South Africans do not appear to be well acquainted or generally supportive of the notion of risk cross-subsidies. However, there is strong support for income cross-subsidies. Public engagement is essential to improve understanding of the core priniciples of universal pre-payment mechanisms and the rationale for the development of NHI. Importantly, public support for pre-payment is unlikely to be forthcoming unless there is coinfidence in the availability of quality health services.


Immunotherapeutic strategies in Multiple Myeloma are under development. In this thesis we present a new perspective in optimizing immunotherapy in Multiple Myeloma patient. We propose that currently, immunotherapy is limited in efficacy through interactions of Multiple Myeloma cells with the bone marrow microenvironment. This phenomenon was previously only acknowledged as a mechanism of drug resistance. To modulate resistance it is essential to further elucidate these mechanisms. We describe the presence of immune resistance of myeloma cells in the presence of cells of the bone marrow microenvironment and introduce cell adhesion mediated immune resistance (CAM-IR). Furthermore a rational combination of molecularly targeted and immunologic strategy is provided. Next, it is shown that CAM-IR is not restricted to T cell therapy only, but also applicable to antibody therapy. Furthermore we focused on another mechanism of immune escape induced by the microenvironment and show that lysis of myeloma cell by CD4-T cells can be hampered by microenvironment-induced autophagy of myeloma cells. Also Notch is investigated as being one of the targets responsible for the interaction between bone marrow and myeloma cells and thus a possible mechanism for induction of resistance and as a consequence a rational target for therapy. Finally, we investigated targetable mutations in extramedullary myeloma and compared these with the lesions in the bone marrow aiming to identify novel therapeutic targets. In this study we did not identify the mechanisms behind the growth outside the bone marrow, nor the therapy resistance but did demonstrate a high incidence of RAS mutations. Finally the general discussion is mainly focused on future perspectives on how to improve immunotherapy by interfering with the interactions between myeloma cells and the microenvironment and/ or resistance to apoptosis of myeloma cells; suggestions are provided for rational combinations of immunotherapy and targeted therapies.


First, the current study aims to provide companies with a comprehensive understanding on how consumers' ethical associations emerge, so that they will be better positioned to design social strategies aligned with consumers' expectations, and communicate their contribution to several social needs in an effective way. In this context, the objective is to empirically investigate the effect of varying geographic scope of companies' donations on consumers' perceptions of brand morality.
The second objective is to examine the impact that a company's donation size has, on consumers' perceptions of brand morality, their willingness to pay a price premium, and their intentions to spread positive word-of-mouth.
The third objective of this study is to complement extant research on the role that various individual differences paly on whether or how strongly consumers react to a company's philanthropic activity. Specifically, this research intends to investigate how people's ethnocentric tendency, perceived social control, attributions about company motives, and cause involvement, are likely to exert influence on their perceptions of brand morality, positive word-of-mouth intentions, and willingness to pay more.
The final objective of this research is to add knowledge to the literature on potential outcomes of perceived brand morality, which has currently received little attention. More specifically, the question that will be addressed in this study is whether, and to what extent, consumers' positive word-of-mouth communication intentions, and willingness to pay more are affected by their perceptions of the brand's morality.


The UK chemical distribution industry is a significant and well-established, yet fragmented and subject to strong consolidation, part of the chemical industry and a major contributor to the UK economy and employment.  However, it remains largely unexplored, with limited research in the factors contributing to SMEs success. This paper, which is part of a larger-scale study, addresses a well-established gap in the UK chemical distribution industry and provides a qualitative perspective of the business environment factors critical to the success of small and medium-sized distributors. This research is based on the opinions of owners and very senior managers (Managing Directors, Directors, CEOs and CFO's), an approach extensively used by other researchers. A total of 180 SMEs fulfilling the criteria of this study are identified with 118 owners/managers participating, generating a very satisfactory response rate of 65.5%. The paper informs key stakeholders and policy makers with a view to improve strategy formulation and decision-making process in supporting chemical distribution SMEs.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Postanesthetic hypoxemia is a critical respiratory event which increases postoperative morbidity. This study aimed to identify hypoxemia-related factors in the immediate postoperative period. METHODS: Participated in this study 204 patients admitted to the recovery room while breathing room air. Peripheral oxy-hemoglobin saturation (SpO2), systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, and heart rate (HR) were measured at 5-minute intervals since admission to the recovery room until 20 minutes later. Sedation, pain and ventilation adequacy scores were attributed to patients at the same moments. Hypoxemia was defined as a SpO2 below 92% and recommended oxygen therapy. The following data were recorded for each patient: age, gender, weight, height, smoking, history of diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), preanesthetic SpO2 at arrival in the operating room, type and duration of anesthesia, surgery site, use of neuro-axial opioids and perioperative drugs. The association of those factors to postoperative hypoxemia was defined by logistic regression. RESULTS: Forty-nine patients (24.01%) had SpO2 below 92% during the observation period. The following factors [odds ratio (95% confidence limits)] were considered hypoxemia predictors: more than 55 years old [4.32 (1.70; 10.95)], preanesthetic SpO2 lower than 95% [7.47 (1.50; 37.11)], general anesthesia with enflurane [14.53 (2.54; 82.93)], and clinically detectable hypoventilation [34.82 (11.46; 105.84)]. SBP and HR were significantly higher in hypoxemic patients. CONCLUSIONS: There are factors closely related to the incidence of postoperative hypoxemia and the use of pulse oximetry allows for selective oxygen therapy during the immediate postanesthetic period.


The paper focuses on the circumstances that explain lone mothers' dynamics of poverty in five different European settings (Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Sweden) using household panel data. My aim is to tackle the problem of poverty comparatively, dynamically, and with a gender perspective. This paper attempts to answer questions such as: "How do lone mothers experience poverty? Are poverty spells for lone mothers longer? Do poverty spells differ within different groups of lone mothers (never married, separated, divorced, widowed)? Is the probability of suffering recurrent or chronic poverty higher for lone mothers than for other groups? Do lone mothers' poverty spells differ among different welfare systems?". What comes out of this analysis is that lone mothers - especially if heads of household - are at greater risk of poverty in comparison with married/cohabiting mothers in all settings taken into consideration. It also seems that lone mothers' low poverty rates are to be found either in countries where the sheltering capacity of family and kin is strong or where family policies allow the combination of care tasks and participation in the labour force. Lone mothers' poverty is a very complex phenomenon since female poverty risks are strongly connected to the close interaction of the gendered processes in the labour market, domestic circumstances and welfare systems that can substantially vary from one country to the next. Finally, poverty among lone mothers is not a static condition.


School bullying is a complex social phenomenon that negatively impacts the psychosocial well-being of students, as well as the overall culture and climate of schools. Designing appropriate interventions to combat bullying in South African schools requires nuanced information about this phenomenon. This paper examines the extent and nature of bullying in schools located in different and unequal socio-economic contexts. It then examines the risk factors associated with being a victim of bullying. Self-reported data from a nationally representative sample of 12,514 Grade Nine South African students, who participated in the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, was used. Data were subjected to analysis using independent samples t-tests and hierarchical generalised linear modelling. The results revealed different patterns of bullying victimisation and perpetration by the socio-economic status (SES) of the school, with students attending schools with a low SES reporting higher levels of bullying. Factors resulting in higher odds of being a victim were students' gender and psychosocial characteristics. Perpetration as a risk factor for victimisation (bully-victims) was found across bullying types. The results suggest that students play different participant roles as bully and victim, and that the two behaviours reinforce one another. Keywords: bullying; bullying risk factors; bully-victim; school safety; South Africa; TIMSS


This paper is concerned with the Lipschitzian behavior of the optimal set of convex semi-infinite optimization problems under continuous perturbations of the right-hand side of the constraints and linear perturbations of the objective function. In this framework we provide a sufficient condition for the metric regularity of the inverse of the optimal set mapping. This condition consists of the Slater constraint qualification, together with a certain additional requirement in the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions. For linear problems this sufficient condition turns out to be also necessary for the metric regularity, and it is equivalent to some well-known stability concepts.


Futures contracts on stock indexes, both broad and narrow, have been traded for a long time in many countries, but single-stock futures (SSFs) were more controversial, and their introduction was delayed by regulatory authorities. SSFs did not begin trading until 2002 in the U.S. and 2005 at the Eurex. As is normal for new contracts, success in the marketplace has differed across names. In this article, the authors examine what factors contribute to open interest and trading volume for 420 single-stock futures contracts. Important variables contributing to high trading activity include factors relating to the market for the underlying stock, such as trading volume, market capitalization, and volatility; characteristics of the futures contract, including tick and contract size; characteristics of the firm's home country; and such other factors as the degree of institutional ownership of the underlying stock and the extent of arbitrage opportunities due to futures mispricing. The results confirm the importance of most of the hypothesized relationships. In addition, the authors look closely at a specific dividend capture strategy using SSFs that should be especially attractive to German investors. They find that the behavior of SSFs around ex-dividend days shows clear evidence that a substantial volume of trading activity appears to be generated by traders implementing this strategy.


Social computing systems such as Twitter present new research sites that have provided billions of data points to researchers. However, the availability of public social media data has also presented ethical challenges. As the research community works to create ethical norms, we should be considering users' concerns as well. With this in mind, we report on an exploratory survey of Twitter users' perceptions of the use of tweets in research. Within our survey sample, few users were previously aware that their public tweets could be used by researchers, and the majority felt that researchers should not be able to use tweets without consent. However, we find that these attitudes are highly contextual, depending on factors such as how the research is conducted or disseminated, who is conducting it, and what the study is about. The findings of this study point to potential best practices for researchers conducting observation and analysis of public data.


Excerpt] Social policy is rarely made by the people whose lives depend on it. For that reason we often see legislation, programs and practices that make people with disabilities more dependent rather than more independent. In most countries, policies or lack of policies drive people who need help of others in the activities of daily living into dependence on their families or exclude them from the life of the community by forcing them to live in segregated residential facilities or to stay in their parental homes beyond the customary age. The piece of policy suggested here is different, because it is written by individuals who themselves depend on the daily assistance by other persons. The European Center for Excellence in Personal Assistance, ECEPA (www.ecepa.org) consists of eight partner organizations (1) in eight European countries that are run and controlled by persons with disabilities and specialize in the provision of and advocacy for personal assistance services for persons with extensive disabilities. Using our combined personal experience with personal assistance policies a list of features was compiled for a policy that is to promote self-determination and full citizenship for persons with extensive disabilities.


The Supreme Court's decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes provides a unique opportunity to reflect on whether and how the legal system should address unjustified pay disparities between men and women who perform similar jobs. This Article describes the Court's decision and analyzes the insights it offers about the legal quest for equal pay. First, Wal-Mart demonstrates the tension between Title VII's focus on the employer's intent and the economic realities of how pay discrimination happens in the modern workplace. As the women at Wal-Mart experienced and research confirms, pay disparities tend to be the greatest when employers delegate excessive, unchecked discretion to supervisors. Second, Wal-Mart exemplifies how litigation remedies tend to be ineffective for pay discrimination because of the intent requirement of Title VII, the prima facie standard of substantial equality under the Equal Pay Act, the broad "factor other than sex" defense, and procedural difficulties for group actions. This Article proposes a blueprint for a more effective remedy for pay discrimination that would: (1) provide incentives for self-regulation by employers, such as pay transparency and periodic compensation audits; (2) limit defenses to those that are job-related and consistent with business necessity; (3) incorporate a pragmatic interpretation of equal work; and (4) facilitate group actions for systemic pay discrimination.


Pulsed laser ablation of soft biological tissue was studied at 10.6-, 2.94-, and 2.08-micron wavelengths. The ablation effects were assessed by means of optical microscope, the ablation crater depths were measured with reading microscope. It was shown that Er:YAG laser produced the highest quality ablation with clear, sharp cuts following closely the spatial contour of the incident beam and the lowest fluence threshold. The pulsed CO2 laser presented the moderate quality ablation with the highest ablation efficiency. The craters drilled with Ho:YAG laser were generally larger than the incident laser beam spot, irregular in shape, and clearly dependent on the local morphology of biotissue. The ablation characteristics, including fluence threshold and ablation efficiency, varied substantially with wavelength. It is not evident that water is the only dominant chromophore in tissue.


A symmetry principle is discussed whereby the whole universe can change scale. It is shown that a reinterpretation of 'expansion' of the universe, (due to changing scale factor), as a 'rescaling', can lead to a redshift of light, due to a changing of Plancks constant with time. Predictions for the magnitudes of supernovae against redshift are made and found to be in good agreement with supernovae data, without recourse to dark energy. Matter density, of one quarter critical density, occurs naturally from Einsteins equations, with an equation of state parameter of -1 (in accordance with values inferred from WMAP data). It is concluded that the reinterpretation of a solution of the equations of General Relativity, for the universe, may be necessary. The question of inertia is considered, and the new interpretation of General Relativity is found to support modern views on its cause.


Nuclear factor erythroid 2 related factor 2 (NrF2), is an essential transcription factor and a master regulator of the antioxidant defense system, which increases antioxidants in response to the production of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS). Disproportional increases in RONS compared to antioxidant defense capabilities can induce a state of oxidative stress (OS). Aerobic exercise of sufficient intensity and duration is well-known to increase the production of RONS in the blood, skeletal muscle and brain. Chronic aerobic exercise has been shown to mediate OS through increases in antioxidant factors. However, there are only two studies that have reported changes in NrF2 in response to aerobic exercise in a healthy cohort, but were limited to chronic exercise and examined the striatum brain region and whole brain only. The purpose of this study was to 1) determine the extent to which markers of OS (MDA, GSSG, GSSG/TGSH) change with acute aerobic exercise in the blood, skeletal muscle and brain, 2) determine the extent to which antioxidant defense factors (GSH, TGSH, Mn-SOD) change with chronic aerobic exercise in skeletal muscle and brain, and 3) determine the extent to which NrF2 protein concentration changes with acute and chronic aerobic exercise in skeletal muscle and specific brain regions (cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum). To accomplish these objectives, three groups of rats (n=6-13/group), sedentary (SD), acute exercise (AE) and chronic exercise (ET) (5-7 weeks), ran at an intensity equal to 75% VO2max or served as controls. Gastrocnemius skeletal muscle and cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum brain regions were analyzed using multiple methods to examine markers of OS, antioxidant factors and NrF2 protein concentration. AE significantly increased MDA concentration in the blood (~69%) and the hippocampus brain region (~36%). However, the OS response did not reflect a significant increase in NrF2 protein concentration with AE in the brain or skeletal muscle. In fact, NrF2 was significantly reduced in all brain regions and muscle with AE compared to SD. ET significantly increased GSH (~27%) and TGSH (~26%) in the hippocampus brain regions, which was concomitant with a significant increase in NrF2 protein concentration in the hippocampus with ET. In contrast, GSH, TGSH, and Mn-SOD (~44%) were significantly reduced in the in gastrocnemius skeletal muscle with ET. There were no significant differences in antioxidant factors in the cortex or cerebellum brain regions, which coincided with the lack of significant elevation in NrF2 with training. In summary, these data suggest that ET for 5-7 weeks at 75% VO2max was sufficient to increase NrF2 protein concentration and antioxidant factors in the hippocampus, a brain region that is highly susceptible to neurodegeneration. However, the single bout of acute aerobic exercise appears to be inadequate to sufficiently stress the brain and skeletal muscle tissue to increase markers of OS or NrF2 protein concentration.


Tristan Tzara, one of the most important figures in the twentieth century's most famous avant-garde movements, was born Samuel Rosenstock (or Samueli Rosenstok) in a provincial Romanian town, on April 16 (or 17, or 14, or 28) in 1896. Tzara became Tzara twenty years later at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, when he and others (including Marcel Janco, Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck, and Hans Arp) invented Dada with a series of chaotic performances including multilingual (and nonlingual) shouting, music, drumming, and calisthenics. Within a few years, Dada (largely driven by Tzara) became an international artistic movement, a rallying point for young artists in Paris, New York, Barcelona, Berlin, and Buenos Aires. With TaTa Dada, Marius Hentea offers the first English-language biography of this influential artist. As the leader of Dada, Tzara created "the moment art changed forever." But, Hentea shows, Tzara and Dada were not coterminous. Tzara went on to publish more than fifty books; he wrote one of the great poems of surrealism; he became a recognized expert on primitive art; he was an active antifascist, a communist, and (after the Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution) a former communist. Hentea offers a detailed exploration of Tzara's early life in Romania, neglected by other scholars; a scrupulous assessment of the Dada years; and an original examination of Tzara's life and works after Dada. The one thing that remained constant through all of Tzara's artistic and political metamorphoses, Hentea tells us, was a desire to unlock the secrets and mysteries of language.


Abstract Europe provides on outstanding field laboratory for studying lithospheric processes through time: for tracing the results of plate movements from the present back into the early Precambrian. This book has been designed to focus on tectonic processes in the European lithosphere through these three billion years and how they may have changed during this time. Two things are particularly striking: the importance of plate tectonics far back through the Proterozoic into the Archaean, and the significance of tectonic inheritance, older structures and rheologies guiding, even defining, the younger evolution. Basement structure has a profound influence on subsequent basin evolution and the distribution of geo-resources. The economic importance of understanding these processes cannot be overestimated. Understanding the dynamics responsible for the construction of continental lithosphere requires integrated interpretation of geological, geophysical and geochemical observations. Hypotheses often benefit from testing by numerical and analogue modelling. In practice, one technology - multi-channel, near-vertical reflection profiling - has played a leading role in connecting surface observations to the deep crust and mantle structure. Combined with other geophysical methods, deep reflection profiling has guided the interpretation of the processes that created the The European part of the Eurasian continent, reaching from the Ural Mountains in the east to the Iberian Peninsula in the west and from the Mediterranean into the high Arctic, has a lithosphere that can readily be treated in two parts, east and west (Fig. 1). Most of eastern Europe is dominated by the old, cold East European Craton (EEC), partly covered by


The in vitro activities of propolis against 29 strains of dermatophytes were compared with those of terbinafine, itraconazole, ketoconazole, and fluconazole. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) were determined according to a National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards broth microdilution method. Among the systemic antifungals tested, terbinafine was the most potent. Propolis showed important antifungal activity and it merits further investigation as a potentially useful agent for the treatment of dermatophytosis.


Rising sea level threatens existing coastal wetlands. Overall ecosystems could often survive by migrating inland, if adjacent lands remained vacant. On the basis of 131 state and local land use plans, we estimate that almost 60% of the land below 1 m along the US Atlantic coast is expected to be developed and thus unavailable for the inland migration of wetlands. Less than 10% of the land below 1 m has been set aside for conservation. Environmental regulators routinely grant permits for shore protection structures (which block wetland migration) on the basis of a federal finding that these structures have no cumulative environmental impact. Our results suggest that shore protection does have a cumulative impact. If sea level rise is taken into account, wetland policies that previously seemed to comply with federal law probably violate the Clean Water Act.


PROCESSING OF BIOMATERIALS. Preparation and Bioactive Characteristics of Porous Borate Glass Substrates (M.N. Rahaman, W. Liang, D.E. Day, N.W. Marion, G.C. Reilly, J.J. Mao). Processing of Thermally Sprayed Tricalcium Phosphate (TCP) Coatings on Bioresorbable Polymer Implants (M. Baccalaro, R. Gadow, A. Killinger, K. v. Niessen). Synthesis and Sintering Studies of Nanocrystalline Hydroxyapatite Powders Doped with Magnesium and Zinc (H. Bhatt, S.J. Kalita). Sequence Specific Morphological Control Over the Formation of Germanium Oxide During Peptide Mediated Synthesis (M.B. Dickerson, Y. Cai, K.H. Sandhage, R.R. Naik, M.O. Stone). Synthesis of Nano-Size Hydroxyapatite (HAp) Powders by Mechanical Alloying (S.J. Hong, H. Bhatt, C. Suryanarayana, S.J. Kalita). Dry High Speed Milling as a New Machining Technology of Ceramics for Biomedical and Other Applications (A. Georgiadis, E. Sergeev). BIOMATERIALS, PERFORMANCE AND TESTING. Nanoceramics Intercalated with Gd-DTPA for Potential Imaging of Systems In Vivo (S.-Y. Kwak, W.M. Kriven, R.B. Clarkson, B.J. Tucker, R.L. Belford). Nanophase Hydroxyapatite Coatings on Titanium for Improved Osteoblast Functions (M. Sato, M.A. Sambito, A. Aslani, N.M. Kalkhoran, E.B. Slamovich, T.J. Webster). A Comparative Evaluation of Orthopaedic Cements in Human Whole Blood (N. Axen, N.-O. Ahnfelt, T. Persson, L. Hermansson, J. Sanchez, R. Larsson). Self-Setting Orthopedic Cement Compositions Based on CaHPOX4 Additions to Calcium Sulphate by J.N. Swaintek, C.J. Han, A.C. Tas, S.B. Bhaduri Adhesive Strength of the Apatite Layer Formed on TiO2 Nanoparticles/High Density Polyethylene Composites (M. Hashimoto, H. Takadama, M. Mizuno, T. Kokubo). Effect of Reinforcements on Properties of Self-Setting Calcium Phosphate Cement (N.C. Bhorkar, W.M. Kriven). The Bioactivity of PDMS-CaO-SiO2 Based Hybrid Materials Prepared by the Addition of Transition Metal Alkoxides (M. Fukushima, E. Yasuda, H. Kita, M. Shimizu, Y. Hoshikawa, Y. Tanabe). In Vitro Comparison of the Apatite Inducing Ability of Three Different SBF Solutions on Tiz6A14V (S. Jalota, A.C. Tas, S.B. Bhaduri). In Situ and Long Term Evaluation of Calcium Phosphate Cement Behavior in Animal Experiment (M. Mukaida, M. Neo, T. Nakamura, Y. Mizuta, Y. Ikeda, M. Mizuno). Resorption Rate Tunable Bioceramic: Si&Zn-Modified Tricacium Phosphate (X. Wei, M. Akinc). DENTAL CERAMICS. Microleakage of a Dental Restorative Material Based on Biominerals (H. Engqvist, E. Abrahamsson, J. Loof, L. Hermansson). A Comparative Study of the Microstructure-Property Relationship in Human Adult and Baby Teeth (I.M. Low, N. Duraman, J. Fulton, N. Tezuka, I.J. Davies).


The legal principles concerning rights to water have been changed considerably by the provisions of the National Water Act 36 of 1998. The National Water Act aims to redistribute water rights to previously disadvantaged people and communities by the introduction and application of a public trust doctrine to South African natural resources law. It is proposed that these legislative measures will ensure that water as a natural resource will be used to the benefit of the nation as a whole. However, the practical application of the public trust doctrine needs to be analysed, especially with the view of determining the actual benefits to poor and deprived people.


The tenants' movement in English social housing has been institutionalised by technologies of collaborative governance and eclipsed by the rituals of public participation. Once characterised as an urban social movement, it is now fragmented and co-opted, enabled by the managerial strategies of housing organisations and appearing to exist only as the outcome of tenant participation policies. This study, however, evidences the continuing contentions of collective action within this 'domesticated' social movement and charts the resurgent challenge it presents to the imposition of consensus around a new social settlement and a restructured welfare state. In a radical inversion of the traditional narrative of movement institutionalisation, pushing forward the boundaries of governance theory, and uniting social movement theory and housing policy for the first time since the 1980s, this research demonstrates how a contentious movement emerges from the regulated practices of participation and evidences the construction of oppositional identities and new articulations of social citizenship. It advances the understanding of tenant collective action in social housing and provides a challenging study of the ability of contemporary social movements, especially 'poor people's movements', to shape the debate around public services and engage with the unfinished project of welfare reform.


International audience

 Tanglegrams are a class of graphs arising in computer science and in biological research on cospeciation and coevolution. They are formed by identifying the leaves of two rooted binary trees. The embedding of the trees in the plane is irrelevant for this application. We give an explicit formula to count the number of distinct binary rooted tanglegrams with n matched leaves, along with a simple asymptotic formula and an algorithm for choosing a tanglegram uniformly at random. The enumeration formula is then extended to count the number of tangled chains of binary trees of any length. This work gives a new formula for the number of binary trees with n leaves. Several open problems and conjectures are included along with pointers to several followup articles that have already appeared.


Does the market for independent directors always incentivize directors to act in the best interests of shareholders? In this paper, we suggest that the market fails in this regard when the interests of shareholders diverge from the interests of managers, such as when directors must oust an underperforming CEO. Given that managers continue to wield primary influence over the director-selection process, we expect that directors who pursue the interests of shareholders to the detriment of corporate managers will be punished by the market for directors. To test this, we employ a unique longitudinal database that tracks a decade in the careers of a cohort of independent directors. We find evidence that directors who oust a CEO suffer multi-faceted adverse consequences in the market. They are likely to win seats within fewer boards and the boards that do recruit them are likely to be significantly smaller and less reputable than those that recruit their peers. Ultimately, these findings support calls for more deliberate shareholder accountability mechanisms in the market for directors, such as governance provisions that allow for more direct shareholder involvement in director elections.


Extruded unplasticised Poly(Vinyl Chloride) (uPVC) pipes are certified using pressurised pipe tests.
During these tests the pipes are subjected to a certain temperature and internal pressure, while the
time-to-failure, the time at which the internal pressure drops due to rupture or fracture, is measured.
These tests are time consuming and are therefore costly. To circumvent these costs a model-based
approach is proposed where the time-to-failure is predicted. The input parameters for this approach
can be determined using short term measurements. The approach uses the observation that the timeto-
failure kinetics of uPVC pipes subjected to an internal pressure is independent of the type of failure
mode (ductile, semi-ductile or brittle). This supports our statement that the underlying mechanism
that initiates failure is similar for these types of failure. Local deformation of the material up to a
critical value of the anelastic strain is believed to determine the start of failure of the material. This
critical strain appears to be constant for the testing conditions used during this study. A pressure
modified Eyring expression is employed to calculate the strain rate resulting from the applied stress
at a certain temperature. The time-to-failure follows from the calculated strain rate and the critical
strain of the material. This approach has been verified against literature data and shown to hold
quantitatively. Furthermore, the model seems to hold for different processing conditions.


Niche cells exercise elaborate control over the behavior of many tissue-specific stem cells. However, in no system do we fully understand how niche cells are specified, develop and then begin producing the signals necessary to properly regulate stem cells. Here, we take advantage of the paradigmatic stem cell-niche system of the Drosophila testis to address these fundamental questions. We first find that the Notch signaling pathway is necessary for niche cell specification and that its activity in precursor cells prevents those cells from adopting the alternative somatic cyst cell fate. We also discover that the Notch-activating ligand, Delta, is presented from the neighboring endoderm, rather than from within the gonad "proper." Moreover, we show that niche specification occurs very early during gonadogenesis, before the expression of extant niche cell markers. We also uncover a role for the bowl pathway in influencing niche cell specification, where bowl promotes niche cell fate, while its antagonist, lines, promotes cyst cell fate. Additionally, we present data suggesting that bowl functions as a transcriptional repressor to restrict cyst cell gene expression in precursor cells, thereby inducing niche cell specification. Ultimately since niche cells influence stem cell behavior, understanding how niche cells develop and dissecting the interactions between niches and their resident stem cells is paramount if we seek to use stem cells as tools in regenerative medicine. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Cell & Molecular Biology First Advisor Stephen DiNardo


Western theology has long regarded 'Being' as a category pre-eminently applicable to God, the supreme Being who is also the source of all existence. This idea was challenged in the later philosophy of Martin Heidegger and identified with the position he called 'ontotheology'. Heidegger's critique was repeated and radicalized in so-called postmodern thought, to the point that many theologians and philosophers of religion now want to talk instead of God as 'beyond Being' or 'without Being'. Against this background, God and Being attempts to look again at why the ideas of God and Being got associated in the first place and to investigate whether the critique of ontotheology really does require us to abandon this link. After exploring how this apparently abstract idea has informed Christian views of salvation and of the relationship between God and world, George Pattison examines how such categories as time, space, language, human relationships and embodiment affect our understanding of God and Being. Pattison concludes that whilst Heidegger's critique has considerable force, it remains legitimate to speak of God as Being under certain restricted conditions. The most important of these is that God is better conceived in terms of purely possible Being rather than (as in classic Christian theology) 'actual' Being. This leaves open possibilities of dialogue with, e.g., non-theistic religious traditions and with science that are foreclosed by traditional conceptions. Ultimately, however, all basic religious ideas must issue from and be seen to serve the requirements of embodied love.


The monetary economics literature has highlighted four issues that are important in evaluating U.S. monetary policy since the late 1960s: (i) time variation in policy parameters, (ii) asymmetric preferences, (iii) revisions to economic data, and (iv) heteroskedasticity. This paper, for the first time, estimates a Taylor rule model that addresses these four issues simultaneously. Our findings suggest that U.S. monetary policy has experienced substantial changes in terms of both the response to inflation and to real economic activity, as well as changes in preferences. These changes cannot be captured adequately by a single structural break at the late 1970s, as has been commonly assumed in the literature, and play a non-trivial role in economic performance.


The major pathway of mRNA degradation in yeast occurs through deadenylation, decapping and subsequent 5′ to 3′ exonucleolytic decay of the transcript body. To identify proteins that control the activity of the decapping enzyme, which is encoded by the DCP1 gene, we isolated a high‐copy suppressor of the temperature‐sensitive dcp1‐2 allele, termed DCP2. Overexpression of Dcp2p partially suppressed the dcp1‐2 decapping defect. Moreover, the Dcp2 protein was required for the decapping of both normal mRNAs and aberrant transcripts that are degraded by the mRNA surveillance pathway. The Dcp2 protein contains a MutT motif, which is found in a class of pyrophosphatases. Mutational analyses indicated that the region of Dcp2p containing the MutT motif is necessary and sufficient for Dcp2p's function in mRNA decapping. The Dcp2p also coimmunoprecipitates with the DCP1 decapping enzyme and is required for the production of enzymatically active decapping enzyme. These results suggest that direct or indirect interaction of Dcp1p with Dcp2p is required for the production of active decapping enzyme, perhaps in a process requiring the hydrolysis of a pyrophosphate bond.


To deliver a reliable communication service it is essential for
the network operator to manage how traffic flows in the network.
The paths taken by the traffic is controlled by the routing function.
Traditional ways of tuning routing in IP networks are designed
to be simple to manage and are not designed to adapt to the
traffic situation in the network. This can lead to congestion in
parts of the network while other parts of the network is
far from fully utilized. In this thesis we explore issues related
to optimization of the routing function to balance load in the network.

We investigate methods for efficient derivation of the
traffic situation using link count measurements. The advantage
of using link counts is that they are easily obtained and yield
a very limited amount of data. We evaluate and show that estimation
based on link counts give the operator a fast and accurate description
of the traffic demands. For the evaluation we have access to a unique data
set of complete traffic demands from an operational
IP backbone.

Furthermore, we evaluate performance of search heuristics to
set weights in link-state routing protocols. For the evaluation
we have access to complete traffic data from a Tier-1 IP network.
Our findings confirm previous studies who use partial traffic data or
synthetic traffic data. We find that optimization using estimated
traffic demands has little significance to the performance of
the load balancing.

Finally, we device an algorithm that finds a routing setting that is
robust to shifts in traffic patterns due to changes in the
interdomain routing. A set of worst case scenarios caused by the interdomain routing changes
is identified and used to solve a robust routing problem. The evaluation
indicates that performance of the robust routing is close to optimal for
a wide variety of traffic scenarios.

The main contribution of this thesis is that we demonstrate that it is
possible to estimate the traffic matrix with good accuracy and to develop
methods that optimize the routing settings to give strong and robust network
performance. Only minor changes might be necessary in order to implement our
algorithms in existing networks.


Introductions: Breast lump is mostly benign in nature however carcinoma of the breast also presents as a simple lump. Since breast carcinoma is the second most common killer of the female cancer it is important to detect it at early stage and treat. The purpose of the study was to analyse histopathology profile of breast lump. Methods: Histopathology samples were received, processed, reported and recorded in the Pathology laboratory of Helping Hands Community Hospital, Kathmandu. Data analysed from 2008 to 2011. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. Results: Out of 1991 histopathology samples 68 were breast lumps. Fifty (73.5%) were benign and 18 (26.5%) were malignant. Ten (55.5%) of carcinoma was seen in between 41 and 50 years. Eleven (46%) of the malignant neoplasm were of Stage IIIA. Conclusions: Every fourth sample had carcinoma and it is mostly seen after 40 years of age. Keywords: biopsy, breast lump, carcinoma, fibroadenoma


The prime topic of research presented in this report is the development and use of computer-based modelling methodologies for design and performance modelling of an industrial component in the food sorting industry, exemplified in actuators used in bulk food sorting machines.

Electromagnetic (EM) solenoid actuators are widely used in many applications such as the automobile, aerospace, printing and food industries where repetitive, often high-speed linear or rotating motions are required. In some of these applications they are used as high-speed 'switching' valves for switching pneumatic channels.

The complex nature of electromagnetic, motional and thermal problems is discussed. The methodologies for FE modelling of such high-performance actuators are developed and discussed. These are used for modelling, design, performance evaluation and prediction of the above high-speed actuators. Modelling results showing some of the key design features of the actuators are presented in terms of force produced as a function of various design parameters.

Optimization calculations for the dynamic behaviour are executed at the design process of electromagnetic actuators. Finite element method used for modelling the electromagnetic actuator model. The models are implemented in the design software Opera-2d/3d and were tested at different tasks. The capability is shown at a magnetic actuator.

Magnetically controlled shape memory materials are a new way to produce motion and force. The material changes shape in a magnetic field. Usual applications of the material are actuators that produce linear motion. MSM actuator type is designed and initial investigation presented in this thesis.

Finite element modelling methodologies have been developed for the design and investigation of electromagnetic and thermal behaviours of high-speed, large-force and long-lifetime solenoid actuators used as pneumatic ejector valves in optical sorting machines for bulk food sorting. Operating at frequencies between 150-300 Hz, these actuators are unique in terms of the large force they produced (8-19 N) with very long lifetime (2-5 billion cycles).


This thesis contributes to the understanding of macroeconomic policies' impact on the distribution of wealth. It belongs to the strand of literature that departs from the representative agent assumption and perceives agent heterogeneity and the induced disparities in wealth accumulation, as an important dimension of economic policy-making. Within such economic environment, this thesis analyses the impact of three macroeconomic policies, namely monetary policy under the form of inflation targeting, fiscal policy under the form of asymmetric transfers, and finally retirement policies by shedding light on how household allocate their financial wealth over the life cycle. The first chapter of this thesis explores whether a higher inflation target induces more households to hold real assets rather than money holdings, thereby leading to a higher aggregate capital stock. It shows that a higher inflation target can lead to welfare improvements, when the economy is parametrized to US data. Such policy shows to be welfare improving, as the higher stock of aggregate capital reduces the real interest rate, which improves the welfare of indebted households. The second chapter of this thesis is joint work with A. Fagereng and L. Guiso. It provides novel empirical evidence on the life cycle patterns of the extensive and the intensive margin of stock market participation over the life-cycle. Also we provide a model that replicates the life cycle patterns of the conditional risky share and the participation rate, by introducing a fixed per period cost friction and a limited trust friction. In the third chapter, co-authored with M. Froemel, we analyse whether asymmetric transfer policies can be a pertinent short run policy instrument to overcome distortions arising from the lack of insurance opportunities for households due to financial market incompleteness. We show that asymmetric transfers can improve welfare, when transfer programs are pro-borrowers rather than lump-sum or pro-lenders.


The present dissertation combines sequential and analytical approaches to Augustine's De Trinitate to elaborate a description of the treatise based on the presupposition of its unity and its coherence from the structural, rhetorical and theological points of view. The sequential analysis of books 1-7 and 8-15 describes first the outer layer of the argument of the treatise: Scripture and the mystery of the Trinity (books 1-4); discussion of'Arian' logical and ontological categories (books 5 —7) and a comparison between self-love/knowledge and formal aspects of the confession of the mystery of the Trinity (books 8-15). However, this outer layer does not adequately account for the * unity and the coherence of the treatise. On the contrary, the most comprehensive and satisfactory structural, rhetorical and theological description of the De Trinitate results from an inner layer which can be detected throughout the treatise around the theme of knowledge of God. Augustine, in the De Trinitate , implicitly endorses the threefold classical definition of the purpose of rhetoric: teach, move, delight (explicitely mentioned in the De Doctrina Christiana ). The outer layer of the De Trinitate , especially the so called 'analogical' line, is meant to entice the interest and the curiosity of the reader, to delight him. Other aspects of the outer layer, especially in the first half of the treatise, have a predominant instructive or polemical function. The deepest thrust of the treatise, however, aims at 'moving' the reader, that is leading him to the visio and frutio of God the Trinity, in whose image he is created. This mystagogical aspect of the rhetoric of the treatise entails its own distinctive delightfulness and eloquence, unfolded through Christology, soteriology doctrine of the Holy Spirit and doctrine of revelation. At the same time, from the vantage point of dilectio , Augustine detects and powerfully describes the epistemological consequences of human sinfulness, thus unmasking the fundamental deficiency of received theories of knowledge. Only dilectio restores knowledge and enables philosophers to yield to the injunction which resumes philosophical enterprise as a whole, namely cognosce te ipsum .


The 2008 financial crisis heightened concerns about contagion across high leverage investors. Some have suggested that segmenting markets into stand alone units may contribute to financial stability and enhance social welfare. We provide a welfare analysis of segmentation policies in a two country model with endogenous financial crises and cross country contagion due to fire sales externalities. We model a continuous shock to liquidity demand in each country, which allows us to distinguish between crises, depending on their severity and endogenize crisis probabilities. We identify a new trade-off created by segmentation decisions. When countries segment, they are protected from contagion when their shocks are mild, but exposed to crisis when shocks are large and access to a neighbor's liquidity is denied. This trade-off reduces welfare. We also show that segmentation only affects crisis probabilities when governments inject public liquidity. Then and only then can segmentation be welfare enhancing. Finally, failure to coordinate policies may lead to excessive segmentation when governments are involved in liquidity injection, but not when liquidity is provided solely privately.


This article examines the interrelationship between marriage, which is the foundation of society, and the legal constitution, which is the foundation of the legal and political order. In order to understand the constitution of marriage, philosophers from Ancient Greece, the Enlightenment, and the Founding Era of the United States are referenced to illustrate that marriage has been acknowledged as fundamental across society and time. In addition, it has been profoundly linked with democracy and essential principles of self-governance. This article also examines the founding of modern Israel as another reference point for the centrality of family. Because marriage and family are so essential, they are afforded special, unique protection in law. After reviewing the fundamentality of marriage, the article asserts that both the constitution of marriage and the Constitution of the nation are endangered, and including same-sex unions in the definition of marriage will weaken the institution and thus weaken the foundation of liberal democracy.


Shark dive ecotourism is a lucrative industry in many regions around the globe. In some cases, sharks are provisioned using bait, prompting increased research on how baited dives influence shark behavior and yielding mixed results. Effects on patterns of habitat use and movement seemly vary across species and locations. It is unknown, however, whether wide-ranging, marine apex predators respond to provisioning by changing their patterns of grouping or social behavior. We applied a tiered analytical approach (aggregation-gregariousness-social preferences) examining the impact of provisioning on the putative social behavior of tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) at a dive tourism location in The Bahamas. Using network inference on three years of acoustic tracking data from 48 sharks, we tested for non-random social structure between non-provisioned and provisioned monitoring sites resulting in 12 distinct networks. Generally considered a solitary nomadic predator, we found evidence of sociality in tiger sharks, which varied spatiotemporally. We documented periods of both random (n = 7 networks) and non-random aggregation (n = 5 networks). Three of five non-random aggregations were at locations unimpacted by provisioning regardless of season, one occurred at an active provisioning site during the dry season and one at the same receivers during the wet season when provision activity is less prevalent. Aggregations lasted longer and occurred more frequently at provisioning sites, where gregariousness was also more variable. While differences in gregariousness among individuals was generally predictive of non-random network structure, individual site preferences, size and sex were not. Within five social preference networks, constructed using generalized affiliation indices, network density was lower at provisioning sites, indicating lower connectivity at these locations. We found no evidence of size assortment on preferences. Our data suggest that sociality may occur naturally within the Tiger Beach area, perhaps due to the unusually high density of individuals there. This study demonstrates the existence of periodic social behavior, but also considerable variation in association between tiger sharks, which we argue may help to mitigate any long-term impacts of provisioning on this population. Finally, we illustrate the utility of combining telemetry and social network approaches for assessing the impact of human disturbance on wildlife behavior.


Subordination is no exception to the rule that basic and general notions are the hardest to characterize. There is in fact no guarantee that it represents a single or unified phenomenon. Rather than a definition, my immediate goal is thus to elucidate and clarify the numerous factors involved. I believe they are best understood in terms of an integrated account of meaning, grammar, processing, and discourse being developed in Cognitive Grammar (CG). Relative, complement, and adverbial clauses will be examined here by way of presenting and supporting this approach.


Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of an existing patient classification instrument in anaesthetic nursing in a new context. Background: A patient classification system has to be used by many nurses, so consistency in how it is used is important. Methods: The study was divided into three parts. The first part was intended to measure interreliability using double assessments of 150 anaesthesia cases. In the second part, the anaesthetic nurses carried out the workload and, in part three, content validity was examined using a questionnaire and meetings. Results: The result showed good to very good consistency across the board in the nurses' assessments, which also included an overall assessment of the workload (r 0,85). The workload showed the highest mean care level for the indicator preparations/surgical position and the lowest for respiration. The questionnaire replies showed that the nurses were positive about workload, but 43.3 per cent thought that the instrument only described part of their work. Conclusion: The instrument was shown to be of use in different contexts, but the reliability and validation process should continue so as to increase reliability. Clarifying the progression between the different care levels for each indicator in the instrument can be a way of increasing its usefulness in different services. In terms of clinical work, the measurement of workload has started a valuable process of reflection on anaesthetic nursing that helps to enable the nurses to show what they do and why.


One of the main goals of artificial intelligence is to allow computers to understand the world around them. As humans we extract a large amount of knowledge about the world from our visual perception, and the field of computer vision is determined to give computers access to this same wealth of knowledge. One of the fundamental steps in understanding the world is finding specific objects within our field of view, and the related task of following these objects as they move. In this thesis the Implicit Shape Model algorithm, a local feature-based object detection algorithm, is implemented and used to develop an appearance model and object tracking al gorithm based on it. This algorithm is very robust to intraclass variation, and can successfully track objects when both occlusion and non-stationary backgrounds are present. The usefulness of the proposed appearance model is analyzed, and results of the algorithm on real video sequences are presented. Several enhancements to the method are also proposed, and performance in terms of recall and precision is analyzed.


The application of the separate interests test has thus far been attempted only with foreign entities; its acceptance in light of the recent Ninth Circuit decision in the MCA case remains uncertain. In domestic entity classifications, a mechanical analysis continues to be utilized. This Note will introduce the separate interests test, discuss its inconsistencies, and demonstrate how its application may lead to a different result. It will then explore the implications of applying the test retroactively and exclusively to foreign entities. Because the problem addressed by the application of the separate interests test could be more effectively resolved by legislative action, recommendations will be made for possible legislative changes. These changes would prevent United States controlled foreign entities from avoiding United States taxes by adhering to the mechanical approach of I.R.C. 7701. After reviewing the history of I.R.C. 7701 and its regulations, which apply to both foreign and domestic entities, Part I discusses the separate interests test introduced in Revenue Ruling 77-214 and adopted by the district court in MCA v. United States. The Ninth Circuit court, in overruling the district court, leaves the separate interest test as viable law since it distinguishes the MCA facts from those of Revenue Ruling 77-214. Part II criticizes the test and concludes that legislative change will achieve a more effective and just solution to United States tax avoidance by US controlled foreign entities. THE SEPARATE INTERESTS TEST: A NEW HURDLE IN FOREIGN ENTITY CLASSIFICATION


Rural roadways account for a significant portion of fatal crashes in the United States despite carrying lower total vehicle miles traveled than urban roads. An important contributor to this is excessive speeds at horizontal and vertical curves. While geometric design has established norms for handling these curves, the message is still often difficult to communicate to drivers. Recent technologies have been developed to enhance this communication on horizontal curves; however, treatments for vertical curves have not yet experienced similar advancements. A new approach, involving chevron signs, is being considered by Washington County, Minnesota. To accurately assess the impact of these signs on driver behavior, a before-after study must be implemented on one or more vertical curve locations. Given that such a study must reflect driver reactions to roadway messages, detailed vehicle trajectories must be collected. To capture speed trajectories of vehicles traversing vertical curves, the Minnesota Traffic Observatory developed radar-based, data-collection stations. These stations use automotive radar devices along with custom recording equipment and battery power mounted in weatherized cases to quickly and easily collect vehicle trajectory data for analysis. Through control-vehicle passes and instantaneous radar gun measurements, these stations have been shown to reliably measure the speed and position of vehicles traversing a vertical curve. With the two stations developed, a full field implementation could be developed to collect trajectories for analysis both before and after implementation of a new traffic-control device. For larger-scale implementations of these systems, the methodologies in this report could be used for capturing and post-processing of vehicle trajectories, although additional tools for cleaning and analyzing multiple simultaneous vehicle trajectories would be advised.


The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is the state-of-the art system for assessing software vulnerabilities. However, it has been criticized for lack of validity and practitioner relevance. In this paper, the credibility of the CVSS scoring data found in five leading databases-NVD, X-Force, OSVDB, CERT-VN, and Cisco-is assessed. A Bayesian method is used to infer the most probable true values underlying the imperfect assessments of the databases, thus circumventing the problem that ground truth is not known. It is concluded that with the exception of a few dimensions, the CVSS is quite trustworthy. The databases are relatively consistent, but some are better than others. The expected accuracy of each database for a given dimension can be found by marginalizing confusion matrices. By this measure, NVD is the best and OSVDB is the worst of the assessed databases.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Infection-related hospitalizations have increased dramatically over the last 10 years in patients receiving in-center hemodialysis. Patient and dialysis facility characteristics associated with the rate of infection-related hospitalization were examined, with consideration of the region of care, rural-urban residence, and socioeconomic status.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
The US Renal Data System linked to the American Community Survey and Rural-Urban Commuting Area codes was used to examine factors associated with hospitalization for infection among Medicare beneficiaries starting in-center hemodialysis between 2005 and 2008. A Poisson mixed effects model was used to examine the associations among patient and dialysis facility characteristics and the rate of infection-related hospitalization.

RESULTS
Among 135,545 Medicare beneficiaries, 38,475 (28%) had at least one infection-related hospitalization. The overall rate of infection-related hospitalization was 40.2 per 100 person-years. Age ≥ 85 years old, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, inability to ambulate or transfer, drug dependence, residence in a care facility, serum albumin <3.5 g/dl at dialysis initiation, and dialysis initiation with an access other than a fistula were associated with a ≥ 20% increase in the rate of infection-related hospitalization. Patients residing in isolated small rural compared with urban areas had lower rates of hospitalization for infection (rate ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.86 to 0.97), and rates of hospitalization for infection varied across the ESRD networks. Measures of socioeconomic status (at the zip code level), total facility staffing, and the composition of staff (percentage of nurses) were not associated with the rate of hospitalization for infection.

CONCLUSIONS
Patient and facility factors associated with higher rates of infection-related hospitalization were identified. The findings from this study can be used to identify patients at higher risk for infection and inform the design of infection prevention strategies.


The consequences of globalization for the development of a more peaceful world remain highly controversial. This article seeks to clarify the impact that the globalization of the economy may have on civil war and political instability. Liberals argue that countries heavily dependent on the global economy (whether measured by trade or investment) are likely to experience higher economic growth, greater affluence, more democracy, and increasingly peaceful conditions at home and abroad. In stark contrast, most dependency theorists argue that high levels of trade and investment tend to generate greater economic inequality. Relative deprivation theory suggests that such inequality will increase the risk of political instability. From these two broad perspectives, a set of hypotheses is developed and tested on a global dataset for the period 1965-93. The consequences of an open economy prove to be quite complex. A high level of trade does generate more domestic peace; at the same time, direct foreign investment also creates conditions conducive to political instability. However, the consequences of trade are dependent on what is being exported. Exports of manufactured goods create high levels of welfare and equality, while exports of agricultural products promote poverty and inequality. Inequality emerges as but one of many factors which lead to political instability.


OF DISSERTATION MAINTENANCE OF POSITIVE AFFECT FOLLOWING PAIN IN YOUNGER AND OLDER ADULTS Socioemotional selectivity theory posits that as people age, they become motivated and successful at maximizing positive emotions and minimizing negative ones. Yet, 70% of older adults report physical pain, which is associated with negative affect. The strategies and resources that older adults use to maintain positive affect in the face of pain remain largely unknown. Specific positivity-enhancing strategies include recalling, recognizing, and responding to positive stimuli and prioritizing close over knowledgeable social partners. Executive functions (EF, i.e., task-switching, working memory, and inhibition) and heart rate variability (HRV) may be important resources for coping with pain. The current project used two studies to test whether older adults used positivityenhancing strategies and maintained emotional wellbeing following pain more than younger adults; associations with EF and HRV were also investigated. In Study 1, 50 older and 50 younger adults experienced a control and a pain condition, were given the chance to employ positivity-enhancing strategies, and provided EF and HRV data. Study 2 used longitudinal data from community-dwelling older adults (n =150) to test whether task-switching moderated the within-person relationship between pain and wellbeing. In Study 1, after the pain condition, younger adults demonstrated lesser preference toward knowledgeable social partners than older adults (γ = -0.15, p = .016). No other age group x pain condition x valence interactions were found. Older and younger adults did not differ in changes in positive or negative affect following pain. Task-switching and HRV were both associated with reduced preference for knowledgeable social partners following pain, but no other significant EF or HRV interactions were found. Study 2 failed to support the hypothesis that task-switching protected against pain-related declines in wellbeing. Future research on strategies that older adults use to maintain emotional wellbeing in the face of pain is needed.


A broad spectrum of Eastern European enterprises are interested in acquiring industrial technology from Western companies through licensed manufacturing or joint ventures. The risk and uncertainties of entering into business partnerships in Eastern European economies pose added problems in terms of operational logistics and financial returns. There are marked differences between the mindsets and practices of managers nurtured under centrally planned economies and business management operating in a market driven environment. Much can be learned from case studies that examine the factors that contributed to the success or failure of East-West business partnerships. Eastern European enterprises seeking these partnerships need to develop a deeper understanding of the business objectives and operational requirements of market-driven Western companies. The paper presents profiles of efforts to form business ventures with Western companies in Belarus. They indicate the type of case materials that should be inclu...


This multimethod study investigates the effects of entrepreneurs' interpersonal networking style on the initiation of interorganizational exchange ties. I use inductive theorizing to make a distinction between interpersonal networking actions aimed at adding new contacts (network-broadening actions) versus managing existing contacts (network-deepening actions). I reason that because networking actions alter the cost-benefit calculus of using referrals, the extent to which entrepreneurs rely on referrals when searching for new exchange partners should vary with their networking actions. I then propose that entrepreneurs are likely to add fewer new exchange partners when they rely more on referrals to search. The empirical analysis employs a longitudinal design using data coded from the business cards of new contacts formed over a two-month period by a panel of Indian entrepreneurs operating business-to-business ventures. This study makes a theoretical contribution by identifying decision makers' networking style as a distinct mechanism shaping partner selection for their organization. Specifically, the study shows entrepreneurs using more network-deepening actions initiate fewer new economic exchanges, due (in part) to their increased reliance on referral-based search, whereas entrepreneurs using more network-broadening actions initiate more new economic exchanges due (in part) to their decreased reliance on referral-based search.


This article proposes to cast new light on the role played by small spherical objects inscribed in the undeciphered Cypro-Minoan script, dating to the very end of the Bronze Age, defined as clay balls. It is argued that the inscriptions bear personal names of (at least some) high-profile individuals active in Cypriot urban societies, and responsible for overseeing industrial and cultic activities in more than one centre on the island. In advancing such conclusions, this contribution also offers a revised interpretation of two short inscriptions attested on two clay balls from Ras Shamra-Ugarit in Syria, inscribed in the cuneiform script. The cross-comparison will also include a contextual and epigraphic analysis of a typologically identical object recently discovered at Tiryns, Greece and dating to the same period. To corroborate these hypotheses, other Cypriot texts, such as a clay cylinder found at Enkomi, will be included in the discussion, together with cuneiform texts found in kilns at Ugarit, the so-called tablettes du four, to elucidate the function and subject-matter of clay balls in general.


Public acquisition and display of imported prestige goods was a well-recognized method by which Egyptian and wider Near Eastern rulers established status in their own societies and negotiated their place among royal peers. Fresco fragments from the palaces at Tell el-Dab'a (ancient Avaris), constructed and painted in an Aegean technique, suggest that monumental wall decoration was used in this manner as well. Trade and exchange routes between the Aegean and Egypt have been discussed since the time of Arthur Evans's excavations at Knossos. These discussions have focused primarily on objects and the political-religious ideas behind artistic expression moving in both directions; however, since walls cannot move, in this case it is the artists who painted them that must have traveled. It is argued here that Aegean fresco artists were imported to work at Tell el-Dab'a through a process of royal gift exchange, which was negotiated via existing sea routes between the Aegean and Egypt. DOI:10.2458/azu_jaei_v05i1_barnes


Residential and tourism developments affect places and people across the world – their sheer number, their scale and intensity, and their capacity to displace existing traditions, values and practices are especially problematic. In this work, I examine the particular impacts of such developments on islands, places where geography has created or otherwise influenced certain political, economic, environmental and social conditions. In broad terms, islands may include oceanic landforms and landforms on continental shelves. Some islands are extremely isolated from continental influences; others are subject to strong continental influences. The focus of this work is on islands near metropolitan centres which are readily accessible and thus subject to various development pressures1 that may threaten ecological, social and economic well-being. In an era where the basic principles of sustainable development are now given, and the intrinsic value of place is acknowledged, for those who live on, govern or care for islands, such pressures are often understood (however partially) in terms of sustainability and in relation to their effects on what is known as sense of place.


Experiments were carried out to study the mass transfer of iodine from a xenon-iodine mixed gas bubble to a liquid sodium pool. The bubble was generated in the pool by cracking a quartz glass ball which contains the xenon-iodine mixed gas. The mixed gas released into the argon cover gas was collected to determine the transferred iodine mass into the sodium pool. A rising velocity of the bubble was measured by Chen-type sensors arranged vertically in the pool. From the measured rising velocity and another observation of bubble behavior in simulated water experiments, it is found that the generated bubble breaks up into several smaller bubbles of spherical cap type during the rising period. Transferred iodine mass per the unit initial bubble volume from the bubbles to the sodium pool shows increases with increasing time and the initial iodine concentration. A mass transfer rate obtained by differentiating the transferred iodine mass with respect to the time indicates a rapid decrease just after the bubble g...


While symmetric-key schemes are efficient in processing time for sensor networks, they generally require complicated key management, which may introduce large memory and communication overhead. On the contrary, public-key based schemes have simple and clean key management, but cost more computational time. The recent progress of elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) implementation on sensors motivates us to design a public-key scheme and compare its performance with the symmetric-key counterparts. This paper builds the user access control on commercial off-the-shelf sensor devices as a case study to show that the public-key scheme can be more advantageous in terms of the memory usage, message complexity, and security resilience. Meanwhile, our work also provides insights in integrating and designing public-key based security protocols for sensor networks.


Abstract Governments are busily rezoning our cities for high-rise apartments. The New South Wales government, for example, plans to rezone a 20-kilometre corridor in Sydney, from Sydenham to Bankstown, for urban density, in concert with a new metro rail line. Residents and community groups have reacted vociferously to the prospects of high-rise buildings in previously low-density suburbs. But there is another, overlooked dimension to the redevelopment. Much of it is on industrial land: pockets of old factories and workshops, portrayed as decrepit and in need of renewal. Our new project documents enterprises that actually use urban industrial lands. It's a story of surprising and largely hidden vibrancy at the interface between creative industries and small manufacturing. Planners and economic developers tend to assume manufacturing has left central cities and that manufacturing enterprises can simply locate to city-fringe greenfield sites. In reality, manufacturing is changing form, and often depends on - and benefits from urban industrial lands. Despite the scale of renewal plans, no detailed knowledge exists of what will be lost, or of existing enterprises' needs.


In 1949, the photographer Lucien Herve took photographs of Unite dHabitation, an innovative apartment building in Marseille, France. He sent them to the building's architect, Le Corbusier, who immediately realised that after forty years of searching he had finally found a photographer with an architect's soul. Their seminal collaboration is extensively documented in this album of 1200 cardboard sheets of Herve's carefully edited, sequenced and labelled contact prints, housed at the Fondation Le Corbusier in Paris. Originating as a vehicle for dissemination of the architect's work and as a commercial venture for the photographer, these contact sheets now form an extraordinary archive of modernist architecture and photography in the mid-twentieth century.


Many accounts of pension politics assign primary importance to societal forces. In the well-known formulation, pensions are the "third rail" of politics: politicians cannot cut benefits without suffering electoral retribution. In addition, some see the preferences of business as a key determinant of pension policy. This study takes aim at this problem by exploring what factors lead citizens and firms to support public pension systems and various reform efforts. To answer these questions, we analyze a survey of individuals and firms in 20 countries from five continents regarding attitudes toward pensions conducted by the Oxford Institute of Aging and the HSBC Bank. We examine separately variation in individual and then firm preferences regarding the role of government in pension provision and pension reform options. Then, we compare the preferences of firms to those of individuals to identify the potential space available for policy reform. The main results from the analyses are three. First, there are large cross-national differences in preferences of both individuals and firms. Second, these cross-national differences are not well explained by conventional theories. Third, there is some but not overwhelming support for micro-level theories about the reasons for differences between firms and individuals.