"We thought the study of women would be a temporary phase; eventually we would all go back to our disciplines."—Gloria Bowles, From the Afterword

Since the 1970s, Women's Studies has grown from a volunteerist political project to a full-scale academic enterprise. Women's Studies on Its Own assesses the present and future of the field, demonstrating how institutionalization has extended a vital, ongoing intellectual project for a new generation of scholars and students.

Women's Studies on Its Own considers the history, pedagogy, and curricula of Women's Studies programs, as well as the field's relation to the managed university. Both theoretically and institutionally grounded, the essays examine the pedagogical implications of various divisions of knowledge—racial, sexual, disciplinary, geopolitical, and economic. They look at the institutional practices that challenge and enable Women's Studies—including interdisciplinarity, governance, administration, faculty review, professionalism, corporatism, fiscal autonomy, and fiscal constraint. Whether thinking about issues of academic labor, the impact of postcolonialism on Women's Studies curricula, or the relation between education and the state, the contributors bring insight and wit to their theoretical deliberations on the shape of a transforming field.

Contributors. Dale M. Bauer, Kathleen M. Blee, Gloria Bowles, Denise Cuthbert, Maryanne Dever, Anne Donadey, Laura Donaldson, Diane Elam, Susan Stanford Friedman, Judith Kegan Gardiner, Inderpal Grewal, Sneja Gunew, Miranda Joseph, Caren Kaplan, Rachel Lee, Devoney Looser, Jeanette McVicker, Minoo Moallem, Nancy A. Naples, Jane O. Newman, Lindsey Pollak, Jean C. Robinson, Sabina Sawhney, Jael Silliman, Sivagami Subbaraman, Robyn Warhol, Marcia Westkott, Robyn Wiegman, Bonnie Zimmerman


There has been a gradual increase in health research that explores the body-related experiences of young Aboriginal women living in urban and reserve settings. However, the voices of rural Canadian Aboriginal women not living on reserves, appear to be absent from this literature. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to better understand the body-related experiences of young Aboriginal women living in rural Canadian communities. Case study was utilized as the strategy of inquiry in which each of two young women (both 15 years of age) represented a case. One-on-one interviews were used to explore the young women's experiences. Four themes emerged: (1) fitting in, (2) rural uniqueness, (3) role models, and (4) body talk. The primary contribution of this study is that it sheds light on the unique body-related experiences of two young women, each living in a rural community where she is the only teenaged Aboriginal woman. Despite some similarities, the young women related very different stories of their experiences in their respective communities. This research also highlights some of the ethical challenges of ensuring that the stories of the young women are adequately represented, while their confidentiality is respected.


In this paper, light absorption enhancement in thin film solar cell (SC) is reported and analyzed. The suggested design is based on a nanostructured pattern that increases the diffuse scattered component of radiation and hence the absorption through the active layer. An ion beam sputtering (IBS) approach is used to texture large areas of the glass substrate with high aspect-ratio ripples in order to increase light scattering. Then, thin film SC supported on the textured glass is simulated and analyzed using 3D finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. The suggested SC can offer an ultimate efficiency of 19.26% with short circuit current of 15.76 mA/cm2 with an enhancement of 31.435% over the SC without texturing surface.


Effects of UV-dose and fiber strain on annealing properties of fiber gratings written in Ge-doped fibers have been experimentally investigated. A new band in the distribution of the activation energy of the grating thermal decay with a center at 2.9 eV has been observed.


Protestant Christian schools have become a noticeable educational entity. The factors influencing parents to enroll their children in these schools are of interest to the Protestant Christian schools themselves and to the public and nonpublic sectors. A study examining enrollment in Virginia's Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) schools indicates that certain factors that tend to lead parents to initially enroll their children in Protestant Christian schools and then to maintain enrollment in Protestant Christian schools. The study also gives a demographic landscape of the principals and parents who are part of ACSI in Virginia. Parents cite certain factors as being specifically important as they initially enroll. When they re-enroll their children in Protestant Christian schools, those factors may remain constant or change. This study looks at the reasons parents state as the initial factors leading them to place their children in Protestant Christian schools and the factors that lead them to continue to enroll their children in Protestant Christian schools. The study also includes perceptions of principals of Protestant Christian Schools of reasons parents enroll their children in these schools. From their experience and position, principals can offer their perspectives of why families enroll their children in Christian schools and keep their children enrolled in the Protestant Christian schools. Parents and principals were asked to rank what they perceived to be the top five factors leading to enrollment of students in Protestant Christian schools. Ranking the various factors isolated the most prevalent factors determining parents' decisions. Isolating the most-often chosen of the various factors aids the Protestant Christian, other nonpublic, and public schools better to evaluate how each attracts, maintains, and services their respective clientele.


Topographic evidence requires that some rivers actively meander in bedrock, yet the way in which rivers can erode laterally and meander within bedrock banks is not well understood. Lateral channel migration, and especially lateral channel migration via active bedrock meandering, is commonly responsible for the preservation of unpaired strath terraces. A process-level understanding of lateral channel migration and active meandering in bedrock rivers is key to interpreting the climatic and tectonic significance of unpaired strath terraces and the planform shape of bedrock rivers. In this study, we compare erosional processes in two adjacent bedrock channels in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California. The main differences between these channels are that Pescadero Creek actively meanders within mudstone, while Butano Creek is straight and incises sandstone. Laboratory rock strength and slake durability tests show that while the two lithologies have similar tensile strengths before drying, the meander-supporting mudstone loses strength dramatically when dried and rewet (slakes), while the sandstone does not. The slaked mudstone bank rock was easily detached without the need for bed-load tools during in situ erosion tests, while mudstone that had not dried and sandstone were not detachable. The depth of bank rock detached solely from rewetting of previously dried mudstone ranges between 1 and 8 mm, which is well in excess of annual background erosion in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In addition, hand samples of the mudstone rapidly disintegrated upon wetting and drying in the laboratory, whereas sandstone hand samples remained intact. In the meandering stream, there is a consistent pattern of scoured bedrock (exposed to drying and slaking) along the outside "cutbank" of meander bends and forced bars that grade into soil and vegetation, which protect the bedrock from slaking along the inside of bends. Additionally, in the meandering stream, subaerially exposed mudstone clasts are often found to be disintegrating on the surface of bars. Taken together, these observations suggest that slaking allows for bedrock meandering in two fundamental ways. First, by rapidly disintegrating coarse hillslope-derived sediment that is deposited in the channel, slaking suppresses the negative feedback on lateral channel migration that would otherwise result from the buildup of talus along a retreating bedrock valley wall on the outside of a meander bend. Second, at cutbanks where scour exposes bare bedrock to drying, slaking weakens a layer of bank rock to the point where it can be eroded by clear-water flows. In these ways, slaking enables erosion into bedrock banks in response to curvature-driven fluid shear stress perturbations, as in alluvial rivers.


In recent years, there has been growing interest in the possible use of nutraceuticals to improve and optimize dyslipidemia control and therapy. Based on the data from available studies, nutraceuticals might help patients obtain theraputic lipid goals and reduce cardiovascular residual risk. Some nutraceuticals have essential lipid-lowering properties confirmed in studies; some might also have possible positive effects on nonlipid cardiovascular risk factors and have been shown to improve early markers of vascular health such as endothelial function and pulse wave velocity. However, the clinical evidence supporting the use of a single lipid-lowering nutraceutical or a combination of them is largely variable and, for many of the nutraceuticals, the evidence is very limited and, therefore, often debatable. The purpose of this position paper is to provide consensus-based recommendations for the optimal use of lipid-lowering nutraceuticals to manage dyslipidemia in patients who are still not on statin therapy, patients who are on statin or combination therapy but have not achieved lipid goals, and patients with statin intolerance. This statement is intended for physicians and other healthcare professionals engaged in the diagnosis and management of patients with lipid disorders, especially in the primary care setting.


Although nutrient availability and oceanographic context can influence top-down processes in intertidal communities, the reciprocal effects of consumers on bottom-up processes, such as nitrogen uptake by macroalgae, are less well-documented. We used a combination of field observations, mesocosm experiments, and laboratory nitrate-uptake measurements to evaluate the interaction between the kelp crab Pugettia producta and its preferred food source, the kelp Egregia menziesii, in northern California, USA. We found that P. producta fed selectively on E. menziesii, removing tissues with a high surface area to volume ratio (SA:V), which resulted in a 66% decrease in overall SA:V. Because these high SA:V tissues are disproportionately more responsible for nitrate uptake, selective herbivory by P. producta decreased E. menziesii's biomass-specific uptake of nitrogen, the primary limiting nutrient in this ecosystem, by 65% per gram of remaining algal tissue. In field surveys, where P. producta abundances were high, E. menziesii thalli more frequently exhibited signs of intense grazing and thus had lower SA:V ratios, suggesting that grazing is sufficiently intense in the field to generate differences in algal morphology and nitrate uptake. P. producta therefore influences E. menziesii biomass and productivity from the top down, by removing substantial amounts of biomass, and from the bottom up, by reducing the kelp's subsequent ability to acquire nutrients. Because of selective grazing on specialized tissues, the effects of mesoherbivores, like P. producta, on the structure and dynamics of marine communities may often be greater than predicted simply by the biomass they consume.


This compact book offers the quickest path for Windows users to get started with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system. You get the essential information you need to upgrade or install the system and configure it to fit your activities, along with a tour of Windows 7's features and built-in applications. Microsoft has learned from the mistakes of Windows Vista, and Windows 7 shows it-this new OS is much faster and more stable. With Windows 7: Up and Running, you'll learn what's new and what's changed from XP and Vista, and get advice on ways to use this system for work, entertainment, instant communication, and more. Windows 7 is poised to be a big hit, and with this handy guide, you can be up and running -- and productive -- with it right away.Master the user interface, including the taskbar, jump lists, desktop gadgets, Aero Shake, and notification area Discover the joys of networking with HomeGroup file sharing and improved Wi-Fi Tour the system's improved security, including the Action Center, User Account Control, and Credential Manager Learn how to use Windows Live Essentials for messaging, photo sharing, moviemaking, emailing, and blogging Get to know built-in applications such as Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player 12, Microsoft Paint, and WordPad Learn about optional Microsoft software to enhance your Windows 7 experience


This paper describes separate spectrophotometric procedures for rapidly measuring carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) and methemoglobin (MetHb) in blood. Absorbance measurements are made in the Soret region at a blood dilution near 1000-fold. For COHb estimation, the diluent contains sodium hydrosulfite, providing the two-component system COHb--Hb for absorbance measurements at 420 and 432 nm. The NA2S2O4 effectively prevents dissociation of COHb by oxygen. For MetHb estimation, the diluent contains KCN and carbon monoxide, providing the two-component system COHb--CNMetHb. Absorbance measurements are made at 420 nm, before and after addiely analyzed for the total of all MetHb forms present. Each procedure requires about 3 muL of blood and can be applied to human or animal blood. Results obtained by the present methods are in satisfactory agreement with currently accepted procedures, which require much larger samples or more elaborate equipment.


Background. Freebirthing or unassisted birth is the active choice made by a woman to birth without a trained professional present, even where there is access to maternity provision. Aim. To integrate the findings of the current literature on the phenomenon of freebirthing, asking the question: 'Why do some women choose to freebirth?' Design. A metasynthesis was carried out based upon Noblit and Hare's (1988) meta-ethnography. Searches were carried out in March 2013 and updated in March 2014 using 15 key databases. Inclusion criteria were applied: primary qualitative work, in English, focusing upon women who had freebirthed intentionally. A quality appraisal was carried out. This paper reports the findings from international studies, as there were no studies based on a UK population. Findings and key conclusions. Four studies were found that incorporated data collected from 272 women. The studies identified were based in the US (n=3) and in Australia (n=1). Four key themes were generated: rejection of the medical and midwifery models of birth; faith in the birth process; autonomy; and agency. There was a prevailing sense of opting to freebirth in order to retain choice, control and autonomy over their bodies during the birth process. Implications for practice. For some, within their particular context of maternity provision, the biomedical model of childbirth is clearly not acceptable, therefore, it is important practitioners identify and address women's bio-psychosocial needs. Even the midwifery model of childbirth is apparently not satisfactory, suggesting the gulf between the midwifery philosophy of care and that which is currently practised needs attention. For some women, a previous negative experience with maternity care provision motivated their decision to freebirth. It is, therefore, important that maternity service providers improve the quality of care provision so women feel dignified, supported, and are participatory in the care that they receive. A UK-based study is being undertaken in order to establish the motivations of women who choose to freebirth in the UK.


Improvement of variant calling in next-generation sequence data requires a comprehensive, genome-wide catalogue of high-confidence variants called in a set of genomes for use as a benchmark. We generated deep, whole-genome sequence data of seventeen individuals in a three-generation pedigree and called variants in each genome using a range of currently available algorithms. We used haplotype transmission information to create a phased "platinum" variant catalogue of 4.7 million single nucleotide variants (SNVs) plus 0.7 million small (1-50bp) insertions and deletions (indels) that are consistent with the pattern of inheritance in the parents and eleven children of this pedigree. Platinum genotypes are highly concordant with the current catalogue of the National Institute of Standards and Technology for both SNVs (>99.99%) and indels (99.92%), and add a validated truth catalogue that has 26% more SNVs and 45% more indels. Analysis of 334,652 SNVs that were consistent between informatics pipelines yet inconsistent with haplotype transmission ("non-platinum") revealed that the majority of these variants are de novo and cell-line mutations or reside within previously unidentified duplications and deletions. The reference materials from this study are a resource for objective assessment of the accuracy of variant calls throughout genomes.


Embedded systems increasingly use software-driven low-power microprocessors for security-critical settings, surfacing a need for tools that can audit the security of the software (often called firmware) running on such devices. Despite the fact that firmware programs are often written in C, existing source-code analysis tools do not work well for this setting because of the specific architectural features of low-power platforms. We therefore design and implement a new tool, called FIE, that builds off the KLEE symbolic execution engine in order to provide an extensible platform for detecting bugs in firmware programs for the popular MSP430 family of microcontrollers. FIE incorporates new techniques for symbolic execution that enable it to verify security properties of the simple firmwares often found in practice. We demonstrate FIE's utility by applying it to a corpus of 99 open-source firmware programs that altogether use 13 different models of the MSP430. We are able to verify memory safety for the majority of programs in this corpus and elsewhere discover 21 bugs.


This study aimed to evaluate the occurence, virulence properties, genetic diversity, antimicrobial susceptibilities and genetic determinants of resistance of thermophilic Campylobacters from dogs and cats under different housing conditions. Rectal swabs were taken from 136 dogs (household dogs, n=56; shelter-housed dogs, n=80), and 14 shelter-housed cats. Antimicrobial susceptibilities of the isolates were performed by disc diffusion method. Tetracycline (tetO), ampicillin (blaOXA-61), aminoglycoside (aph-3-1) resistance and multidrug efflux pump (cmeB) genes were investigated by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (mPCR). The genetic diversity among the isolates was determined by sequence analysis of short variable regions (SVRs) of flaA gene. The presence of virulence and toxin genes was also investigated by PCR. Campylobacter spp. were isolated from 33.8% of dogs and 28.6% of cats. C. jejuni was the most common species in both dogs (52.2%) and cats (100%), followed by C. coli, which was isolated from 41.3% of dogs. High rates of resistance against nalidixic acid (78.7%), ciprofloxacin (74.5%), ampicillin (68.1%), tetracycline (53.2%) were observed. The frequency of flaA, virB11, cdtA, cdtB, cdtC, racR, cadF, ciaB, dnaJ and pldA genes was 100%, 2.1%, 83%, 72.3%, 72.3%, 57.4%, 93.6%, 12.8%, 53.2% and 44.7%, respectively. Based on flaA-SVR typing, 17 different alleles were determined among the isolates. The results of this study suggested that pet animals were colonized with antimicrobial resistant thermophilic Campylobacter spp. having high pathogenic potential and genetic diversity.


Cinema is often a reflective form of media which demonstrates popular opinion on a certain individual, group, or subject. The variety in subject of cinema reflects the vast amount of opinions that exist on every discernable subject.  Due to this, film analysis is a particularly relevant form of studying society or a specific subset. Racial or ethnic groups are one example of what can be studied through film analysis. Hispanics/Latinos as an ethnic group have received a  long history of bias, and are oftentimes represented by racial portrayals in North American media, and Latin American cinema is rarely consumed in North America.


Medical and health sciences institutions and organisations are faced with challenges in resource allocation for research and publishing. The aim of this study was to retrospectively analyse South African publication trends in medicine to provide guidance for future strategic planning in academic medicine. We used the Scimago database spanning the years 1996–2011 to analyse South African publication outputs in a number of categories in medicine, as defined in the Scopus database. The data reveal a number of significant growth areas but also reveal areas that should potentially be growing but remain static. In some areas, growth has aligned with the expectations of health and disease trends, but other areas, in which growth would have been expected, have remained static. Interesting features are also revealed when the data are compared with those of other developed and developing countries. For 1996–2011, South African medical publication output ranked 33 in the world based on the number of publications, but 28 based on the h-index. Interestingly, whilst South Africa produced less than 25% of the output of India, the h-index for South Africa is 153 compared with 145 for India. South Africa's medical publication output has steadily increased over the 14-year period but the number of citations per document has declined. This analysis provides a useful strategic overview for medical institutions and government funding organisations to guide the allocation of research budgets and resources in a discipline- or category-specific manner to influence research outputs.


Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent musculoskeletal disorder, affecting millions of people worldwide. There has been limited consensus on the use of magnets for this condition. This study specifically assessed the evidence pertaining to the use of static magnets to manage symptoms in people with osteoarthritis. A systematic review of the published (AMED, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed and the Cochrane Library) and unpublished literature (WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, Current Controlled Trials and the United States National Institute of Health Trials Registry, Open Grey) was undertaken to July 2013. All studies assessing the clinical effects of static magnets as a therapeutic intervention for adults with osteoarthritis were included. Methodological quality was assessed using the PEDro appraisal tool. When appropriate, meta-analysis was conducted to pool data. From a total of 301 citations, six studies met the eligibility criteria. These included 374 participants, 220 allocated to a magnet group, 154 to a placebo control. The findings indicated that magnets did not significantly reduce pain or medicine requirement nor enhanced function, joint proprioception or muscle strength compared to placebo (p>0.05). There was limited evidence that higher strength magnets may have a greater effect on pain than lower field strength magnets. However, the quality of the current evidence-base was limited and underpowered. The longer-term outcomes of magnet use and limited control of field strength within the current literature suggests that further, adequately sample-sized, randomised controlled trials to assess dose-response are initially required to begin to rigorously assess the efficacy of this intervention with people with osteoarthritis.


Academic tracking is common in American schools. While the impact of this practice on students is well documented, few studies closely examine the influence of teacher decisionmaking on students' academic trajectories. This article discusses a study examining how teachers recommend students for highand low-track academic classes. Specific attention is paid to data collected through participant analysis of hypothetical vignettes. This unique methodology was specifically designed to illuminate the dynamics shaping participants' decision-making process. The key finding of this study is that participants experienced high levels of autonomy when making recommendations. This autonomy, however, did not emanate from recognition of their expertise or familiarity with students' academic capabilities; rather, it resulted from ill-defined expectations, poor communication among teachers, and a lack of clear administrative policies. The analysis of data led to findings that are divided into five distinct but interrelated themes.


The linear vestibular sensory evoked potential (VsEP) is thought to be the compound electrical response of peripheral macular neurons and central neural relays and as such used to directly assess macular function. The VsEP is used in animal research to study among other things the genetic basis of deafness and balance disorders. Although the neural generators of the linear VsEP have been described in the bird the precise central neural generators have not been documented for the mouse model. Because the mouse is such a valuable model in vestibular research it is important to clearly identify the peripheral and central generators of VsEPs in mice. In order to complete such studies various preface studies were completed to insure the accuracy of measurement with the generator studies. These studies included evaluation of VsEP response morphology with change in brain temperature; evaluation of drug on the VsEP response (i.e. Ketorolac); and the evaluation of stimulus duration on the VsEP response. During generator studies VsEPs before and after strategic surgical manipulations of vestibular pathways were recorded. This included isolation of the eighth nerve from central relays and destruction of central candidate neural generators. The extent of lesions was characterized histologically and changes in response components were documented. Response components critically dependent on particular peripheral and central structures were identified. These studies have increased the understanding of the neural generators of the VsEP and in turn enhanced the ability to assess peripheral and central vestibular function and detect vestibular disease.


The dramatic Republican congressional victory in the 1994 elections created a crisis of governing for Bill Clinton. His party was soundly defeated at the polls, and the Republicans obtained majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. The election was a repudiation of his leadership. His program was dead; he would not be able to build coalitions and succeed in advocating new, controversial policies in the new political environment. Yet, by freeing the president from the possibility, and thus the responsibility, for enacting policies, the election also provided the president a new opportunity to define his presidency and evaluate his strategic position. In this article, I explore how Clinton's approach to governing helped to precipitate the crisis in which he found himself, how he responded to that crisis in his political environment, and the consequences of his response for governing. 1993 to 1994 A critical aspect of presidential leadership is understanding the constraints and possibilities in the environment so as to exploit them most effectively. Once having evaluated the environment, effective presidents must fashion a strategy to work within them to accomplish their goals. In 1993-94, President Clinton accentuated a problem inherent in our separation of powers system by overreaching, overestimating the extent of change that a president elected in his political environment could make.(1) Any president elected with only 43 percent of the vote should not expect to pass far-reaching social legislation without involving the other party, especially when the public is dubious and well-organized interest groups are fervently opposed. So, a partisan, unitarian approach was unlikely to succeed; yet, this is exactly the strategy the president adopted. For example, the "us against them" approach to policy making encouraged the president to develop his health care plan in Democrats-only secrecy and pursue a left-in coalition-building strategy instead of a center-out one. Failure was inevitable. Moreover, the greater the breadth and complexity of the policy change a president proposes, the more opposition it is likely to engender. In an era when a few opponents can effectively tie up bills, the odds are clearly against the White House. Yet, when it came to health care reform, the president proposed perhaps the most sweeping, complex prescriptions for controlling the conduct of state governments, employers, drug manufacturers, doctors, hospitals, and individuals in American history. A third important element in President Clinton's political environment was the lack of resources for policy initiatives. When resources are scarce, those proposing expensive new programs have to regulate the private sector to get things done, which inevitably unleashes a backlash. So the costs of action are more expensive politically. In health care, the complex and coercive mechanisms created to require employers to pay for health insurance and for controlling costs (managed competition) were designed to avoid government responsibility for paying--but it should have come as no surprise that those who bear greater costs, face higher risks, or have their discretion constrained are likely to oppose change. The president's first major proposal was a fiscal stimulus bill. Clinton thought he would be able to arouse the country behind this traditional liberal policy. Few were persuaded, however, and the bill was filibustered by the Republicans in the Senate and died without a vote. Once again, the president misread the possibilities in his environment. In the end, the president was not able to cut taxes for the middle class or substantially increase spending on education, job training, public works, and health care. Nor was he able to obtain welfare reform on his terms. He could not devise strategies for moving in the context in which he found himself, partly because he misread his political environment. …


Interval‐censored recurrent event data arise when the event of interest is not readily observed but the cumulative event count can be recorded at periodic assessment times. In some settings, chronic disease processes may resolve, and individuals will cease to be at risk of events at the time of disease resolution. We develop an expectation‐maximization algorithm for fitting a dynamic mover‐stayer model to interval‐censored recurrent event data under a Markov model with a piecewise‐constant baseline rate function given a latent process. The model is motivated by settings in which the event times and the resolution time of the disease process are unobserved. The likelihood and algorithm are shown to yield estimators with small empirical bias in simulation studies. Data are analyzed on the cumulative number of damaged joints in patients with psoriatic arthritis where individuals experience disease remission.


Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a genetic disorder caused by a deletion of the survival motor neuron 1 gene leading to motor neuron loss, muscle atrophy, paralysis, and death. We show here that induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines generated from two Type I SMA subjects–one produced with lentiviral constructs and the second using a virus-free plasmid–based approach–recapitulate the disease phenotype and generate significantly fewer motor neurons at later developmental time periods in culture compared to two separate control subject iPSC lines. During motor neuron development, both SMA lines showed an increase in Fas ligand-mediated apoptosis and increased caspase-8 and-3 activation. Importantly, this could be mitigated by addition of either a Fas blocking antibody or a caspase-3 inhibitor. Together, these data further validate this human stem cell model of SMA, suggesting that specific inhibitors of apoptotic pathways may be beneficial for patients.


For multiple peril crop insurance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture'Â's Risk Management Agency estimates the premium rate for a base coverage level and then uses multiplicative adjustment factors to recover rates at other coverage levels. Given this methodology, accurate estimation of the base coverage level from 65% to 50%. The purpose of this analysis was to provide some insight into whether such a change should or should not be carried out. Not surprisingly, our findings indicate that the higher coverage level should be maintained as the base.


Hello Reddit! We are a group of scientists and engineers in academia and industry working on batteries and energy storage. Batteries are ubiquitous in our daily lives and we all have complained about them when using our favorite portable electronic devices. They are also critical in enabling the next generation of electric vehicles, such as electric cars and electric airplanes, and large-scale stationary energy storage. Let's discuss anything regarding batteries and other energy storage technologies! Our guests today are: Kristin Persson (u/KPatBerkeley): I am an Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley, and I direct the Materials Project which is a multi-institution, multi-national effort to compute the properties of all inorganic materials and provide the data and associated analysis algorithms to the world. The Persson group uses their expertise in materials informatics and the high-throughput infrastructure of the Materials Project to design novel photocatalysts, multivalent battery electrode materials, Li-ion battery electrode materials and electrolytes for beyond-Li energy storage solutions. Twitter: @KPatBerkeley Shirley Meng (u/ShirleyMeng): I received my Ph.D. in Advance Materials for Micro & Nano Systems from the Singapore-MIT Alliance in 2005, after which I worked as a postdoc research fellow and became a research scientist at MIT. I currently hold the Zable Chair Professor in Energy Technologies and professor in NanoEngineering at University of California San Diego (UCSD), and am the principal investigator of the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC) research group. The LESC research focuses on the direct integration of experimental techniques with first principles computation modeling for developing new materials and architectures for electrochemical energy storage. I am the founding Director of Sustainable Power and Energy Center (SPEC), consisting faculty members from interdisciplinary fields, who all focus on making breakthroughs in distributed energy generation, storage and the accompanying integration-management systems. I have received several prestigious awards, including International Battery Association Research Award (2019), Blavatnik National Awards Finalist (2018), American Chemical Society ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Young Investigator Award (2018), International Coalition for Energy Storage and Innovation (ICESI) Inaugural Young Career Award (2018), IUMRS-Singapore Young Scientist Research Award (2017), C.W. Tobias Young Investigator Award of the Electrochemical Society (2016), BASF Volkswagen Electrochemistry Science Award (2015) and NSF CAREER Award (2011). I've published more than 170 peerreviewed journal articles, two book chapters and eight patents, and am the elected Fellow of the Electrochemical Society. Ray Smith (u/thatkindofcell): I did a PhD in battery modeling at MIT focusing on active materials that exhibit phase changes during the charging and discharging process. Now, I do battery modeling research and development work at a San Francisco Bay Area company with particular focus on cell design, charging, and degradation processes. Matt Lacey (u/MattLacey): I graduated from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, with a Master of Chemistry degree in 2008 and completed my PhD at the same university in 2012 under the supervision of Prof John R. Owen. I joined the Ångström Advanced Battery Centre in 2012 as a postdoc working on lithium-sulfur batteries, and in 2016 became a researcher in the same group. Since 2018 I am also a thematic researcher with the Swedish Electromobility Centre. My research interests centre on the electrochemistry of lithium batteries, particularly on ageing mechanisms. Twitter: @mjlacey Venkat Viswanathan (u/venkvis): I am faculty at


Every year in NSW, approximately 20,000 people are convicted for drink driving offences. In 2002, alcohol was a factor in 21 per cent of all fatal crashes. The economic cost of these crashes to the community is approximately $192 million. Repeat drink drive offenders represent a significant proportion of the drink-driving problem in NSW. Australian and international research shows the recidivist drink driver to be resistant to traditional interventions. The NSW Sober Driver Program was developed as a whole of government initiative to target serious road safety problems caused by repeat drink drive offenders in NSW. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E211985.


TransJakarta Bus is a Bus Rapid Transit or bus rapid transport system, which accommodates users of all groups. This bus is one of the common vehicle contributing to accidents on the road of jakarta. Based on data from Jakarta Provincial Government, in 2012 the accidents related to TransJakarta bus have increased significantly from previous year and the figures seem to be ascending from year to year. The accident occurred due to the number of vehicles, in particular, motorists 'grab' into TransJakarta lane. This shows that the awareness of motorists to obey traffic rules and order are poor. Therefore, a solution is needed to reduce the accidents. One of the solutions is to maximize the sterilization and program direction change. Sterilization is an attempt to sterilize the general motorist who get into TransJakarta lane. The program is a Direction Change that change of direction between TransJakarta buses with others vehicles that initially the direction into the opposite direction, or commonly known as contraflow. The program aims to curb the riders and decrease the number of accidents that occur on the TransJakarta lane.


One of the challenges of Sequential Pattern Mining is finding frequent sequential patterns in a huge click stream data (web logs) since the data has the issue of a very low support distribution. By applying a Frequent Pattern Discovery technique, a sequence is considered as frequent if it occurs more than the minimum support (min sup) threshold value. The conventional method of assuming one min sup value is valid for all levels of k-sequence, may have an impact on the overall results or pattern generation. In this paper, a personalized minimum support (P_minsup) threshold with user specified minimum items or min_i is introduced. The P_minsup is generated for each k-sequence by analyzing the overall support pattern distribution of the click stream data; while the min_i value gives the user the flexibility to gain control on the number of patterns to be generated on the next k-sequence by using the top min_i items. This approach is then applied in the SPADE Algorithm using vector array as an extension from the previous method of using relational database and pre-defined threshold. The result from this experiment demonstrates that P_minsup with the complement of min_i value approach is applicable in assisting the process of determining the suitable threshold value to be used in detecting users' frequent k-sequential topics in navigating the World Wide Web (WWW).


By any measure, section 211 of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts is a disappointment. The section purported to ensure the benefits of standardized contracts by presuming assent to all terms when a contract is signed or adopted. At the same time, section 211 made it unreasonable for drafting parties to rely on terms if the drafter knew or should have known that the other party would not have assented had the other been aware of such terms. Nevertheless, section 211 is rarely cited with respect to any standardized contract dispute, and even where cited, it rarely provides relief to the non-drafting party. Judges' unwillingness to embrace section 211 is particularly pronounced and problematic in the online contracting context for consumers. This Article explains that section 211's disuse can be attributed in part to its doctrinal formulation, which erects difficult barriers for non-drafting parties seeking relief. Perhaps more importantly, judges historically have been reluctant to disturb standardized consumer contracts, regardless of the applicable doctrine. Accordingly, it is useful to frame the problem of modern standardized consumer contracts in terms of how social and judicial conceptions of assent interact with doctrine and what forces can influence those conceptions. Judicial attitudes, for example, could be influenced by empirical evidence that examines consumer perceptions of modern standardized contract formation and the terms of such contracts. When confronted and internalized by judges and regulators who seek to determine appropriate relief, that kind of evidence can generate meaningful relief and meaningful reform.


Attila the Hun - godless barbarian and near-mythical warrior king - has become a byword for mindless ferocity. His brutal attacks smashed through the frontiers of the Roman empire in a savage wave of death and destruction. His reign of terror shattered an imperial world that had been securely unified by the conquests of Julius Caesar five centuries before. This book goes in search of the real Attila the Hun. For the first time it reveals the history of an astute politician and first-rate military commander who brilliantly exploited the strengths and weaknesses of the Roman empire. We ride with Attila and the Huns from the windswept steppes of Kazakhstan to the opulent city of Constantinople, from the Great Hungarian Plain to the fertile fields of Champagne in France. Christopher Kelly utilises a wealth of original texts - including the only surviving account of the historian who met Attila during a top-secret assassination attempt. This tale of espionage and counter-intelligence is one of the most thrilling in the whole of Roman history.Challenging our own ideas about barbarians and Romans, imperialism and civilisation, terrorists and superpowers, this is the absorbing story of an extraordinary and complex individual who helped to bring down an empire and forced the map of Europe to be redrawn forever.


Complex networks of both natural and engineered flow paths control the hydrology of streams in major cities through spatio‐temporal variations in connection and disconnection of diverse water sources. We used spatially extensive and temporally intensive sampling of water stable isotopes to disentangle the hydrological sources of the heavily urbanized Panke catchment (~220 km2) in the north of Berlin, Germany. The isotopic data enabled us to partition stream water sources across the catchment using a Bayesian mixing analysis. The upper part of the catchment streamflow is dominated by groundwater (~75%) from gravel aquifers. In dry summer periods, streamflow becomes intermittent in the upper catchment, possibly as a result of local groundwater abstractions. Storm drainage dominates the responses to precipitation events. Although such events can dramatically change the isotopic composition of the upper stream network, storm drainage only accounts for 10%–15% of annual streamflow. Moving downstream, subtle changes in sources and isotope signatures occur as catchment characteristics vary and the stream is affected by different tributaries. However, effluents from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), serving 700,000 people, dominate stream flow in the lower catchment (~90% of annual runoff) where urbanization effects are more dramatic. The associated increase in sealed surfaces downstream also reduces the relative contribution of groundwater to streamflow. The volume and isotopic composition of storm runoff is again dominated by urban drainage, though in the lower catchment, still only about 10% of annual runoff comes from storm drains. The study shows the potential of stable water isotopes as inexpensive tracers in urban catchments that can provide a more integrated understanding of the complex hydrology of major cities. This offers an important evidence base for guiding the plans to develop and re‐develop urban catchments to protect, restore, and enhance their ecological and amenity value.


The use of discrete line laser excitation for the optoacoustic analysis of gas mixtures holds promise as a formidable analytical tool. However, this technique presents challenging demands on the data reduction process to increase the reliability of the analytical results. The problems unique to this method which make data reduction difficult are discussed. Use of simultaneous equations, multivariate least-squares, and a new iterative coefficient weighted least-squares approach are compared. Data indicating the relative performance of these methods are presented.


P-wave, as well as horizontally and vertically polarized S-wave, tomographic data were collected between two borehole pairs. This enabled the joint-inversion of the three datasets. By employing structural constraints, the S-wave traveltimes were coupled to the more accurate P-wave traveltimes during the inversion. Thereby, the traveltime and anisotropic artefacts, initially observed in the individually inverted S-wave tomograms, were significantly reduced and the correlation with the borehole logs improved, while the resolution of the jointly inverted P-wave tomogram was only marginally affected. The joint inversion proves successful in determining the Swave velocity distribution more accurately than individual inversions. In addition, the jointly inverted tomograms were used to detect aquifer heterogeneities, caused by differences in clay content, and to distinguish areas of relatively high effective pressure. Comparison of the jointly inverted S-wave tomograms suggests the effect of S-wave anisotropy, which showed substantial velocity differences of approximately −10% to 10%. The anisotropy may have been caused by the presence of water-filled pores, micro-cracks and preferred mineral alignment (mainly clay) in the media.


Social Media's Influence on Hospitality & Tourism Management
Social media, which are based on web-based, mobile based or cloud based technologies have created wonders as far as accessibility is concerned. For decades in hospitality management we used to say "you do one thing bad ten people will know by the word of mouth."Social media has changed that proverb overnight as the "word of million mouths." So rapid is the spread of communication that it can make or break businesses, governments, or any agency. It is not plain communication but it leads to an interactive dialogue which creates a viral impact. Social media has the advantage of (a) reaching global audience, even in remote corners of the world; (b) immediacy with no time lag; (c) easy accessibility by those receiving the communication as long as they can get their hands on a computer keyboard; (d) twenty four hours, seven day operations thereby overcoming the time difference; and (e) ubiquitous versatility for interactive exchanges.


As autonomous systems rapidly become ubiquitous, there is a growing need for a legal and regulatory framework to address when and how such a system harms someone. There have been several attempts within the philosophy literature to define harm, but none of them has proven capable of dealing with with the many examples that have been presented, leading some to suggest that the notion of harm should be abandoned and"replaced by more well-behaved notions". As harm is generally something that is caused, most of these definitions have involved causality at some level. Yet surprisingly, none of them makes use of causal models and the definitions of actual causality that they can express. In this paper we formally define a qualitative notion of harm that uses causal models and is based on a well-known definition of actual causality (Halpern, 2016). The key novelty of our definition is that it is based on contrastive causation and uses a default utility to which the utility of actual outcomes is compared. We show that our definition is able to handle the examples from the literature, and illustrate its importance for reasoning about situations involving autonomous systems.


The mode of development in marine invertebrates is believed to have consequences for dispersal, gene flow, geographic range, and speciation and extinction rates. The factors responsible for among-species differences in mode of development are not well understood and patterns of vari- ation in mode of development have not been documented for many groups. I present a compiled data set of developmental characters for 78 species of calyptraeid gastropods: 53 Crepidula, 9 Calyptraea, 11 Crucibulum and 5 other species. Analysis of this data set shows that egg- and hatching-size distri- butions are strongly positively skewed. As expected, egg size correlates with hatching size and time to hatching in species without nurse eggs. Egg size is not significantly different between species with planktotrophic development and species with direct development with nurse eggs. Hatching size of direct developers with and without nurse eggs do not differ. Developmental characters do not vary with adult body size among species. There are strong latitudinal effects in mode of development, the frequency of planktotrophic species decreases with increasing latitude while the proportion of direct developers increases. There is also a striking latitudinal pattern in the occurrence of nurse eggs; almost all species with nurse eggs occur in the southern hemisphere. These latitudinal patterns do not appear to be explained by sea surface temperature. Comparisons with other gastropods for which similar compilations are available show a striking difference between heterobranchs (opisthobranchs and pulmonates) and caenogastropods in developmental characteristics.


The pyrG gene of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris, encoding CTP synthase, has been cloned and sequenced. It is flanked upstream by an open reading frame showing homology to several aminotransferases and downstream by an open reading frame of unknown function. L. lactis strains harboring disrupted pyrG alleles were constructed. These mutants required cytidine for growth, proving that in L. lactis, the pyrG product is the only enzyme responsible for the amination of UTP to CTP. In contrast to the situation in Escherichia coli, an L. lactis pyrG mutant could be constructed in the presence of a functional cdd gene encoding cytidine deaminase. A characterization of the enzyme revealed similar properties as found for CTP synthases from other organisms. However, unlike the majority of CTP synthases the lactococcal enzyme can convert dUTP to dCTP, although a half saturation concentration of 0.6 mm for dUTP makes it unlikely that this reaction plays a significant physiological role. As for other CTP synthases, the oligomeric structure of the lactococcal enzyme was found to be a tetramer, but unlike most of the other previously characterized enzymes, the tetramer was very stable even at dilute enzyme concentrations.


The 2010 Citizens United ruling has been misunderstood. This essay argues that the FEC's arguments, which shaped the dissenting opinion and subsequent reform proposals, were deeply rooted in a neoliberal, individualistic, and undemocratic conception of shareholder citizenship that fetishizes the ability of individuals to spend money to influence elections. More democratic politics must come not from rejecting the principle of corporate political activity, but extending it to include cities. Historically, broader doctrines of city power helped to solve common problems and establish the concept of the public interest in diverse urban areas. Social, spatial, and ideological developments associated with suburbanization have helped a neoliberal notion of shareholder citizenship to supplant this public democracy. Recent events demonstrate that new urban social movements might leverage city power to make cities not just venues but instruments of politics.


Summary Background: Amiodarone, class III anti-arrhythmic was originally introduced to treat angina pectoris, was later approved by FDA in 1985 for the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias. Despite its anti-arrhythmic properties, amiodarone is associated with side effects such as thyroid dysfunction, corneal deposits, bluish skin discoloration, neuropathy and pulmonary toxicity. Amiodarone induced pulmonary toxicity (AIPT) is one of the most serious side effect thus limiting its use. Case Report: We encountered a 66 year old male with early onset AIPT who presented with dyspnea and chest imaging revealed extensive ground-glass opacities throughout lung parenchyma with rapid resolution of these opacities in a week following treatment with corticosteroids. Conclusions: There have been few case reports of AIPT with complete resolution of ground glass opacities on treatment with corticosteroids, but none demonstrated a rapid response to corticosteroids. Heath care providers should withdraw amiodarone at the earliest suspicion (as illustrated in our case); any delay can potentially be fatal. This case highlights the fact that AIPT is a reversible phenomenon, provided its early recognition and treatment before fibrosis sets in This case also highlights the need to include AIPT in the differential diagnosis in any patient on amiodarone who presents with shortness of breath.


Functional MRI studies of how the brain processes sentences containing semantically ambiguous words have consistently implicated (i) the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and (ii) posterior regions of the left temporal lobe in processing high-ambiguity sentences. This article reviews recent findings on this topic and relates them to (i) psycholinguistic theories about the underlying cognitive processes and (ii) general neuro-cognitive accounts of the relevant brain regions. We suggest that the LIFG plays a general role in the cognitive control processes that are necessary to select contextually relevant meanings and to reinterpret sentences that were initially misunderstood, but it is currently unclear whether these control processes should best be characterised in terms of specific processes such as conflict resolution and controlled retrieval that are required for high-ambiguity sentences, or whether its function is better characterised in terms of a more general set of 'unification' processes. In contrast to the relatively rapid progress that has been made in understanding the function of the LIFG, we suggest that the contribution of the posterior temporal lobe is less well understood and future work is needed to clarify its role in sentence comprehension.


Subjectivation, which is characteristic of the psychical work of adolescence, is first of all an appropriation by the subject of his body and his thinking. This psychical work is paradigmatic of the social beliefs that we share : symptoms and even more psychical defenses, incontestably evolve over time, apart from the unconscious which may be conceived of as outside time. Thus, symptomatic expression is constantly caught up in the evolution of social values.


Comparative Analysis of Naive Bayes and Tree Augmented Naive Bayes Models by Harini Padmanaban Naive Bayes and Tree Augmented Naive Bayes (TAN) are probabilistic graphical models used for modeling huge datasets involving lots of uncertainties among its various interdependent feature sets. Some of the most common applications of these models are image segmentation, medical diagnosis and various other data clustering and data classification applications. A classification problem deals with identifying to which category a particular instance belongs to, based on previous knowledge acquired by analysis of various such instances. The instances are described using a set of variables called attributes or features. A Naive Bayes model assumes that all the attributes of an instance are independent of each other given the class of that instance. This is a very simple representation of the system, but the independence assumptions made in this model are incorrect and unrealistic. The TAN model improves on the Naive Bayes model by adding one more level of interaction among attributes of the system. In the TAN model, every attribute is dependent on its class and one other attribute from the feature set. Since this model incorporates the dependencies among the attributes, it is more realistic than a Naive Bayes model. This project analyzes the performance of these two models on various datasets. The TAN model gives better performance results if there are correlations between the attributes but the performance is almost the same as that of Naive Bayes model, if there are not enough correlations between the attributes of the system.


We define a probe to be a single action sequence computedgreedily from a given state that either terminates in the goalor fails. We show that by designing these probes carefullyusing a number of existing and new polynomial techniquessuch as helpful actions, landmarks, commitments, and con-sistent subgoals, a single probe from the initial state solvesby itself 683 out of 980 problems from previous IPCs, a num-ber that compares well with the 627 problems solved by FFin EHC mode, with similar times and plan lengths. We alsoshow that by launching one probe from each expanded statein a standard greedy best first search informed by the addi-tive heuristic, the number of problems solved jumps to 900(92%), as opposed to FF that solves 827 problems (84%),and LAMA that solves 879 (89%). The success of probessuggests that many domains can be solved easily once a suit-able serialization of the landmarks is found, an observationthat may open new connections between recent work in plan-ning and more classical work concerning goal serializationand problem decomposition in planning and search.


As a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH), like many societies around the world, canceled their in‐person hematology congress planned for Milan, Italy, in July 2020. As a result, the first virtual ISTH congress in the organisation's 51‐year history was delivered, inviting free registration from across the globe. As part of the social media support, marketing, and scientific dissemination efforts for the virtual congress, the ISTH assembled a group of official Twitter Ambassadors, which represented the broad and diverse ISTH community. Ambassadors were tasked to tweet daily throughout the congress and to share their commentary on the hematology research being presented with the "#ISTH2020" hashtag. Ambassadors were also supported by Twitter activities from the two official ISTH‐affiliated journals: the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis (JTH) and Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis (RPTH). In this forum and through the Twitter ambassadors' lens, we present the Twitter Ambassadors' experience, reflect on the impact of social media on the ISTH 2020 congress, and share this experience with the wider scientific community. Specifically, we report on the role of Twitter communication for virtual meetings, discuss the pros and cons of the virtual congress, and offer Twitter‐related recommendations for future virtual or blended congresses. We conclude that the ISTH Twitter Ambassador program broadened social media engagement and offers a novel route to improve social connectivity in the virtual research congress setting.


Abstract

An Inquiry into How People Are Affected by Profuse Amounts of Publicity: A Multidisciplinary Approach

The purpose of this thesis was to examine whether advertising affects people's ability to make rational consumer decisions. Considering that advertising is so pervasive, we may be continuously programming ourselves to desire goods and services. In this thesis, I used a multi-disciplinary approach stemming from priming and suggestion
theory. I tested whether participants could be primed to develop more extreme consumer behaviour attitudes and values. I also assessed whether participants who were more
suggestible, were also more influenced by advertising. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. The sample consisted of sixty Concordia University students,
thirty males and thirty females. The results of the priming study were inconclusive because of mixed findings. In general, exposure to commercial media was correlated with
extreme buying behaviour. However, the advertising exposed group did not significantly increase their materialistic values scores after they were exposed to advertising. This may be because the group diversity between the advertising and control group was skewed. At time one, the control group had a significantly greater mean materialistic value score than the advertising pre-exposed group. Using suggestion theory, I found that participants who
had a greater ability to fantasize displayed more extreme consumer behaviour. This may be because interacting with advertisements that display fantastic signs and symbols may
help people form commodity meaning, especially for those who have a greater ability to fantasize. Therefore, those who can fantasize more vividly may respond more to advertising than people who do not have this ability. Through qualitative analysis, I described how participants think that advertising influences them as well as people in
general. I found a significant third person effect; participants reported that they are less affected by advertisements than people in general. To improve on this study, both advertising and control groups should be equally materialistic from the beginning of the study. Furthermore, better measures of advertising effects should be used. This study serves as a stepping-stone for further research on the topic.


This paper reviews recent studies on the impact of financial frictions on international trade. We first present evidence on the relation between measures of access to external finance and export decisions. We then present an analytical framework to analyze the impact of financial frictions on firms' export decisions. Finally, we review recent applications of this framework to investigate the impact of financial frictions on international trade dynamics across firms, industries, and in the aggregate. We discuss related empirical, theoretical, and quantitative studies throughout.


Author(s): Pernicka, Susanne | Abstract: The entry of digital platform corporations, such as Uber, Lyft, and Taxify, into established taxi and limousine markets has severely challenged organized interest groups on both sides of the capital-labor divide as well as public policymakers who regulate these markets. Interest associations in different countries have regarded the market-disrupting strategies of platform corporations as either a unifying threat or as an opportunity to pursue and enforce their particularistic interests, and existing associational fields have shaped interest associations' responses.The author compares California and Austria because of their distinctive traditions in valorizing the public participation of nonstate societal groups and interest associations in political and economic fields. By drawing on interest group theory and on sociological field theory, this paper demonstrates that both pluralist and neocorporatist associational fields have the potential to balance societal interests and to moderate power relations.Associational fields in California and Austria are contested societal orders whose ability to integrate all relevant societal interests has been disrupted. In California, the responses of business associations, trade unions, and labor groups to Uber reflect the fragmented state of pluralist associational fields. While diversity and competitive relations between interest groups are ideal-typical characteristics of pluralist associational fields, state actors do not serve as impartial mediators, and Uber has benefited from more favorable rules and conditions than those applied to taxi and limousine companies. In Austria, the responses of the highly centralized business and labor associations toward Uber reflect the strong disposition of the Chamber of Commerce and trade unions toward the logic of influence. However, that collective bargaining institutions or social partner agreements are not able to control the company points to the fragile and contested character of associational fields. It is nevertheless likely that the ongoing struggle for common rules for all market participants will reinforce neocorporatist associational fields.


Overconfidence is a well-established behavioral phenomenon that involves an overestimation of own capabilities. We introduce a model, in which managers and agents exert effort in a joint production, after the manager decides on the allocation of the tasks. A rational manager tends to delegate the critical task to the agent more often than given by the efficient task allocation. In contrast, an overconfident manager is more likely to hoard responsibility, i.e. to delegate the critical task less often than a rational manager. In fact, a manager with a sufficiently high ability and a moderate degree of overconfidence increases the total welfare by hoarding responsibility and exerting more effort than a rational manager. Finally, we derive the conditions under which responsibility hoarding can persist in an organization, showing that the bias survives as long as the overconfident manager can rationalize the observed output by underestimating the ability of the agent.


Extensive literature shows the positive effects grandparental childcare has on younger generations. However, little evidence exists on the effects of grandparental childcare on grandparents. In this paper, we explore to what extent grandparental childcare influences cognitive ageing, by considering four dimensions of cognitive functioning. In particular, we focus on grandmothers, as they are the most engaged. Descriptive evidence suggests that grandmothers looking after grandchildren with a daily frequency have lower cognitive scores than those counterparts involved less often. However, we show that such a negative effect of grandparental childcare results from background characteristics of grandparents. In order to address the endogeneity of grandparental childcare, we implement an instrumental variable approach. Our regression analyses do not show evidence that grandparental childcare has a negative effect on grandparents' cognitive functioning. On the contrary, for one of the considered dimensions, verbal fluency, we find a substantial positive effect.


After the First and Second World War period, during which the constitutional democratic procedure was largely suspended, the Swiss population mobilised and launched direct democratic procedures to put an end to this state of exception. In September 1949, the people and the federal state accepted the popular initiative "Back to direct democracy" (Retour a la democratie directe), a vote that marked the end of the most recent experience of the state of exception in Switzerland. Does this case allow us to refute Agamben's hypothesis of the infinite extension of the state of exception, according to which "today it is not the city but rather the camp that is the fundamental biopolitical paradigm of the West" (Agamben 1998, 102), and to claim that there is a democratic way to stop the production of the permanent state of exception ? In the present article, we show that, if the initiative right granted by the Swiss democratic model can prevent the construction of the "camp as the 'nomos' of the modern" (Agamben 1998, 95), it also introduces the possibility for the sovereign people to infringe basic democratic principles, thus opening the way to forms of 'democratic exception'.


The readers' advisory world has seen a shift in the past several years from focusing exclusively on fiction reading to taking a broader view of recreational reading that includes nonfiction titles and audiobooks as well. This shift is a reflection in large part of the growing interest of readers in narrative nonfiction, as seen in the success of such works as Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, Dava Sobel's Longitude, and Anna Pavord's The Tulip. Librarians are realizing that they can increase their readers' advisory services and expand their community of readers by applying the same techniques that they have used to find new titles and authors for fiction readers to working with readers of nonfiction. In this essay, Abby Alpert examines the history of narrative nonfiction; discusses the current state of readers' advisory services for nonfiction readers, including looking at tools and techniques for working with readers; and makes some recommendations for future directions for this service. Abby Alpert worked as a readers' advisor for the Evanston (Illinois) Public Library for nine years. She is a 2005 graduate of the Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and is currently working part-time in Readers' Services and Children's Services for Evanston. She reviews audiovisual materials for Booklist, and is working on constructing an online readers' advisory thesaurus. She is also beginning a book on graphic novels.--Editor. Now that the revitalization of traditional fiction readers' advisory is firmly established, publishing and reading trends require the readers' advisory community to turn its energy to expanding services to include new formats. These include graphic novels, audiovisual (AV) materials, and works of narrative nonfiction. Increasingly, nonfiction titles are being published, receiving positive critical attention, and becoming popular with the general reader. This has created both the need and the opportunity to develop readers' advisory services for nonfiction readers. This article will provide an overview of current practices in nonfiction readers' advisory, focusing primarily on narrative nonfiction, a style of nonfiction writing that adheres to the facts, but employs the literary techniques of fiction to tell a vibrant story about real events, phenomenon, people, and places. The intention is to look at the growth of narrative nonfiction, what is currently happening in nonfiction readers' advisory, and what needs to happen as narrative nonfiction is incorporated into the realm of readers' advisory services. WHAT IS NARRATIVE NONFICTION? To begin with, narrative nonfiction is not a genre itself; rather it is a style that encompasses any nonfiction genre or topic that emphasizes story, including biography, memoir, and essays. Hume proposes that "somewhere between the newspaper on your doorstep and the novel on your nightstand lies narrative nonfiction. (1) At a conference focused on narrative nonfiction hosted by Columbia University, Yare, senior editor at The Atlantic, defined it as "essentially a hybrid form, a marriage of the art of storytelling and the art of journalism--an attempt to make drama out of the observable world." He also said it "harnesses the power of facts to the techniques of fiction--constructing a central narrative, setting scenes, depicting multidimensional characters and, most important, telling the story in a compelling voice that the reader will want to hear." (2) There are two elements to consider in looking at this type of writing: the Narrative and the Nonfiction. The narrative requires elements that go beyond merely reporting facts or technical or expository writing. How the story is told is as significant as what happened. The strategies of fiction writing are used to recount the development of an idea, to investigate a phenomenon, or to explore a piece of history The storytelling element necessitates scene-by-scene construction, drawing characters, finding a moving voice to communicate the drama, and conveying the facts in a way that will draw readers into the story. …


This comprehensive record of Krishnamurti's teaching is an excellent, wide-ranging introduction to the great philosopher's thought. Within general discussion of conflict, fear, violence, religious experience, self-knowledge, and intelligence, Krishnamurti examines specific issues, such as the role of the teacher and tradition; the need for awareness of "cosmic consciousness"; the problem of good and evil; and traditional Vedanta methods of help for different levels of seekers. Krishnamuri discusses these themes with Jacob Needleman. Alain Naude, and Swami Venkatasananda, among others. "The Awakening of Intelligence" is indispensable for all those intent on a fuller understanding of Krishnamurti's teaching.


This paper examines Chinese pesticide firms' use and perceptions of various means of intellectual property (IP) protection in protecting their innovations, using a unique dataset from 97 pesticide firms surveyed in 2008. These firms rate Chinese patents as quite effective in protecting their IP from infringement, although 70 percent of them state that improved enforcement is needed. Those firms that have been granted patents and those that claim their patents have been infringed upon both give lower ratings to the perceived effectiveness of patents. Trademarks are rated as less effective than patents, but firms that have had experience with patenting and infringement of patents tend to rate trademarks as more effective than those firms that do not have direct experience with the patent system. General government policies to encourage increased privatization, more private R&D, and higher education are associated with more faith in IP, but policies to strengthen IP by promoting mandatory IP training and the development of specialized IP divisions in the firms do not influence perceptions of IP effectiveness. We conclude that if the Chinese government wants to encourage innovation using IP protection, it must focus on improving the enforcement of patents.


The global growth in urbanisation increases the demand for services including road transport infrastructure, presenting challenges in terms of mobility. These trends are occurring in the context of concerns around environmental issues of poor air quality and transport related carbon dioxide emissions. One out of several ways to help meet these challenges is in the intelligent routing of road traffic through congested urban areas. Our goal is to show the feasibility of using automated planning to perform this routing, taking into account a knowledge of vehicle types, vehicle emissions, route maps, air quality zones, etc. Specifically focusing on air quality concerns, in this paper we investigate the problem where the goals are to minimise overall vehicle delay while utilising network capacity fully, and respecting air quality limits. We introduce an automated planning approach for the routing of traffic to address these areas. The approach has been evaluated on micro-simulation models that use real-world data supplied by our industrial partner. Results show the feasibility of using AI planning technology to deliver efficient routes for vehicles that avoid the breaking of air quality limits, and that balance traffic flow through the network.


Large numbers of collaborating robots are advantageous for solving distributed problems. In order to efficiently solve the task at hand, the robots often need accurate localization. In this work, we address the localization problem by developing a solution that has low computational and sensing requirements, and that is easily deployed on large robot teams composed of cheap robots. We build upon a real-time, particle-filter based localization algorithm that is completely decentralized and scalable, and accommodates realistic robot assumptions including noisy sensors, and asynchronous and lossy communication. In order to further reduce this algorithm's overall complexity, we propose a low-cost particle clustering method, which is particularly well suited to the collaborative localization problem. Our approach is experimentally validated on a team of ten real robots.


[1] This study analyzes the oceanic pathway connecting the Agulhas Bank to the southern Benguela upwelling system by means of a quantitative Lagrangian interpretation of the velocity field calculated by a high-resolution numerical simulation of the ocean around the southwestern tip of Africa. The regional ocean model is forced with National Centers for Environmental Prediction surface winds over 1993–2006 and offers a relevant numerical platform for the investigation of the variability of the water transferred between both regions, both on seasonal and intraseasonal time scales. We show that the intensity of the connection fluctuates in response to seasonal wind variability in the west coast upwelling system, whereas intraseasonal anomalies are mostly related to the organization of the eddy field along the southwestern edge of the Agulhas Bank. Though the study only considers passive advection processes, it may provide useful clues about the strategy adopted by anchovies in their selection of successful spawning location and period. The pathway under investigation is of major interest for the ecology of the southern Benguela upwelling system because it connects the spawning grounds on the Agulhas Bank with the nursery grounds located on the productive upwelling off the west coast.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Introduction From the simplest to the most sophisticated human activities, the power of computing has changed the way we interact individually, socially, governmentally, culturally, and globally. Yet have these influences been for the good or have they been less than positive? This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the implementation of COBOL, a.k.a. Common Business Oriented Language, one of the most well-known of computer fundamentals. COBOL arose from the profound scholarship and industry of Admiral Grace Murray Hopper. "Amazing Grace," as she was known, was one of the greatest American pioneers in the history of computer science. COBOL, one of the oldest programming languages, is an acronym for Common Business-Oriented Language, which defines its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. Obtaining her doctorate in mathematics at a time when such academic achievements were not the usual experience for American women, Admiral Hopper was eventually elevated to her Navy rank by a specific honor from the Congress of the United States because of her genius, dedication, forward thinking, and unprecedented discoveries. She was an inventor par excellence whose personal life sustained the price of dedicated scholarship. The reflections and contributions of Admiral Hopper can be found today throughout our information industry. Just as we now develop new software or design new data chips, Admiral Hopper discovered the path to wide-spread usability from "debugging" software to developing the software engineering disciplines necessary to carry out today's demand for information. Her belief in decentralization opened new thought-provoking collaborative models that have both leap-frogged the advancement of technologies and, ironically, added to the many challenges we face today in managing the application of such new technologies. Reflections and Impact: From Mathematician to Professor, to Programmer, to Icon The many contributions of Admiral Hopper are well discussed in Kurt Beyer's 2009 work published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age. Among these contributions is debugging, a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware, to make it behave as expected. The terms "bug" and "debugging" were popularly attributed to Admiral Hopper in the 1940s. While she was working on a Mark II Computer at Harvard University, her associates discovered a moth stuck in a relay, thereby impeding operation; thereupon she remarked that they were "debugging" the system. Sub-routines, as the name "subprogram" suggests, behave in much the same way as a computer program used as one step in a larger program or another subprogram. A subroutine is often coded so that it can be started ("called") several times and/or from several places during a single execution of the program, including from other subroutines, and then branch back (return) to the next instruction after the "call" once its task is done. Sub-routines today can be found in many object-oriented programming development models known as classes which represent real world activities and objects. More famously, Admiral Hopper had a strong belief in decentralized management--a process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the users of software applications. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors like engineering, management science, political science, political economy, sociology and economics. Decentralization has enormous significance beyond software usage or computer governance. It is fundamental to contemporary organizational systems development and the structures and substructures of institutional life, including universities and research institutions. …


Info 2020 This study was aimed to validate a digital tool for diagnosing mathematical proficiency in the Number and Algebra strand of 1,504 Thai seventh-grade students. Researchers employed a multidimensional approach, an extension of the Rasch model to measure its quality. A design-based research method was adopted to create the diagnostic tool which consists of four components, namely register system, input data, process system, and diagnostic feedback report. The diagnostic framework consists of 18 tasks encompassing 11 and 7 tasks in the Mathematical Procedures Dimension and Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome dimension, respectively. The results revealed that there is internal structure evidence of validity based on the comparison of model fit and the Wright map. The results also indicated that the reliability evidence and item fit are compliant with the quality of the digital tool as shown in the analysis of standard error of measurement and infit and outfit of the items. In conclusion, the developed digital tool can diagnose seventh-grade students' multiple mathematical proficiencies in terms of accuracy, consistency, and stability. This implies that the digital tool can provide fruitful information, particularly to those intermediate and high mathematical proficiency levels because the error for estimating proficiency in each dimension was at the lowest value for those


The present research examined the role of personality factors and paratextual information about the reliability of a story on its persuasiveness. Study 1 (N = 135) was focused on recipients' explicit expectations about the trustworthiness/usefulness and the immersiveness/entertainment value of stories introduced as nonfiction, fiction, or fake. Study 2 (experimental, N = 186) demonstrated that a story was persuasive in all three paratext conditions (nonfiction, fiction, or fake versus belief-unrelated control story) and that its influence increased with the recipients' need for affect. Participants' need for cognition increased the difference in persuasiveness of a nonfictional versus a fake story. Additional mediation analyses suggest that fiction is more persuasive than fake because readers of fiction get more deeply transported into the story world.


Calcium-permeable channels control intracellular calcium dynamics in both neuronal and nonneuronal cells to orchestrate sensory functions including pain. Calcium entering the cell throughout these channels is associated with transduction, transmission, processing, and modulation of pain signals. Clinic, genetic, biochemical, biophysical and pharmacological evidence points toward calcium-permeable channels as the key players in acute and persistent pain conditions. Ligand-gated calcium channels such as TRP channels or some subtypes of voltage-gated calcium channels shows abnormal functioning in persis- tent pain states. Also, NMDA receptors can be unlocked from their physiological Mg 2+ blockade under persisten pain states to culminate with central sensitization. The primary goal of this chapter is to present an overview of the functioning of different classes of calcium-permeable channels and how they become altered to modulate the sensation of pain in acute and chronic states. The most important evidence from classical and recent studies will be discussed trying to depict ways of modulating those channels as a strategy for better pain control.


Background: Utilization of primary health care services is an important determinant of health. Individuals who receive primary health care are generally healthier than those who do not. Despite the importance of primary health care use, there are many barriers to health care access that are experienced by populations in Arab countries. This study examined primary health-care use and accessibility among adolescents living in the United Arab Emirates. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, we collected primary health-care use, sociodemographic and residential data for 6363 local and expatriate adolescents. Analysis consisted of descriptive statistics, and bivariate and multivariate analyses. Logistic regression modelling was employed to examine predictors of health-care use, specifically 'not receiving care when needed', 'having a routine physical check-up without having a specific problem', and 'travelling for medication or treatment to other countries'. Results: The most-consulted health professionals were dentists or orthodontists, family doctors and eye specialists. Local adolescents were more likely to attend public clinics or hospitals than private clinics or hospitals, while the opposite was true for expatriate adolescents. In the last 12 months 22.6% of participants had not obtained needed health care, and 19.5% had not had a routine physical health check-up. Common reasons for not obtaining care were busy schedules, dislike/fear of doctors and long waiting times. Predictors of not obtaining needed care included nationality and income, while those for having a routine check-up were mother's education and car ownership. Conclusions: Improvements to the health-care sector are needed in order to increase health-care accessibility among adolescents.


In this paper, we have studied study the size effects of the ferroelectric nanotube phase diagrams and polar properties allowing for effective surface tension and depolarization field influence. The approximate analytical expression for the paraelectric-ferroelectric transition temperature dependence on the radii of nanotube, polarization gradient coefficient, extrapolation length, surface tension and electrostriction coefficient was derived. It was shown that the transition temperature could be higher than the one of the bulk material for negative electrostriction coefficient. Therefore we predict conservation and enhancement of polarization in long ferroelectric nanotubes. Obtained results explain the observed ferroelectricity conservation and enhancement in Pb (Zr, Ti) O3 and BaTiO3 nanotubes.


Apical dominance, internode elongation, radial growth and xylem cell size in coppice and apical shoots of Betula pubescens B. Pendula were determined and related to endogenous indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) levels, measured by gas chromatography-selected ion monitoring in the apical bud and at three positions along the stem. The effects of defoliation and debudding on morphological and anatomical characters and endogenous IAA levels were also investigated. The coppice shoots displayed superior stem elongation and increased branching during the initial phase of growth, after which their growth pattern was similar to that of the seedlings; however, their radial growth was greater throughout the experiment. Both plant types produced smaller-sized xylem cells at the top of the shoot than at the bottom with coppice shoots tending to form larger tracheids and smaller vessels than the seedlings. There was no consistent difference in IAA concentration between the coppice shoots and the seedlings. Defoliation and debudding reduced the IAA level in the stem within 36 h and it was still low after 25 days. Although the extent of the IAA decrease was similar in both coppice shoots and seedlings, the treatments affected the morphological and anatomical characters differently in the two plant types. The results suggest that the observed differences between seedlings and coppice shoots were not mediated through a drastic change in IAA level.


Sampling based motion planning methods have been highly successful in solving many high degree of freedom motion planning problems arising in diverse application domains such as traditional robotics, computer-aided design, and computational biology and chemistry. Recent work in metrics for sampling based planners provide tools to analyze the model building process at three levels of detail: sample level, region level, and global level. These tools are useful for comparing the evolution of sampling methods, and have shown promise to improve the process altogether [15], [17], [24].Here, we introduce a filtering strategy for the Probabilistic Roadmap Methods (PRM) with the aim to improve roadmap construction performance by selecting only the samples that are likely to produce roadmap structure improvement. By measuring a new sample's maximum potential structural improvement with respect to the current roadmap, we can choose to only accept samples that have an adequate potential for improvement. We show how this approach can improve the standard PRM framework in a variety of motion planning situations using popular sampling techniques.


OBJECTIVES
To assess the implementation of the Universal "Chispitas®" Multimicronutrient Supplement Program in Apurimac by determining the quantity and quality of sachets consumed and their connection with anemia, in 6 - 35-month-old children.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A crosscut study was conducted by using a multistage sample in 2010. Anemia was considered to be related to altitude-adjusted hemoglobin values below 110 g/L. The consumption of multimicronutrients was classified as follows: less than 30; 30 to 59, and 60 or more sachets. The quality of consumption was considered to be adequate when the mother indicated that the child ate all his food with the supplement. The rationale for prevalence (RPa) adjusted by Poisson regression was calculated.

RESULTS
714 participants were included, 25.3% of which lived in poor houses and 59.2% in extreme poverty; 52.6% lived at over 3000 m of altitude. The prevalence of anemia was 51.3% (CI95%: 47.1-55.4%), 5.4% did not receive intervention; 60.3% consumed 60 or more sachets and 49.0% consumed them adequately. No association between the number of sachets received or consumed and anemia (p<0.05) was found. Children who consumed the supplement adequately showed lower prevalence of anemia than those who did not (RPa: 0.81; CI95%: 0.68-0.96)

CONCLUSIONS
In order to reduce the prevalence of anemia, attention should not only focus on giving or consuming the necessary quantity of multimicronutrients, but also on ensuring that the consumption process is adequate, and work needs to be done in this area in order to improve this intervention.


Vehicular ad hoc Networks (VANETs), self-organized networks based on
short-range wireless technologies, aim at improving road safety and
providing comfort and entertainment applications. The Car2Car
Communication Consortium is defining a European standard for inter-
vehicle communication that adopts VANETs principles. This document
specifies requirements for Route Optimization techniques for usage of
Network Mobility (NEMO) in VANETs as identified by the Consortium.


Background Suicidal behaviour is common in acute psychiatric wards resulting in distress, and burden for patients, carers and society. Although psychological therapies for suicidal behaviour are effective in out-patient settings, there is little research on their effectiveness for in-patients who are suicidal. Aims Our primary objective was to determine whether cognitive–behavioural suicide prevention therapy (CBSP) was feasible and acceptable, compared with treatment as usual (TAU) for in-patients who are suicidal. Secondary aims were to assess the impact of CBSP on suicidal thinking, behaviours, functioning, quality of life, service use, cost-effectiveness and psychological factors associated with suicide. Method A single-blind pilot randomised controlled trial comparing TAU to TAU plus CBSP in in-patients in acute psychiatric wards who are suicidal (the Inpatient Suicide Intervention and Therapy Evaluation (INSITE) trial, trial registration: ISRCTN17890126). The intervention consisted of TAU plus up to 20 CBSP sessions, over 6 months continuing in the community following discharge. Participants were assessed at baseline and at 6 weeks and 6 months post-baseline. Results A total of 51 individuals were randomised (27 to TAU, 24 to TAU plus CBSP) of whom 37 were followed up at 6 months (19 in TAU, 18 in TAU plus CBSP). Engagement, attendance, safety and user feedback indicated that the addition of CBSP to TAU for in-patients who are acutely suicidal was feasible and acceptable while on in-patient wards and following discharge. Economic analysis suggests the intervention could be cost-effective. Discussion Psychological therapy can be delivered safely to patients who are suicidal although modifications are required for this setting. Findings indicate a larger, definitive trial should be conducted. Declaration of interest The trial was hosted by Greater Manchester Mental health NHS Trust (formerly, Manchester Mental Health and Social Care NHS Trust). The authors are affiliated to the University of Manchester, Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust, Lancashire Care NHS Foundation trust and the Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre. Y.A. is a trustee for a North-West England branch of the charity Mind.


Anterior inferior cerebellar artery (AICA) aneurysms are rare lesions with a predisposition for distal location and non-saccular morphology.1,2 These aneurysms are less amenable to clipping and may instead require aneurysm trapping with bypass.3 This video reports a novel bypass for a ruptured, fusiform distal AICA aneurysm. A 51-yr-old woman with newly diagnosed acquired immunodeficiency syndrome presented to the hospital with meningitis and experienced an acute neurological decline while admitted. Neuroimaging revealed a fusiform left a2-AICA aneurysm, thought to be mycotic with diffuse subarachnoid and intraventricular hemorrhage (Hunt-Hess Grade-IV). The occipital artery was harvested as an alternative donor in the myocutaneous flap using a hockey-stick incision. An extended retrosigmoid approach exposed the infectious aneurysm. After aneurysm excision, an a2-AICA-a2-AICA end-to-end reanastomosis was performed in between and deep to the vestibulocochlear nerves superiorly and the glossopharyngeal nerve inferiorly. Indocyanine green videoangiography and postoperative angiogram confirmed bypass patency. Postoperatively, she developed epidural and subdural hematomas due to human immunodeficiency virus-associated coagulopathy and/or increased aspirin sensitivity, requiring reoperation. The patient made a complete recovery at late follow-up. AICA reanastomosis is an elegant intracranial-intracranial bypass for treating distal AICA aneurysms. To our knowledge, this is the first report of AICA reanastomosis in the proximal a2-AICA (lateral pontine) segment. This technique has been reported in the literature for distally located aneurysms (a3-AICA).4 Microanastomosis for more medial AICA aneurysms must be performed deep to the lower cranial nerves. OA to a3-AICA bypass is an alternative in cases where primary reanastomosis is not technically feasible. (Published with permission from Barrow Neurological Institute).


This paper explores the evolving relationship between central banks and governments in the European monetary unification process. In particular, it focuses on the institution-building phase (setting up of the ECB) and the monetary and macro-economic policy mix within EMU. I attribute the undeniable success of the institution-building phase to an exceptional convergence of favourable facts and influences. Most importantly: the strong political commitment of the governments concerned; the trust placed in central bank experts in preparing the Maastricht Treaty; the incremental momentum resulting from the tight timetable; and, last but not least, the prevailing macro-economic conditions. As for the monetary and macro-economic policy mix, it is argued that in the run-up to achieving EMU the convergence criteria spelled out by the Maastricht Treaty proved a very effective tool in aligning national policies and in consolidating central bank independence (which became, in fact, the "sixth" convergence criterion, conditioning access to EMU). However, since the late 1990s, this delicate balance seems to have become rather less secure for mainly three reasons: the weakening restraint of politicians with regards to monetary policymaking; the worsening performance of the economy in the euro area; and the fact that economic union continues to lag monetary union, particularly with respect to micro or supply side reforms.