The study of the hydrological budget of mountainous river basins requires the understanding of the annual cycle of snow accumulation and melting. In fact a deep knowledge of snow cover distribution and dynamic offers several possibilities to improve water resource management and exploitation. The implemented model reproduces an energetic budget of the snowy mantle at small scales using DEM resolution. The use of a distributed model accounts for the high time-space variability of meteorological factors, such as precipitation, air temperature and solar radiation, whose fields at soil level are reconstructed from spot measurements through interpolation procedures based on the topography of the river basin. The modelled variables are the snow water equivalent (SWE) and the discharge generated by the snowmelt while the mechanics of the snowy mantle like thickness and density are not considered. At the same time the simplified degree day method, that uses only air temperature as an index to melt is also implemented and compared. The propagation of melting water inside the snowy mantle is modelled through the conceptual linear reservoir approach; the outflow from snowy mantle is propagated as superficial run-off to the closing section of the river basin through the Muskingum-Cunge hydrological model. The basin of the river Po closed at the section of Ponte Becca is studied in the simulation; it covers a surface of approximately 38000 km. The simulation ranges from winter 2004 to spring 2005. The modelled snow cover over the catchment is compared with estimation from satellite, derived using the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI), concurring to the validation of the model.


Urban/community forestry programs in Utah, U.S., were studied; a questionnaire was sent to community forestry contacts in every incorporated community in the state in summer 2002. Respondents reported on program support, budget, management authority and practices, strengths and weaknesses, and training and information needs. Program support from residents, town officials, and employees was fairly strong, with 80% indicating some support. One-quarter of towns have a tree board and celebrate Arbor Day. Towns obtain assistance from nurseries or tree care businesses, Extension, and state forestry, in that order. Two-thirds of communities have a tree-related budget, with a mean budget of US$44,000 and a median budget of $3,000, averaging $2.58 per resident and $25.16 per tree. Total budget generally increased with population, but the smallest towns had the largest per capita and per tree budgets. Most towns spend enough to qualify for Tree City USA's requirement of $2 per capita. The ratio of spending for maintenance versus planting increased from 0.6 for small towns to 4.1 for larger cities. Just under two-thirds of communities have forestry programs. The average number of public trees per town is about 2,300 (median 150), with numbers of trees increasing as population increased, but with trees per capita generally decreasing as population increased, ranging from 0.21 to 0.43 trees per person.


BACKGROUND
Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is an endothelium-derived vasoactive peptide with mitogenic properties. In vitro, vascular release of ET-1 is increased in response to mechanical stress. The goal of the present study was to examine whether ET-1 is released from human atherosclerotic coronary arteries in vivo in response to mechanical pressure and stretch and to characterize immunoreactivity for ET-1 and its precursor, big ET-1, within the atheromatous plaque.

METHODS AND RESULTS
Circulating ET-1 levels were measured in 20 patients before and after coronary angioplasty for stable angina at three sampling sites: the femoral artery and the coronary artery segments proximal and distal to the lesion dilated. In addition, atheromatous tissue obtained from 20 patients undergoing directional coronary atherectomy for stable angina were analyzed for immunoreactivity for ET-1 and big ET-1. In patients undergoing angioplasty, ET-1 levels in the distal coronary artery increased after balloon dilatation (8.4 +/- 0.9 to 16.4 +/- 2 pg/mL, P < .05); proximal coronary artery and systemic ET-1 levels were unchanged. The degree of mechanical stress applied (product of duration and pressure of balloon inflation) correlated with the change in distal coronary artery ET-1 levels (r = .71, P < .01). Immunoreactivity for big ET-1 and ET-1 was ubiquitous in the extracellular space and the intracellular compartment (macrophages, myointimal cells, myofibroblasts, and endothelial cells) of human coronary atheromatous tissue.

CONCLUSIONS
Big ET-1 and ET-1 immunoreactivity is ubiquitous within the intracellular and extracellular compartments of coronary atherosclerotic tissue. ET-1 is released from these sites in response to mechanical stress. These findings support a role for endothelins in the evolution and progression of coronary atherosclerosis in humans.


We report a steady decrease in the upper stratospheric and lower mesospheric abundances of hydrogen chloride (HCl) from August 2004 through January 2006, as measured by the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) aboard the Aura satellite. For 60°S to 60°N zonal means, the average yearly change in the 0.7 to 0.1 hPa (∼50 to 65 km) region is −27 ± 3 pptv/year, or −0.78 ± 0.08 percent/year. This is consistent with surface abundance decrease rates (about 6 to 7 years earlier) in chlorine source gases. The MLS data confirm that international agreements to reduce global emissions of ozone‐depleting industrial gases are leading to global decreases in the total gaseous chlorine burden. Tracking stratospheric HCl variations on a seasonal basis is now possible with MLS data. Inferred stratospheric total chlorine (ClTOT) has a value of 3.60 ppbv at the beginning of 2006, with a (2‐sigma) accuracy estimate of 7%; the stratospheric chlorine loading has decreased by about 43 pptv in the 18‐month period studied here. We discuss the MLS HCl measurements in the context of other satellite‐based HCl data, as well as expectations from surface chlorine data. A mean age of air of ∼ 5.5 years and an age spectrum width of 2 years or less provide a fairly good fit to the ensemble of measurements.


In line with Jean Piaget's conservation concepts and Lawrence Kohlberg's work on gender constancy, a study was conducted among Filipino preschoolers to determine the development of their gender constancy and determine the relationship between gender constancy and genital knowledge. Age and gender differences were also determined. The 87 preschoolers, aged 3-5 years old, from three laboratory schools completed the following tests: the Own-gender constancy test, Other-Gender Con- stancy test, and the Genital Knowledge test. For own-gender constancy, sex was a significant variable. The mean score of male preschoolers was higher than female preschoolers. For other-gender constancy, age was a significant variable. There was a difference in mean scores across the three age groups. There was a positive but low correlation between own-gender constancy scores and other-gender constancy scores. This relationship was also observed for other-gender constancy and genital knowl- edge.


The resources required to acquire high quality scientific data in a marine environment can be great. The complication of acquiring data from a platform which pitches, rolls and heaves makes the challenge even greater. The variability of the weather and sea conditions, along with equipment failures, seemingly conspire against the marine scientist. There is a great need for good quality-control measures, accurate electronic record keeping, and effective voyage management at sea if a good outcome from an expensive sea voyage is to be expected.

Typically, the plethora of navigation, data acquisition, quality control, Geographical Information Systems and databases used at sea on the world's research vessels do not allow an intuitive, holistic, spatial and temporal view of real-time data. "How close are we to the ship track from our last visit to the region?" or "What was the deployment depth of the instrument when we were last at this site two years ago?" are typical questions asked by those undertaking research far from shore. Answering these questions like these, in a timely manner, using systems commonly used on research vessels can be difficult.

This study explored the combination of an open-source spatio-temporal DataBase Management System (DBMS) and Keyhole Markup Language (KML), creating a framework for the storage and exploration of real-time spatio-temporal data at sea. The framework supported multiple concurrent users using Virtual Globe browsers. This study created a methodology, which resulted in a functional software tool, MARVIN, using open-source software.

Empirical and modelled datasets were used in conjunction with MARVIN, both at sea and in the laboratory. MARVIN was found to be able to provide a simple and intuitive 4D (3D + time) real-time view of spatio-temporal datasets, as they were collected at sea.

The key combination of a spatio-temporal DBMS and KML, offered a robust solution for the storage of real-time data, undertaking of Geographical Information System (GIS) operations, and streaming of data to multiple clients, running Virtual Globe browsers such as Google Earth. The techniques implemented also support existing navigation, GIS, and numeric modelling software commonly used on modern research vessels.


Abstract An experimental and numerical investigation has been conducted to examine the effectiveness of gas/liquid mist as a means of cooling the Electra hibachi structure. The aim is to quantify the effect of various operating and design parameters, viz. gas/liquid combination, gas velocity, liquid mass fraction, liquid atomization nozzle design (i.e. spray geometry, cone angle, and droplet size distribution), and heat flux on mist cooling effectiveness. The data are used to validate a mechanistic model which can be used to predict the hibachi foil's response under prototypical pulsed operating conditions. A fully-instrumented experimental test facility has been designed and constructed. The facility includes three electrically-heated test sections, including a channel with prototypical Electra hibachi dimensions. Water is used as the mist liquid, with air, or helium, as the carrier gas. Three mist generating nozzles with significantly different spray characteristics are used. Values of the local heat transfer coefficient along the channel surface are measured for a wide range of operating conditions. The data indicate that mist cooling can increase the heat transfer coefficients by nearly an order of magnitude compared to forced convection using only the carrier gas. Comparison has been made between the data and predictions of a mechanistic three-dimensional computer program for transient two-phase flow in the channel coupled with heat conduction in the surrounding structure; excellent agreement has been obtained. The results indicate that gas/liquid mist can effectively cool the Electra hibachi structure within the design constraints imposed on circulating power requirements.


The need for extended bandwidth in cable communications systems is obvious. The rapid growth of cable systems in the U.S.A. is encouraging the proliferation of program services for cable distribution. The tree structured broad-band nature of cable systems means that capacity must be provided for all of the service to be distributed irrespective of relative popularity. Cable losses follow a square root of frequency law which makes bandwidth extension attractive as a means of increasing channel capacity. Reducing the number of amplifiers in cascade and the use of coherent carrier systems makes it possible for extended bandwidth cable systems to handle the additional channel loading with no more distortion than in present 35 channel systems.


Tomorrow will get better is a graphite drawing and laser-cut paper series of homes destroyed by various natural and man-made disasters. The images become ephemeral portraits of the houses that artist Matthew Cox has been "collecting" and using as drawing subjects. He describes them as characters in a narrative, similar to a gothic noir film. This series exhibits the final moments of a home before it is sent to a landfill, a premature burial that no one ever expects. Cox suggests that a relationship between the house and its inhabitants develops and evolves through daily events that take place within the confines of a home. A tragic event will jeopardize the physical stability of the home, resulting in the emotional instability of its inhabitants. The home has the potential to live and die just like its inhabitants, instead of remaining a solid structure built to survive through generations. A home develops character from its exterior surroundings as well as from its interior dialogue with the characters, who create a bond through memories and interactions. What are our attachments to our physical surroundings? How do they strengthen or weaken us? Houses, taken for granted as private property with equity and security, have the potential to reveal our vulnerability when their stability is subtracted from our lives.


The World's largest industrial sector, Electronics, is facing twin challenges arising from the transition to environmentally-benign solder alloys and the necessity to maintain structural integrity and reliability in the face of continuing miniaturisation. This book is probably the first to address the situation from a multidisciplinary teaching perspective. The authors' expertise in Materials, Electronics Manufacture and Design are integrated throughout to establish a common platform and language for practitioners from the many fields involved. Communication is facilitated by a dual-level of presentation of the subject principles and the latest developments in industry and in research. Electronic routes for monitoring current and future progress are also provided. The book will appeal both to specialists wanting to update or increase their appreciation of related topics, and the generalist seeking relevant applications. It represents a major contribution to the field.


Background: The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program is a federal public health initiative which supports at-risk families through evidence-based programs and promising approaches for pregnant women, and childhood development for children aged 0 to 5. These public health program funding mechanisms commonly include process evaluation mandates. Purpose: The use of process mining was explored as a methodology to assess the fidelity of the MIECHV programs' actual workflow to that of their intended models. Methods: Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) data files that were populated with program process data elements from the local implementing agencies were mined. The focus was on three main variables: participant identification, activity labels, and timestamps. These variables were imported into the Disco process-mining software. Disco was used to develop process maps to track process pathways and compare the actual workflow against the intended model. Results: Using process mining as a diagnostic tool, fidelity to the MIECHV process model was assessed, identifying a total of 262 different process variations. The 15 most frequent variations represent 60.7% of the total pool of process variations, 13 of which were deemed to have fidelity to the intended model. Analysis of the variations indicated that many activities in the intended process were skipped or implemented out of sequence. Implications: Process mining is a useful tool for organizations to visually display, track, understand, compare, and improve their workflow processes. This method should be considered by programs as complex as MIECHV to improve the data reporting and the identification of opportunities to strengthen programs.


In recent works, the use of phone class-conditional posterior probabilities (posterior features) directly as features provided successful results in template-based ASR systems. In this paper, motivated by the high quality of current text-to-speech systems and the robustness of posterior features toward undesired variability, we investigate the use of synthetic speech to generate reference templates. The use of synthetic speech in template-based ASR not only allows to address the issue of in-domain data collection but also expansion of vocabulary. On 75- and 600-word task-independent and speaker-independent setup of Phonebook corpus, we show the feasibility of this approach by investigating different synthetic voices produced by HTS-based synthesizer trained on two different databases. Our study shows that synthetic speech templates can yield performance comparable to the natural speech templates, especially with synthetic voices that have high intelligibility.


Humpback whales produce prolonged vocalizations consisting of long fixed patterns of sound—elements of which are repeated with characteristic accuracy. The first known hydrophone recordings of these songs were made in 1952, but no objective technique of song classification is widely established. Toward this aim, an artificial neural network algorithm for the extraction and description of basic sound units is being developed. Samples of whale songs are converted into sonogram matrices whose rows correspond to frequencies on a logarithmic scale and whose columns are elemental time slices. Matrix values are quantified sound energy levels. Data preprocessed in this way is used to train a self‐organizing feature mapping network which clusters the sounds into an ordered map of acoustic space. Comparison of the representative sound units extracted and encoded in this map is made with similar data (i) classified using human visual and aural impressions and (ii) traditional statistical clustering algorithms.


Abstract Objective To assess the socioeconomic, geographical and demographic inequities in the use of postnatal health-care services in low- and middle-income countries. Methods We searched Medline, Embase and Cochrane Central databases and grey literature for experimental, quasi-experimental and observational studies that had been conducted in low- and middle-income countries. We summarized the relevant studies qualitatively and performed meta-analyses of the use of postnatal care services according to selected indicators of socioeconomic status and residence in an urban or rural setting. Findings A total of 36 studies were included in the narrative synthesis and 10 of them were used for the meta-analyses. Compared with women in the lowest quintile of socioeconomic status, the pooled odds ratios for use of postnatal care by women in the second, third, fourth and fifth quintiles were: 1.14 (95% confidence interval, CI : 0.96–1.34), 1.32 (95% CI: 1.12–1.55), 1.60 (95% CI: 1.30–1.98) and 2.27 (95% CI: 1.75–2.93) respectively. Compared to women living in rural settings, the pooled odds ratio for the use of postnatal care by women living in urban settings was 1.36 (95% CI: 1.01–1.81). A qualitative assessment of the relevant published data also indicated that use of postnatal care services increased with increasing level of education. Conclusion In low- and middle-income countries, use of postnatal care services remains highly inequitable and varies markedly with socioeconomic status and between urban and rural residents.


The general goal of this study is to assess the impacts on women's economic and social participation of a peer-to-peer training program in Canete Province, Peru. We use a quasi-experimental methodology applied to treatment and control groups. The study evaluates three areas of potential effects: (i) participation and returns from economic activities (use of time, labour market participation, family business, savings); (ii) indicators of women's autonomy, family cohesion and social participation; and (iii) living standards. The impacts we found are mixed. We only detected robust impacts on the propensity to engage in savings and participate in local social organizations by treated women. The channels behind these impacts require more specific research, but we hypothesize that it may be related to expanded social networking. We observe a few specific impacts related to autonomy (negative) and family cohesion (positive), which can be linked to the religious nature of the program. We evaluate differentiated effects by some features of the treatment group as self-assessment of economic usefulness by women as well as trainers' education and age. In terms of policy, we consider that peer-to-peer programs of this type may have limited impacts in terms of broad development goals like increased income, labour participation and business activity by women, but these can also show some advantages for expanding women's social networking and access to savings and local organizations. Improved peer-to-peer programs more clearly linked to the economic advancement of women may be more efficient in achieving broader development goals.


The area of metamaterials may expand to find application in mechanics, acoustics, and thermodynamics. So far, the field of metamaterials has largely dealt with negative refractive indices in optics and invisibility cloaks (1–3). However, the underlying idea of designing material properties is not that narrow. More broadly, one rationally designs a subwavelength unit cell from existing constituent materials and (periodically) arranges it into an artificial solid. The properties of that solid are then determined by structure rather than chemistry and can be tailored, extreme, or even qualitatively unprecedented. Rational design is the key and makes metamaterials a rather particular class of composite materials.


Received 27.02.2013 Accepted 10.06.2013 Published 04.11.2013 The upward movement of water by capillary rise from shallow water-table to the root zone is an important incoming flux. For determining exact amount of irrigation requirement, estimation of capillary flux or upward flux is essential. Simulation model can provide a reliable estimate of upward flux under variable soil and climatic conditions. In this study, the performance of model UPFLOW to estimate upward flux was evaluated. Evaluation of model performance was performed with both graphical display and statistical criteria. In distribution of simulated capillary rise values against observed field data, maximum data points lie around the 1:1 line, which means that the model output is reliable and reasonable. The coefficient of determination between observed and simulated values was 0.806 (r = 0.93), which indicates a good inter-relation between observed and simulated values. The relative error, model efficiency, and index of agreement were found as 27.91%, 85.93% and 0.96, respectively. Considering the graphical display of observed and simulated upward flux and statistical indicators, it can be concluded that the overall performance of the UPFLOW model in simulating actual upward flux from a crop field under variable water-table condition is satisfactory. Thus, the model can be used to estimate capillary rise from shallow water-table for proper estimation of irrigation requirement, which would save valuable water from over-irrigation. Capillary rise Shallow water-table Groundwater contribution Evapotranspiration Wheat Simulation model Journal of Natural Resources and Development 2013; 03: 123-127 123


Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) seeds, grown in Malaysia, were investigated.
Effects of drying and boiling-drying of the seeds on the proximate analysis, minerals,
amino acids content, vitamins, polyphenols and antioxidant activity were studied.
Effect of dried roselle seeds (DRS), on lipid profiles of rats induced
hypercholesterolemia was also conducted. Protein, lipids and dietary fiber were
found to be high in all the seeds studied. Raw (RRS), dried (DRS) and boiled seeds
(BRS) contained 57.3%, 9.9% and 9.8% moisture; 35.4%, 33.5% and 30.6% protein;
27.2%, 22.1% and 29.6% lipids; 2.3%, 13.0% and 4.0% available carbohydrate;
25.5%, 18.3%, and 19.2% total dietary fibers and 7.4%, 7.5% and 6.6% ash,
respectively. There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in protein, lipid and
carbohydrate contents between treated and raw seeds. The predominant inorganic
elements in the seeds were potassium (99 – 109 mg/100 g), magnesium (26 – 28
mg/100 g) and calcium (24 – 31 mg/100 g). The total dietary fiber of the seeds was
considerable with the best ratio between soluble and insoluble ranging from 1.2 to 3.3. The study detected 17 essential and non-essential amino acids. The seeds were
rich in lysine (14 – 15 g/100 g), arginine (30 – 35 g/100 g), leucine (15.4-18.6 g/100
g), phenylalanine (11 – 12 g/100 g) and glutamic acid (21 – 24 g/100 g). Sulphur
containing amino acids, cystine (4.04 - 5.32 g/100 g protein) and methionine (2.50-
3.96 g/100 g protein) were the limiting amino acids of the seeds powder. Vitamin A
content in DRS was (99.97 ± 2.99 μg retinol), followed by BRS (87.73 ± 0.49 μg
retinol) and RRS (69.38 ± 0.36 μg retinol). BRS was found to contain the highest
vitamin E value (0.19 ± 0.05 mg/g sample), followed by DRS (0.19 ± 3.20 mg/g
sample) and RRS (0.07 ± 0.78 mg/g sample). Phenolic content for RRS, DRS and
BRS were 105.6 ± 0.49, 39.6 ± 0.12 and 28.5 ± 0.61 mg/g sample, expressed as
gallic acid equivalents (GAE), respectively. The total ferulic acids in RRS, BRS and
DRS were 17.99 ± 0.29 mg/g, 1.96 ± 0.60 mg/g and 1.25 ± 0.62 mg/g samples,
respectively. Methanolic extracts of DRS and BRS exhibited high antioxidant
activity compared with ethanolic and n-butanolic extracts. β-carotene bleaching
assay resulted in higher antioxidant activity in DRS compared to BRS powder in
methanolic, ethanolic and n-butanolic extracts. In contrast, scavenging activitiy of
BRS was found to be significantly higher than DRS. Significant differences (p <
0.05) were found among the following three extracts with values in the descending
order of 80% methanol > absolute ethanol > n-butanol. In in-vivo study to determine
the effect on lipid profile, 20 males Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into
4 groups and fed with four different diets, respectively. The rats were fed with
normal, hypercholesterol, hypercholesterol + 5% (w/w) DRS and hypercholesterol +
15% (w/w) DRS diets, respectively. Treatments were given for a total of 6 weeks. Results indicated that the addition of 5% and 15% DRS had significantly lowered
(p<0.05) the total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)
levels. However, there were no significant differences in triglyceride level.
Furthermore, there was no significant increase in high density lipoprotein cholesterol
(HDL-C) levels, with addition of DRS. In conclusion, findings indicated that the
nutritional values of treated roselle seeds for human consumption are still
considerable when compared to raw seeds. Nutritional benefits of raw and treated
roselle seeds revealed that these seeds are promising with a high source of proteins,
dietary fiber, essential amino acids and lipids. The present findings also indicated
that the addition of 5% and 15% DRS showed to have a potential
hypocholesterolemic effects.


Central nervous system-directed chemotherapy is a critical component of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatment, but is associated with long-term cognitive impairment. Because few strategies exist to identify children who are at risk for this adverse outcome, we employed global metabolomics to identify biomarkers of cognitive impairment using routinely collected, biologically relevant cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients undergoing ALL chemotherapy. Methods: CSF samples were collected at 4 months post-induction on pediatric ALL patients enrolled in a multicenter prospective study of symptom toxicity. Metabolomics of CSF detected 314 metabolites by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (MS) and liquid chromatography-MS/MS. Cognitive performance at 12 months post-induction was assessed with the validated Parent-Perceived Child Cognitive Function scale and categorized using published cut-points: mild (≥50), moderate (41–49), and severe (≤40). Ordinal logistic regression evaluated associations between normalized median-scaled metabolite values and cognitive function, adjusting for patient and treatment factors. A false discovery rate-corrected p-value (q) was calculated to account for multiple comparisons. Results: Among the 96 patients (diagnosed 2012–14), 43% exhibited moderate (n = 25) or severe (n = 16) cognitive impairment. Significant alterations were observed in several biomarkers, including methionine sulfoxide (Log2 Fold Change [FC] = 0.83, P = 5.2e−7, q = 0.001) and citramalate (FC = −0.29, P = 4.6e−5, q = 0.008). A pathway analysis of the top biomarkers (q < 0.3) revealed an enrichment of metabolites involved in methionine (P = 0.0015) and carnitine (P = 0.0052) metabolism. Finally, compared to clinical factors alone, CSF biomarkers significantly improved the ability to predict cognitively impaired patients (area under curve [AUC] = 0.68 vs. AUC = 0.91, P < 0.001). Conclusion: We identified several novel CSF biomarkers of treatment-related cognitive impairment among pediatric ALL patients. These findings may translate to clinical improvements in the management of cognitive outcomes by introducing the opportunity to deliver targeted interventions to high-risk patients prior to detectable or irreversible cognitive impairment.


At present, Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs) operating in onshore and offshore wind farms are primary sources of renewable energy around the world. Cylindrical grouted sleeve connections are usually adopted in these WTG structures to connect the upper structure and foundation for ease of installation. These structures including grouted connections experience considerable adverse loading during their lifetimes. Settlements were reported inside similar connections used in energy structures especially oil and gas platforms, which were installed in last three decades. Thus, repair and rehabilitation of such connections in existing wind structures should also be planned ahead to keep them operating in the future. The nature of failure and crack generation in grouted connections are crucial prior to adopt a strengthening strategy. This pilot study is carried out to actualize the failure mechanism in the grouted connection, when subjected to axial loading. A novel reusable scaled cylindrical grouted connection with shear keys was designed and tested for its load bearing behaviour. The mechanical test was accompanied by classical measuring techniques (e.g. displacement transducer) as well as non-destructive measuring techniques (e.g. digital image correlation (DIC), acoustic emission analysis (AE)). The failure mechanism incorporating slippage of the shear keys and cracking of the grout was investigated. The capacity and applicability of such test mould were also discussed. The knowledge is expected to pave way towards repair of deteriorated grouted connections with similar geometry and failure pattern.


Immune checkpoint inhibitors benefit only some patients, perhaps due to exclusion of CTLs by the tumor microenvironment through CXCL12. Treatment with the CXCL12 inhibitor NOX-A12 enhanced infiltration of immune cells and overcame resistance to anti–PD-1 in a murine model. Immune checkpoint inhibitors promote T cell–mediated killing of cancer cells; however, only a subset of patients benefit from the treatment. A possible reason for this limitation may be that the tumor microenvironment (TME) is immune privileged, which may exclude cytotoxic T cells from the vicinity of cancer cells. The chemokine CXCL12 is key to the TME-driven immune suppression. In this study, we investigated the potential of CXCL12 inhibition by use of the clinical-stage l-RNA-aptamer NOX-A12 (olaptesed pegol) to increase the number of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. We used heterotypic tumor–stroma spheroids that mimic a solid tumor with a CXCL12-abundant TME. NOX-A12 enhanced the infiltration of T and NK cells in a dose-dependent manner. NOX-A12 and PD-1 checkpoint inhibition synergistically activated T cells in the spheroids, indicating that the agents complement each other. The findings were validated in vivo in a syngeneic murine model of colorectal cancer in which the addition of NOX-A12 improved anti–PD-1 therapy. Taken together, our work shows that CXCL12 inhibition can break the immune-privileged status of the TME by paving the way for immune effector cells to enter into the tumor, thereby broadening the applicability of checkpoint inhibitors in cancer patients. Cancer Immunol Res; 5(11); 950–6. ©2017 AACR.


The networked digital revolution is ushering in a new data-driven age, powered by the engine of Big Data. We generate a massive volume of digital data in our everyday lives via our on-line interactions, which can now be tracked on a continuous and highly granular basis. Being able to track this data has radically disrupted the retail sector through, amongst other things, digital personalisation. However, this is no longer limited to shopping recommendations and advertising delivered to our smartphones, laptops and other mobile devices, but may extend to the prices at which goods and services are offered to customers in on-line environments, making it possible for two individuals to be offered exactly the same product, at precisely the same time, but at different prices, based on an algorithmic assessment of each shopper's predicted willingness to pay. This is done by mining consumers' digital footprints, using machine learning algorithms to enable digital retailers to predict the price that individual consumers ('final end users') are willing to pay for particular items, and thus offer them different prices. This phenomenon, which we dub 'algorithmic consumer price discrimination' (ACPD) forms the focus of this paper.

The practice of price discrimination, which we define as "… charging different customers or different classes of customers different prices for goods or services whose costs are the same or, conversely, charging a single price to customers for whom supply costs differ…" is hardly a new phenomenon. Familiar forms include loyalty discounts, volume or multi-buy discounts, and the offering of status based discounts for students, old-age pensioners and the unemployed. However, the technological capacities of Big Data substantially enhance the ability of digital retailers to engage in much more precise, targeted and dynamic forms of price discrimination that were not previously possible.

There are many areas of law that might mount a response to rising public anxieties associated with these practices. Our paper examines ACPD from the perspective of competition law through which we seek to evaluate ACPD by reference to two contrasting normative values: economic efficiency, on the one hand, and fairness or equity on the other. Competition law provides a unique lens for interrogating the social implications of ACPD due to its distinctive character as a form of 'economic law' that is intended to protect and strengthen the process of rivalry in the marketplace. Although 'traditional' forms of price discrimination have long been the subject of economic analysis to evaluate whether they are economically efficient, algorithmic price discrimination has hitherto attracted relatively little critical analysis. As we demonstrate in Section 2, the incentives for firms to engage in ACPD often exist. We find that consumers are in the aggregate often better off, economically, when sellers can price discriminate in this way, thereby enhancing consumer surplus. However, this is not always the case. Furthermore, whether EU competition law is solely and exclusively concerned with economic efficiency, or whether it provides scope for non-efficiency based considerations in the application of its provisions, is a matter of debate. Accordingly, in Section 3 we evaluate ACPD by reference to its fairness or justice (which we also call equity) understood in three distinct (and sometimes overlapping) ways: (a) the perceived fairness of pricing practices; (b) unfair dealing between online retailers and consumers (corrective justice); and (c) fairness as a requirement of distributive (or collective) justice. For each of these understandings of fairness, we identify points of convergence and conflict with economic evaluations of the effects of ACPD on aggregate consumer welfare. No Article 102 cases have directly considered the legality of ACPD. Section 4 therefore interrogates existing Article 102 case law to ascertain whether ACPD would likely breach this provision. Because the current legal position is unclear, Section 5 draws together the efficiency and fairness evaluations by considering whether ACPD should be regarded as unlawful under EU competition law. We argue that where ACPD increases both consumer surplus and fairness, it should not breach Article 102. Conversely, where ACPD undermines both consumer welfare and fairness, then such practices should be unlawful under Article 102. However, because economic and fairness evaluations of ACPD may conflict in specific cases, Section 5 also considers whether, in the light of the underlying justifications for EU competition law and the EU's foundational principles, ACPD should be considered a violation of Article 102 where it undermines justice or equity, even though it may enhance consumer surplus, and vice versa. We deal with the clashes between these goals in two ways: first, we offer a partial reconciliation between these goals, by supplementing conventional economic analysis with insights from behavioural economics, thus enabling some fairness considerations that affect consumer welfare to be taken into account. Secondly, we suggest that fairness should have a secondary role when Article 102 is applied to ACPD, in the form of a 'defence' to an allegation of abuse of market power. On our suggested account, ACPD which reduces consumer surplus may nonetheless avoid falling foul of Article 102 if it can be justified on grounds of fairness. Section 6 concludes, suggesting that EU competition law may have a valuable but limited role to play in redressing some of the adverse impacts of ACPD, primarily by focusing on the consumer welfare effects of ACPD, and in which considerations of fairness and justice play a relevant, but nonetheless subsidiary, role. Competition law cannot, and should not, seek to solve all the social problems associated with market behaviour, including data-driven forms of personalised pricing.


Using declassified colonial and British records in Hong Kong and London, as well as memoirs of former leftists and newspapers, this article explores the strategies the Hong Kong colonial government employed in a propaganda campaign to garner political support of the rural population in the New Territories, a porous land frontier during the Cold War. It also analyses the varying political orientations of migrant farmers, who often had received economic benefits from both the colonial government and the leftist organizations. This article reveals that the colonial government established the Vegetable Marketing Organization (VMO), a state-owned enterprise, to first nationalize the vegetable wholesale market in the immediate post-war period, and subsequently used it to combat increasing political influence and anti-government activities of the communist-controlled Society of Plantations. Despite the improvement of the livelihood of immigrant farmers, the VMO Scheme failed to out-compete the Society economically, which was ultimately eliminated by draconian measures. Through studying the agrarian politics and economic contestations in Hong Kong's rural area, this article provides a lens on how the Cold War was played out at a village level in East Asia.


This study addresses the compromise skills that are taught to students diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and related social and communication deficits. A private school in the southeastern United States implemented an emergence theory-based curriculum to address these skills, yet no formal analysis was conducted to determine its effectiveness. Guided by cognitive development and constructivist theories, a concurrent, mixed methods, case study design was used to investigate the impact of this curriculum on teaching compromise skills to middle school students with ASD and related deficits. For the qualitative sequence, teacher observations and compromise interventions from eight participants were open coded and analyzed thematically. The frequency of each thematic occurrence was analyzed using descriptive statistics. For the quantitative sequence, an ANCOVA and descriptive statistics were used to analyze posttest scores between a treatment group that used emergence theory-based curriculum and a control group, while controlling for pretest scores. Three most frequently occurring themes emerged regarding teachers' need (a) to understand the cognitive deficits exhibited by students, (b) for further instruction in emergence theory-based curriculum, and (c) for opportunities to plan lessons together using emergence theory. Moreover, the ANCOVA revealed a significant interaction between the pretest scores and the curriculum used. This study indicated that importance for remediating cognitive deficits related to compromise within the population of students with ASD and improving educator understanding and success in working with this student population.


The plot of log(mobility) vs. gel concentration for polystyrene particles of 26.9 and 44.2 nm radius in 30% Bis‐crosslinked polyacrylamide below 2.2 %T, containing 22.5% Metrizamide and 6 M urea, is convex. The convex plots of the two particles are essentially parallel. This parallelism suggests a retardation by a mechanism other than sieving. The parallel plots cover a range of polyacrylamide concentrations characterized by progressive fluidity as %T is lowered below 2 %T. The convex curvature renders suspect the previous free mobility and valence determinations in polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis obtained by linear extrapolation of Ferguson plots to 0 %T. Nonlinear extrapolation to 0 % T of plots of log(mobility) vs. gel concentration in the concentration range below 2 %T of 30% Bis‐crosslinked polyacrylamide for the two polystyrene particles, corrected for the effects on mobilities of Metrizamide, urea and a lower ionic strength, provides free mobility values similar to those obtained under otherwise identical conditions on agarose gel electrophoresis.


Gene expression control in the pathogen Trypanosoma brucei relies almost exclusively on post-transcriptional mechanisms, so RNA binding proteins must assume the burden that is usually borne by transcription factors. T. brucei multiply in the blood of mammals as bloodstream forms, and in the midgut of Tsetse flies as procyclic forms. We show here that a single RNA-binding protein, RBP10, defines the bloodstream-form trypanosome differentiation state. Depletion of RBP10 from bloodstream-form trypanosomes gives cells that can grow only as procyclic forms; conversely, expression of RBP10 in procyclic forms converts them to bloodstream forms. RBP10 binds to procyclic-specific mRNAs containing an UAUUUUUU motif, targeting them for translation repression and destruction. Products of RBP10 target mRNAs include not only the major procyclic surface protein and enzymes of energy metabolism, but also protein kinases and stage-specific RNA-binding proteins: consequently, alterations in RBP10 trigger a regulatory cascade.


It is crucial to promote axiality to enhance easy-axis magnetic anisotropy. Two mononuclear DyIII compounds, in which each DyIII is nine-coordinated, namely, [(C12H10N5O)Dy(NO3)2(H2O)2]·C2H5OH (1) and [(C12H10N5O)Dy(NO3)2(C2H5OH)2]·H2O (2) (HL = N3-(2-pyridoyl)-4-pyridinecarboxamidrazone), have been prepared through controlling the amount of C2H5OH and H2O solvents. Geometry modulations were realized by interchanging coordinated and lattice solvents, thus achieving a structure closer to the configuration of a capped square antiprism for 2 compared to that for 1. Notably, magnetic studies revealed that compound 1 displays no slow relaxation of magnetization while compound 2 exhibits single-molecule magnet (SMM) behaviour in the absence of a static magnetic field, with the highest energy barrier (203.11 K) of nine-coordinated DyIII SMMs. Ab initio calculations were performed to elucidate such a distinct performance, demonstrating that the combination of the larger charge distribution along the magnetic axis and the lower charge distribution in the equatorial plane generates a strong easy-axis ligand field to enhance magnetic properties, which is further associated with the structural symmetry. In addition, a possible coordination mode is proposed to realize high axis anisotropy for nine-coordinated DyIII compounds. This work presents an effective method to modulate the dynamic magnetic relaxation of the DyIII SMMs through interchange between coordinated and lattice solvents.


THE 20-FACTOR TEST is so vague that it often gives the Internal Revenue Service more trouble than it gives taxpayers. In a study of 202 court decisions on worker classification disputes, only 41% were rules in favor of the IRS. Source: Determination of the Employer-Employee Relationship: A Neural Network Approach to Macro-Case Analysis by Tina Steward Quinn, UMI Co., 1996. Legislation introduced in the 105th Congress as well as a Treasury Department proposal--has brought renewed hope for progress on the perennial problem of worker classification. The legislation, which builds on a recent proposal from the American Institute of CPAs, is sponsored by Senator Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) and Congressman James Talent (R-Mo.), the chairmen of the congressional small business committees. The Bond-Talent bill would establish objective criteria for determining when a worker is not an employee. By contrast, the Treasury proposal would create a second tier of safe-harbor protection under section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 to reduce certain retroactive tax liabilities. This article discusses both the Bond-Talent bill and the Treasury proposal and looks at each one's prospect for success in Congress. HELP FOR THE SELF-EMPLOYED The Bond-Talent worker classification legislation is part of a larger bill, the Home-Based Business Fairness Act of 1997 (S 460 and HR 1145), designed to benefit the self-employed. In addition to its worker classification provisions, the act would increase the medical insurance deduction for self-employed individuals to 100% of the premiums paid and expand the home office deduction. Section 4 of the legislation deals with worker classification by establishing criteria that create a "general" safe harbor for worker classification. A worker would be treated as an independent contractor if he or she meets either an economic and workplace independence test or an alternative business structure and fringe benefits test. Economic and workplace independence test. A worker must meet the following requirements to be treated as an independent contractor: 1. Each of the following criteria must be met: * The worker must be able to realize a profit or loss. * The worker must incur unreimbursed ordinary and necessary business expenses equal to or greater than 2% of his or her adjusted gross income (AGI) attributable to services performed. * The services must be for a specific time period or project. 2. Only one of the following requirements must be met: * The worker must have a principal place of business (a home office would qualify if used on a regular basis for essential business activities and the worker has no other place to perform these activities). * The worker does not perform most of his or her services at one recipient's facilities. * He or she pays market value rent for use of the service recipient's facilities. * He or she operates primarily with equipment not supplied by the service recipient. 3. The worker must have a written contract with the service recipient that says the worker will not be treated as an employee for federal tax purposes. Business structure and benefits test. Under this alternative, a worker would be considered an independent contractor if 1. He or she conducts business as a corporation or limited liability company. 2. The service provider receives no fringe benefits from the service recipient. 3. The parties have a written contract. The general safe harbor will not apply if the service recipient fails to meet the applicable reporting requirements through willful neglect. Other provisions of the bill shift the burden of proof to the Internal Revenue Service if the service recipient establishes a prima facie case that it was reasonable to treat the worker as an independent contractor and the service recipient has fully cooperated with the IRS. …


Local feature points have been widely investigated in solving problems in computer vision, such as robust matching and object detection. However, its investigation in the area of image hashing is still limited. In this paper, we propose a novel shape-contexts-based image hashing approach using robust local feature points. The contributions are twofold: 1) The robust SIFT-Harris detector is proposed to select the most stable SIFT keypoints under various content-preserving distortions. 2) Compact and robust image hashes are generated by embedding the detected local features into shape-contexts-based descriptors. Experimental results show that the proposed image hashing is robust to a wide range of distortions and attacks, due to the benefits of robust salient keypoints detection and the shape-contexts-based feature descriptors. When compared with the current state-of-the-art schemes, the proposed scheme yields better identification performances under geometric attacks such as rotation attacks and brightness changes, and provides comparable performances under classical distortions such as additive noise, blurring, and compression. Also, we demonstrate that the proposed approach could be applied for image tampering detection.


ABSTRACT Background and Aims Previous studies have shown that age of acquisition affects language production in persons with aphasia (PWA), specifically, earlier-acquired words are better preserved compared to later-learned ones (for review, see Brysbaert & Ellis, 2016). Also, it has been argued that naming objects with lower name agreement requires inhibition of alternative names (Alario et al., 2004), and therefore puts higher demands on cognitive control. Bose and Schafer (2017) showed that although both PWA and healthy controls performed better at naming words with high naming agreement, the difference between the naming conditions was significantly greater for PWA. This could be due to reduced ability to inhibit irrelevant information in PWA. The current study aims to investigate whether cognitive control mediates the effects of psycholinguistic variables on object naming accuracy in aphasia. Methods and Procedures Participants (N = 31, 32% female) were right-handed, native Russian speakers with preserved visual and hearing abilities diagnosed with mild to moderate post-stroke aphasia. They were aged 40–70 (mean = 59.5, SD = 8.6). The participants were tested on a picture-naming task including 247 items and 2 subtests from the Russian Birmingham Cognitive Screen, namely Auditory attention, and Rule Finding tasks. Outcomes and Results To define whether cognitive control mediates the effect of psycholinguistic variables on naming response accuracy, multiple linear regression was used. Significant main effects of log-transformed word frequency, AoA, and cognitive control were found, as well as a significant interaction between log-transformed word frequency and cognitive control. Conclusions Our findings suggest that cognitive control mediated the effect of word frequency in naming in aphasia. PWA with weaker cognitive control name pictures depicting less-frequent words less accurately than more frequent words. This points to the fact that PWA have difficulty in lexical access when producing language. The implications of the study are that the focus of aphasia rehabilitation should be on very frequent structures and words as these are usually more preserved in PWA with weaker cognitive control.


School-based sexual abuse prevention programmes were originally developed in the United States during the 1970s in response to prevalence findings which indicated extremely high rates of victimisation. This paper examines available literature on school-based prevention programmes in order to address three fundamental questions : (a) Are prevention programmes effective in reducing the incidence of sexual victimisation, (b) do prevention programmes have harmful side-effects, and (c) is a child-focused approach to primary prevention appropriate? The paper concludes with a critical evaluation of the relevance of available programmes for prevention efforts in the South African context.


Learning Styles Research: What Really Works A Review of Differentiating Instruction for At- Risk Students: What to Do and How to Do It Dunn, R., & Honigsfeld, A. (2009). Differentiating instruction for at-risk students: What to do and how to do it. Lanham, MD: Rowman and LittlefiekL To meet the needs of all learners, while improving student achievement, educators are encouraged to differentiate instruction. It is not uncommon to hear teachers comment that it is nearly impossible to use a differentiated approach on a daily basis due to time constraints, Rita Dunn and Andrea Honigs feld's book, Differentiating Instruction for At-Risk Students: What to Do and How to Do It, offers hands-on strategies for teaching the struggling student, Dunn and Honigsfeld's methods are grounded in the following definition of learning style:"the way in which each student begins to concentrate on, process, internalize, and remember new and difficult academic information" (p, 11), Teacher-friendly and visually appealing, the book offers scenarios, clear descriptions, and potential plans of action for working with diverse learners, At the beginning, the authors clearly identify which students are typically at risk and describe 21st century students as having significant, yet somewhat different, needs than students in the past. With an understanding that students of today possess a wide range of academic strengths and weaknesses , the authors outline suggestions for integrating learning- style-responsive approaches in meeting the needs of at-risk students. The strength of this book lies in the knowledge base that the authors share about understanding that students possess different ways of learning, often referred to as perceptual preferences, and may use them to improve academic achievement. For instance, knowing the differences and similarities between analytic and global learners can help to reshape the thinking, and ultimately the teaching approaches, of educators. The authors organize the instructional activities around perceptual differences and individual needs, rather than focusing on one technique or strategy standardization. The book is divided into 13 chapters with supportive appendices, In addition, the authors include a list of outstanding references that support the research base for learning styles. The programmed learning sequences are illustrated within Chapter 9 and exemplify the use of games as structured materials in which learning can occur in small increments. This games-based teaching approach most definitely benefits the at-risk child as well as the student with special needs or the English-language learner, Robin A, Boyle wrote the 13th chapter in an effort to help readers understand the relationship between learning styles theory and the individualized education plan (IEP), With a concern for the high-stakes testing movement in the United States, she comments, "Despite the rise in concern over standardized test scores, parents, students, and educators should strive to include within their IEPs a working definition of learning styles" (p, 153-154), In this chapter, Boyle provides a unique and helpful legal perspective to the definition of learning styles for atrisk students. …


In this paper, a microstrip transmission line combined with a new U-headed dumb-bell defected ground structure (DGS) is investigated. The proposed DGS of two U-shape slots connected by a thin transverse slot is placed in the ground plane of a microstrip line. A finite cutoff frequency and attenuation pole is observed and thus, the equivalent circuit of the DGS unit can be represented by a parallel LC resonant circuit in series with the transmission line. A two-cell DGS microstrip line yields a better lowpass filtering characteristics. The simulation is carried out by the MoM based IE3D software and in the experimental measurements a vector network analyzer is used. The effects of the transverse slot width and the distance between arms of the U-slot on the filter response curve are studied. This DGS is utilized for different microstrip circuit applications. The DGS is placed in the ground of a capacitive loaded microstrip line and a very low cutoff frequency is obtained. The DGS is adopted under the coupled lines of a parallel line coupler and an improvement in coupling coefficient is noticed. The proposed DGS is also incorporated in the ground plane under the feed lines and the coupled lines of a bandpass filter to improve separately the stopband and passband performances.


Great changes have swept the world of the Tewa Indian peoples of New Mexico since 1985, when this volume first appeared, including changes in relationships between Indian communities and the anthropologists who wish to study them. Returning to her classic work, anthropologist Jill D. Sweet revisits the ideas and the people who first inspired her love of the Tewa Pueblo dances. The Tewa have become increasingly sophisticated in managing tourism, including the new casinos, to ensure that it contributes to the persistence and even the revitalization of ancient ritual practices. This expanded edition reflects these changes by featuring the voices of Tewa dancers, composers, and others to explain the significance of dance to their understanding of Tewa identity and community. The author frames their words with her own poignant reflections on more than twenty years of study and friendship with these creative and enduring people.


This chapter focuses on the basic principles of research design. It first considers different types of research design, including experimental designs, cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, comparative designs, and historical research designs. It also discusses two types of research validity: internal validity and external validity. The chapter proceeds by describing various methods of data collection and the sort of data or evidence each provides, including questionnaires and surveys, interviewing and focus groups, ethnographic research, and discourse/content analysis. Finally, it examines six issues that must be taken into account to ensure ethical research: voluntary participation, informed consent, privacy, harm, exploitation, and consequences for future research.


This dissertation examines the politics of representation in biotechnosciences. Through web representations, I examine three emerging endeavors that propose to create large-scale human population genomic databases to study complex, common diseases and conditions. These projects were initiated in different nations (US, UK, and Iceland), created under different institutional configurations, and are at various stages of development. The websites, which are media technologies do not simply reflect and promote these endeavors. Rather, they help shape these database projects in which the science is uncertain and the technologies not yet built. Thus, they are constitutive technologies that affect the construction of these database projects. More needs to be done to explore how to interpret the 'virtual' realm and how it relates to the 'real' world and specific situations. By bringing hypertextuality into the analysis, I explore how knowledges, practices, and subjectivities are created. By adapting the methods of a number of science and technology (STS) authors, I develop a more dynamic lens in which to investigate web representations and 'emerging' biomedical projects. My concern however, is not only in what represents what, but how representations are constructed. The power of the latter derives from its invisibility. In re-conceptualizing representation and new media technologies, I show that these sites are techno-social spaces for creating knowledge, specific ways of seeing, and practicing biomedicine today. The narrowing time/space between generating data, releasing information, and incorporating publics into their endeavors raises crucial issues as to how biomedicine is represented and how broader audiences are engaged. In the dominant discourses, these projects are all situated within biomedical, (post)genomic, and information revolutions. Here, they hang on the technological object, the database, with the ability to contain what we are coming to understand as life/genetic/bio information. Through the moves of both treating these databases as part of a complex system and investigating them through a lens of representation, I begin to include potential participants and broader audiences into the analysis. Informatic bodies, populations, and subjects are co-created at, by, and through these sites as the developing database projects and information are (re)presented.


Introduction: Non-traumatic spleen rupture is a very rare clinical case. While infectious and traumatic ruptures are so frequent, spontaneous ruptures due to hematological and oncological malignities are very rare. The patients with splenic rupture generally admitted to emergency department because of the acute abdomen. In this case report our aim was to demonstrate that in a patient admitting to the emergency department with acute abdominal findings the typical clinical features of spontaneous splenic rupture caused by a malignant lymphoma. Case Presentation: Sixty two years old Caucasian female patient seek medical advice with the complaint of constantly growing stomach ache on last ten days. There were symptoms of acute abdomen on her physical examination. Contrastenhanced abdomino-pelvic computed tomography scan has been conducted emergently for the patient. On computed tomography, splenomegali and the findings of ischemia and infarction in an area of 5 cm of the splenic hilus and in widespread perisplenic free fluid were found. Patient urgently underwent a surgery. So, splenectomy was performed due to spontaneous splenic rupture. This patient diagnosed with malign lymphoma on histopathological evaluation. The patient discharged from the hospital due to the recovery, during 4th postoperative day. Conclusion: Non-traumatic splenic ruptures are observed rarely. Spontaneous splenic ruptures due to hematological and oncological diseases are very rare. When making differential diagnosis of acute abdomen, splenic ruptures shall also be in mind. Computed tomography and ultrasonography can be important when making diagnosis. Splenectomy shall be applied emergently during the treatment of spontaneous splenic rupture.


The growing healthcare needs of baby boomers require significant increases in the number or productivity of healthcare workers. This paper explores how immigrants may fill these gaps in nursing homes. First, we show that immigrant inflows are associated with reduced wages of lower skilled nurses along with increases in their employment. We then show that more immigrant labor leads to fewer falls among residents and improvements in other measures of quality of care. We also find that only in competitive nursing home markets is there a link between immigrant inflows and the quality of care provided in nursing homes.


Event-B is a formal language for modelling reactive systems, based on set theory and first-order logic. The RODIN toolkit provides comprehensive tool support for modelling and renement in Event-B, analysis and verification using animator/model-checkers and theorem provers. We consider the need to support reuse, in particular product line reuse, in such a formal development method. Feature modelling is an established technique for reuse in product lines. We introduce concepts of feature modelling and composition in Event-B to support the reuse of formal models and developments. A prototype feature composition tool has been developed (as a RODIN plug-in) for Event-B, based on the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF). Using an MDD philosophy, the tool extends the Event-B language meta-model to a composition meta model, and implements prototype composition patterns for Event-B features. Thus, a required composite model can be constructed by selecting, specializing, and composing input features in a defined way. The tool is the first step towards full feature modelling for product line model reuse for Event-B. We describe future work required to meet this goal.


Should we judge the quality of the class by the grades the students and teacher get at the end of the semester or how the group collaborated during the semester towards acquiring new knowledge? Up until recently, the later approach was all too inaccessible due to complexity and time needed to evaluate every class. With the development of new technologies in different branches of video processing, gaze tracking and audio analysis we are getting the opportunity to go further with our analysis and go around the potential problem substitution into which we were previously forced. We present our efforts to record student-student and student-teacher interactions within a classroom eco-system. For this purpose, we developed a multi-camera system for observing teacher actions and students reactions throughout the class. We complemented the data with a mobile eye-tracker worn by the teacher, quantitative questionnaire data collection, as well as in-depth interviews with students about their impressions of the classes they took, and about our intervention. The seven-part experiment was conducted during the autumn semester of 2013, in two classes with over 60 participants. We present the conclusions we reached about the experiment format, visualize the preliminary results of our processing and discuss other options we are considering for our further experiments. We aim to explore further possibilities for analysing classroom life in order to create a more responsive environment to the needs of the students.


The spatial and temporal characteristics of oceanic thermal variations in the mixed layer and main thermocline of the midlatitude North Pacific are distinctive, suggesting different physical origins. Within the main thermocline (400-m depth), the variability is dominated by a westward-intensified pattern of decadal scale, indicative of enhanced eastward geostrophic flow along the southern flank of the Kuroshio Current extension during the 1980s relative to the 1970s. The authors argue that the decadal-scale change in the strength of the Kuroshio extension was a result of the dynamical adjustment of the oceanic circulation to a decadal variation in wind stress curl according to Sverdrup theory. Four-times daily wind stress fields from the National Center for Atmospheric Research‐National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis project are used to compute the decadal change in Sverdrup transport associated with the 1976/77 climate transition. It is shown that the decadal changes in Sverdrup transport inferred from the wind stress curl field and in observed geostrophic flow inferred from the upper-ocean thermal field are consistent both in terms of spatial pattern and magnitude. The decadal change in depth-averaged geostrophic transport along the Kuroshio extension (referenced to 1 km) is 11.6 Sv, similar to the Sverdrup transport change (11.5‐13.9 Sv). The decadal-scale thermocline variation along the western boundary between 308 and 408N exhibits a lag of approximately 4‐5 yr relative to the decadal variation in the basin-wide wind stress curl pattern. This delay may be indicative of the transient adjustment of the gyre-scale circulation to a change in wind stress curl via long baroclinic Rossby waves.


Given a social network, which of its nodes are more central? This question has been asked many times in sociology, psychology, and computer science, and a whole plethora of centrality measures (a.k.a. centrality indices, or rankings) were proposed to account for the importance of the nodes of a network. In this study, we try to provide a mathematically sound survey of the most important classic centrality measures known from the literature and propose an axiomatic approach to establish whether they are actually doing what they have been designed to do. Our axioms suggest some simple, basic properties that a centrality measure should exhibit. Surprisingly, only a new simple measure based on distances, harmonic centrality, turns out to satisfy all axioms; essentially, harmonic centrality is a correction to Bavelas's classic closeness centrality [Bavelas 50] designed to take unreachable nodes into account in a natural way. As a sanity check, we examine in turn each measure under the lens of information retrieval, leveraging state-of-the-art knowledge in the discipline to measure the effectiveness of the various indices in locating webpages that are relevant to a query. Although there are some examples of such comparisons in the literature, here, for the first time, we also take into consideration centrality measures based on distances, such as closeness, in an information-retrieval setting. The results closely match the data we gathered using our axiomatic approach. Our results suggest that centrality measures based on distances, which in recent years have been neglected in information retrieval in favor of spectral centrality measures, do provide high-quality signals; moreover, harmonic centrality pops up as an excellent general-purpose centrality index for arbitrary directed graphs. C © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 222 ISSN: 1542-7951 print Boldi and Vigna: Axioms for Centrality 223


On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System Henry M. Paulson, Jr. Business Plus, 2010 Henry Paulson was the U. S. Treasury Secretary for the final two and a half years of the George W. Bush administration, serving from July 10, 2006, until Barack Obama's inauguration as president on January 20, 2009. This makes Paulson one of the two figures most at the center of the government's response to the Great Credit Crisis of 2007-9. The other was Ben Bernanke, who on February 1, 2006, had replaced Alan Greenspan as the chairman of the Federal Reserve. When Paulson accepted appointment to his position, he had an express understanding with President Bush that he would be Bush's "primary economic adviser and spokesman." This primacy was an enhancement of the Treasury's assigned function, which was to be "primarily a policy-making institution, charged with advising the president on economic and financial matters." The point has often been made that the United States needed an officer or agency to track the systemic health of the financial system. It would seem, however, that the successive Secretaries of the Treasury, in their role as adviser to the president of the United States, were in the ideal position to play this role (with the help of their expert staffs), in coordination with the banking committees of the Congress. It is hard to see how they could carry out their function without a broad systemic concern. Indeed, soon after assuming office as the Treasury Secretary, Paulson met with President Bush and "detailed the big increase in the size of unregulated pools of capital such as hedge funds and private-equity funds, as well as the exponential growth of unregulated over-the-counter derivatives like credit default swaps. 'All of this,' I concluded, 'has allowed an enormous amount of leverage - and risk - to creep into the financial system.'" It is understandable that Bush wanted to know, "how did we get into this position?" It was a question that pointed directly to an intellectual and political failure of the first order. To be sure, recent years have seen magnificent advances in science and technology, but in matters economic, social and political in the United States there has been a serious default. An elite, large and amorphous but bound together by a common impulse and considerable self-interest, dominates both of the major political parties and the commanding heights of business and academia, while its regnant ideology of globalism, multiculturalism and unrestrained markets has come to spurn the interests and wishes of the average citizen. For his part, Paulson was a member of that elite, having long been the top man at Goldman Sachs, and, as we will see, his actions reflected its predilections. Nevertheless, Paulson deserves credit for not himself having been in altogether deep sleep through the lead-up to the crash. In March 2008, the administration, acting through him and his staff at Treasury, proposed a "raft of recommendations" for financial reform and for "a new regulatory structure" that would include "a macrostability regulator." But this was twenty months after Paulson was sworn in, and in any event the reforms had been needed for several years. If Paulson is to bear responsibility for the factors that led up to the crash, it would simply be that he shared, to some degree, the government's, economists' and financial institutions' lack of urgency that the extreme brinksmanship of global finance required. The dangers had long been seen. An important minority of commentators had warned of them. As far back as 1997, William Greider, in his One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, described the growth of a rapidly expanding global financial market in which trillions of dollars sloshed around at great speed, warned about how that market tip-toed on the brink of disaster, and recommended reforms to tame it. He spoke of an "acceleration in trading" that had spread beyond currencies to "bonds, stocks, commercial notes, even bundles of home mortgages. …


'Nature dictates that as individuals we are conceived, are born, and then at some point later die. The shape of the arc that we follow, involving growth and development with eventual decline, is something that we might all like to influence. It has been argued that the same basic curve, however, is followed by societies, civilisations and indeed organisations. How does an organisation influence its trajectory? How do organisations avoid the pull towards conservatism and protectionism associated with the developmental plateau found at the top of the curve? I think that in this book Professor Alessandra Lemma has given us something of an insight into this process within one organisation, the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. In bringing together this collection of paper, Professor Lemma has undertaken the role of skilled gardener herself. The work of the Trust is now broad. Training and education makes up almost half of the activity, while Child and Adolescent mental Health Services over half of the clinical work. Professor Lemma has, in this first volume, broadly focused her attention on our work with Adolescents and Adults. She has clearly selected her authors for their quality and supported them with similar care. All of this is evident in the chapters that comprise this book, and in the description of an organisation struggling to evolve in a manner that links it inextricably to the communities and society within which it is situated as much as to its own history'.
- From the foreword by Dr Matthew Patrick, Chief Executive, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust


The synthesis and characterization of three ferrocene-centered, hydrolytically unstable, surface derivatizing reagents and their attachment to pretreated (anodized) Pt and Au electrode surfaces are described. Trichlorosilylferrocene (1) has been isolated from the reaction of SiCl/sub 4/ and lithioferrocene; (1,1'-ferrocenediyl)dichlorosilane (II) has been isolated from the reaction of SiCl/sub 4/ and 1,1'-dilithioferrocene; and 1,1'-bis(triethoxysilyl)ferrocene (III) has been isolated from reaction of ClSi(OEt)/sub 3/ with 1,1'-dilithioferrocene. The species I, II, and III have been fully characterized by /sup 1/H NMR, mass, and uv-vis spectra and elemental analyses. All are moisture sensitive and are capable of derivatizing anodized Pt surfaces. Detailed studies for derivatization of anodized Au using II are described. In many respects the properties of derivatized Au electrodes parallel those for derivatized Pt. Such derivatized electrodes exhibit persistent cyclic voltammetric waves at a potential expected for an electroactive ferrocene derivative. Greater than monolayer coverages are found in each case, as determined by the integration of the cyclic waves. The cyclic voltammetric parameters are as expected for a reversible, one-electron, surface-attached electroactive system except that the peak widths are broader than theoretical. This is attributed to chemically distinct ferrocene centers resulting from the oligomerization of the derivatizing reagent during the derivatization procedure.


Improvisation-based training provides both structures and metaphors for performers to explore individually and collectively, developing both expressive and communicative capacities.

My recent research has been into the developing of psychophysical training strategies. The core of this training is individual, duet, small and whole group physical improvisation, based round a series of interlocking concepts: energy, impulse, structure, pleasure, complicity, concentration.

These improvisational structures illuminate to the performer his/her physical and concentrational habits, and enable her/him to find creative and developmental ways of exploiting/altering those habits.

The training allows participants to address fundamental concerns:

∑ How do I allow myself to be observed?

∑ How do I inhabit/trust my creative process?

∑ How do I negotiate between the flow of impulse and the necessity for structure?

∑ How can I be both familiar and surprising to myself?

As improvisation supposes that outcomes will remain unknowable until they are achieved, the performer is free to inhabit a terrain of creative process and to develop their capacity to enjoy the unexpected.

Improvisation-based training requires the performer to focus on the unfolding of creative process in the present moment. Trust in present-time requires an unwavering faith in her/his capacity to meet, understand and absorb the unexpected lurking in the unconsidered future. It requires a relinquishing of fear and of attempts to control the future. This relinquishing frees performers to exist in their present – to become present, to exude presence.

Improvisation offers performers a guided structure through which to build the capacity (physical and attitudinal) necessary to this uncritical and fearless acceptance of the unexpected in live performance.

In this paper I will talk about how improvisation-based training serves performers and directors who work in fixed (non-improvised) forms as well as in improvisation - encouraging performers to retain an improvisatory freshness when recreating fixed outcomes and enhancing the sense of performance as an immediate and present event.


Sir Thomas Malory's works include several Saracens, most prominent of which is Sir Palomides. They are clearly defined by their religion: they are named as Saracens, which to Malory means Muslims, and identified as unbaptized, thus not belonging to the church. However, the ethical judgements made about them relies entirely on their adherence, or lack thereof, to the chivalric code and courtoisie. The texts portrays them as heretical or pagan, but as capable of morally right behaviour even before conversion to Christianity.


Despite the growing body of literature on participatory and collaborative governance, little is known about citizens' motives for participation in such new governance arrangements. The present article argues that knowledge about these motives is essential for understanding the quality and nature of participatory governance and its potential contribution to the overall political and administrative system. Survey data were used to explore participants' motives for participating in a large-scale urban renewal program in Stockholm, Sweden. The program was neighborhood-based, characterized by self-selected and repeated participation, and designed to influence local decisions on the use of public resources. Three types of motives were identified among the participants: (a) Common good motives concerned improving the neighborhood in general and contributing knowledge and competence. (b) Self-interest motives reflected a desire to improve one's own political efficacy and to promote the interest of one's own group or family. (c) Professional competence motives represented a largely apolitical type of motive, often based on a professional role. Different motives were expressed by different categories of participants and were also associated with different perceptions concerning program outcomes. Further analysis suggested that participatory governance may represent both an opportunity for marginalized groups to empower themselves and an opportunity for more privileged groups to act as local "citizen representatives" and articulate the interests of their neighborhoods. These findings call for a more complex understanding of the role and potential benefits of participatory governance.


Purpose
Strong agreement in the extant business literature emphasizes that digital developments are key to economic growth internationally. This is in spite of the recorded high levels (up to 50 percent) of failure among digital companies and entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to identify the digital debates in Italy, explore current policies and develop a typology that characterizes digital entrepreneurs (DEs) and their start-up companies in Italy.

Design/methodology/approach
The digital debates and policies are explored through an extensive telephone survey of the self-perceptions and identified supports required by 348 Italian active DEs. Quantitative statistical techniques were used including factor analysis, cluster analysis and ANOVA, to identify motivations, profiles and critical success factors relevant to the sample.

Findings
The study identifies three main clusters among the DEs: emerging very young; emerging business focused and experienced. These clusters vary with the entrepreneurs' background and competence base, motivation and satisfaction factors. The different kinds of profiles require specific kinds of supporting policies identified by the sample that focus on financial, educational and/or networking provision.

Originality/value
The paper affirms the central role of digital entities in modern economies expressed in the current literature and increases knowledge of the perceived success factors identified by DEs. The identification and classification of self-reported characteristics of Italian DEs and to what extent these characterizations might be useful for tailored interventions to support their success are the main contributions of this study. Accordingly, an authentic, original and self-reported portrayal has been constructed of the self-perceptions of Italian DEs. Finally, the study explores the implications for actions and new policies considering self-perceived profiles, needs and expectations of DEs.


For readers of any age, a witty and strikingly irreverent collection of moral guidanceMost notable among prolific English satirist Hilaire Belloc's writings are the sharp and clever admonishments he composed for children. Collected here and illustrated to wonderful haunting effect by Edward Gorey, these short, funny pieces offer moral instruction for all types of mischief makers from a certain young Jim, "who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion," to the tale of Matilda, "who told lies and was burned to death and add up to a delightful read for any fan of Roald Dahl or Shel Silverstein. "


A Mueller matrix of a sample can be used to determine the polarization of reflected light for incident light with arbitrary polarization. The polarization can be quantified in terms of ellipticity, polarization azimuth and degree of polarization. We apply spectroscopic Mueller-matrix ellipsometry at multiple angles of incidence to study the cuticle of beetles and derive polarization features for incident unpolarized light. In particular we address chiral phenomena in scarab beetles, the origin of their structural colors and the observed high degree of circular polarization is discussed. Results from beetles in Scarabaeidae subfamilies Cetoniinae and Rutelinae are presented including specimens with broad-band silver-or gold-like colors with metallic shine as well as specimens with narrow-band green or red reflectors. The variation of polarization with angle of incidence and occurrence of both left-handed and right-handed polarization from a single species are presented. We also use Mueller-matrix thicknesses and optical properties. Interference oscillations in the observed spectra are due to allowed optical modes and we show how to develop a structural model of a cuticle based on this effect. Sum decomposition of Mueller matrices measured on a depolarizing cuticle of a beetle is briefly discussed.


The research activity has been mostly focused on the study of the transport properties of high critical temperature superconductor (HTS) nanostructures. The experiments have been carried on YBCO samples down to size width of 150 nm. This is one of the very first systematic studies of HTS devices at these length scales and represents an intermediate step towards the ideal nanoscale transport experiments, whose dimensions should be closer also to the HTS coherence length. Transport measurements at the nanoscale should unveil some secrets on the HTS physics. Sizes of the order of a few hundred nm guarantee a high level of homogeneity and reproducibility of physical phenomena, and give access to a series of experiments where the macroscopic quantum coherence manifest more pronounced properties than at larger scales. Samples have been patterned in shape of bridges and rings, where the ring radius and the width of channels have been varied from 1 um down to 150 nm. The reproducibility of superconducting transport properties as the critical current density (Jc) and the critical temperature (Tc) scale with the sample size. In optimal fabrication conditions the reduction of Tc and Jc is strictly below 10%, when we pass from 1 um down to 150 nm channel width, which is among the best results available in literature. Part of measurements have been addressed to the study of the magnetic and temperature dependence of the resistance. In ring shaped samples Little-Parks effect has been detected. Measurements on underdoped nano-rings can be directed to some relevant issues concerning flux periodicity anomalies induced by the d-wave order parameter .


We present a practical solution for generating 360° stereo panoramic videos using a single camera. Current approaches either use a moving camera that captures multiple images of a scene, which are then stitched together to form the final panorama, or use multiple cameras that are synchronized. A moving camera limits the solution to static scenes, while multi-camera solutions require dedicated calibrated setups. Our approach improves upon the existing solutions in two significant ways: It solves the problem using a single camera, thus minimizing the calibration problem and providing us the ability to convert any digital camera into a panoramic stereo capture device. It captures all the light rays required for stereo panoramas in a single frame using a compact custom designed mirror, thus making the design practical to manufacture and easier to use. We analyze several properties of the design as well as present panoramic stereo and depth estimation results.


This chapter examines the different sampling goals and strategies associated with each phase to provide an overall perspective and framework for understanding the role of environmental sampling in a biological event. Specific sampling methods are mentioned; however, the chapter is not intended to provide a comprehensive review of either sampling or analysis methods. A fictional airport scenario is provided in order to better convey the sampling issues and to place them in a realistic context. The airport scenario which follows is based on the discovery of physical evidence. The initial assessment phase may involve sequential sampling from the different groups involved in the response and investigation. The chapter provides a discussion that identifies some of the these groups and clarifies their roles. The location is classified as a crime scene, and access is restricted to law enforcement personnel in order to ensure that forensic evidence can be collected without compromise. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, incidents may be triggered not by the discovery of physical evidence but by reports of symptoms or disease. While the chapter focuses on sampling strategy, it is also important to remember that limitations in current sampling methods should be taken into consideration. Several positive clearance samples were obtained in one restricted baggage conveyor, requiring a round of recleaning and retesting per the provisions of the remedial action plan (RAP).


In the latest discussion on the relations between religions, it has often been argued that monotheism necessarily leads to intolerance and exclusivism. A religion which claims to worship «the one and only true God» is inevitably forced to reject every religious behaviour and practices of «the Other». But is this really the case? This volume contains contributions which discuss the major question: What are the instruments and the strategies used in different religious settings where interreligious encounter is part of daily life? Most of the contributions concentrate on the challenges of theology in the context of India. A special focus will be on approaches for interreligious coexistence derived from Biblical or Systematic Theology.


Social media has been developing rapidly in public due to its nature of spreading new information, which leads to rumors being circulated. Meanwhile, detecting rumors from such massive information in social media is becoming an arduous challenge. Therefore, some deep learning methods are applied to discover rumors through the way they spread, such as Recursive Neural Network (RvNN) and so on. However, these deep learning methods only take into account the patterns of deep propagation but ignore the structures of wide dispersion in rumor detection. Actually, propagation and dispersion are two crucial characteristics of rumors. In this paper, we propose a novel bi-directional graph model, named Bi-Directional Graph Convolutional Networks (Bi-GCN), to explore both characteristics by operating on both top-down and bottom-up propagation of rumors. It leverages a GCN with a top-down directed graph of rumor spreading to learn the patterns of rumor propagation; and a GCN with an opposite directed graph of rumor diffusion to capture the structures of rumor dispersion. Moreover, the information from source post is involved in each layer of GCN to enhance the influences from the roots of rumors. Encouraging empirical results on several benchmarks confirm the superiority of the proposed method over the state-of-the-art approaches.


London's housing crisis is rooted in a neo-liberal urban project to recommodify and financialise housing and land in a global city. But where exactly is the crisis heading? What future is being prepared for London's urban dwellers? How can we learn from other country and city contexts to usefully speculate about London's housing future? In this paper, we bring together recent evidence and insights from the rise of what we call 'global corporate landlords' (GCLs) in 'post-crisis' urban landscapes in North America and Europe to argue that London's housing crisis—and the policies and processes impelling and intervening in it—could represent a key moment in shaping the city's long-term housing future. We trace the variegated ways in which private equity firms and institutional investors have exploited distressed housing markets and the new profitable opportunities created by states and supra-national bodies in coming to the rescue of capitalism in the USA, Spain, Ireland and Greece in response to the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. We then apply that analysis to emerging developments in the political economy of London's housing system, arguing that despite having a very low presence in the London residential property market and facing major entry barriers, GCLs are starting to position themselves in preparation for potential entry points such as the new privatisation threat to public and social rented housing.


The objective of this study is the examination of several light engineering measures with the explicit purpose of assessing their impact on road safety. Examined categories include delineation and road markings, which can be longitudinal for road segments and transversal for junctions, and installation and maintenance of traffic signs, investigated both in functioning workzones and otherwise. This analysis was carried out within the SafetyCube project. Existing studies were selected and analysed in a set taxonomy consisting of 5 measures: signage installation and improvement for workzones, road markings implementation, installation of chevron signs, edgeline rumble strips and lastly traffic sign installation and traffic sign maintenance. A clearly defined methodology was developed including rigorous literature search, analysis of studies in terms of design, methods and limitations and synthesis of findings and meta-analyses, when feasible. The results of the present study offer valuable insights that were previously undefined can be generalized for other cases with the essential caution due to study particularities.


TDD (Time Division Duplex) is one of the two duplex modes. TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous CDMA) is the first TDD-based cellular mobile system which is commercialized in wide area and large scale and TD-SCDMA is also the first cellular mobile system which adopted smart antenna technology (also called as beamforming). As the long term evolution of TD-SCDMA, TD-LTE(A) (Time Division-Long Term Evolution, and TD-LTE Advanced) introduced OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) and enhanced smart antenna technology together with MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), which are adopted by LTE FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) either. It is indicated that TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE(A) have opened a sustainable utilization era of TDD and smart antenna technologies in the wireless mobile communication. This paper aims to present a systematic introduction to TDD-based mobile communications from TD-SCDMA to TD-LTE and beyond, with particular focuses on TDD key technologies, principles of TDD cellular mobile systems, TDD evolution path, and future TDD 5G directions. The comparisons between TDD and FDD are also included. We hope that this paper will provide a comprehensive overview of TDD technology upgrade and its standard evolution, and serve as a valuable reference for research on 5G mobile communication systems. It is believed that TDD will play more important role in 5G.


Russell B. Goodman tells the story of the development of philosophy in America from the mid-18th century to the late 19th century. The key figures in this story, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, the writers of The Federalist, and the romantics (or 'transcendentalists') Emerson and Thoreau, were not professors but men of the world, whose deep formative influence on American thought brought philosophy together with religion, politics, and literature. Goodman considers their work in relation to the philosophers and other thinkers they found important: the deism of John Toland and Matthew Tindal, the moral sense theories of Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume, the political and religious philosophy of John Locke, the romanticism of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant. Goodman discusses Edwards's condemnation and Franklin's acceptance of deism, argues that Jefferson was an Epicurean in his metaphysical views and a Christian, Stoic, and Epicurean in his moral outlook, traces Emerson's debts to writers from Madame de Stael to William Ellery Channing, and considers Thoreau's orientation to the universe through sitting and walking. The morality of American slavery is a major theme in American Philosophy before Pragmatism, introduced not to excuse or condemn, but to study how five formidably intelligent people thought about the question when it was-as it no longer is for us-open. Edwards, Franklin and Jefferson owned slaves, though Franklin and Jefferson played important roles in disturbing the uneasy American moral equilibrium that included slavery, even as they approved an American constitution that included it. Emerson and Thoreau were prominent public opponents of slavery in the eighteen forties and fifties. The book contains an Interlude on the concept of a republic and concludes with an Epilogue documenting some continuities in American philosophy, particularly between Emerson and the pragmatists.