In this study, on-line NMR relaxometry is introduced as a method for monitoring cocurrent imbibition. A group of plugs from a Western Canada sandstone reservoir was selected and a series of primary and spontaneous imbibition tests were run for both water and oil at the same conditions. Air was the "non-wetting" phase. NMR was used to measure the amount of water or oil imbibed in the cores and to det ermine the gas saturation during the experiment. The residual gas saturation results from water imbibition tests were compared with the ones obtained from oil imbibition tests. The imbibition rates and the correlations of residual gas saturation with initial imbibition rates for both types of imbibition tests were also investigated. Through interpretation of the NMR spectra, bound water or oil T2cutoff values were determined. The distributions of water and oil in different pore sizes were compared. The initial imbibition rate at different pore sizes was measured. Finally, a literature model was used to check our experimental data. Preliminary results indicate that oil and water do not imbibe in the same way. The NMR spectra indicate that there is no substantial oil penetration of the small pores within the experimental period of two months. Comparing current results with previous results in soils, it becomes evident that spontaneous imbibition with on-line NMR measurements can become a tool for wettability assessment. Other applications of the on-line NMR measurements deal with the determination of residual gas saturation and gas recovery from gas reservoirs.


The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the magnetic and transport properties of the dilution series connecting the mono-silicides FeSi, CoSi, and MnSi. We have focused on these materials since they allow the exploration of carrier doping of an unusual insulator, FeSi, whose properties are dominated by strong Coulomb interactions. These monosilicides all have the same cubic B-20 crystal structure making them ideal for an exploration of Fe,.,MnxSi and Fe,.yCoySi for all x and y between 0 and 1. The carrier sign and densities, as well as the proximity to magnetic phases can be controlled by the level of chemical substitution across this series. We have investigated the transport and magnetic behavior of this system, centered on the Kondo insulator FeSi, by carrying out magnetization, Hall effect, resistivity and magnetoresistence measurements. We have discovered that MnSi and Fe,.yCoySi, which both are itinerant helimagnetic compounds, differ in that the Co doped FeSi is nearly spin polarized and has a novel temperature and field dependent conductivity. We discovered that the MR in Fe,.yCoySi is due to quantum interference effects which are substantial in this compound up to 100 K. Fe,.yCoySi (0 < y < 0.3) is a strongly scattering low charge density metal in which we have also discovered an extraordinarily large anomalous Hall effect. In contrast the hole doped insulator, Fe,.xMnxSi, remains paramagnetic up to x < 0.9 with a large quasiparticle mass and a conductivity (o) that is dominated by electronelectron (e-e) interaction effects. At low temperatures the hole carriers are localized beyond that due to the usual square-root singularity associated with quantum interference effects. In fact, the a and susceptibility are comparable to the diluted magnetic semiconductors, such as the Mn doped II-VI compounds.


We present modality gap, an intriguing geometric phenomenon of the representation space of multi-modal models. Specifically, we show that different data modalities (e.g. images and text) are embedded at arm's length in their shared representation in multi-modal models such as CLIP. Our systematic analysis demonstrates that this gap is caused by a combination of model initialization and contrastive learning optimization. In model initialization, we show empirically and theoretically that the representation of a common deep neural network is restricted to a narrow cone. As a consequence, in a multi-modal model with two encoders, the representations of the two modalities are clearly apart when the model is initialized. During optimization, contrastive learning keeps the different modalities separate by a certain distance, which is influenced by the temperature parameter in the loss function. Our experiments further demonstrate that varying the modality gap distance has a significant impact in improving the model's downstream zero-shot classification performance and fairness. Our code and data are available at https://modalitygap.readthedocs.io/


PURPOSE: There are reports of greater survival rates in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients of female gender. The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of gender in survival of NSCLC patients treated surgically with curative intent (stage I/II). METHODS: In a retrospective cohort design, we screened 498 NSCLC patients submitted to thoracotomies at the hospital Sγo Lucas, in Porto Alegre, Brazil from 1990 to 2009. After exclusion of patients that did not fit to all the inclusion criteria, we analyzed survival rates of 385 subjects. Survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method. The Cox regression model was used to evaluate potential confounding factors. RESULTS: Survival rates at 5 and 10 years were 65.3% and 49.5% for women and 46.5% and 33.2% for men, respectively (P = 0.006). Considering only stage I patients, the survival rates at 5 and 10 years were 76.2% and 55.1% for women and 50.7% and 35.4% for men, respectively (P = 0.011). No significant differences in survival rates were found among stage II patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show female gender as a possible protective factor for better survival of stage I NSCLC patients, but not among stage II patients. This study adds data to the knowledge that combined both genders survival rates for NSCLC is not an adequate prognosis.


Abstract. Shrub biomass equations provide an accurate, efficient and convenient method in estimating biomass of shrubland ecosystems and biomass of the shrub layer in forest ecosystems at various spatial and temporal scales. In recent decades, many shrub biomass equations have been reported mainly in journals, books and postgraduate's dissertations. However, these biomass equations are applicable for limited shrub species with respect to a large number of shrub species widely distributed in China, which severely restricted the study of terrestrial ecosystem structure and function, such as biomass, production, and carbon budge. Therefore, we firstly carried out a critical review of published literature (from 1982 to 2019) on shrub biomass equations in China, and then developed biomass equations for the dominant shrub species using a unified method based on field measurements of 738 sites in shrubland ecosystems across China. Finally, we constructed the first comprehensive biomass equation dataset for China's common shrub species. This dataset consists of 822 biomass equations specific to 167 shrub species and has significant representativeness to the geographical, climatic and shrubland vegetation features across China. The dataset is freely available at https://doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.00641 for noncommercial scientific applications, and this dataset fills a significant gap in woody biomass equations and provides key parameters for biomass estimation in studies on terrestrial ecosystem structure and function.


Aging urban infrastructure is a common phenomenon in industrialized countries. The urban water supply pipeline network in the city of Oslo is an example. Even as it faces increasing operational, maintenance, and management challenges, it needs to better its environmental performance by reducing, for instance, the associated greenhouse gas emissions. In this article the authors examine the environmental life cycle performance of Oslo's water supply pipelines by analyzing annual resource consumption and emissions as well as life cycle assessment (LCA) impact potentials over a period of 16 years, taking into account the production/manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance, rehabilitation, and retirement of pipelines. It is seen that the water supply pipeline network of Oslo has already reached a state of saturation on a per capita basis, that is, it is not expanding any more relative to the population it serves, and the stock is now rapidly aging. This article is part of a total urban water cycle system analysis for Oslo, and analyzes more specifically the environmental impacts from the material flows in the water distribution network, examining six environmental impact categories using the SimaPro (version 7.1.8) software, Ecoinvent database, and the CML 2001 (version 2.04) methodology. The long-term management of stocks calls for a strong focus on cost optimization, energy efficiency, and environmental friendliness. Global warming and abiotic depletion emerge as the major impact categories from the water pipeline system, and the largest contribution is from the production and installation phases and the medium-size pipelines in the network.


Kuwait Bay presents a unique ecosystem and a significant nursery ground for many fish and shrimp species. In the last three decades, the bay has been under pressure from urbanization as well as from development from the entire region of the Arabian Gulf. Seawater temperature has an important impact on the marine environment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the drivers of seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay over the last two decades. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat satellites images were used to describe the spatial and temporal distribution of sea surface temperature (SST) in the Arabian Gulf and Kuwait Bay. Hourly temperature measurements collected during the winter, 2007 and summer, 2008 were used to define the vertical temperature gradient in the water column, sea-bed and the intertidal flats of Kuwait Bay. Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometric (AVHRR) satellite data collected between 1985 and 2007 was also used to study the trends and drivers of increasing SST in Kuwait Bay over the last two decades. Satellite imaging showed that generally SST of Kuwait Bay is higher in the south than in the north. Highest SST was recorded near local human activities especially close to power and desalination plants due to thermal discharges. The field measurements showed that the water temperature is well-mixed in the bay. Seawater temperature reached 37 oC in summer and dropped to 15.2 oC in winter. Measurements beneath the sea-bed and within the intertidal flats showed that the temperature increased with depth in winter and decreased in summer. In winter, the sea-bed and intertidal flats are a source of heat to the water column, during summer the opposite is true. AVHRR data showed that the seawater temperature increased in Kuwait Bay by 0.62 (± 0.01)oC/decade in the last two decades. This trend is three times greater than the global average. The defined trends were substantiated by routine in situ monthly measurements of SST made by the EPA in the bay, and were also similar in pattern and trend to air temperature recorded at Kuwait airport. Temperature trends have been affected by drivers, conveniently sub-divided into global (which contributes 37% of the change), regional (which contributes 50% of the change) and local (which contributes 13% of the change). SST measurements showed peaks in summer temperature coincident with El Nino events in 1998 and 2003. The measurements also showed a relatively-low summertime peak during 1991 in the aftermath of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait due to atmospheric dimming brought about by dense smoke that persisted in the region for most of that year. The long term trend also showed a drop in temperature after 2004 as a result of increasing dust storm frequency in the region. Air temperature was found to be the most dominant driver of seawater temperature in Kuwait Bay and operates at a regional scale. At the local scale the seawater temperature of Kuwait Bay is influenced by intertidal flat exposure time and the thermal discharge from power and desalination plants.


Prepared at the request of the AAPT Editorial Board for Resource Letters. This is one of a series of Resource Letters on different topics intended to guide college physicists, astronomers, and other scientists to some of the literature and other teaching aids that may help improve course contents in specified fields. No Resource Letter is meant to be exhaustive and complete; in time there may be more than one Letter on some of the main subjects of interest. Comments on these materials as well as suggestions for future topics will be welcomed. Please send such communications to Professor Aaron Owens, Editor, Resource Letter Board, Department of Physics, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio 43022.Notation: The letter E after an item number indicates elementary level; the letter I indicates intermediate level; and the letter A indicates advanced material. An asterisk (*) indicates those references we feel to be especially helpful.Reprints: When ordering, request Resource Letter SEG‐1. Enclose 75 cents per copy (not...


How to use version 2 of RefWorks, the reference manager. This legacy version will be supported by ProQuest through 2019.


Aims: Research often fails to ascertain whether men and women are equally hit by the health consequences of unemployment. The aim of this study was to analyze whether men's self-reported health and health behaviour were hit more by unemployment than women's in a follow-up of the Northern Swedish Cohort. Methods: A follow-up study of a cohort of all school leavers in a middle-sized industrial town in northern Sweden was performed from age 16 to age 42. Of those still alive of the original cohort, 94% (n = 1,006) participated during the whole period. A sample was made of participants in the labour force and living in Sweden (n = 916). Register data were used to assess the length of unemployment from age 40 to 42, while questionnaire data were used for the other variables. Results: In multivariate logistic regression analyses significant relations between unemployment and mental health/smoking were found among both women and men, even after control for unemployment at the time of the investigation and indicators of health-related selection. Significant relations between unemployment and alcohol consumption were found among women, while few visits to a dentist was significant among men. Conclusions: Men are not hit more by the health consequences of unemployment in a Swedish context, with a high participation rate of women in the labour market. The public health relevance is that the study indicates the need to take gendered contexts into account in public health research.


The development of wireless and mobile communication in the last decade led to the elaboration of new components based on thin films with continually increasing performance and reduced fabrication cost. A fundamental element for mobile communication is the passband filter defining the total bandwidth, the so-called RF filter. Thanks to outstanding characteristics, thin film bulk acoustic wave resonators (TFBAR's) based on piezoelectric AlN thin films have conquered parts of this market against surface acoustic wave devices based on piezoelectric crystals. AlN is today the most favoured material for such these devices, thanks to its excellent electro-acoustic properties. This thesis explores paths for a new type of application in oscillators for time and frequency control in frequency range of several GHz. In portable applications, this domain is largely dominated by quartz crystals. Their resonance frequency – typically around 33 kHz – is multiplied to reach higher frequency domains. For such applications, the main issues are high quality factors and temperature stability of the resonators. This exploration implied two research directions, the first focused on AlN thin film property-process relationships for films grown on amorphous substrates, and the second on the property-design relations of such new devices. High quality factors and temperature stability are key issues in oscillator applications. We proposed to apply symmetric composite resonators (composite TFBAR) including two amorphous SiO2 thin films sandwiching high quality piezoelectric thin films of AlN. This required the growth of AlN on amorphous and insulating surfaces. We thus studied the growth of AlN on such substrates to evaluate the impact on film microstructure and morphology, mechanical stress, quality of orientation, piezoelectric constant d33,f , and polarization uniformity. Substrate roughness and substrate bias power (voltage) were identified as crucial growth parameters. In parallel, we also optimized Mo-electrode thin films for optimal AlN/Mo thin film structures. This was necessary to derive properties from pure AlN TFBAR's, and to produce HBAR's for comparison with our composite BAR's. The impact of the general device design, comprising active area surface, apodization and lateral edge design, was investigated concerning the Q-factor, kt2 and parasitic behaviour of devices. The important role of excitation of parasitic resonances was highlighted. We could show that also the microstructure of AlN plays a key role in their excitation and propagation. AlN exhibits a polar structure with one polar axis (c-axis). The growth process has to provide mechanisms to align the polar axis of all grains. No reorientation is possible by external means. The stability of the piezoelectric AlN layer with applied electric field guarantees a linear response for sensors and actuators. The high stiffness, combined with low density leads to a high longitudinal acoustic velocity of AlN, thus enabling the use of very high application frequencies. Almost all the reports so far have concentrated on depositing AlN on metallic layers, such as Mo, or Pt. The ability to grow high quality AlN thin film on amorphous substrates increases the possibility of developing new devices and applications. The orientation and stress properties, as well as the piezoelectric constant and the polarization of polycrystalline AlN thin films deposited on amorphous substrates, were investigated. Thin sputtered amorphous silicon layers of defined nanoscale roughness were assessed for their ability to manipulate the mechanical stress in AlN thin films that need to be grown on thermal oxide. With a roughness variation from 1 to 11 A in the Si film, a stress variation from -700 to +200 MPa was observed in the AlN film, which shows the high impact of substrate roughness on the stress in AlN films. The rocking curve width of the 1.2 µm AlN deposited on the Si layers showed a pronounced, linear increase as a function of Si layer roughness. Low density grain boundaries appeared, and the overall stress changed to positive values. A study of the piezoelectricity and the grain polarity of AlN thin films grown on amorphous SiO2 thin films has been done. d33,f of 5.0 pm/V were achieved at low substrate roughness and low mechanical AlN film stress. This value is comparable to values reached on oriented Pt. Increasing substrate roughness and stress leads to a deterioration of d33,f which is correlated with a higher density of opposite polarity grains detected by piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM). Extrapolating to 100% uniform polarity, a maximum d33,f value of 6.1 pm/V is derived. High-Q, bulk acoustic wave composite resonators based on a symmetric layer sequence of SiO2-AlN-SiO2 sandwiched between electrodes have been developed. The SiO2 film thickness was varied while the piezoelectric AlN film had a constant thickness of 1.2 µm. Experimental results of quality factors (Q) and coupling coefficients (kt2) are in agreement with finite element calculations. Q-factors of about 2000 were observed for the first harmonic of the 310 nm oxide devices. Third harmonic resonances were very intense for devices with 770 nm oxide double layers. The temperature drift reveals the impact of the SiO2 layers, which is more pronounced on the first harmonic, reducing the TCF to about 0 ppm/K. Hybrid harmonic bulk acoustic resonators (HBAR) based on an AlN/Si structure were fabricated. In order to increase the coupling kt2 of the simple device, an additional film of AlN was deposited on the top of the HBAR to optimize the excitation energy localization in the stack. The gain of the coupling was more than a factor of 2. A general study of the TFBAR performance is given in this work. The performance of circular, polygonal and elliptical electrodes were compared according to the area. The figure of merit Q · kt2 is higher in the case of elliptical design electrodes in comparison with others. Due to its high acoustic impedance and low electrical resistivity molybdenum is the best electrode material used in this work. The use of the lateral edge design on symmetric SiO2-AlN-SiO2 composite resonators slightly reduces the strength of spurious resonances of the third harmonic, but decreases the Q-factor of the resonances. This composite design has the advantage of attenuating the spurious resonances. In order to study the impact of the microstructure of AlN films on electroacoustic properties of TFBARs, simple Mo-AlN-Mo devices with different values of AlN in-plane stress (from -500 MPa to +500 MPa) were developed. These devices showed a clear correlation between the stress and the intensity of the spurious resonances, devices with tensile stressed AlN films reached Q-factors of about 1800. The impact of the microstructure on the transmission of in-plane acoustic waves is responsible for this phenomena. Voided grain boundaries, that are correlated with tensile films, reduce this transmission. These devices showed that the use of amorphous SiO2 thin films in the stack of resonators increased the Q-factor and the figure of merit Q · f to (∼8.0 ·1012 Hz), which is close to the ultimate value of Quartz (∼1.6·1013 Hz). The reached value compares also well with a novel improved HBAR structure reaching a Q · f of (∼2.7·1012 Hz). The composite resonator in addition exhibits a much higher coupling coefficient, which facilitates the implementation of the electronics. The admittance curves of the composite resonators could be well simulated by combining finite element modelling with simple circuits including parasitic elements. The derived materials quality factors of SiO2 and for the Al/AlN/Pt stack amounted to 50'000 and 3'000, respectively. Finally, composite resonators working at 3.4 GHz, corresponding to the half ground state hyperfine separation of rubidium atoms, were developed. The Q-factor was equal to 2300 and the TCF equal to 1.5 ppm/K. A figure of merit Q · f of ∼0.8 ·1013 Hz and a kt2 of 1% were reached. This device will be implemented in an oscillator as planned to realize an atomic clock control circuit.


This thesis is an attempt to rescue revolution, both as concept and practice, from the misplaced triumphalism of the contemporary world. Given the relative openness and flux which characterises the post-cold war international system, the extent and range of problems which plague the world, and the enduring human proclivity for change, it would be folly to ignore a process which has had such a constitutive impact on world politics over the past few centuries. To that end, this thesis is a comparison of three contemporary 'revolutions': the end of apartheid in South Africa; the collapse of communism in the Czech Republic; and the transition from military dictatorship to market democracy in post-Pinochet Chile. It asks two main questions: first, do these transformations represent, in a substantive sense, examples of revolutionary change. Second, in what ways do they compare and contrast with past revolutions. The first two chapters deal with the principal theoretical and methodological issues posed by the dissertation. I outline how an International Sociology operating as a 'middle level analysis' can unravel processes of complex social change in world politics, including revolutionary change. I then set out the case for a conjunctural, process based approach to the study of revolutionary change, defining revolutions as the mass, rapid, forceful, systemic transformation of the principal power relations in a particular society. The three case studies use primary and secondary source material to both back up and challenge these assertions. I argue that, while the Czech Republic and South Africa can be considered as substantive examples of revolutionary change, Chile is better understood as a case of transition - only a partial modification of the society's main power relations has taken place over the last ten years or so. But although both the Czech Republic and South Africa share many characteristics with past examples of revolutionary change, they also differ from them in a number of crucial ways: the role of the 'international' and the state, the nature of violence, the use of ideology, and the process of negotiation itself. As such, they signify a novel process in world politics - negotiated revolution. I conclude by examining the utility of the concept of negotiated revolution for understanding other examples of radical change, both actual and potential, in contemporary world politics.


Identity (ID) Fraud is a global issue that affects all aspects of society. There are also very serious financial costs; if the problem continues unabated, the worldwide costs will reach $US 2 trillion by the end of 2005. Various profiling techniques are already being successfully used in industry and law enforcement and it is the aim of this research to investigate the utility of these techniques for the detection and prevention of ID Fraud


Aim: It has been observed that potential beneficiaries rarely request for alternatives to corrective eyeglasses in our setting. The objective of this study was to determine awareness and attitude towards alternatives to spectacle correction, specifically; contact lens and refractive eye surgery among spectacle wearers in a resource-limited setting.Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 214 spectacle wearers in seven Nigerian hospitals using semi-structured questionnaire. Information sought included demographic characteristics, awareness, and attitudes to contact lens and refractive eye surgery as well as reasons for the poor interest in alternatives to eyeglasses.Results: There were 93 males and 121 females, with a mean age of 40.2 years (SD 15.8.). Most, 198 (92.6%) had at least secondary education. Ninety-eight (45.8%) and 113 (52.8%) patients were aware of the options of contact lens and refractive eye surgery respectively, but 171 (80%) were averse to wearing contact lenses or having refractive eye surgery. Reasons given included lack of information, high cost, and possible complications that may arise. Higher education was significantly associated with participants' awareness of alternatives to eyeglasses (contact lens [P = 0.016], refractive eye surgery [P=0.009]) but not with willingness to use contact lens (P = 0.96) or refractive eye surgery (P = 0.425).Conclusion: There was relatively high awareness but low willingness to use alternatives to corrective eyeglasses among users. Education on alternatives to corrective eyeglasses, allaying fears on their complications, and making them more affordable could enhance awareness and create a more positive attitude towards them.


The ideal quick reference for the busy mental health clinician seeing younger patients, the Fifth Edition of Green's Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychopathology has been fully revised by a new team of authors active in clinical practice and resident education. A trusted reference in the field, Green's continues to provide practical and balanced information on the full range of medications used to treat mental health disorders in children and adolescents. This rapid reference delivers: detailed coverage of medication usage - including both FDA - approved and evidence-based off-label uses; precautions and warnings help readers avoid prescribing errors and adverse drug interactions; emphasis on recent and highly used medications, with older and less often used agents grouped in an Appendix; and convenient, reader-friendly organization makes essential information easy to find and use. New to the Fifth Edition: increased focus on medication effects and cost-effectiveness; new information on cardiac function and risk factors in patients taking stimulants; long-term suicide risks associated with SSRIs; longer term outcomes of major depression treatment; use of anticonvulsant medications in patients with bipolar disorder; and weight gain in patients taking antipsychotics.


The evidence that media contribute to child and adolescent behaviour is substantial and can no longer be ignored. Half a century of research shows that the media can have an impact on virtually every concern parents and paediatricians have about children and teenagers—early sexual activity, drug use, aggressive behaviour, suicide, obesity, eating disorders, even attention-deficit disorder and poor school performance.1 Yet the entertainment industry, parents and society as a whole would prefer to think that the media represent harmless entertainment. Here is what every parent and every clinician needs to know about media effects:

Nearly 3000 studies and reviews have found a significant relationship between media violence and real-life aggression.1 Young people learn their attitudes about violence at a very young age, and once learnt, those attitudes are difficult to unlearn.2 3 Conservative estimates from meta-analyses and other studies show that media violence may be causing 10% of real-life violence—not the leading cause by any means, but a significant factor that is worth diminishing if possible.1 4 In addition, new research in the USA shows that just a minute or two of office-based counselling by clinicians about media violence and guns is effective and could impact nearly a million American children per year.5

As with violence, young people learn their attitudes about sex at a young age.1 6 In the USA—which has had a disturbing tilt towards abstinence-only sex education in the past decade—the media have arguably become the leading sex educator of young people.6 There are now five longitudinal studies linking exposure to sexy media to earlier onset of sexual intercourse and one to teen pregnancy.7 8 9 10 11 12 Eight studies now document that giving teenagers access to condoms does not lead to earlier or more frequent sexual activity, …


SNAP25 regulates membrane fusion events at the plasma membrane and in the endosomal system, and a functional pool of the protein is delivered to recycling endosomes (REs) and the trans Golgi network (TGN) through an ARF6-dependent cycling pathway. SNAP25 is a peripheral membrane protein, and palmitoylation of a cluster of four cysteine residues mediates its stable association with the membrane. Here, we report that palmitoylation also determines the precise intracellular distribution of SNAP25, and that mutating single palmitoylation sites enhances the amount of SNAP25 at the RE and TGN. The farnesylated CAAX motif from Hras was ligated onto a SNAP25 mutant truncated immediately distal to the cysteine-rich domain. This construct displayed the same intracellular distribution as full-length SNAP25, and decreasing the number of cysteine residues in this construct increased its association with the RE and TGN, confirming the dominant role of the cysteine-rich domain in directing the intracellular distribution of SNAP25. Marked differences in the localisations of SNAP25-CAAX and Hras constructs, each with two palmitoylation sites, were observed, showing that subtle differences in palmitoylated sequences can have a major impact upon intracellular targeting. We propose that the cysteine-rich domain of SNAP25 is designed to facilitate the dual function of this SNARE protein at the plasma membrane and endosomes, and that dynamic palmitoylation acts as a mechanism to regulate the precise intracellular patterning of SNAP25.


The scandal surrounding President Bill Clinton and his subsequent impeachment and trial affords scholars a multitude of stories to tell--from abuses of executive privilege to partisanship run amok. One of the more interesting stories of the events of 1998 and 1999 is that of the contradictions emanating from public opinion polls as the scandal unfolded. Considerable commentary from the media, scholars, and political elites accumulated with regard to the public's seeming inability to completely condemn the president In this article, however, I will discuss Clinton's use of polls during the scandal/impeachment episode. While polling has become an important tool for presidential decision making, critics suggest that Clinton's use of the polls in this instance overstepped the bounds of propriety and perhaps violated some important democratic norms. Presidents since Richard Nixon have incorporated polling into their White House decision making. A growing body of literature focuses on the role of public opinion in presidential decision making, as well as in the competition between the president and Congress to control opinion (Eisinger 1994; Eisinger and Brown 1998; Heith 1997, 1998, 2000; Jacobs 1993; Jacobs and Shapiro 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000). These research efforts document the rise of polling in the White House and have begun to examine the relationship between the poll apparatus and presidential leadership. During the period defined as the "awkward adolescence of presidential polling" from 1968 to 1988, the White House institutionalized the use of polls, relying on polls especially for speech writing and designing political strategies (Heith 1998, 2000). The Clinton administration continued this trend, but also seemed to be more obsessed with polls than its predecessors. As Jacobs and Shapiro (2000) observed, the Clinton administration extensively incorporated public opinion polling into its efforts to "craft" its message on health care. The steps that the Clinton White House took immediately following the feeding-frenzied media response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, however, appear to challenge accepted norms vis-a-vis presidential polling. Clinton did not merely link a speech or even a key legislative effort to the results of a poll. On or about January 21, 1998, Clinton and Dick Morris used polling as a way to test phrases, define terms, and design a political strategy to survive a potentially contentious storm. Months later, both the Independent Council and Congress would question the president's use of the polling apparatus to design his defiant January 26, 1998, "finger wagging" speech and impeachment strategy. Why did a well-documented application of presidential polling become a subject of impeachment? Was this case a critical test for the presidential poll apparatus? Polling in the Clinton Administration The Clinton administration accepted the incorporation of public opinion into presidential governing from its predecessors and raised the bat. According to Edwards (1996), "The Clinton administration is the ultimate example of the public presidency, one based on a perpetual campaign and fed by public opinion polls, focus groups, and public relations memos" (p. 234). Presidential interest in public opinion and surveys dates back to Franklin Roosevelt; however, most presidents downplayed the appearance of relying on polling. Publicly, polling was forbidden for anything beyond campaign tracking. Presidents and their advisers feared the negative reaction such as that received by Lyndon Johnson for his reliance on poll numbers. For example, Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman (1994) noted how upset Nixon was with a newspaper column that quoted a staff member's assertion that the Nixon White House relied heavily on polls. Haldeman went on to note that Nixon was "most anxious to avoid any appearance of being like [Johnson]" (p. 34). Several years later, another White House staff member also warned his president (Gerald Ford) to disavow the White House polling apparatus: "I think you should not make any direct reference to a private poll (like [Johnson]) but simply use these things to strengthen your own personal convictions that the American people support you (when they do) in your policy positions. …


Objectives The findings of the study have proved that there is a high significant positive relationship between the parents' knowledge andtheir demographic variables (age, educational level, occupation and residential area). In general, knowledge of parents related to measleswas low however, the parents applied preventive practices towards their children with measles. A cross-sectional study was conducted inAl-Elwyia paediatric teaching hospital in Baghdad from the middle of June till the end of September 2014, in order to identify parents'knowledge of their children with measles.Aim To identify the effectiveness of traditional knowledge of parents' whose children suffer from measles.Methodology Purposive sample of 100 parents who accompanied their children with measles have been selected. The reliability of the instrumentwas determined through a test and validating through a panel of experts. The data was analysed through the application of descriptive statisticalanalysis that include frequency, mean, mean of scores, standard deviation and percentage and the application of inferential statistical analysis thatinclude Pearson correlation coefficient, chi-square, and analysis of variance for the differences test of the study group.Results The results of the study indicated a positive effect on the knowledge of parents.Recommendations The researchers recommended preparing and implementing the knowledge for parents with measles, and for medicaland nursing staff to give them knowledge about the condition.


Work conditions within the public health care sector are physically and psychosocially demanding. This means that balancing work with recovery is essential for employees in order to avoid ill health and stay healthy. This thesis is based on four studies. Study I investigated the prevalence of upper extremity disorders (UED) in female dental personnel. Results showed that 81% reported UED. Consequently, interventions aimed at reducing these risks were called for. Study II investigated the health-related effects of two work-place interventions, physical exercise (PE) and reduced working hours (RWH). Health-improvements were more consistent in the PE group, suggesting that PE may be an appropriate intervention to reduce health-risks. However, there were no effects on recovery from work or fatigue, which may result from other factors, such as overcommitment (OC), that prolong or sustain stress-related activity. Study III showed that high OC was associated with poorer next-day recovery and increased fatigue. Also, OC was a more important predictor of lack of recovery and fatigue than were psychosocial work characteristics. This highlights the importance of considering perseverative cognitions in relation to recovery from work and fatigue, and has implications for interventions targeting work-related ill health. Study IV related lack of recovery and fatigue to cumulative biological risk, allostatic load (AL), and to individual biomarkers. Women with a profile characterized by fatigue, sleep difficulties and lack of short-term recovery had a 2.9 increased risk of AL. This was not shown in analyses of individual biomarkers. In sum, this thesis shows that recovery from work is an important factor in relation to women's work-related health. Fatigue and recovery should be considered interrelated but distinct concepts and recovery should be assessed as an early risk factor for stress-related disease with early risk being investigated using AL rather than individual biomarkers.


Q-learning is a popular Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm which is widely used in practice with function approximation (Mnih et al., 2015). In contrast, existing theoretical results are pessimistic about Q-learning. For example, (Baird, 1995) shows that Q-learning does not converge even with linear function approximation for linear MDPs. Furthermore, even for tabular MDPs with synchronous updates, Q-learning was shown to have sub-optimal sample complexity (Li et al., 2021;Azar et al., 2013). The goal of this work is to bridge the gap between practical success of Q-learning and the relatively pessimistic theoretical results. The starting point of our work is the observation that in practice, Q-learning is used with two important modifications: (i) training with two networks, called online network and target network simultaneously (online target learning, or OTL) , and (ii) experience replay (ER) (Mnih et al., 2015). While they have been observed to play a significant role in the practical success of Q-learning, a thorough theoretical understanding of how these two modifications improve the convergence behavior of Q-learning has been missing in literature. By carefully combining Q-learning with OTL and reverse experience replay (RER) (a form of experience replay), we present novel methods Q-Rex and Q-RexDaRe (Q-Rex + data reuse). We show that Q-Rex efficiently finds the optimal policy for linear MDPs (or more generally for MDPs with zero inherent Bellman error with linear approximation (ZIBEL)) and provide non-asymptotic bounds on sample complexity -- the first such result for a Q-learning method for this class of MDPs under standard assumptions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Q-RexDaRe in fact achieves near optimal sample complexity in the tabular setting, improving upon the existing results for vanilla Q-learning.


Increasing political and economic interconnectedness draws much philosophical attention to the question of the conditions under which such stringent claims arise. Do claims of justice arise only among those who share membership in a state? Alternatively, do they arise among all those who are jointly subject to the global political and economic order? Or do they apply among all human beings simply because they are human? Inquiries into global justice differ from those into international justice precisely by not limiting inquiry to what states should do. They may well also question the very moral acceptability of states, and explore alternative arrangements. This article surveys the recent philosophical debate on global justice.


Implementing bus rapid transit (BRT) in systems characterized by a strong presence of weakly regulated private bus operators can be categorized along a "force-foster" continuum, representing the range in effort to replace incumbents. We examine the fostering end of the spectrum in terms of the consequences of incorporating, rather than replacing, existing operators. While the immediate effect enhances the political feasibility of implementation, what are the longer-term consequences on project sustainability? We hypothesize that the short-term political gain from involving existing bus operators may a) negatively affect performance, b) reduce leverage to regulate the emerging system, c) increase operating costs, and/or d) constrain the ability to expand or integrate the system in the future. We test our hypothesis by examining four BRT corridors implemented in Mexico City between 2005 and 2012. Our findings confirm BRT's potential to transition away from weakly regulated, privatized and atomized systems and empower the state as planner and regulator. We also find longer-term challenges, particularly in the form of non-explicit subsidies to the system and related expectations for subsequent negotiations. The cases suggest that, when managed without a healthy dose of conflict, compromises can be costly. Cities pursuing a "fostering" approach to public transport industry transition should take note.


The importance of the late twelfth-century "Chronicle of Hainaut" ("Chronicon Hanoniense") as an historical record cannot be overestimated. Gilbert of Mons was an eye-witness to important events affecting Count Baldwin V of Hainaut, and provides much significant information about persons and affairs within France and the Empire, particularly Count Philip of Flanders, King Philip Augustus and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; he had a keen interest in noble marriages, making his chronicle an unmatched source for genealogical and prosopographical material for this region. Moreover, his work is a mine of information on a great many subjects, such as the crusades, political events, noble women, the lives of saints, lord-tenant relationships, customary practices and the association of churches with lay advocates; it is particularly informative on military matters, giving detailed accounts of sieges, campaigns and tournaments. This volume presents a clear translation, accompanied by detailed annotations clarify the text, identifying people, events and concepts, an introduction, and bibliography.


When a U.S. person conducts business or investment activity abroad through a foreign corporation in a country that imposes only low rates of tax, the so-called deferral privilege allows the U.S. taxpayer to defer substantial amounts of U.S. tax at the cost of only a small foreign levy. Hence, the deferral privilege operates as a tax subsidy of sorts for U.S. persons with operations in low tax foreign countries and provides a major incentive for U.S. persons to shift their business operations and investments to foreign countries that impose little or no tax on the earnings of the foreign corporations.To prevent abuse, Congress has enacted a number of so-called anti-deferral regimes, which curtail deferral in certain circumstances but leave the privilege intact in a large residual area. These anti-deferral regimes, including the controlled foreign corporation provisions of Subpart F, are among the most complicated provisions in the Internal Revenue Code. Moreover, these anti-deferral rules were created in a different era, when manufacturing activity dominated the domestic and world economies and international trade was a far less significant component of the world economy; thus, the design of these rules has not kept pace with the changing nature of the global marketplace and international investment structures. The anachronistic nature of Subpart F and the other anti-deferral rules in the Code has spawned increasing numbers of intricate planning strategies to avoid the impact of these rules and preserve the deferral privilege.This Article discusses and critiques the various methods for curtailing deferral of U.S. income tax on foreign source income. We conclude that the most effective way to deal with the deferral issue is to treat a foreign corporation as a pass-through entity for U.S. income tax purposes with respect to U.S. persons holding stock in the corporation.The Article begins in Part II with an explanation and theoretical analysis of the deferral incentive. Part III then traces the legislative evolution of the anti-deferral provisions. Part IV is an overview discussion of anti-deferral regimes employed in foreign jurisdictions. Part V is an explanation of why developing a technically sound approach for ending deferral is an important enterprise. Part VI enunciates the criteria we believe should be used in constructing a sound regime for curtailing deferral and explains why we believe that the pass-through approach is the superior one. Parts VII and VIII examine the two principal alternative approaches to revising the anti-deferral regimes, both of which we believe are inferior to our pass-through approach. In Part IX, we present our proposal to treat foreign corporations as pass-through entities with respect to U.S. persons holding stock in such entities and explain how enactment of such a proposal could lead to other reforms in the international tax rules of the United States. Part X focuses on an important and difficult area of any tax reform proposal,namely, transition issues.


We show that officer training during the Swedish military service has a strong positive effect on the probability of attaining a managerial position later in life. The most intense type of officer training increases the probability of becoming a civilian manager by about 5 percentage points, or 75%. Officer training also increases educational attainment post–military service. We argue that the effect on civilian leadership could be due to the acquisition of leadership-specific skills during the military service, and we present suggestive evidence related to alternative mechanisms, such as signaling, networks, and training unrelated to leadership.


With the proliferation of mobile devices, an increasing number of sensing applications are using mobile sensor networks. These mobile networks are severely energy-constrained, and energy usage is one of the most common causes of failure in their deployments. In these networks, nodes that exhaust their energy before the targeted system lifetime degrade system performance; nodes that run past the system lifetime cannot fully utilize their stored energy. Although much work has focused on policies to reduce and regulate energy usage in fixed and dense networks, intermittently connected networks have been largely overlooked. Due to variations in hardware, software, node mobility, and environment, it is especially difficult for intermittently connected mobile networks to improve operations collectively in a dynamic environment. Here, we present and evaluate Collaborative Adaptive Targeted System Lifetime (CA-TSL), an adaptive policy that enforces a system-wide targeted lifetime in an intermittently connected system by adapting node energy usage to an estimated desired energy profile. For evaluation, we present both real-system and large-scale simulated results. Our approach improves sink data reception by an average of 50 percent, and an additional 30 percent when a density estimation technique is also employed. In addition, it reduces system lifetime variations by up to 5.5 ×.


This research develops a MapReduce framework for automatic pattern recognition based on fault diagnosis by solving data imbalance problem in a cloud-based manufacturing (CBM). Fault diagnosis in a CBM system significantly contributes to reduce the product testing cost and enhances manufacturing quality. One of the major challenges facing the big data analytics in CBM is handling of data-sets, which are highly imbalanced in nature due to poor classification result when machine learning techniques are applied on such data-sets. The framework proposed in this research uses a hybrid approach to deal with big data-set for smarter decisions. Furthermore, we compare the performance of radial basis function-based Support Vector Machine classifier with standard techniques. Our findings suggest that the most important task in CBM is to predict the effect of data errors on quality due to highly imbalance unstructured data-set. The proposed framework is an original contribution to the body of literature, where our proposed MapReduce framework has been used for fault detection by managing data imbalance problem appropriately and relating it to firm's profit function. The experimental results are validated using a case study of steel plate manufacturing fault diagnosis, with crucial performance matrices such as accuracy, specificity and sensitivity. A comparative study shows that the methods used in the proposed framework outperform the traditional ones.


The growth of building land does not always produce a positive differential rent on the existing building stock. The essay aims to discuss the case where urban expansion has negative effects on the rent of existing building plots and constructions. In other words, the differential rent assumes negative values that increase over time, lowering the value of existing properties. This occurs when the expansion of the city does not correspond to a real need for new housing. Generally, it happens in the presence of urban centres already in an advanced phase of demographic contraction, when the existing building stock would be sufficient to satisfy the real estate demand. This expansion (sometimes achieved through urban plans or building programs, others in the total absence of plans) is a phenomenon that, since the 1960s, has affected (and still affects) many smaller towns in Italy. While in the cities that attract population, urban expansion led to the creation of a positive and growing rent (absolute and differential), in the centres suffering from depopulation the same type of expansion had adverse effects on the existing building stock.


Nocturnal behaviors and sleep patterns of nesting passerines remain largely undocumented in the field and are important to understanding responses to environmental pressures such as predation. We used nocturnal video recordings to describe activity and quantify behaviors of females with nestlings of four shrubland bird species and three grassland bird species (n 19 nests). Among the shrubland birds, Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora pinus), Prairie Warbler (Dendroica discolor), and Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) returned to the nest for the night at the same time, around sunset. Among the grassland birds, Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) returned the earliest before sunset and Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) returned the latest after sunset. All species exhibited "back sleep" with the bill tucked under scapular feathers, and individuals awoke frequently for vigils or "peeks" at their surroundings. Sleep of all species was disrupted by nestling activity. Average duration of sleep bouts varied from 6 min (Grasshopper Sparrow) to 28 min (Blue-winged Warbler; Field Sparrow, Spizella pusilla). Mean overnight duration on the nest varied from 6.4 hr (Field Sparrow) to 8.8 hr (Indigo Bunting). On average, adults woke in the morning (the last waking before departing the nest) 20–30 min before sunrise. The first absence from the nest in the morning was short for all species, and nestlings were fed within 12 min of a parent's departure. Our study highlights the need for further video research on sleep patterns of nesting birds in the field to better understand basic natural history, energetic cost–benefits of sleep, and behavioral adaptations to environmental pressures.


Social media has become an important means of keeping up to date for busy IR managers. Limited to short, pithy messages, but permitting linking and re-tweeting, the Twitter medium is both handy and powerful … when used appropriately. Alternatively, it can become a portal to fascinating, entertaining, horrifying, and time-consuming off-topic content and even an avenue for online harrassment. The presentation for DC-HUG will involve audience participation, and will include discussions of appropriate forms of identity, good and bad avatars, who to follow for scholarly communications subjects, whom to avoid for greater peace of mind, what are appropriate subjects, how to separate professional and personal topics. Tweets are now included in the Plum Analytics—so we want to explore ways of boosting those results while also keeping our IR community involved and informed. Some IR's can tweet in an official capacity, while other libraries (including mine) forbid that. Audience comments and participation will be an essential part of the contribution. The session will present a roster of scholarly communications personalities, with commentary on their standing and attitudes towards IRs specifically. Discussions of tweeting frequency, what is worth tweeting about, and how to respond to annoying tweets (hint: don't) should provide a lively and informative session.


In a November 2006 Gamasutra article titled "We're not listening: An Open Letter to Academic Game Researchers" John Hopson argues that much of the research into games by academics is not presented in a way likely to appeal to game developers and is largely irrelevant to their concerns.  Hopson's argument implicates humanities and many social science researchers producing speculative and descriptive research rather than more hard-edged technical and statistical research that can have an immediate impact on a game's bottom line.  While conceding Hopson's point about the ineffectiveness of many academic communication norms, I argue that Hopson's article is indicative not of problems with academic research into games as much as the position of game development toward the utility of academic research in general.  After analyzing the assumptions underlying Hopson's argument, I offer a schema that articulates several key types of research into games carried out by scholars with a primary background in the humanities and the contribution of each research approach to the game development process.


"Read him his rights." We all recognize this line from cop dramas. But what happens afterward? In this book, Richard Leo sheds light on a little-known corner of our criminal justice system - the police interrogation.Incriminating statements are necessary to solve crimes, but suspects almost never have reason to provide them. Therefore, as Leo shows, crime units have developed sophisticated interrogation methods that rely on persuasion, manipulation, and deception to move a subject from denial to admission, serving to shore up the case against him. Ostensibly aimed at uncovering truth, the structure of interrogation requires that officers act as an arm of the prosecution.Skilful and fair interrogation allows authorities to capture criminals and deter future crime. But Leo draws on extensive research to argue that confessions are inherently suspect and that coercive interrogation has led to false confession and wrongful conviction. He looks at police evidence in the court, the nature and disappearance of the brutal "third degree," the reforms of the mid-20th century, and how police can persuade suspects to waive their Miranda rights.An important study of the criminal justice system, "Police Interrogation and American Justice" raises unsettling questions. How should police be permitted to interrogate when society needs both crime control and due process? How can order be maintained yet justice served?


Only one period in history is immediately, indelibly and uniquely linked to the whole area of the Scottish and English Border country, and that is the time of the Reivers. Whenever anyone mentions 'Reiver', no-one hesitates to add 'Border'. It is an inextricable association, and rightly so. Nowhere else in Britain in the modern era, or indeed in Europe, did civil order break down over such a wide area, or for such a long time. For more than a century, the hoof-beats of countless raiding parties drummed over the border. From Dumfriesshire to the high wastes of East Cumbria, from Roxburghshire to Redesdale, from the lonely valley of Liddesdale to the fortress city of Carlisle, swords and spears spoke while the law remained silent. Fierce family loyalty counted for everything while the rules of nationality counted for nothing. The whole range of the Cheviot Hills, its watershed ridges and the river valleys which flowed out of them became the landscape of larceny while Maxwells, Grahams, Fenwicks, Carletons, Armstrongs and Elliots rode hard and often for plunder. These were the Riding Times and in modern European history, they have no parallel. This book tells the remarkable story of the Reivers and how they made the Borders.


Manufacturing end-of-fiber optical components able to realize optical functions ranging from a simple lens to more complex functions such as mode-selective components is a decisive but a priori complex task owing to the fiber-core dimensions. Effective low-cost methods allowing researchers to grow polymer components by free-radical photopolymerization using the light coming out of the fiber have recently been reported. A novel, to our knowledge, phenomenological model of the underlying photopolymerization process is here given and used to simulate the polymer-component growth in a three-dimensional time-resolved manner. The simulation results are thus used to understand and optimize the component growth conditions, focusing particularly on the role of oxygen either present in the atmosphere or dissolved in the solution.


Contrasting lithospheric strength between terranes often results in the concentration of strain and deformation within the weaker material. Dramatic alternating asymmetric topography of the central and eastern Alaska Range along the active Denali fault is due to contrasting lithospheric strength between terranes and a suture zone, controlled by fault location with respect to the irregular boundary of a relatively stronger terrane backstop. Highest topography and greatest Neogene exhumation in the central Alaska Range occur on the concave side of the arcuate Denali fault, yet to the north and on the convex side of the fault in the eastern Alaska Range. The Denali fault largely lies along a Mesozoic suture zone between two large composite terranes (Yukon and Wrangellia composite terranes: YCT and WCT), but the McKinley strand of the fault cuts across an embayment of weaker suture‐zone rocks (Alaska Range suture‐zone, ARSZ) within the irregular southern boundary of the YCT (Hines Creek fault). Deformation (and uplift of the Alaska Range) is driven by slip and partitioning of strain along the Denali fault, occurring preferentially in weaker rocks of the ARSZ against the stronger YCT. Where the YCT lies well north of the McKinley strand, deformation is primarily to the north of the fault (eastern Alaska Range). Where the YCT is close to the fault, deformation is primarily to the south (central Alaska Range). While the trace of the McKinley strand approximates a small circle, two restraining bends (McKinley and Hayes) pinned equidistant from the ends of this strand localize uplift and exhumation.


At a time when women were generally excluded from scholarly discourse in the intellectual centers of Europe, four extraordinary female letterate proved their parity as they lectured in prominent scientific and literary academies and published in respected journals. During the Italian Enlightenment, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola, Diamante Medaglia Faini, and Aretafila Savini de Rossi were afforded unprecedented deference in academic debates and epitomized the increasing ability of women to influence public discourse. The Contest for Knowledge reveals how these four women used the methods and themes of their male counterparts to add their voices to the vigorous and prolific debate over the education of women during the eighteenth century. In the texts gathered here, the women discuss the issues they themselves thought most urgent for the equality of women in Italian society specifically and in European culture more broadly. Their thoughts on this important subject reveal how crucial the eighteenth century was in the long history of debates about women in the academy.


The appearance management behavior of 253 African-American, Caucasian-American, and Asian-American subjects was assessed in a field study. Consistent with prior research, appearance management was found to vary according to gender and relational status. A main effect for culture was found, and culture was found to interact with both gender and relational status. African-American men engaged the longest in appearance management among the men, whereas African-American women engaged least among the women. Asian-Americans showed little difference in their dating and non dating appearance management relative to Caucmsian-Americans, who showed greater difference between the two conditions. Differences between dating and non dating appearance management were more complex for African-Americans: The women showed the most difference of all culture types between dating and non dating appearance management, whereas their male counterparts showed practically no difference. Appearance management variance across cultures, social situations, and relational levels is attributed to cultural differences in general impression management and perceptions of social situations.


Unemployment Insurance benefit durations were extended during the Great Recession, reaching 99 weeks for most recipients. The extensions were rolled back and eventually terminated by the end of 2013. Using matched CPS data from 2008-2014, we estimate the effect of extended benefits on unemployment exits separately during the earlier period of benefit expansion and the later period of rollback. In both periods, we find little or no effect on job-finding but a reduction in labor force exits due to benefit availability. We estimate that the rollbacks reduced the labor force participation rate by about 0.1 percentage point in early 2014.


Plasmodium falciparum is the principal causative agent of malaria. Cells of the organism harbour a plastid organelle that constitutes a potential drug target. Metabolic functions associated with the plastid include the synthesis of isoprenoids, fatty acids and haem. Iron-sulphur Fe-Sl clusters may also be assembled in the organelle. Two systems (ISC and SUF) are implicated in biological Fe-S cluster assembly in malaria. The ISC system probably functions in the mitochondrion while the SUF system operates in the plastid. The objective of this project was to investigate a gene in P. falciparum with marked homology to SufS, a cysteine desulphurase (EC 188.8.131.52) of the SUF system in Escherichia coli and Arabidopsis thaliana. P. falciparum SufS (PfSufS) is encoded on chromosome seven of the nuclear genome but is predicted to be trafficked to the plastid organelle. A number of techniques have been applied to investigate the function of PfSufS in this thesis. Following a general introduction in chapter 1, subsequent chapters describe progress with this work. In chapter 2, account is given of investigations into the properties of PfSufS using a combination of bioinformatic and in vitro techniques. Progress towards defining the intracellular targeting of PfSufS by transfection and immunolocalisation is described in chapter 3. Development of a simple colorimetric cysteine desulphurase assay is reported in chapter 4. Finally, attempts have been made to produce recombinant PfSufS for enzymological studies (chapter 5).


Biomarkers are biological indicators of processes that are part of ethiopathogenesis of the diseases, and can, but do not have to be causal to diseases. One very important question is how specific and sensitive the marker is, since one molecule can appear in many conditions. Biomarkers of endothelial cell activation can be very diverse, from biochemical/ metabolic to functional biomarkers. Activation of endothelial cells is part of physiological as well as pathophysiological response of cardiovascular system in conditions as physical activity, growth, pregnancy and in all cardiometabolic diseases (e.g., hypertension, diabetes mellitus, autoimmune inflammatory diseases, coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, ischemia and reperfusion, etc.). During activation, there is a change in endothelial cell morphology and function, which could be a defensive response of endothelium to provoking factor or could lead to increased risk for the injury and end organ damage. This chapter aims to overview current knowledge on established biomarkers of normal and disease-related endothelial activation and to provide information on novel, potential biomarkers in common cardiometabolic diseases.


In the third paper on taxation, Jack M. Mintz and Thomas A. Wilson consider the best way to allocate the "fiscal dividend". This is the amount available to the government that can be used for tax cuts or expenditure increases within the framework of a balanced budget. In their view, although the current growth recession will reduce the potential surplus somewhat, the medium-term outlook is still for increasing surpluses. Concerned about lagging economic growth and emphasizing the importance of efficiency and productivity growth, they argue that priority should be given to debt reduction and tax cuts designed to stimulate investment and potential growth. Mintz and Wilson make the case that a large part of the remaining fiscal dividend should be allocated towards reducing the relatively large personal income tax burden faced by many Canadian families and individuals. But they also stress that it is important to steadily reduce payroll and business taxes as well. This case is supported by extensive international comparisons of taxes in Canada with other countries that show that the burden of taxation is higher in Canada than in many other industrialized countries. It is also bolstered by the results of simulations, using the FOCUS macroeconometric model, of a fiscal package containing significant debt reduction, modest spending increases and cuts in personal, business and payroll taxes. These simulations show such a fiscal package should have favourable supply-side effects on output, employment and productivity over the medium term. In addition, since their analysis reveals that there are still important issues of tax structure that need to be addressed, they recommend that the government establish a task force to review personal income taxes and to consider the need for additional tax cuts. Finally, Mintz and Wilson also remind us that while planned debt reduction is an important component of a growth-oriented fiscal policy, in the short run the size of the surplus should be allowed to vary with the level of economic activity. Otherwise fiscal policy will exacerbate the slowdown that is currently underway.


On the evening of Monday, August 11, 2003, two spontaneous riots erupted in Beirut. They occurred around the same time and were triggered by the same event. About an hour earlier, Future TV had announced voting results after the semi-final of its flagship program, Superstar, the Arabic version of Pop Idol (UK) or American Idol (US). The first riot erupted at the Beirut Hall, a concert venue where the Superstar finale had just concluded. Several people passed out, including one the mothers of two semi-finalists and the third semifinalist herself who lost consciousness after learning she had moved on to the finale. The second riot unfolded when fans of the ousted semi-finalist gathered spontaneously in front of Future Television studios to protest the decision. What gave these riots their passion and poignancy was the fact that the Lebanese contestant Melhem Zein was eliminated while the Syrian candidate Rowayda Attiyeh was elevated to the finale. Disciplines Communication This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/305


This interview with former double agent Morten Storm can serve as a unique case study for academics and security practitioners wishing to understand the turbulent path that led a young Danish man to turn into a Muslim, later on embrace violent jihad, and ultimately work for four different Western intelligence agencies in the War on Terror. The interview identifies the struggles of a man in search of identity and belonging. It provides unique insights into the world of violent jihad and offers an understanding of the key role played by double agents in disrupting international terrorist networks. The interview further highlights the operational challenges inherent in cooperating with different Western intelligence agencies and the personal challenges underpinning undercover operations.


A new species of Pamphobeteus Pocock, 1901 is described from the Colombian Andes, Medellín, Antioquia. The biochemistry and molecular characteristics of the venom of this new species (previously identified as Pamphobeteus aff. nigricolor) has been already described. A detailed taxonomic study, comparing this species with holotypes and additional material of Pamphobeteus species, allowed us to recognize it as new, and to describe it here as Pamphobeteus verdolaga sp. nov. The male of P. verdolaga sp. nov. is distinguished by the palpal bulb with broad embolus, poorly developed apical keel (A), prolateral inferior keel (PI) and prolateral accessory keel (PAc) present but poorly developed, and retrolateral keel (R) of similar length as A. Females are distinguished by the morphology of spermatheca with a wide base and very short oval seminal receptacles, which are curved toward the center. This is the thirteenth species described in Pamphobeteus and the sixth species reported from Colombia. The species description is complemented by a molecular characterization of a partial


This study presents results from a model intercomparison project, focusing on the range of responses in deep convective cloud updrafts to varying cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations among seven state-of-the-art cloud-resolving models. Simulations of scattered convective clouds near Houston, Texas, are conducted, after being initialized with both relatively low and high CCN concentrations. Deep convective updrafts are identified, and trends in the updraft intensity and frequency are assessed. The factors contributing to the vertical velocity tendencies are examined to identify the physical processes associated with the CCN-induced updraft changes. The models show several consistent trends. In general, the changes between the High-CCN and Low-CCN simulations in updraft magnitudes throughout the depth of the troposphere are within 15% for all of the models. All models produce stronger (~+5%–15%) mean updrafts from ~4–7 km above ground level (AGL) in the High-CCN simulations, followed by a waning response up to ~8 km AGL in most of the models. Thermal buoyancy was more sensitive than condensate loading to varying CCN concentrations in most of the models and more impactful in the mean updraft responses. However, there are also differences between the models. The change in the amount of deep convective updrafts varies significantly. Furthermore, approximately half the models demonstrate neutral-to-weaker (~−5% to 0%) updrafts above ~8 km AGL, while the other models show stronger (~+10%) updrafts in the High-CCN simulations. The combination of the CCN-induced impacts on the buoyancy and vertical perturbation pressure gradient terms better explains these middle- and upper-tropospheric updraft trends than the buoyancy terms alone.


We study differences in quality in the market for third-party environmental auditors in Gujarat, India. We find that, despite the low overall quality, auditors are heterogeneous and some perform well. We posit that these high-quality auditors survive by using their good name to insulate select client plants from regulatory scrutiny. We find two pieces of evidence broadly consistent with this hypothesis: (i) though estimates are not precise, higher-quality auditors appear to be paid more both in their work as third-party auditors and in their complementary work as consultants; and (ii) plants with high-quality auditors incur fewer costly penalties from the regulator.


This thesis investigates a number of issues caused by informational asymmetries between firms and investors. It looks at two situations where problems arise because of asymmetric information, and examines possible solutions, and presents one case where asymmetric information is the solution to a problem. The first situation developed in chapter two provides a theoretical explanation based on reputational concerns for why certification intermediaries like rating agencies may exhibit excess sensitivity to the business cycle and for differences in ratings across agencies. It also analyses how competition in this industry affects the behaviour of these intermediaries and how this depends on reputational disparities among the different competitors. Chapter three looks at the impact of auditor rotation on the gathering and disclosure of information about projects taking into account that longer auditor tenures can generate substantial savings in information collection costs but also make auditors more willing to preserve future expected rents and private benefits. It also shows that the regulation of auditing procedures becomes less relevant if accounting transparency increases. In contrast with the previous two cases, the next chapter finds that co-ordination failures among small creditors during debt renegotiation can be mitigated by the presence of a large and more informed creditor or by a voting requirement. It examines how the strength of these effects depends on the relative precision of private information of the small and large creditors and provides a rationale for a diversified capital structure based on the informational role that some creditors might have in case of financial distress.


Dyre or Dyreza, is a pretty prominent figure in the world of financial malware. The Dyre of today comes loaded with a multitude of mod- ules and features while also appearing to be well maintained. The first recorded instance of Dyre I have found is an article in June 2014 and the sample in question is version 1001, while at the time of this report Dyre is already up to version 1166. While the crypters and packers have varied over time, for at least the past 6 months Dyre has used the same loader to perform it's initial checks and injection sequence. It is the purpose of this report to go through the various techniques and algorithms present in the loader, and at times reverse them to python proof of concepts.


The light intensity distributions in the front space of a contact-type multiview 3-D imaging system are measured to estimate the effects of the differences in real and nominal values of parameters and alignment errors on the quality of 3-D images. The distributions clearly reveal how the viewing zone cross section is formed and how the mixed images are formed. For these measurements, a 1×4 Fresnel lens array and a projector are used as the viewing zone forming optics and image source, respectively. The results are graphically represented in terms of crosstalk. Both the misalignments and the inaccuracies greatly increase the crosstalk.


This project was initiated by Ngala whose staff had identified the potential early parenting challenges for fly-in fly-out families. In 2005, Lotterywest made funds available to Ngala to partner with Meerilinga to undertake research aimed at examining the strategies used by Western Australian families with young children for dealing with the transitions in the family as a consequence of choosing a fly-in fly-out lifestyle. Using the research expertise of the Centre for Social and Community Research, the research focused on the regular transitions from parenting together to parenting apart including issues such as:
• work and family roles;
• identity issues for families;
• child development and attachment issues;
• decision making and communication around parenting;
• emotional responses of family members to transitions.
Previous research on the fly-in fly-out lifestyle has focussed on evaluating its costs and benefits. This research acknowledges that the fly-in fly-out lifestyle is a valid lifestyle choice and will continue to be a significant component of both family and community structures. Using qualitative methodology the research has given voice to families engaged in fly-in fly-out who "tell it like it is" – their words are a powerful reminder that we are not seeking to make a judgement about parenting or about fly-in fly-out. Rather, we seek to understand how families manage their parenting and concentrated work schedules. Many of the issues are common to all families, others are mediated by the environment created by fly-in fly-out.


[Excerpt] "Throughout history many people have viewed sodomy and prostitution as moral evils, because sex has often been linked to sin and, therefore, to immorality and guilt. For example, in ancient Hebrew, a sodomite was known as a qadhesh, a male temple prostitute who was associated with heathen deities and impure forms of worship. The female version of qadhesh, qedheshah, is translated directly as prostitute. This archaic view of labeling prostitution and sodomy as impure has been challenged over time, and both topics are still a source of great controversy. [...] This note is a comparative analysis of sodomy and prostitution. This note will examine the history of both topics in the United States and, to a limited extent, in other countries. The primary focus will be on the laws and regulations governing people who engage in either practice, as well as the moral arguments used in opposition to either practice. The note will also look at the change in sodomy laws after Lawrence, current arguments for changing prostitution laws, as well as examine the effect the reasoning of Lawrence may have on future challenges to anti-prostitution laws. This note is intended to show similarities between the moral justifications for banning sodomy and prostitution, as well as the heterosexist influence on society concerning both issues. This note does not advocate for a change in prostitution laws. This note concentrates on a limited aspect of both sodomy and prostitution. In dealing with sodomy, the note discusses only consensual sodomy. Sodomy perpetrated upon a person in the context of rape or coercion is not discussed in this note. Additionally, consensual and voluntary prostitution between adults is the only form of prostitution covered by this note. This note will not address the prostitution of underage people, forced prostitution, or human trafficking. Part II focuses on a general overview of American regulations that are based on moral arguments. Part III provides an overview of sodomy and prostitution, specifically addressing how regulations are used to address


War has profoundly shaped the Middle East regional system. The Middle East has two of the world's most enduring conflict centres, each originating in the impact of the West on the region. The establishment of Israel at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians led to a chain of wars, each of which added new grievances and issues complicating the possibility of a resolution. In the Gulf, the struggle over oil and oil routes has been expressed in another chain of wars which can be traced back to the Western overthrow of Muhammed Mossadeq who had attempted to nationalise Iran's oil; this was a major factor in the Iranian revolution which set the stage for the first and second Gulf wars. Conflicts over Israel and oil have tended to feed on each other, as in the 1973 oil embargo triggered by the Arab–Israeli war of that year. War has originated in domestic level dissatisfaction shaped by these struggles which, when institutionalised in rival states, is expressed in conflict at the states system level, frequently over territory. Everywhere, in a region afflicted with irredentism, domestic politics encourages nationalist outbidding. Revolution in states such as Egypt and Iran has brought leaders to power who seek to export their ideology; in mobilising new social forces, it has tended to strengthen certain states and upset power balances. Demographic, ideological or political expansionist impulses have been built into the very fabric of some states, as is arguably so of Israel (a settler state) and Iraq (an artificial state), which, between them, have launched five wars against their neighbours. Weak or authoritarian regimes have made repeated miscalculations, plunging their states


The purpose of this article is to describe, explore and discuss whether meeting places for youth such as youth clubs support their citizenship in terms of gender equality, influence and participation. The following questions were of interest; what is the overall aim of the local councils regarding these clubs and meeting places? What kind of activities do they offer and what kind of citizenship do they support? The result shows that these places are more attractive to boys than to girls. Furthermore, these meeting places can, if developed, be places for the development of youth citizenship from the perspective of integration, gender equality and participation.


With the advent of consumer grade depth sensors, low-cost volumetric capture systems are easier to deploy. Their wider adoption though depends on their usability and by extension on the practicality of spatially aligning multiple sensors. Most existing alignment approaches employ visual patterns, e.g. checkerboards, or markers and require high user involvement and technical knowledge. More user-friendly and easier-to-use approaches rely on markerless methods that exploit geometric patterns of a physical structure. However, current SoA approaches are bounded by restrictions in the placement and the number of sensors. In this work, we improve markerless data-driven correspondence estimation to achieve more robust and flexible multi-sensor spatial alignment. In particular, we incorporate geometric constraints in an end-to-end manner into a typical segmentation based model and bridge the intermediate dense classification task with the targeted pose estimation one. This is accomplished by a soft, differentiable procrustes analysis that regularizes the segmentation and achieves higher extrinsic calibration performance in expanded sensor placement configurations, while being unrestricted by the number of sensors of the volumetric capture system. Our model is experimentally shown to achieve similar results with marker-based methods and outperform the mark-erless ones, while also being robust to the pose variations of the calibration structure. Code and pretrained models are available at https://vcl3d.github.io/StructureNet/.


textabstractVarious leaves and other forms of flexible working arrangements have been implemented in workplaces to support employees with family commitments. Some are a response to public policy, others developed voluntarily. However, research examining the effectiveness of these policies in a search for "good practices" often neglects the impact of specific national and workplace contexts. Some researchers are calling for more attention to social systems, especially at the macro and meso levels, and the relationships between them, to extend understanding of work family processes and experiences. We argue that this is critical for evaluating work-family policies and practices. However it is important to recognize that social systems are not static. They are dynamic and changing, particularly in the context of globalization processes. Drawing on data from six case studies of private sector organizations undergoing rapid change and transformation, carried out in six European states, as part of a qualitative cross-national EU project (Transitions)1 , this paper explores the impact of multiple layers of context on parents' experiences of flexible working arrangements for managing work and family boundaries. The study shows that although various aspects of macro layers of context are important and it is easier to make use of flexibility to combine work and parenting in some national and workplace contexts than others, changes taking place at the workplace level in response to global competition and efficiency drives can undermine both regulatory and voluntary initiatives to enhance flexibility for parents. This is occurring across national boundaries. Some implications for debates on "good practices" and for future work-family research are discussed.


Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) constitutes a worldwide health problem. There is currently an urgent and unmet need for the development of small molecule therapeutics capable of blocking and/or reversing the progression of the disorder. Recent studies have greatly illuminated our understanding of the multiple pathogenic processes associated with COPD. Of paramount importance is the key role played by proteases, oxidative stress, apoptosis and inflammation. Insights gained from these studies have made possible the exploration of new therapeutic approaches. Areas covered: An overview of major developments in COPD research with emphasis on low-molecular mass neutrophil elastase inhibitors is described in this review. Expert opinion: Great strides have been made toward our understanding of the biochemical and cellular events associated with COPD. However, our knowledge regarding the inter-relationships among the multiple pathogenic mechanisms and their mediators involved is still limited. The problem is further compounded by the unavailability of suitable validated biomarkers for assessing the efficacy of potential therapeutic interventions. The complexity of COPD suggests that effective therapeutic interventions may require the administration of more than one agent such as a human neutrophil elastase or MMP-12 inhibitor with an anti-inflammatory agent such as a PDE4 inhibitor or a dual function agent capable of disrupting the cycle of proteolysis, apoptosis, inflammation and oxidative stress.


DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS: DO PERSONALITY, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND SCHOOL CLIMATE PLAY A ROLE? by JESSICA MCLAUGHLIN December 2013 Advisor: Dr. Rita J. Casey Major: Psychology Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Depression among early childhood teachers has received little attention within the United States. For the present study, early childhood teachers were asked to participate in an online survey to investigate the rate of high depression symptoms among teachers, and whether personality, social support, and school climate are related to teachers' depression symptoms. Results showed that 32% of early childhood teachers in the sample were high in depression symptoms, which is significantly higher than rates of depression in the general population. Lower levels of neuroticism and higher levels of extroversion were related to fewer depression symptoms. Perceived social support from an administrator and other teachers' openness were also related to fewer depression symptoms in early childhood teachers. The implications of these findings are important, such as effects teacher depression could have on teaching quality and students' academic and psychosocial competence. Intervention options are also suggested, especially given the amount of pressure and scrutiny currently being placed on teachers in the United States.


This article, written early in the modern ADR era, provided a framework for developing the mediation field. It begins by elaborating William Simon's critique of the "ideology of advocacy." Simon argues that the adversary system is supposed to foster values of individuality, autonomy, responsibility, and dignity, but it often undermines those values in practice. This article catalogs a "parade of horribles" experienced by disputants, attorneys, judges, and the public. These include unequal access to justice, procedural rules that frustrate substantive justice, a narrow set of available remedies, a game psychology undermines respect for law and justice, parties' alienating experience in litigation, domination of clients by their lawyers, patterns of conflict avoidance and escalation, and a heavy "shadow of law" in negotiation.The article compares the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct with the ABA Family Law Section Standards of Practice for Family Mediators (FLS Standards) to identify some general principles for conflict resolution applicable to both advocates and mediators. These include principles regarding competence of professionals, impartiality of neutrals (such as judges and mediators), avoidance of conflicts of interests, legitimate needs for confidentiality, use of accurate information, consideration of alternative process options, value of negotiation, respect for the role of parties as primary decision-makers in disputes, importance of parties' interests, respect for legitimate needs of others, and efforts to reduce negative behavior such as violence, intimidation, and unnecessary expense. The article also identifies factors limiting some applications of these principles, including parties' competence, bad motivations, adversarial attitudes. It uses this analysis to praise and critique various aspects of the FLS Standards.The article concludes with suggestions for developing the mediation field using what would now be called a "dispute system design" perspective. It calls for engaging key stakeholder groups to pursue a research agenda, identify needs and priorities, evaluate various options to address identified needs, educate professionals and the public about mediation, develop a cooperative relationship between the legal and mental health professions, and secure funding for research and development.


We examine the evidence on excess stock return predictability in a Bayesian setting in which the investor faces uncertainty about both the existence and strength of predictability. Departing from previous studies, we allow the regressor to be stochastic. When we apply our methods to the dividend-price ratio and payout yield, we find that even investors who are quite skeptical about the existence of predictability sharply modify their views in favor of predictability when confronted by the historical time series of returns and predictor variables. We find that taking into account the stochastic properties of the regressor has a substantial impact on the investor's inference about returns.


Digital collections often foster a large number of digital resources that need to be efficiently managed, described and disseminated. Metadata play a key role in these tasks as they offer the basis upon which more advanced services can be built. However, it is not always the case that such collections' metadata expose explicit or even well-structured semantics. Ways to bridge this "semantic gap" are increasingly being sought, as our review of the current state-of-the-art reveals. Most importantly though, in this paper we comment on two well-known metadata standards, popular in cultural heritage applications, namely CIDOC-CRM and Dublin Core; as diverse their scope may be, we nevertheless show how applications can benefit from a transition to explicit semantic structures in these domains, in a way as painless as possible and conformant to Semantic Web standards. We conclude by presenting a concrete, prototype implementation that serves as a proof-of-concept about the ideas argued for.


History and Memory in African-American Culture. Edited by Genevieve Fabre and Robert O'Meally. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 321 pages. $18.95 paper. The terms "history" and "memory" have taken on considerable import in recent criticism on American cultures and literatures, with a significant number of critics eliding issues like collective identity and communal "memory" by assigning memory to the personal/individual and history to a category of learned, rather than remembered, phenomena. History, in this paradigm, cannot be recalled, either collectively or individually, but can only be learned. This exaggerated dichotomy between history and memory leaves the individual, classical American (read: Euro-American), alone on the prairie of knowledge, with history as a disembodied force which we pretend to remember but only know through learned means. Editors Genevieve Fabre and Robert O'Meally, writing in the introduction to this impressive volume, describe the binarily-inclined history/memory climate of scholarly opinion this way: "at least until quite recently, many observers would agree that while history at its finest is a discipline, memory is something else again, something less." Fabre and O'Meally, though, point out what may be obvious: "history" is not the sole domain of "historians." Novelists, musical composer-performers, visual artists in the African diaspora (and surely elsewhere) record their impressions and expressions in the interstices between that distant, hegemonically revered History and their individual positions on the present's horizon. History is far from simply removed from the personal, as David Blight shows in his perceptive reading of W.E.B. Du Bois as a historian who authored Black Reconstruction in America (1935) in part to reveal that since Reconstruction's close the "American historical community had not only subordinated the black experience but had rendered it virtually unknown" (46). Du Bois, who has been credited with configuring the entire modern corpus of "doubleness" discourse in regards to race, becomes in Blight's reading an incisive historiographer worthy of more attention, especially in light of the contemporary lionization of "history." What this volume makes clear is that memory can by no means be considered separate from history or in any way definitely in contrast to the accepted hegemony of that discipline which heads up so many academic departments and monographs. Popular memory and practices which communalize memory of history are profuse in African American (and Afro-diasporic) traditions, Fabre and O'Meally's collection demonstrates, and this gives fine ground to so much postcolonial theory which seeks to reckon with temporality and the present in its "disjunct and displaced" relationship to the past and future. (1) This text originates in a Ford Foundation-funded seminar at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Each of the eighteen scholars (including the editors) contributes an essay-transcription of their oral presentations at the seminar's final meeting. This oral-into-written process offers each essay a loose, informal tone and texture that collectively makes this volume highly readable but no less weighty for that readability. The essays' collective range is immense; from segregation in American cemeteries to Katherine Dunham's Afro-Caribbean choreography, with stopovers at the "blues aesthetic" in Aaron Douglass's visual arts and the ideological meaning of Zora Neale Hurston's canonicity. This band of scholars looks plentifully into the history / memory matrix without overtly rebutting the post-Reagan neo-individualist paradigm I've already described, suggesting that the argument is relatively moot. …