With the developed economies being lately characterised by news of slow growth, mass layoffs and even deflation, investors are increasingly turning towards markets with more positive outlooks. The biggest and most attractive of these markets (like China and the rest of the BRICS countries) have become to be known as emerging markets. However, investors who are always looking for new opportunities have turned their sight even further: to the so-called frontier markets. This phenomenon is of course part of the bigger globalisation that has been in the centre of discussion already for years. Since the 1960s global capital flows have increased in significant numbers be it in terms of equity, direct investment, bonds or currency. Naturally also governments have become increasingly interested in attracting more of this capital, to the point where they have started to adapt economic policies to interest foreign investors. This has translated into a situation where the poorest economies in the world are the most dependent on foreign capital flows. (World Bank, 2015b) Thus it has become more and more important to understand the real drivers behind international investments. Usually foreign investment is classified into two types: foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment. Even though both involve the transfer of some kind of assets cross borders the difference lies, among other things, in the level of control attained after the investment. These two types of foreign investment have received different amounts of attention in academic literature: FDI has been in the focus of mainly international business research whereas FPI has been left for finance literature. However, researchers have in fact suggested that these two types of investment should be looked at through the same theoretical lens. Essentially both are a type of cross border investment but why are their determinants perceived to be so different? I set out to answer two research questions using a case study methodology: What characteristics developed market mutual fund managers look for when making the location decision for foreign equity portfolio investment into emerging and frontier markets? and What is the role of host country institutions in the aforementioned location decision? The case studies were conducted through empirical interviews with five Finnish mutual fund managers with the support of other publicly available documents and information. From the empirical interviews I found that characteristics that developed market fund managers look for when making the location decision include a stable currency, a positive political situation (could have varying meanings), large, liquid and undervalued stock markets, demographic drivers of structural growth and economic growth and development. Furthermore, the interviewees showed strong support for the role of political and economic institutions as influencing the location decision. In addition the case studies brought to light a new perspective on the importance of personal visits and partnerships in reducing information asymmetries and thus influencing the location decision.


We examine German participants' assessment of the time of National Socialism. Especially for younger generations, shifts in the culture of remembrance may change their assessments of historical events. We argue that factors such as increased formal education about the topic and decreased personal contact with contemporary witnesses can weaken attributional biases (e.g., ingroup favouritism) in the assessment of the role of the German population during the time of National Socialism. We use data from a German representative sample ( N = 1,000) and focus on the links between participants' age and the estimated involvement of the German population under National Socialism as perpetrators, victims, helpers, and "bystanders," as well as the agreement with explanations why the general population did not act against National Socialist crimes. Younger participants estimated the proportions of perpetrators and bystanders within the German population as higher and were less likely to agree that Germans did not know about the systematic killings. Older participants were more likely to agree with situational explanations for the population's inaction (i.e., that Germans did not know or did not have an opportunity to act against the crimes). We find a positive relation between a more critical perspective on the involvement of the population in the past and participants' feelings of responsibility in the present.


The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to revolutionize the field of exoplanets. The broad wavelength coverage and the high sensitivity of its instruments will allow characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres with unprecedented precision. Following the Call for the Cycle 1 Early Release Science Program, the Transiting Exoplanet Community was awarded time to observe several targets, including WASP-43b. The atmosphere of this hot Jupiter has been intensively observed but still harbors some mysteries, especially concerning the day–night temperature gradient, the efficiency of the atmospheric circulation, and the presence of nightside clouds. We will constrain these properties by observing a full orbit of the planet and extracting its spectroscopic phase curve in the 5–12 μm range with JWST/MIRI. To prepare for these observations, we performed extensive modeling work with various codes: radiative transfer, chemical kinetics, cloud microphysics, global circulation models, JWST simulators, and spectral retrieval. Our JWST simulations show that we should achieve a precision of 210 ppm per 0.1 μm spectral bin on average, which will allow us to measure the variations of the spectrum in longitude and measure the nightside emission spectrum for the first time. If the atmosphere of WASP-43b is clear, our observations will permit us to determine if its atmosphere has an equilibrium or disequilibrium chemical composition, eventually providing the first conclusive evidence of chemical quenching in a hot Jupiter atmosphere. If the atmosphere is cloudy, a careful retrieval analysis will allow us to identify the cloud composition.


Abstract Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder, characterised by chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain, and the presence of multiple tender points as well as a host of associated symptomatology. Optimal management of patients with fibromyalgia requires a multidisciplinary approach, with a combination of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions that are tailored to the patient's pain, dysfunction and associated features, including depression, sleep disorder and fatigue. Non-pharmacological lifestyle-based interventions to treat this disorder include exercise therapy, dietary modification, and psychosocial interventions. This review outlines these three forms of lifestyle intervention in patients with fibromyalgia.


Human cochlear and vestibular hair cells (HCs) were analysed for the three major cytoskeletal types of structures: microfilaments, microtubules, and intermediate filaments and several of their associated proteins. Specific immunomorphological features were identified: the apical surface, the infracuticular rod of F-actin, the cytoplasm and the HC bases and their interactions with adjacent supporting cells. There is morphological evidence for at least three functionally interacting units: the OHC as a cytoskeletal string interacting with the Deiter's cell, being a part of the rigid pancellular protein shell of the organ of Corti; compartmentalization of HCs (surrounded by rigid intermediate filament proteins in the supporting cells); and a calcium-guided short-loop feed-back control of type I HCs. The cytoskeletal composition of all four types of human HCs and their adjacent structures is similar to, although not identical with, corresponding compositions in other mammalian species.


Designed for human exploration missions into deep space, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) represents a new spaceflight infrastructure asset, enabling a wide variety of unique utilization opportunities. Together with the Orion crew vehicle and ground operations at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SLS is a foundational capability for NASA's Journey to Mars. From the beginning of the SLS flight program, utilization of the vehicle will also include launching secondary payloads, including CubeSats, to deep-space destinations. Currently, SLS is making rapid progress toward readiness for its first launch in 2018, using the initial configuration of the vehicle, which is capable of delivering 70 metric tons (t) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). On its first flight, Exploration Mission-1, SLS will launch an uncrewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft into distant retrograde orbit around the moon. Accompanying Orion on SLS will be 13 CubeSats, which will deploy in cislunar space. These CubeSats will include not only NASA research, but also spacecraft from industry and international partners and potentially academia. Following its first flight and potentially as early as its second, which will launch a crewed Orion spacecraft into cislunar space, SLS will evolve into a more powerful configuration with a larger upper stage. This configuration will initially be able to deliver 105 t to LEO and will continue to be upgraded to a performance of greater than 130 t to LEO. While the addition of the more powerful upper stage will mean a change to the secondary payload accommodations from Block 1, the SLS Program is already evaluating options for future secondary payload opportunities. Early discussions are also already underway for the use of SLS to launch spacecraft on interplanetary trajectories, which could open additional opportunities for CubeSats. This presentation will include an overview of the SLS vehicle and its capabilities, including the current status of progress toward first launch. It will also explain the opportunities the vehicle offers for CubeSats and secondary payloads, including an overview of the CubeSat manifest for Exploration Mission-1 in 2018.


Sleep apnea is highly prevalent and underdiagnosed. It is associated with multiple medi- cal conditions including cardiac dysrhythmia, stroke, hypertension, diabetes and con-gestive heart failure. In the last few decades, advances in diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea have been robust. In this review, we will emphasize primarily developments in the area of sleep apnea that occurred in the past 5 years. These include changes in the nomenclature of sleep apnea in the International Classification in Sleep Disorders physiologic approach of treating sleep apnea, eligibility for CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) treatment, home sleep testing (HST), apnea in pregnancy, updates in oral device treatment and other emerging concepts on sleep apnea.


Modeling of photovoltaic sources and their emulation by means of power electronic converters are challenging issues. The former is tied to the knowledge of the electrical behavior of the PV generator; the latter consists in its realization by a suitable power amplifier. This extensive introduction to the modeling of PV generators and their emulation by means of power electronic converters will aid in understanding and improving design and set up of new PV plants. The main benefit of reading Photovoltaic Sources is the ability to face the emulation of photovoltaic generators obtained by the design of a suitable equipment in which voltage and current are the same as in a real source. This is achieved according to the following steps: the source electrical behavior modeling, the power converter design, including its control, for the laboratory emulator. This approach allows the reader to cope with the creation of an indoor virtual photovoltaic plant, in which the environmental conditions can be imposed by the user, for testing real operation including maximum power point tracking, partial shading, control for the grid or load interfacing, etc. Photovoltaic Sources is intended to meet the demands of postgraduate level students, and should prove useful to professional engineers and researchers dealing with the problems associated with modeling and emulation of photovoltaic sources.


Quantification of limestone petrology and structure in a 25 km2 section of the northern Vaca Plateau, Belize, facilitated development of a model of speleogenesis and evolution of area caves and the karst landscape. The limestones in the study area are mostly depositional breccias developed between the mid-Cretaceous and mid-Tertiary adjacent to the emergent Maya Mountain Fault Block. Micritic and some fossiliferous-pelletic lithoclasts of the Cretaceous Campur Formation are cemented by sparite which formed in a shallow-sea high energy environment adjacent to the emergent area. Planes of structural weakness developed in the Campur Limestone have similar orientations to contemporary karst landform features including solution valleys, the long-axis of depressions, and cave passages. This correspondence suggests an important structural control on the formation and evolution of area caves and the karst landscape. Base level modification by way of valley incision and the development of secondary permeability enhanced interfluve development, causing caves to be truncated along valley sides and abandoned as active flow routes. The dry valleys and stair-step cave profiles indicate that the lowering of base level through time was interspersed with stable periods when horizontal cave passages were excavated.


The Orthodox Christian tradition has all too often been sidelined in conversations around contemporary religion. Despite being distinct from Protestantism and Catholicism in both theology and practice, it remains an underused setting for academic inquiry into current lived religious practice. This collection, therefore, seeks to redress this imbalance by investigating modern manifestations of Orthodox Christianity through an explicitly gender-sensitive gaze. By addressing attitudes to gender in this context, it fills major gaps in the literature on both religion and gender. Starting with the traditional teachings and discourses around gender in the Orthodox Church, the book moves on to demonstrate the diversity of responses to those narratives that can be found among Orthodox populations in Europe and North America. Using case studies from several countries, with both large and small Orthodox populations, contributors use an interdisciplinary approach to address how gender and religion interact in contexts such as iconography, conversion, social activism, and ecumenical relations among others. From Greece and Russia to Finland and the USA, this volume sheds new light on the myriad ways in which gender is manifested, performed, and engaged within contemporary Orthodoxy. Furthermore, it also demonstrates that employing the analytical lens of gender enables new insights into Orthodox Christianity as a lived tradition. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of both Religious Studies and Gender Studies.


The need for a highly efficient numerical simulation platform for designing photonic band gap (PBG) structures is outlined in the context of various functional device topologies. In this paper we therefore introduce the Method of Auxiliary Sources (MAS) as a semi-analytical, frequency-domain method for computational optics, which has already proven its accuracy and efficiency in various other fields of electrodynamics. The proposed software package provides an easy-to-handle approach to full-wave analysis of two-dimensional (2D) PBG circuits, PBG-based antennas as well as to dense-integrated optics components that contain optical waveguides, scatterers, resonators and other functional elements. Experimental verifications of the numerical results have been conducted along large-scale prototypes in the microwave frequency range for several device topologies.


The enhanced greenhouse effect is currently considered to be our most important global environmental problem. While the magnitude of radiation absorbed by greenhouse gases is known to a high certainty, the absorption of radiation by atmospheric aerosol particles is not. In the initial Visiting Faculty Program application, we proposed the use of an ultraviolet-visible (UV/Vis) spectrometer equipped with a liquid waveguide capillary flow cell to determine the extent to which secondary organic aerosol particles (SOA) absorb visible light. Early in the research period, the UV/Vis technique was optimized for three solvent systems (methanol, water and 0.1 M hydrochloric acid). Using the optimized UV/Vis technique optical properties such as mass specific absorption cross-section and imaginary refractive index were determined for SOA dissolved in different solvent systems. The end result of the UV/Vis studies is the inclusion of SOA optical properties into climate models developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). This knowledge will help to improve climate models, which currently do not include the effect of SOA. We also utilized Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy to help elucidate the chemical composition of SOA. Finally, an experimental method was developed to determine the peroxide content of SOA. It is expected that these studies will connect the chemical composition of SOA to their optical properties. The research carried out at PNNL will be included in two undergraduate senior theses at Concordia University Portland (CU). It is also expected that this research will be included in a peer-reviewed journal article. It is our hope that success of our work will result in future collaborations between PNNL and CU students. Determination of SOA optical properties


Background information
The Dutch population is ageing, bringing along high costs for health care due to the high demand in health care. Active ageing aims for an ageing process that helps elderly to maintain their autonomy and independence for as long as possible, with lower costs of care as a consequence. Active ageing is associated with participation in social, economic, cultural and spiritual participation and civic affairs. Performing pleasurable activities is a form of participation in society, and thus a form of active ageing.
Problem statement
The problem this research focuses on is the older the Dutch elderly population get; the less time they spend on pleasurable activities. This might be due to some barriers they experience, but it is expected that they also experience motivators to perform pleasurable activities. This has led to the main question to be answered: 'What are barriers and motivators to perform pleasurable activities in daily life of the Dutch elderly population?' This main question will be answered by answering three sub questions: 'What are activities regarded most pleasurable by the Dutch elderly population?', 'What are barriers to perform pleasurable activities in the daily life of the Dutch population?' and 'What are motivators to perform pleasurable activities in the daily life of the Dutch elderly population?'
Method
The research method used was a quantitative design, which was descriptive and transversal. The research was based on data gathered from questionnaires. The questionnaire consisted of four parts:
1) level of participation in society, 2) frequency and pleasure different activities, 3) barriers perceived when performing pleasurable activities and 4) motivators perceived when performing pleasurable activities. The questionnaire was filled in by respondents consisting of men and women, living in a village or a city and with an age of 65 years and over. The data analysis was done using SPSS 21. For all four parts, a comparison was made between gender (male and female) and living conditions (rural or urban environments) of the respondents. For the second part, a top three of most frequently performed and most pleasurable rated activities was stated, and for part three and four, a top two of highest rated barriers and motivators was stated.
Results
Concluding, it can be said that on average, visiting/receiving visits, walking/bicycling and reading were rated as the most pleasurable regarded activities. The highest rated two barriers were health impairment and lack of company, and the two highest rated motivators were perceived pleasure and increased social participation. Differences between gender and living conditions were found in the pleasure and frequency of certain activities, as well as in the rating of the barriers and motivators.
Conclusion and discussion
It can be said that the results of this research have shown to be partially in accordance with earlier performed research, but did not show similarities for barriers, apart from health impairment. The research was mainly limited by the number of respondents, the diversity of the respondent group (regarding their residence in the Netherlands) and the validity of the questionnaire. Over all, the conducted research is rather reliable, but the validity has to be approached carefully when concluding certain aspects. The technology-based intervention this background information was gathered for is advised to take the health impairment of its users into account, and to try to develop an understandable basis for contact between users with similar interests. It is recommended to perform this research once more, with a larger and more diverse respondent group, as well as to conduct a qualitative research focussing on barriers elderly experience when performing pleasurable activities.


In the last two decades, the aquaculture industry has grown significantly, providing fish, molluscs and crustaceans to the global market. Microbial pathogens are the principal cause of massive financial losses in many fish and crustacean farms. Disinfection using ozone, chlorine or UV irradiation are expensive and leave toxic byproducts. Biosecurity threats through the introduction of wild brood-stock and live feed is a major concern for the aquaculture industry. Microalgae and/or Artemia nauplii (brine shrimp), have been identified as potential vectors for microbial pathogens that can result in high mortalities, particularly in hatcheries. Bacteria can proliferate rapidly in intensive aquaculture productions due to the high density of target animals, live feed organisms and build-up of biological waste that generate ideal conditions for many potential pathogens. The current inability to bio-secure farmed aquaculture animals through appropriate disinfection strategies of live feed without altering the quality of the final product is an area requiring urgent research, as it is the main barrier to cost-effective product development; the main hurdle to competitive expansions into national and international markets.

Recently, photodynamic antimicrobial chemotherapy (PACT) has emerged as a promising water sterilisation technique. PACT uses the activation of photosensitisers by light to generate highly reactive oxygen species (ROS), which indiscriminately oxidises cell wall and cell membrane components (i.e. lipids, proteins, carbohydrates). After entry of the photosensitiser into cells, produced singlet oxygen also targets intracellular components such as organelles, membrane compartments, and nucleic acids (i.e. DNA and RNA). Due to the indiscriminate action of ¹O₂, resistance cannot develop, unlike in the case of antibiotics. The choice of photosensitiser is crucial, and compounds that photobleach with time are preferred for aquaculture purposes to avoid build up in water or the farmed animal. Porphyrins are a group of natural or synthetic compounds that fit the photobleaching requirement, but to date no research has specifically investigated porphyrin-based sterilisation efficiency in prawn hatcheries. In addition, the porphyrin-based antimicrobial efficiency for the ones used in this research has not been tested against luminescent virulent strains of Vibrio harveyi-related species, the main causative agents for luminescent vibriosis, which causes large losses for finfish, bivalves and prawn industries.

Each chapter of this thesis addresses specific objectives that, in conjunction with the other chapters, contribute to the principal aim of the research: investigate the potential of using PACT to control Vibrio bacteria in aquaculture. Chapter 2 details objectives relating to method development to select a suitable Vibrio harveyi-related strain to be used in the following chapters.

While Chapter 1 reviews PACT history and its application with special interest to aquaculture, the method development chapter (chapter 2), pathogenicity towards prawns after injection and luminescence intensity of two selected Vibrio strains were evaluated. Challenge experiments were performed with Penaeus monodon and Koch's postulates were fulfilled. Precise identification was obtained using molecular techniques including multiplex PCR, housekeeping gene analysis and construction of a phylogenetic tree. The strongly luminescent Vibrio sp ISO7, was demonstrated to be highly virulent towards P. monodon, killing 100% of the injected animals and molecular techniques revealed that this species belongs to the V. campbellii group. In contrast, V. owensii 47666-1, previously described as a luminescent prawn larvae pathogen, caused only 25% mortality in the first challenge experiment. Pathogenicity was regained in bacteria re-isolated from sick prawns, with 100% mortality of P. monodon obtained in a second challenge experiment, however the strain was found to be not luminescent. Hence, V. campbellii ISO7 was selected as the model bacterium based on its high virulence after injection and strong luminescence signal, making it suitable for the development of a fast luminescence-based assay to determine the efficiency of different porphyrin treatment protocols.

In chapter 3, the objectives were 1) to compare the photostability of the tetracationic 5,10,15,20-tetrakis (1-methyl-4-pyridinio) porphyrin tetra (p-toluenesulfonate) [TMPyP] and the tetra-anionic 4,4',4",4"-(porphine-5,10,15,20-tetrayl) tetrakis (benzenesulfonic acid) tetrasodium salt hydrate [TPPS₄] porphyrins in seawater to confirm their suitability for aquaculture purposes and 2) to investigate the capacity of TMPyP and TPPS₄ to inactivate the model bacterium Vibrio campbellii ISO7.

For the first objective, the photostability of the cationic TMPyP and the anionic TPPS₄ porphyrins were investigated by recording their full light spectra between 350 and 750 nm after irradiating seawater containing different porphyrin concentrations (1, 5, 10 and 20 μM) of porphyrins with high power 150 W LED lights. Results obtained using the maximum peak of absorbance for each porphyrin, showed porphyrin degradation (photobleaching) for both the cationic and the anionic porphyrin within 24 h of irradiation. In addition, the dark control (samples not irradiated) did not photobleach, confirming that porphyrin degradation was due to exposure to light. The results confirmed that both porphyrins were good candidates for aquaculture applications based on their photobleaching properties showing relatively fast degradation(within 24-h at concentration of 1 μM and more than ¼ of absorbance reduction at the concentration of 20 μM).

Antimicrobial activity of the porphyrins was investigated using dose-response and time-course experiments. Twenty μM of the cationic porphyrin achieved 100% lethality in the model bacterium (start concentration of V. campbellii ISO7 ~10⁷ CFU·mL⁻¹) after five hours, which was validated using biological activity (luminescence), growth experiments (CFU, absorbance) and 7-day regrowth experiments. Consistent with previous reports, the anionic photosensitizer did not achieve inactivation of the model bacterium and was therefore not investigated further. As demonstrated, water sterilization was achieved after between five and twelve hours depending on the concentration of the cationic porphyrin; however, the effectiveness of sterilization in mixed culture with live feed organisms still needed to be confirmed.

In chapters 4 and 5, the potential of using the TMPyP porphyrin to reduce bacteria loads of microalgae cultures (free of the model bacterium) and Artemia cysts was investigated including an evaluation of possible toxic effects caused by singlet oxygen generated during PACT towards the live feed organisms themselves. In chapter 4, the viability of microalgae cells was first evaluated using flow cytometry based on chlorophyll fluorescence and the live-dead stain Propidium Iodide (PI) during a six-hour dose-response treatment with the porphyrin. The treatment time was chosen based on bacterial disinfection results shown in chapter 3. Sensitivity to ¹O₂ was speciesspecific and related to cell wall characteristics. Of the five different microalgae used, only Nannochloropsis oculata was highly resilient to the six-hour treatment with up to 50 μM of the cationic porphyrin. The results were unexpected, as photosynthetic microorganisms possess detoxification systems for ¹O₂ and other reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, ¹O₂ produced externally to the cell may be able to photooxygenate and destabilize cell membrane components, leading to cell death. The thick cell wall of N. oculata most likely protected the cell membrane from fast photooxidation. The highly resilient microalga, N. oculata was therefore used in mixed culture with the model pathogen and treated with 20 μM final concentration of the TMPyP porphyrin. Complete inactivation of the model bacterium was successfully achieved, as verified by absence of luminescent CFUs on agar plates and a species-specific molecular technique that can detect the model organisms with high sensitivity (Multiplex PCR combined with Most Probable Number enrichment).

In chapter 5, possible toxicity of the cationic porphyrin and ¹O₂ against two different types of Artemia cysts (magnetic and unmodified) was tested in dose-response experiments using percentage of cyst hatching as the measured variable. Surprisingly, magnetic cysts showed improved hatching under sub-optimal hatching conditions in the presence of porphyrin-generated ROS and the porphyrin TMPyP alone (i.e. independent to the production of ¹O₂) relative to the controls. In contrast, dose-response experiments with unmodified cysts showed a positive hatching response only to TMPyP-generated ¹O₂ but not TMPyP itself. Further investigations showed that when magnetic cysts were mixed with the model pathogen, complete pathogen inactivation was achieved after six hours of incubation with 20 μM of TMPyP in the light.

In conclusion, my research demonstrated that PACT is suitable as an additional (or alternative) sterilization method in prawn hatcheries and potentially for aquaculture water treatment in general.


The 2017 Unbreakable report made the case that disaster losses disproportionately affect poor people. The Caribbean hurricane season of 2017 was a tragic illustration of this. Two category 5 hurricanes wreaked destruction on numerous small islands, causing severe damages on islands like Barbuda, Dominica, and Saint Martin. The human cost of these disasters was immense, and the impact of this devastation was felt most strongly by poorer communities in the path of the storms. And yet, amidst the destruction it is essential to look forward and to build back better. In this 2018 report the authors explore how countries can strengthen their resilience to natural shocks through a better reconstruction process. Reconstruction needs to be strong, so that assets and livelihoods become less vulnerable to future shocks; fast, so that people can get back to their normal life as early as possible; and inclusive, so that nobody is left behind in the recovery process. The benefits of building back better could be very large – up to US$173 billion per year globally – and would be greatest among the communities and countries that are hit by disasters most intensely and frequently and that have limited coverage of social protection and financial inclusion. Small island states – because of their size, exposure, and vulnerability – are among the countries where building back better has the greatest potential. A stronger, faster, and more inclusive recovery would lead to an average reduction in disaster-related well-being losses of 59 percent in the 17 small island states covered in the report.


Womanism and Afrocentrism are the two most influential currents in contemporary African American culture. They both heighten black cultural self-awareness, even as they deepen knowledge of its historical sources. As womanism mines the ways and wisdom of African American women for Christian theology, so Afrocentricity excavates an African past to liberate the oppressed from Eurocentric worldviews. Yet are the two compatible? What does the mostly male Afrocentric scholarship contribute to the survival, wholeness, and liberation of black women? In this volume social ethicist Cheryl Sanders and other leading womanist thinkers take the measure of the Afrocentric idea and explore the intricate relationship between Afrocentric and womanist perspectives in their lives and commitments. Their strong, frank assessments form a creative engagement of these two momentous streams.


This paper investigates the effects of spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana) on balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and white spruce (Picea glauca) at Itasca State Park in northwestern Minnesota. We studied the species composition, age structure, and radial growth patterns in tree rings along five belt transects at sites infested with spruce budworm. Our objectives were to: (1) discover when the latest spruce budworm outbreak started; (2) determine whether tree growth was similarly reduced in earlier decades, suggesting earlier spruce budworm outbreaks; and (3) test whether radial tree growth and the start of the outbreak(s) were correlated with climate. We used the computer program OUTBREAK to determine that the current spruce budworm infestation began to reduce tree growth in the 1990s, before it was detected by park officials in 2001. The tree-ring record indicated that growth of the host-species trees was periodically reduced at all sites prior to the 1990s. We found no consistent relationship between temperature/precipitation and the initiation of spruce budworm outbreaks, as reconstructed by the OUTBREAK program, at the southwestern edge of the distribution of balsam fir. The Palmer Drought Severity Index, however, was positive (i.e., wetter-than-normal conditions) before increased spruce budworm activity at all sites. Outbreaks are related to climatic conditions, but they also depend on other factors such as the availability of sufficient food for the spruce budworm.


IntroductionDemographic changes highlight the need to address disabilities associated with the major morbidities of old age such as dementia. MethodsThe present research project focuses on assisting persons with early Alzheimer's disease in the area of memory support through the delivery of frequent memory cues. Specifically, we are developing an entirely novel system to permit caregivers to record video reminders for scheduled transmission over-the-air. The reminders will be delivered in the form of a video message and will be displayed on a mobile phone to provide a 'virtual carer' for the person with dementia. Following initial technical development the system was piloted via 2 control groups. Following completion of the analysis from this cohort a further pilot will be undertaken with a cohort of 20 patients with Alzheimer's disease recruited from the Belfast City Hospital Memory clinic.ResultsInitially the system was demonstrated to 3 young controls that subsequently navigated the programme and recorded reminders Feedback was favourable. The system was user friendly but message volume was poor and the weight of the device a possible drawback. The second control group (2 sets of older participants); gave positive feedback. Audio volume of the delivered messages was reported as an issue, however, weight was not a concern more so that the device 'swung' around when worn a lanyard. Finally the system was piloted with 4 person with Alzheimer's disease and their carers. The results are presented herein.ConclusionInitial feedback of the system has been positive. Overall it was found simple to use and navigate. Further field testing is required to validate technical functionality and demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach as a reminding tool.


We report a case of disseminated histoplasmosis in a renal transplant recipient who presented with a nodular pulmonary lesion and elevated serum and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) Aspergillus galatomannan. This almost led to an erroneous diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis since the donor respiratory tract was known to be colonized with Aspergillus terreus. However, distinctive intracelluar Histoplasma yeasts on peripheral blood smear led to early diagnosis and appropriate treatment. The cross‐reactivity between Aspergillus galactomannan and Histoplasma antigen is discussed further.


Africa is one of the regions of the world potentially most vulnerable to climate change. Warming of the globe due to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases appears to be inevitable. Therefore, it is imperative that policy makers in regions such as Africa begin to consider what measures they should take to adapt to the potential conseqences of climate change. A number of adaptation policies are suggested here. The policies address general adaptation measures as well as specific measures in water resources, coastal resources (adapting to sea-level nse), forests, ecosystems, and agriculture. These measures would enhance the flexibhty of resources to adapt to climate change and would have net benefits greater than costs. In some cases, the measures make sense without considering climate change because they help address current climate variability. In other cases, the measures must be implemented in anticipation of climate change because they would be ineffective if implemented as a reaction to climate change.


htmlabstractAn important design aspect in tomographic image reconstruction is the choice between a step-and-shoot protocol versus continuous X-ray tube movement for image acquisition. A step-and-shoot protocol implies a perfectly still tube during X-ray exposure, and hence involves moving the tube to its next position only in between exposures.

In a continuous movement protocol, the tube is in a constant motion. The angular integration of the rays inherently produces blurred projections. Conventional reconstruction from such projections leads to blurred reconstructed images, and therefore the projection angles are kept small. Important advantages of a continuous scanning protocol are shorter acquisition times and less demands on modality construction from a mechanical point of view.

In this work, the continuous protocol is extended with continuous projections, in which the X-ray source is continuously
emitting X-rays over larger angles. The focal spot motion can no longer be ignored and is modeled in the reconstruction. The reconstruction quality is compared with the equivalent step-and-shoot counterpart showing improved results for region of interest tomography.


Date: Wednesday, April 29 Time: 9:00 AM - Noon Location: Perry-Castaneda Library 1.124 (More about location http://bit.ly/1GLVSYm.) Free, separate registration for this event is required. Register at http://bit.ly/1Hrvvqs. Islandora is a digital asset management system that provides out-of-the-box repository solutions (Solution Packs) for a wide range of digital collections and research domains. Islandora combines the Drupal CMS and Fedora Commons repository software, together with additional open source applications (including Solr), to deliver a wide range of functionality. The proposed workshop will provide users with information about the Islandora software framework, and allow users to test drive a full Islandora installation using local virtual machines or the online Islandora sandbox. After the system overview the instructor will lead participants through the basic functions of an Islandora installation, including new features introduced over the past year. The instructors will make themselves available for the 2nd half of the session and throughout the conference for additional advice/information on running Islandora. This session is intended for all audiences and levels. No prior knowledge of Islandora or repositories is required. If users wish, they can come with digital objects they would like to add (PDF or image collections preferred) and describe in a repository, although sample collections will be provided. The session will end with a brief description of how the community can participate in the development of the Islandora ecosystem, including code contributions, content models, documentation and more. Learning Outcomes Users can create a collection in Islandora, upload objects to the collection, and manage the collection using a suite of collection management tools. Users understand basic Islandora technologies, and sources for support and additional documentation. Users understand and have the opportunity to utilize collaborative research features in a repository.


Monique Skidmore, Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004,264 pages.Skidmore did difficult fieldwork in Burma during 1996, a period of increasing turmoil as students and others openly demonstrated against the current regime. Her research was, ostensibly, to "understand the idioms of emotional and psychological distress used by various Burmese communities, and to explore the role of religion and medicine in conceptualizing and mediating such distress and as pathways for action" (p. 8). Rather than focussing directly on these topics, Skidmore directs our attention to the all encompassing fear that Burmese have to deal with on a day to day basis and the consequences this has for individual Burmese as well as for Burmese society. Researching fear is not easy, as Skidmore asks, "How does one research fear when doing so produces the very emotion in question, both in the research and the informants?" (p. x), something she explores most completely in her third chapter.To get to this exploration, Skidmore first provides a brief introduction to Burmese history and a sketch of the resistance activities in Rangoon in September 1996. These activities are juxtaposed with places of refuge that Burmese Buddhism provides, both physically and spiritually. The third chapter then explores the fear that Skidmore faced and the Burmese continue to face. Here Skidmore argues that her experience of fear and her understanding and analysis of her embodied fear allows her to "intuit the experience of Burmese people whom I have come to know. In so doing, I argue that emotional knowledge arising from similar (never identical) circumstances can be important, in this case, necessary, for an analysis of fear in everyday lif e" (p. 35). These three chapters are compelling but difficult reading. After finishing part of a chapter I would have to put the book down because of the overwhelming awfulness of the situation that I was reading about.In the next four chapters, the focus shifts to the contexts that the Burmese must interact in and the role of the government and its military in defining these contexts. Skidmore discusses the way the military define spaces and the thin veneers of modernity and conformity as well as the tensions created by the juxtaposition of modernity, fascism and terror. These chapters also include accounts of how people deal with the situations created by propaganda and the continuing inability to trust people because of informers and the consequent self-censorship that this entails. For her analysis, Skidmore draws on scholars of modernity and fascism, particularly Benjamin and the Frankfurt School (p. 84). I found these chapters equally difficult to read but more because of the analyses than the content. In the end, I was not convinced that drawing parallels between the situation in Burma and high modernity in Paris and Nazi Germany provided any enlightenment about the Burmese generals and their behaviour or the situation that the Burmese people face. A more meaningful comparison would have been to place the Burmese situation in its Southeast Asian context of political violence with discussions of similarities and differences with Cambodia under Pol Pot and Indonesia in the aftermath of Sukarno's defeat in 1965, the annexation of East Timor, or, more recently, the end of the Suharto period. …


Most rain-induced landslides on Hong Kong's volcanic rocks are shallow and small-scale. However, two major landslides that occurred on Hong Kong Island in 1995 highlight relationships between primary volcanic foliations and kaolin accumulations that may have general significance in determining loci of larger failures. In the first case, a bedding-parallel shear zone was the locus for kaolin concentration in a shallowly dipping tuff. This formed a weak, planar, low-permeability layer which acted as the surface of rupture of a translational failure. In the second case, steeply inclined fabrics (eutaxitic foliations) and subparallel, closely spaced joints occurred within a zone of syn-volcanic folding and shearing. Deep weathering developed along the zone, with kaolin concentrations present mainly above the soil-rock interface. The irregular and variably concave to planar rupture surface was closely associated with kaolin-infilled relict joints towards the base of the soil profile. Kaolin distribution is largely associated with the weathering profile, and may have been both physically and chemically redistributed within it. Halloysite is more abundant than kaolinite in most clay samples at and near both rupture zones, and may have developed from kaolinite in response to strain. Detailed mapping of volcanic fabrics around the major landslides suggests that kaolinized bedding-parallel shear zones are uncommon, but that deep weathering zones associated with shearing and faulting are common, mappable features.


PURPOSE
We report on the development of high spatial resolution, large active area proton radiography device that uses the dose measurement method for WEPL determination for both passive scattering (DS) and Pencil Beam Scanning (PBS).

METHODS
We used on the shelf appropriately CMOS sensor with an active area of 27mm × 22mm and active pixel size of 21.7 μm2. The read out electronics can record images at 2000 fps over 1024 × 1024 pixels. This technology is combined with an on the shelf QA device that uses 900cm2 gadolinium based scintillator and geometric optical system that focus the image on a 45 degree mirror on the above CMOS sensor. When placed behind the patient, the assembled device measures the 2D exit dose distribution. For DS fields, the method utilizes the periodic time dependence of the dose. By measuring the time-dependence of dose at each pixel and comparing it against a library of time-dependence patterns for all depths in water, the radiological path length to the point of measurement can be determined with millimeter accuracy. For PBS fields, the method uses test beam that contains a few scanning layers in depth with properly spaced ranges. Each layer has a known dose profile in water phantom. The ratio between the measured doses from each layer provides the WEPL information through the patient.

RESULTS
The assembled device achieved high performances as proton radiography device. The WEPL of large objects, up to 900cm2, are imaged, using both passive and active beams, with 0.6mm2 spatial resolutions and mm accuracy. The dose needed to achieve such performance is less than 1cGy for both DS and PBS.

CONCLUSION
The assembled device proves to be a versatile proton imager. It has the potential for use as in-room tool for pre-treatment QA for patient WEPL verification.


BACKGROUND
An important issue in sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) is how to improve efficacy.

OBJECTIVE
To compare the clinical and immunologic efficacy of SLIT given alone and, to enhance clinical efficacy, given with probiotic or vitamin D supplementation.

METHODS
One hundred children, ages 5-12 years, sensitive to grass pollen, with allergic rhinitis participated in a 5-month prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Children received 5-grass SLIT 300 IR tablets with either vitamin D 1000 IU daily supplementation, probiotic, or placebo. The control group included children with allergy who did not qualify for immunotherapy. Primary end points included a symptom-medication score, lung function, and exhaled nitric oxide concentration. The secondary end point was the immunologic efficacy measured by the following: CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) (forkhead box P3) cells, Toll-like receptor (TLR) 4, interleukin (IL) 1, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor, IL-10, and transforming growth factor β-1 levels in cell culture supernatants.

RESULTS
Reduction in the symptom-medication score and improvement in lung function as well as a significant increase in the percentage of CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) in children who received SLIT in all the groups were observed compared with control group. In the SLIT-probiotic group, between-group analysis showed significantly higher CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) induction compared with the SLIT group and higher reduction in the percentage of TLR-positive cell group compared with the SLIT-vitamin D group (Fig. 1). An increase in CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) induction, reduction in TLR-positive cells recruitment and an increase in transforming growth factor β-1 production were independently associated with a better clinical effect of SLIT in children.

CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrated the clinical and immunologic effect of probiotic and vitamin D supplementation on SLIT. Probiotic supplementation showed better clinical and immunologic response in children with allergic rhinitis.


Introduction:UK stroke guidelines recommend that glycaemia is monitored, hyperglycaemia treated, and patients are screened for undiagnosed diabetes mellitus.Method:In a multicentre retrospective cohort study we reviewed the nursing and medical records of 112 consecutively admitted patients with acute stroke and TIA, to the three hospitals in one Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland from January 1, 2008 until April 15, 2008. Data were extracted in October to December 2009. We evaluated the management of hyperglycaemia with particular emphasis on the role of nurses in the monitoring of hyperglycaemia, and in the screening of undiagnosed diabetes and obesity. Results:The prevalence of hyperglycaemia ≥ 7.8mmol/litre in each of the first 5 days of admission ranged from 24% to 34%, affecting a total 41 (37%) patients. Eighteen patients had a pre-admission history diabetes mellitus. The decision to commence finger prick glucose monitoring is usually made by nurses. Our study suggests that whilst a history of diabetes mellitus prompted glucose monitoring, more generally among patients with no history of diabetes mellitus, glycaemia was under monitored, and opportunities to identify undiagnosed diabetes could be missed. Obesity is a major predisposing factor to the development of Type 2 diabetes; our findings indicate that just 7% of patients had body mass index testing, and just over half (55%) had a weight recorded. Conclusion: Secondary stroke prevention is reliant on the identification and management of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and stroke nurses have a significant role to play in this area.


The European Central Bank has assigned a special role to money in its two pillar strategy and has received much criticism for this decision. In this paper, we explore possible justifications. The case against including money in the central bank's interest rate rule is based on a standard model of the monetary transmission process that underlies many contributions to research on monetary policy in the last two decades. Of course, if one allows for a direct effect of money on output or inflation as in the empirical "two-pillar" Phillips curves estimated in some recent contributions, it would be optimal to include a measure of (long-run) money growth in the rule. In this paper, we develop a justification for including money in the interest rate rule by allowing for imperfect knowledge regarding unobservables such as potential output and equilibrium interest rates. We formulate a novel characterization of ECB-style monetary cross-checking and show that it can generate substantial stabilization benefits in the event of persistent policy misperceptions regarding potential output. Such misperceptions cause a bias in policy setting. We find that cross-checking and changing interest rates in response to sustained deviations of long-run money growth helps the central bank to overcome this bias. Our argument in favor of ECB-style cross-checking does not require direct effects of money on output or inflation.


There has been a dramatic change in the U.K. government policy regarding the establishment of new towns. The emphasis is now on the redevelopment of existing cities rather than on building new ones. This has created an urgent need to carry out detailed surveys and inventories of many aspects of urban land use in metropolitan areas: this study concentrates on just one aspect - urban open space. In the first stage a comparison was made between 1:10,000 scale black and white and 1:10,000 scale colour infra-red aerial photographs, to compare the type and amount of open space information which could be obtained from these two sources. The advantages of using colour infra-red photography were clearly demonstrated in this comparison. The second stage was the use of colour infra-red photography as the sole source of data to survey and map the urban open space of a sample area in Merseyside Metropolitan County. This sample area comprised eleven 1/4km2 squares, on each of which a 20m x 20m grid cell was placed to record, directly from the photography, 625 sets of data. Each set of data recorded the type and amount of open space, its surface cover, maintenance status and management. The data recorded were fed into a computer and a suite of programs was developed to provide output in both computer map and statistical form, for each of the eleven -1/4km2 -sample areas. The third stage involved a comparison of open space data with socio-economic status. Merseyside County Planning Authority had previously conducted a socio-economic survey of the county, and this information was used to identify ' the socio-economic status of the population in the eleven ilkm2 areas of this project. This comparison revealed many interesting and useful relationships between the provision of urban open space and socio-economic status.


Arctic plant productivity is often limited by low soil N availability. This has been attributed to slow breakdown of N-containing polymers in litter and soil organic matter (SOM) into smaller, available units, and to shallow plant rooting constrained by permafrost and high soil moisture. Using 15N pool dilution assays, we here quantified gross amino acid and ammonium production rates in 97 active layer samples from four sites across the Siberian Arctic. We found that amino acid production in organic layers alone exceeded literature-based estimates of maximum plant N uptake 17-fold and therefore reject the hypothesis that arctic plant N limitation results from slow SOM breakdown. High microbial N use efficiency in organic layers rather suggests strong competition of microorganisms and plants in the dominant rooting zone. Deeper horizons showed lower amino acid production rates per volume, but also lower microbial N use efficiency. Permafrost thaw together with soil drainage might facilitate deeper plant rooting and uptake of previously inaccessible subsoil N, and thereby promote plant productivity in arctic ecosystems. We conclude that changes in microbial decomposer activity, microbial N utilization and plant root density with soil depth interactively control N availability for plants in the Arctic.


"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn," Ernest Hemingway once declared. First published in 1885, the book has delighted millions of readers, while simultaneously riling contemporary sensibilities, and is still banned in many schools and libraries. Now, Michael Patrick Hearn, author of the best-selling The Annotated Wizard of Oz, thoroughly reexamines the 116-year heritage of that archetypal American boy, Huck Finn, and follows his adventures along every bend of the mighty Mississippi River. Hearn's copious annotations draw on primary sources including the original manuscript, Twain's revisions and letters, and period accounts. Reproducing the original E. W. Kemble illustrations from the first edition, as well as countless archival photographs and drawings, some of them previously unpublished, The Annotated Huckleberry Finn is a book no family's library can do without; it may well prove to be the classic edition of the great American novel.


Online banking is one of the most utilised aspects of the Internet in South Africa. In an earlier unpublished survey we found that respondents from the smaller, niche banks held more positive attitudes towards the niche banks than respondents utilising the larger, traditional banks. In this study, we wished to investigate how the usability aspects of these two types of banks might contribute to the differences in attitudes we found in our earlier survey. A questionnaire was posted on a prominent South African portal. A total of 1690 usable questionnaires were completed during the three weeks that the survey was active. The results of this study showed that there were statistically significant differences in the perception of 10 usability dimensions between respondents from the niche and the traditional banks. In addition, there were also statistically significant differences in the perceptions towards online assistance between respondents using the two types of banking. These results are discussed in terms of the different approaches of the niche and traditional banks, and the usability recommendations that the traditional banks might wish to adopt for their online banking services and products.


BACKGROUND
Daily toothbrushing and flossing are easy, effective and low-cost practices for removing the microbial dental plaque, which is an important factor in the development of caries and periodontal disease.

AIM
The objective of this study is evaluation of oral health behaviors in a group of students from an Iranian university.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
This descriptive analytical cross-sectional study was carried out on 1736 Iranian students (1230 non-medical sciences students and 506 medical sciences students). Subjects were randomly selected. The students were asked to fill out a self-completion questionnaire about daily oral health behavior.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED
The chi-square test was used for evaluation of oral health behaviors and relationship between students' oral hygiene behavior and educational levels.

RESULTS
There was no difference between the frequencies of tooth brushing in the students of two universities. Medical sciences students used dental floss more than non-medical sciences students, which was a significant difference ( P = 0.000). There was no significant difference in toothbrushing frequency among the students with different levels of education. But the students of doctorate and masters degrees used dental floss significantly more than those of bachelor or associate degrees ( P = 0.000).

CONCLUSIONS
This study showed that the level of self oral care among Iranian students is at a lower level than in industrialized countries.


Alot of chatter is going on within our specialty about the use of scribes, but a better idea is on the horizon. Small wonder: Physician productivity is down across the country (VHA Database, August 2009), and the documentation burden keeps growing. ACEP's Quality and Performance Committee has seen more than 140 suggested "quality measures" proposed for our practice. Imagine trying to comply and document that number of parameters! Emergency physicians want more than a clerical assistant to do documentation. Most EDs are fraught with operations that are clumsy, redundant, and inefficient, and they often require the most highly trained and skilled person on the health care team (the physician) to chase data. "Where is the urinalysis?" "Why is that CT not back?" "Has anyone seen that EKG?" Physician productivity would increase if they could offload not only documentation tasks but that datachasing and coordination of the ED workup and care plan. Interestingly, the difficulties associated with implementing an electronic health record can lead departments to discover this newest addition to the health care team. Sometimes dubbed the PAL, the physician assistant liaison or personal assistant liaison helps run interference for the physician in documentation, data retrieval, and care coordination. The leadership at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo, CO, was convinced it could increase patient safety by implementing electronic medical records, and particularly improve turnaround time for patient records. They went live in 2004 with a high-tech EMR that included desktops and portable laptops, and all charting had to be done on the computerized system. What followed was a surprise. Efficiency suffered, patient satisfaction fell, and walkaways (which had been remarkably low) rose to 2.5 percent. Why? The physicians were spending so much time interacting with the computer system that overall patient flow and processes suffered. Even worse, the EMR was so cumbersome that physician productivity had fallen to an unsustainable 0.5 patients an hour! Rather than throw out the EMR system, they implemented their physician assistant liaison program. While they initially tried using emergency medical technicians and paramedics, they subsequently established a program with local colleges to use secondand third-year nursing school interns. These PALs follow physicians around doing documentation, order entry, and data retrieval. The PAL maximizes the efficiency of the physician, freeing him for clinical tasks. With the help of the PAL program, physicians are seeing a respectable 2.5 patients per hour, and ED patients are being seen 15 minutes faster. In addition, because the scribe pool draws from students at the nearby nursing school, this program has proven to be a built-in recruitment vehicle for hiring ED nurses! (Urgent Matters 2006;3[4]; http://urgentmatters.org/346834/31874 9/328750/318752.) Similarly, Mahmood Vahedian, MD, an emergency physician with the Banner Health System in Arizona, wanted to improve working conditions for the physicians in his group. Struggling under staggering clerical duties during each shift, physician satisfaction was at an all-time low. Dr. Vahedian, who worked as a scribe before medical school, had an insider's view of the work. Beginning with five scribes, he launched a training program. Scribes are paid by the 35-member physician group. He had some groundwork to lay because the job description, credentialing, and security issues had to be worked out from scratch. According to data from professional scribe companies, the majority of homegrown scribe programs fail. This is likely due to lack of experience with job description and credentialing issues as well as inadequate training. Since Dr. Vahedian had experience as a scribe, he was able to incorporate the necessary elements in launching his program. One clever strategy he used was to partner the scribes in-training with the most productive physicians in his group. As most readers will intuitively understand, all emergency departments have process idiosyncrasies, and experienced, efficient physicians learn the workarounds and techniques to get workups done expeditiously. This is one way homegrown programs may outperform the outsourced programs. In turn, these "super scribes" (who really function as physician assistant liaisons) expose each physician in the group to the tricks of the trade they have learned from the most efficient physicians. It becomes an iterative process with benefits all around. Dr. Vahedian tries to partner the same scribe with the same physician as much as possible in the schedule so the scribe learns the style and nuances of how that physician practices and documents. Over time the efficiency grows as the scribe and physician work as a team. Though no physician has been required to use the scribe program, over time the group has unanimously requested scribe services, and even the physician assistants working in the fast track want to use them. His program now has 40 trained scribes, and he fills their ranks with pre-med or pre-nursing students. Many are looking for hospital experience to put on their professional school applications, and he offers them great front-line experience for which they are paid a small hourly wage. The program now populates itself by referrals from other scribes, and turnover is low but expected as the students advance their education and careers. Each scribe currently works fewer than a thousand hours a year, which allows the physician group to pay the hourly wage but not provide benefits. Since its earliest days, Dr. Vahedian's program demonstrated an increase of $28 per chart through better documentation, along with physician and patient satisfaction gains. One physician who was slated to retire asked to stay on because he finds the work environment so much less frustrating. Physicians are freed up to spend time with patients and families, and the frenetic game of chasing data and paper has been mitigated. For more information on how he did it, email Dr. Vahedian at email@example.com. Quality Matters Beyond Scribes: A Better Idea on the Horizon


Recreational impacts (such as hiking, biking, and horseback riding) on surrounding biotic communities are dictated by trail usage, where trails are the major transportation system and facility most commonly found in protected areas. The distribution of trails can contribute to the introduction of non-native species and a reduction in leaf litter through repeated trampling. As such, these impacts associated with trails are a major concern for park managers. The following questions were addressed within the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (a federally managed protected area in southern California): (1) Will trailside (edge) vegetation have more exotic species (species richness and abundance) compared interior vegetation along single-use (hiker-only) trails and multi-use trails? (2) Will chaparral or coastal sage scrub communities (CSS) for each trail type exhibit differential plant community diversity and composition due to their differences in litter cover? Trailside vegetation significantly differed in native/exotic species richness and composition from interior vegetation demonstrating an edge effect on both types of trails and in both plant communities. Not only was there a significant increase in trailside exotic species richness and composition in comparison to interior vegetation, multi-use trails exhibited a significantly higher proportion of exotic species richness and composition along the trailside in comparison to the trailside along single-use trails. Additionally, coastal sage scrub plant communities exhibited significantly lower mean percent litter cover, as well as significantly higher exotic species richness and composition along the trailside as compared to the trailside in chaparral communities. Implications from this study argue for the wisdom of concentrating use and impact on a small portion of a recreation area due to rapid impact and slow recovery of certain vegetation types (i.e., CSS). Therefore results from this study would suggest concentrating multi-use trails on chaparral habitats rather than CSS habitats.


Abstract Objects manufactured from cellulose acetate comprise one of the most problematic groups of plastic in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (NMAH). To understand better cellulose acetate degradation, a 'salesman's sample kit' of 'Lumarith' brand, injection-molded, cellulose acetate color samples, manufactured by the Celluloid Company in the early twentieth century and now in the NMAH collection, was studied using minimally invasive analytical techniques at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Conservation Institute (MCI). The kit includes 49 plastic coupons that vary in color, transparency, chemical composition and current state of degradation. Results of analysis were compared with Celluloid Company records at the NMAH Archives Center and Celanese Corporation in Narrows, Virginia, in order to determine the causes for their current level of preservation or degradation. The possible reasons for the degradation of some coupons are discussed; methods are proposed for identifying cellulose acetate objects that are at risk and for early detection of degradation.


My article seeks to track the queer relations to genre initiated by contemporary hyperpop artists like 100 gecs and SOPHIE. Hyperpop is a genre of pop music recently minted in the Summer of 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. My investigation of 100 gecs' album, 1000 gecs and The Tree of Clues is a cross-disciplinary exercise in queer theory, gender studies, musicology, art history, and philosophy. The article primarily contributes to queer theory discourses on genre, gender, art, and the body. The article concludes with a meditation on "gec feminism," articulating a critique of academic "standards" of writing and what kind of texts constitute "legitimate" objects of inquiry.


Graph neural networks (GNNs) have been successful in learning representations from graphs. Many popular GNNs follow the pattern of aggregate-transform: they aggregate the neighbors' attributes and then transform the results of aggregation with a learnable function. Analyses of these GNNs explain which pairs of non-identical graphs have different representations. However, we still lack an understanding of how similar these representations will be. We adopt kernel distance and propose transform-sum-cat as an alternative to aggregate-transform to reflect the continuous similarity between the node neighborhoods in the neighborhood aggregation. The idea leads to a simple and efficient graph similarity, which we name Weisfeiler–Leman similarity (WLS). In contrast to existing graph kernels, WLS is easy to implement with common deep learning frameworks. In graph classification experiments, transform-sum-cat significantly outperforms other neighborhood aggregation methods from popular GNN models. We also develop a simple and fast GNN model based on transform-sum-cat, which obtains, in comparison with widely used GNN models, (1) a higher accuracy in node classification, (2) a lower absolute error in graph regression, and (3) greater stability in adversarial training of graph generation.


In this chapter we present a Bayesian framework for parsing images into their constituent visual patterns. The parsing algorithm optimizes the posterior probability and outputs a scene representation as a "parsing graph", in a spirit similar to parsing sentences in speech and natural language. The algorithm constructs the parsing graph and re-configures it dynamically using a set of moves, which are mostly reversible Markov chain jumps. This computational framework integrates two popular inference approaches – generative (top-down) methods and discriminative (bottom-up) methods. The former formulates the posterior probability in terms of generative models for images defined by likelihood functions and priors. The latter computes discriminative probabilities based on a sequence (cascade) of bottom-up tests/filters. In our Markov chain algorithm design, the posterior probability, defined by the generative models, is the invariant (target) probability for the Markov chain, and the discriminative probabilities are used to construct proposal probabilities to drive the Markov chain. Intuitively, the bottom-up discriminative probabilities activate top-down generative models. In this chapter, we focus on two types of visual patterns – generic visual patterns, such as texture and shading, and object patterns including human faces and text. These types of patterns compete and cooperate to explain the image and so image parsing unifies image segmentation, object detection, and recognition (if we use generic visual patterns only then image parsing will correspond to image segmentation [48].). We illustrate our algorithm on natural images of complex city scenes and show examples where image segmentation can be improved by allowing object specific knowledge to disambiguate low-level segmentation cues, and conversely where object detection can be improved by using generic visual patterns to explain away shadows and occlusions.


Statistical machine translation (SMT) treats the translation of natural language as a machine learning problem. By examining many samples of human-produced translation, SMT algorithms automatically learn how to translate. SMT has made tremendous strides in less than two decades, and new ideas are constantly introduced. This survey presents a tutorial overview of the state of the art. We describe the context of the current research and then move to a formal problem description and an overview of the main subproblems: translation modeling, parameter estimation, and decoding. Along the way, we present a taxonomy of some different approaches within these areas. We conclude with an overview of evaluation and a discussion of future directions.


In this study, the feasibility of measuring the Sb content in different plastic materials by laser induced plasma spectroscopy (LIBS) is explored. Measurements were performed initially on a sample of pure Sb in order to identify the most prominent element transitions before different consumer plastics of varying matrix, composition and color were examined. The experimental set-up was based on a single pulse laser excitation at 1064 nm and a detection system consisting of an array of three compact spectrometers covering the range 236–796 nm. On pure Sb material, many atomic lines, particularly intense in the UV region, were observed, together with much weaker ionic transitions mainly in the visible spectral region. Unfortunately, all of the strong Sb transitions partially overlapped with those from Si, Fe and Ti, elements common in many plastic materials. For constructing the calibration curve for Sb content we exploited the Sb concentration values obtained by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry, which varied from the detection limit (∼200 ppm) up to 65 000 ppm. The analytical Sb I line at 276.99 nm was selected because, even if it has a weak contribution from one Fe I transition, its empirical subtraction leads to a well-correlated linear calibration graph. The corresponding detection limit was around 1400 ppm while in the absence of Fe, having an intense ionic transition at 259.93 nm, it is possible to use a more intense Sb I transition at 259.81 nm, achieving sensitivity on the order of 100 ppm.


The contemporary crisis in law school enrollments presents a timely opportunity to evaluate a subject that has received little academic attention: student choice in legal education. In order to address the present lack of understanding about what motivates post-Recession law students to enroll in law school, this article examines several of the factors that bear on the choice to attend law school from the results of an original survey distributed to current law students at four law schools—a private elite law school, a public flagship law school, a public regional law school, and a private new law school—in the 2017–2018 academic year. This article analyzes the salience of location, information, opportunity cost, and cost sensitivity in the context of a law student's decision to enroll in law school. The results from this survey indicate that legal education is a highly stratified market for consumers on the basis of their preferences. It is hoped that these results will shed greater light on and knowledge of the most understudied group in professional graduate education—law students.


This paper formalizes the folklore result that strongly-typed applets are more secure than untyped ones. We formulate and prove several security properties that all well-typed applets possess, and identify sufficient conditions for the applet execution environment to be safe, such as procedural encapsulation, type abstraction, and systematic type-based placement of run-time checks. These results are a first step towards formal techniques for developing and validating safe execution environments for applets.


The OECD is moving forward with consideration of a minimum tax as part of its solution to taxation of the digital economy. Part of a template for such a minimum tax may be the version enacted by the United States (US) in 2017 as an expansion of its Controlled Foreign Corporation (CFC) regime, known as Global Intangible Low Taxed Income (GILTI). But the OECD version will undoubtedly be different from the US iteration. It's likely that it would also include some aspects of a minimum tax being proposed by other OECD members such as Germany and France, namely a tax on outbound payments, in addition to a CFC-type regime. The United States also enacted an outbound minimum tax in 2017, known as Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT). The two-part minimum tax being pursued by the OECD – a minimum tax based on a CFC regime plus an outbound minimum tax that's a variation on the BEAT – has been referred to as GLOBE (global anti erosion) (See S. Soong Johnston, Germany, France Explore GLOBE Proposal to Tax Digital Economy, 92 Tax Notes Int'l 782 (2018)). This article summarizes the two features of the US 2017 tax reform (known as the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA) (The formal name is The Act to Provide for Reconciliation Pursuant to Titles II and V of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2018, Pub. L. No. 115–97.)) that may be incorporated into a global minimum tax, namely GILTI and BEAT, from the perspective of how such provisions might be adapted to work in a global setting. It considers the challenges to taxpayers and policy makers raised by the US law as enacted, and the attempts in recently issued regulatory guidance to address some of these concerns. It compares and contrasts the provisions enacted by the US Congress with a number of parallel European developments, including the EU Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD)'s CFC rules and the German royalty deduction barrier. Adaption of the minimum tax components of the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act for worldwide use will require careful understanding of the policy choices, as well as the mistakes made, by the TCJA drafters in designing the regime, in order to ensure that they are not repeated.


Abstract Statistics from both South Africa and the United States of America indicate that the phenomenon of violence amongst youths is increasing. This implies that a larger number of youths are being exposed to the experience of violence and thus present with the complex and multi-dimensional effects of such an experience. Past research has centred mostly on the causative factors that can be statistically represented, with little focus being paid to the juveniles' in-depth, subjective experience of the phenomenon. For the male adolescent, the experience of the phenomenon of violence is complex, diverse and may span across many aspects of his life, including physical, psychological, personal and social dimensions. Three participants were sourced from the Leeuwkop Juvenile Correctional Facility in Johannesburg and interviewed for the purpose of this study. The participants were selected based on their age (between 13 and 19 years of age) and the type of crime that they had committed (assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, common assault or indecent assault). In accordance with the phenomenological approach, open-ended interviews were used as a research method in order to allow for the participants' unique and subjective experience of the phenomenon to emerge. The researchers found that the phenomenon of violence is characterised by the juveniles' experience of external events that provoke a certain response manifesting itself in violent behaviour. The responses described by the participants were mostly emotional in nature and included emotions such as anger, rage and fury. The experience of violence also holds certain consequences for the male juvenile offender. The most common consequence experienced by all three participants was their subsequent arrest and incarceration in a correctional facility.


In the past couple of years, there has been a significant increase of the amount of false information on the web. The falsehoods quickly spread through social networks reaching a wider audience than ever before. This poses new challenges to our society as we have to reevaluate which information source we should trust and how we consume and distribute content on the web. As a response to the rising amount of disinformation on the Internet, the number of fact-checking platforms has increased.
On these platforms, professional fact-checkers validate the published information and make their conclusions publicly available. Nevertheless, the manual validation of information by fact-checkers is laborious and time-consuming, and as a result, not all of the published content can be validated. Since the conclusions of the validations are released with a delay, the interest in the topic has often already declined, and thus, only a small fraction of the original news consumers can be reached.
Automated fact-checking holds the promise to address these drawbacks as it
would allow fact-checkers to identify and eliminate false information as it appears on the web and before it reaches a wide audience. However, despite significant progress in the field of automated fact-checking, substantial challenges remain: (i)
The datasets available for training machine learning-based fact-checking systems do not provide high-quality annotation of real fact-checking instances for all the tasks in the fact-checking process. (ii) Many of today's fact-checking systems are based on knowledge bases that have low coverage. Moreover, because for these systems sentences in natural language need to be transformed into formal queries, which is a difficult task, the systems are error-prone. (iii) Current end-to-end trained machine learning systems can process raw text and thus, potentially harness the vast amount of knowledge on the Internet, but they are intransparent and do not reach the desired performance. In fact, fact-checking is a challenging task and today's
machine learning approaches are not mature enough to solve the problem without human assistance. In order to tackle the identified challenges, in this thesis, we make the following contributions:
(1) We introduce a new corpus on the basis of the Snopes fact-checking website that contains real fact-checking instances and provides high-quality annotations for the different sub-tasks in the fact-checking process. In addition to the corpus, we release our corpus creation methodology that allows for efficiently creating large datasets with a high inter-annotator agreement in order to train machine learning models for automated fact-checking.
(2) In order to address the drawbacks of current automated fact-checking systems, we propose a pipeline approach that consists of the four sub-systems: document retrieval, stance detection, evidence extraction, and claim validation. Since today's machine learning models are not advanced enough to complete the task without human assistance, our pipeline approach is designed to help fact-checkers to speed up the fact-checking process rather than taking over the job entirely. Our pipeline is able to process raw text and thus, make use of the large amount of textual information available on the web, but at the same time, it is transparent, as the outputs of sub-components of the pipeline can be observed. Thus, the different parts of the
fact-checking process are automated and potential errors can be identified and traced back to their origin.
(3) In order to assess the performance of the developed system, we evaluate the sub-components of the pipeline in highly competitive shared tasks. The stance detection component of the system is evaluated in the Fake News Challenge reaching the second rank out of 50 competing systems.2 The document retrieval component together with the evidence extraction sub-system and the claim validation component are evaluated in the FEVER shared task.3 The first two systems combined reach the first rank in the FEVER shared task Sentence Ranking sub-task outperforming
23 other competing systems. The claim validation component reaches the
third rank in the FEVER Recognizing Textual Entailment sub-task.
(4) We evaluate our pipeline system, as well as other promising machine learning models for automated fact-checking, on our newly constructed Snopes fact-checking corpus. The results show that even though the systems are able to reach reasonable performance on other datasets, the systems under-perform on our newly created corpus. Our analysis reveals that the more realistic fact-checking problem setting defined by our corpus is more challenging than the problem setting posed by other fact-checking corpora. We therefore conclude that further research is required in order to increase the performance of the automated systems in real fact-checking scenarios.


This paper introduces Wasserstein variational inference, a new form of approximate Bayesian inference based on optimal transport theory. Wasserstein variational inference uses a new family of divergences that includes both f-divergences and the Wasserstein distance as special cases. The gradients of the Wasserstein variational loss are obtained by backpropagating through the Sinkhorn iterations. This technique results in a very stable likelihood-free training method that can be used with implicit distributions and probabilistic programs. Using the Wasserstein variational inference framework, we introduce several new forms of autoencoders and test their robustness and performance against existing variational autoencoding techniques.


A steady-state model of a strained MQW-SOA is described. Least-squares fitting of the model to experimental polarization resolved amplified spontaneous emission spectra is used to obtain difficult to measure model parameters such as the linebroadening lineshape parameters, Auger recombination, bandgap shrinkage, and intervalence band absorption coefficients. Well capture and escape processes are modeled by a carrier density dependent net escape time which accounts for barrier effects. Simulations and comparisons with experimental data are given which demonstrate the accuracy and versatility of the model.


In the midst of Somalia's decades of conflict, al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based terrorist group with al-Qaeda links, has become particularly noticeable not only nationally but also regionally. Foreign intervention, therefore, is no new phenomenon in Somalia. Yet, when on 16 October 2011, Kenyan troops entered Somalia to launch a military offensive against al-Shabaab, called Operation Linda Nchi (Protect the Country), the reality of the al-shabaab menace in the region was highlighted. The Kenyan intervention in the Somalia conflict is, however, fraught with its own challenges for Kenya, Somalia and the entire region a year into the operation.


Abstract Objective to examine the associations of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cardiovascular risk factors with frailty. Design a cross-sectional study. Setting the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Participants frailty measures were obtained on 5,618 participants and a subset of 4,330 participants with no prior history of CVD. Exposures for observational study cardiovascular risk factors were combined in three composite CVD risk scores (Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation [SCORE], Ideal Cardiovascular Health [ICH] and Cardiovascular Health Metrics [CHM]). Main outcome measures a frailty index (40-items) was used to screen for frailty. Methods the associations of CVD risk factors with frailty were examined using logistic regression. Results overall, 16.4% of participants had frailty (7.6% at 50–59 years to 42.5% at 80+ years), and the prevalence was higher in those with versus those without prior CVD (43.0% vs. 10.7%). Among those without prior CVD, mean levels of CVD risk factors were closely correlated with higher frailty index scores. Combined CVD risk factors, assessed using SCORE, were linearly and positively associated with frailty. Compared to low-to-moderate SCOREs, the odds ratio (OR) (95% confidence interval, CI) of frailty for those with very high risk was 3.18 (2.38–4.25). Conversely, ICH was linearly and inversely associated with frailty, with an OR for optimal health of 0.29 (0.21–0.40) compared with inadequate health. Conclusions the concordant positive associations of SCORE and inverse associations of ICH and CHM with frailty highlight the potential importance of optimum levels of CVD risk factors for prevention of disability in frail older people.


Abstract. Coupling the atmosphere with the underlying surface presents numerical stability challenges in cost-effective model integrations used for operational weather prediction or climate simulations. These are due to the choice of large integration time steps compared to the physical timescale of the problem, aiming at reducing computational burden, and to an explicit flux coupling formulation, often preferred for its simplicity and modularity. Atmospheric models therefore use the surface-layer temperatures (representative of the uppermost soil, snow, ice, water, etc.) at the previous integration time step in all surface–atmosphere heat-flux calculations and prescribe fluxes to be used in the surface model integrations. Although both models may use implicit formulations for the time steps, the explicit flux coupling can still lead to instabilities. In this study, idealized simulations with a fully coupled implicit system are performed to derive an empirical relation between surface heat flux and surface temperature at the new time level. Such a relation mimics the fully implicit formulation by allowing one to estimate the surface temperature at the new time level without solving the surface heat diffusion problem. It is based on similarity reasoning and applies to any medium with constant heat diffusion and heat capacity parameters. The advantage is that modularity of the code is maintained and that the heat flux can be computed in the atmospheric model in such a way that instabilities in the snow or ice code are avoided. Applicability to snow–ice–soil models with variable density is discussed, and the loss of accuracy turns out to be small. A formal stability analysis confirms that the parametrized implicit-flux coupling is unconditionally stable.


The internally generated interannual variability in absolute angular momentum is examined with a 100-year run of a GFDL GCM. Interannual forcing of the atmosphere by the ocean is suppressed as the GCM's sea surface temperatures are constrained to undergo the same annual cycle each year. The interannual variation in the model's globally integrated and annually averaged absolute angular momentum (GAAM) is found to be a moderately large fraction of the changes in the GAAM observed in the atmosphere. The meridional structure of the absolute angular momentum is examined with an EOF analysis. Three modes are found; a tropical mode that represents a strengthening and weakening of the tropical easterlies, and two extratropical dipole modes, one in either hemisphere, that represent latitudinal shifts of the jet maxima. It is shown that the interannual variability of all three modes can be interpreted as resulting from climate noise. The absolute angular momentum budget of all three modes is examined. It is found that the tropical mode depends upon a complex three way balance between the friction and mountain torques and the absolute angular momentum flux convergence, whereas the two midlatitude modes are primarily determined by the absolute angular momentum flux convergence. Fluctuations of the tropical mode are shown to be related to the GCM's Madden–Julian Oscillation, and the midlatitude dipole modes are found to show characteristics in common with the zonal index observed in the atmosphere. DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0870.1995.t01-1-00006.x


The Protestant Reformation, beginning in 1517, was both a shock to the market for religion and a first-order economic shock. We study its impact on the allocation of resources between the religious and secular sectors in Germany, collecting data on the allocation of human and physical capital. While Protestant reformers aimed to elevate the role of religion, we find that the Reformation produced rapid economic secularization. The interaction between religious competition and political economy explains the shift in investments in human and fixed capital away from the religious sector. Large numbers of monasteries were expropriated during the Reformation, particularly in Protestant regions. This transfer of resources shifted the demand for labor between religious and secular sectors: graduates from Protestant universities increasingly entered secular occupations. Consistent with forward-looking behavior, students at Protestant universities shifted from the study of theology toward secular degrees. The appropriation of resources by secular rulers is also reflected in construction: during the Reformation, religious construction declined, particularly in Protestant regions, while secular construction increased, especially for administrative purposes. Reallocation was not driven by pre-existing economic or cultural differences.


I. INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM Akrasia (or, weakness of the will), often defined as "the moral state of agents who act against their better judgment"—a definition first given by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, depicts one of the most human of predicaments. Risto Sarrinen, Weakness of the Will in Medieval Thought: From Augustine to Buridan (New York: E. J. Brill, 1994), p. 1. Similar definitions can be found in, e.g., Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII, 1045b10–15; Donald Davidson, "How is Weakness of the Will Possible?" in Moral Concepts, ed. J. Feinberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 93; William Charlton, Weakness of Will (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), p. 1. We know what we ought to do, and we try. But, for one reason or other, we sometimes choose to act contrary to our better judgment. Being influenced by Socratic reasoning, some philosophers have argued that, in principle, one cannot freely and intentionally choose to act against one's better judgment, if (1) one rationally judges what is best for oneself, (2) one prefers to act according to one's rational judgment, and (3) one is free to make one's own choice. See, e.g., Davidson, "How is Weakness," pp. 93–113; and R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 78–79. Despite the logical difficulty, many believe that weakness of the will is a fact.


As planning is applied to larger and richer domains the effort involved in constructing domain descriptions increases and becomes a significant burden on the human application designer. If general planners are to be applied successfully to large and complex domains it is necessary to provide the domain designer with some assistance in building correctly encoded domains. One way of doing this is to provide domain-independent techniques for extracting, from a domain description, knowledge that is implicit in that description and that can assist domain designers in debugging domain descriptions. This knowledge can also be exploited to improve the performance of planners: several researchers have explored the potential of state invariants in speeding up the performance of domain-independent planners. In this paper we describe a process by which state invariants can be extracted from the automatically inferred type structure of a domain. These techniques are being developed for exploitation by STAN, a Graphplan based planner that employs state analysis techniques to enhance its performance.


A large part of the existing literature on Open Source projects identified the motivation factors predicting the participation of members. However, these incentives do not ensure a sustained participation level. Most of the members leave projects when their personal needs are satisfied and, as a consequence, a lot of projects are aborted or abandoned before the beta version software has been distributed Indeed, most of open source projects are aborted or abandoned because failing into keeping enough active members. So, the initial aforementioned research question worth to be reversed in order to apprehend how the participation level influences the way OS projects members make sense of their own motivations. The objective of this article is to use the enactivist approach and to consider that motivations are not simple antecedents to actions but are shaped by actions as well (here the participation). The quantitative analysis delivers the results of a survey administrated to participants of business OS projects. The results reveal that reputation, reciprocity and professional opportunities expected are the most influenced variables by the participation. However, learning motivations and ideology toward OS beliefs and values are the less influenced ones. This results counterbalance prior empirical researches which had observed a strong predicting power of both variables on expected participation level of participants. This is tends to show participation as making sense to motivations whom members have practical indicators for their self-assessment.


Many regression and classification algorithms proposed over the years can be described as greedy procedures for the stagewise minimization of an appropriate cost function. Some examples include additive models, matching pursuit, and boosting. In this work we focus on the classification problem, for which many recent algorithms have been proposed and applied successfully. For a specific regularized form of greedy stagewise optimization, we prove consistency of the approach under rather general conditions. Focusing on specific classes of problems we provide conditions under which our greedy procedure achieves the (nearly) minimax rate of convergence, implying that the procedure cannot be improved in a worst case setting. We also construct a fully adaptive procedure, which, without knowing the smoothness parameter of the decision boundary, converges at the same rate as if the smoothness parameter were known.