Prenatal exposure to substances may influence a child's neurodevelopment and impact on subsequent mental health. In a hospital-based population of school-aged children prenatally exposed to opiates and a number of illicit substances (n = 57), we evaluated mental health symptoms associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) using the Swanson, Nolan, and Pelham Questionnaire, revision IV (SNAP-IV) and the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) and compared the scores to a reference group which comprised children from the population-based Bergen Child Study (n = 171). Prenatally exposed children had significantly higher SNAP-IV scores associated with ADHD symptoms in both areas of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity and also reported a higher ASSQ score related to an increased number of symptoms associated with ASD, compared with the reference group. Of tested predictors of mental health outcomes in the exposed group, the intelligence quotient was a strong predictor of most mental health outcomes, and neonatal abstinence syndrome was a predictor of inattention. In conclusion, prenatally exposed children had more mental health symptoms associated with ADHD and ASD, compared with the reference group.


Arbitration: the solution to tackle cross-border tax disputes

From the increasing integration of the world economy and the lack of rules to govern the taxation of multinational enterprises to cross-border tax disputes: arbitration is one potential solution.

Arbitration is not a new development in the international tax arena, but it has not yet been widely implemented in practice. In the last few years, the concept of arbitration in tax matters was revived, mainly following the OECD/G20 BEPS Project, as well as the EU Action Plan on Corporate Taxation. Now arbitration is expected to play a more significant role and enhance the existing framework of cross-border tax dispute resolution.

"OECD Arbitration in Tax Treaty Law" constitutes a comprehensive compendium on international tax arbitration and provides in-depth analysis of all relevant aspects of the topic. The introductory chapters provide background information on tax arbitration and comparisons with other areas of law. The book also takes stock of the recent developments in this area within the OECD, the EU, the UN and the United States. It addresses the main concerns that have been raised with regard to arbitration, and compares and contrasts the design of various arbitration clauses. It also considers potential future developments.

This compendium on international tax arbitration shows one way how to tackle the rising tide of cross-border tax disputes.


Classified boards constitute one of the most potent takeover defenses for U.S. firms today. However, as with takeover defenses more generally, economic theory offers an ambiguous prediction as to the effect that classified boards have on bottom-line firm value. A resolution of this ambiguity will require sound and convincing empirical methodology. In an effort to address limitations in the existing empirical literature, this article approaches the relationship between corporate governance and firm value while taking various measures to account for unobserved sources of heterogeneity across firms. Using the instrumental variables model developed by Hausman and Taylor, I find evidence of a negative and statistically significant association between classified board status and firm value. I confirm these findings using a variation of the difference-in- difference-in-difference model recently employed by Rauh. However, using quantile regressions, I find evidence suggesting that this negative association may be concentrated along the upper tail of the distribution of firm value.


Background Hereditary angioedema (HAE) patients suffering from laryngeal attacks in the United States faced severely limited treatment options until 2008. These potentially life-threatening episodes occur in over one-half of the patients affected by HAE during their lifetimes. Acute therapy had been relegated to supportive care, intubation, and consideration of fresh frozen plasma (FFP)–-the latter with the potential for actually accelerating the speed and severity of the swelling. Methods In this article we will review the recently approved and emerging HAE treatments that have evolved from the recognition that bradykinin generation is the fundamental abnormality leading to attacks of angioedema. Results Acute therapy for laryngeal attacks will be discussed including purified plasma–derived C1 inhibitor (C1INH), recombinant C1INH, an inhibitor of plasma kallikrein (ecallantide), and a B2 receptor antagonist (icatibant). Prophylactic care has also been transformed from a reliance on attenuated androgens with their attendant side effects to C1INH replacement. Conclusion The arrival of these novel therapies promises to transform the future management of HAE.


Digital audio, video, images, and documents are flying through cyberspace to their respective owners. Unfortunately, along the way, individuals may choose to intervene and take this content for themselves. Digital watermarking and steganography technology greatly reduces the instances of this by limiting or eliminating the ability of third parties to decipher the content that he has taken. The many techiniques of digital watermarking (embedding a code) and steganography (hiding information) continue to evolve as applications that necessitate them do the same. The authors of this second edition provide an update on the framework for applying these techniques that they provided researchers and professionals in the first well-received edition. Steganography and steganalysis (the art of detecting hidden information) have been added to a robust treatment of digital watermarking, as many in each field research and deal with the other. New material includes watermarking with side information, QIM, and dirty-paper codes. The revision and inclusion of new material by these influential authors has created a must-own book for anyone in this profession.

*This new edition now contains essential information on steganalysis and steganography
*New concepts and new applications including QIM introduced
*Digital watermark embedding is given a complete update with new processes and applications


Rad51 plays a key role in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks through homologous recombination, which is the central process in the maintenance of genomic integrity. Five paralogs of the human Rad51 gene (hRad51) have been identified to date, including hRad51B, hRad51C, hRad51D, Xrcc2 and Xrcc3. In searches of additional hRad51 paralogs, we identified a novel hRad51 variant that lacked the sequence corresponding to exon 9 (hRad51-Δex9). The expected amino acid sequence of hRad51-Δex9 showed a frame-shift at codon 259, which resulted in a truncated C-terminus. RT-PCR analysis revealed that both hRad51 and hRad51-Δex9 were prominently expressed in the testis, but that there were subtle differences in tissue specificity. The hRad51-Δex9 protein was detected as a 31-kDa protein in the testis and localized at the nucleus. In addition, the hRad51-Δex9 protein showed a DNA-strand exchange activity comparable to that of hRad51. Taken together, these results indicate that hRad51-Δex9 promotes homologous pairing and DNA strand exchange in the nucleus, suggesting that alternative pathways in hRad51- or hRad51-Δex9-dependent manners exist for DNA recombination and repair.


The synthesis of a small library of nitrogen-based CO2-switchable cationic surfactants with different head groups is described. These switchable surfactants can be switched on by addition of CO2 and switched off by the removal of CO2. The structure of the switchable head group affects the surfactant's basicity, solubility, heat of protonation, rate and extent of switching, and ability to reversibly stabilize and demulsify oil–water emulsions.


Purpose
This study aims to deal with the large eddy simulation (LES) of an ignition sequence and the resulting steady combustion in a swirl-stabilized liquid-fueled combustor. Particular attention is paid to the ease of handling the numerical tool, the accuracy of the results and the reasonable computational cost involved. The primary aim of the study is to appraise the ability of the newly developed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology to retrieve the spark-based flame kernel initiation, its propagation until the full ignition of the combustion chamber, the flame stabilization and the combustion processes governing the steady combustion regime.

Design/methodology/approach
The CFD model consists of an LES-based spray module coupled to a subgrid-scale ignition model to capture the flame kernel initiation and the early stage of the flame kernel growth, and a combustion model based on the mixture fraction-progress variable formulation in the line of the flamelet generated manifold (FGM) method to retrieve the subsequent flame propagation and combustion properties. The LES-spray module is based on an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach and includes a fully two-way coupling at each time step to account for the interactions between the liquid and the gaseous phases. The Wall-Adapting Local Eddy-viscosity (WALE) model is used for the flow field while the eddy diffusivity model is used for the scalar fluxes. The fuel is liquid kerosene, injected in the form of a polydisperse spray of droplets. The spray dynamics are tracked using the Lagrangian procedure, and the phase transition of droplets is calculated using a non-equilibrium evaporation model. The oxidation mechanism of the Jet A-1 surrogate is described through a reduced reaction mechanism derived from a detailed mechanism using a species sensitivity method.

Findings
By comparing the numerical results with a set of published data for a swirl-stabilized spray flame, the proposed CFD methodology is found capable of capturing the whole spark-based ignition sequence in a liquid-fueled combustion chamber and the main flame characteristics in the steady combustion regime with reasonable computing costs.

Research limitations/implications
The proposed CFD methodology simulates the whole ignition sequence, namely, the flame kernel initiation, its propagation to fully ignite the combustion chamber, and the global flame stabilization. Due to the lack of experimental ignition data on this liquid-fueled configuration, the ability of the proposed CFD methodology to accurately predict ignition timing was not quantitatively assessed. It would, therefore, be interesting to apply this CFD methodology to other configurations that have experimental ignition data, to quantitatively assess its ability to predict the ignition timing and the flame characteristics during the ignition sequence. Such further investigations will not only provide further validation of the proposed methodology but also will potentially identify its shortfalls for better improvement.

Practical implications
This CFD methodology is developed by customizing a commercial CFD code widely used in the industry. It is, therefore, directly applicable to practical configurations, and provides not only a relatively straightforward approach to predict an ignition sequence in liquid-fueled combustion chambers but also a robust way to predict the flame characteristics in the steady combustion regime as significant improvements are noticed on the prediction of slow species.

Originality/value
The incorporation of the subgrid ignition model paired with a combustion model based on tabulated chemistry allows reducing computational costs involved in the simulation of the ignition phase. The incorporation of the FGM-based tabulated chemistry provides a drastic reduction of computing resources with reasonable accuracy. The CFD methodology is developed using the platform of a commercial CFD code widely used in the industry for relatively straightforward applicability.


Animal domestication can be defined as the removal, by humans, of animais from their free-living communities, to live and breed under the control of and for the benefit of their captors; as a result these animais acquire domestic traits. From the biological viewpoint, animal domestication is a form of microevolution caused principally, if not entirely, by profound changes in selection. The available evidence indicates that this microevolution is, in essence, a monophyletic process, although introgression may have occurred sporadically or still occurs. However, this microevolutionary process has not resulted in reproductive isolation of domestic animais. The foregoing creates problems concerning the systematics and nomenclature of domestic animais which the author has reviewed in a previous paper. The present paper re-examines some of the existing proposais for a uniform nomenclature and the choices involved in coming to a consensus with regard to the adoption of unified concepts and Latin names for our domestic animais. Perhaps the principal question is whether archaeo(zoo)logists dealing with domestic animais consider it necessary and advantageous to adopt a uni! orm nomenclature.


The purpose of this thesis is to investigate, from both the mathematical and numerical viewpoint, the coupling of surface and porous media flows, with particular concern on environmental applications. Domain decomposition methods are applied to set up effective iterative algorithms for the numerical solution of the global problem. To this aim, we reformulate the coupled problem in terms of an interface (Steklov-Poincare) equation and we investigate the properties of the Steklov-Poincare operators in order to characterize optimal preconditioners that, at the discrete level, yield convergence in a number of iterations independent of the mesh size h. We consider a new approach to the classical Robin-Robin method and we reinterpret it as an alternating direction iterative algorithm. This allows us to characterize robust preconditioners for the linear Stokes/Darcy problem which improve the behaviour of the classical Dirichlet- Neumann and Neumann-Neumann ones. Several numerical tests are presented to assess the convergence properties of the proposed algorithms. Finally, the nonlinear Navier-Stokes/Darcy coupling is investigated and a general nonlinear domain decomposition strategy is proposed for the solution of the interface problem, extending the usual Newton or fixed-point based algorithms.


Hearing loss (HL) is one of the most frequent sensory deficit in humans (Stevens et al., 2013), which might reduce traffic safety. The prevalence of age-related HL is increasing (Roth et al., 2001), and as a consequence the number of road users with HL will also increase. The effects of HL on traffic safety have been investigated and the use of tactile support systems has been evaluated both in a driving simulator and in real traffic. Tactile support was used to alert the driver during the simulator drive and to facilitate navigation with a GPS during the drive in real traffic. Differences related to HL in terms of driving behavior were bound to driving condition and occurred when complexity of driving task increased. There was also an effect of HL on visual behavior, indicated in the simulator and confirmed in the field study, suggesting that drivers with HL have a more active visual behavior with more frequent glances in the rear view mirror and a general scanning of the environment before looking away from road. Tactile signal in the driver seat was found useful, both for calling for driver attention and to facilitate navigation. Also, of high relevance for the traffic safety aspect and regardless of hearing status, the tactile support lead to higher satisfaction with the navigation system, less time spent to look at the navigation display, and thus more focus on road and better driving performance. The effects of HL on traffic safety consistently point towards a generally more cautious driving behavior. Compensatory strategies associated with HL include driving at lower speeds, more comprehensive visual search behavior and less engagement in distracting activities. Evaluation of a tactile signal suggests that by adding a tactile modality, some driver assistance systems can be made accessible also for drivers with HL. At the same time the systems might be more effective for all users, which could generally increase both traffic safety and mobility. Roth, T.N., Hanebuth, D., & Probst, R. (2001). Prevalence of age-related hearing loss in Europe: a review. European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, 268(8), 1101-1107. Stevens, G., Flaxman, S., Brunskill, E., Mascarenhas, M., Mathers, CD., & Finucane, M. (2013). Global and regional hearing impairment prevalence: an analysis of 42 studies in 29 countries. European Journal of Public Health, 23(1), 146-152. Keywords: Driver distraction Language: en


Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) Ultra Low Energy
(ULE) is a low-power air interface technology that is proposed by the
DECT Forum and is defined and specified by ETSI. The DECT air
interface technology has been used worldwide in communication devices
for more than 20 years. It has primarily been used to carry voice for
cordless telephony but has also been deployed for data-centric
services. DECT ULE is a recent addition to the DECT interface
primarily intended for low-bandwidth, low-power applications such as
sensor devices, smart meters, home automation, etc. As the DECT ULE
interface inherits many of the capabilities from DECT, it benefits
from operation that is long-range and interference-free, worldwide-
reserved frequency band, low silicon prices, and maturity. There is an
added value in the ability to communicate with IPv6 over DECT ULE,
such as for Internet of Things applications. This document describes
how IPv6 is transported over DECT ULE using IPv6 over Low-Power
Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN) techniques.


The following article briefly describes the development of tools and knowledge in human history and states that these two phenomena co-exist only in intelligent tolls. It focuses on the productive merits of the past intelligent tools and discusses the social and biohuman). Moreover, since the human beings were unable to produce an intelligent tool capable of outperforming man as a tool, the tech nological basis of slavery continued to persist throughout history. The article then examines the current achievements of computer technology in producing intelligent tools. It argues that the production of intelligent tools makes it possible to bypass the social and natural limitations of all past intelligent tools. Once these tools outperform humans as intelligent tools, man will no longer be indispensable as a production tool. Consequently, the inception of these new tools eradicates the technological basis of the subjugation of man by man. This eradication may start a new civilization by effecting higher human intelligence, more economic wealth and greater socio-political freedom in man's future society.


Joshi, Amit Krishna. Ph.D., Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Wright State University, 2017. Exploiting Alignments in Linked Data for Compression and Query Answering. Linked data has experienced accelerated growth in recent years due to its interlinking ability across disparate sources, made possible via machine-processable RDF data. Today, a large number of organizations, including governments and news providers, publish data in RDF format, inviting developers to build useful applications through reuse and integration of structured data. This has led to tremendous increase in the amount of RDF data on the web. Although the growth of RDF data can be viewed as a positive sign for semantic web initiatives, it causes performance bottlenecks for RDF data management systems that store and provide access to data. In addition, a growing number of ontologies and vocabularies make retrieving data a challenging task. The aim of this research is to show how alignments in the Linked Data can be exploited to compress and query the linked datasets. First, we introduce two compression techniques that compress RDF datasets through identification and removal of semantic and contextual redundancies in linked data. Logical Linked Data Compression is a lossless compression technique which compresses a dataset by generating a set of new logical rules from the dataset and removing triples that can be inferred from these rules. Contextual Linked Data Compression is a lossy compression technique which compresses datasets by performing schema alignment and instance matching followed by pruning of alignments based on confidence value and subsequent grouping of equivalent terms. Depending on the structure of the dataset, the first technique was able to prune more than 50% of the triples. Second, we propose an Alignment based Linked Open Data Querying System (ALOQUS) that allows users to write query statements using concepts and properties not present in linked datasets and show that querying does not require a thorough understanding of the individual datasets and interconnecting relationships. Finally, we present LinkGen, a multipurpose synthetic Linked Data generator that generates a large amount of repeatable and reproducible RDF data using statistical distribution, and interlinks with real world entities using alignments.


In this article Gary Sheffield sets out his opinions on the current commemoration plans and media responses to the centenary of the First World War. He argues that the British government and media are letting slip a golden opportunity to challenge popular perceptions of the conflict. This piece builds upon the author's speech delivered at the Richard Holmes Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the BCMH, King's College London, and the National Army Museum, Chelsea. It was delivered at King's College London on 13 March 2014.


Sociology is the scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture. It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order, acceptance, and change or social evolution. Many sociologists aim to conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter ranges from the micro-sociology level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and the social structure. The traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and deviance. As all spheres of human activity are affected by the interplay between social structure and individual agency, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to other subjects, such as health, medical, economy, military and penal institutions, the Internet, education, social capital, and the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge.


We introduce PlayAnywhere, a front-projected computer vision-based interactive table system which uses a new commercially available projection technology to obtain a compact, self-contained form factor. PlayAnywhere's configuration addresses installation, calibration, and portability issues that are typical of most vision-based table systems, and thereby is particularly motivated in consumer applications. PlayAnywhere also makes a number of contributions related to image processing techniques for front-projected vision-based table systems, including a shadow-based touch detection algorithm, a fast, simple visual bar code scheme tailored to projection-vision table systems, the ability to continuously track sheets of paper, and an optical flow-based algorithm for the manipulation of onscreen objects that does not rely on fragile tracking algorithms.


Study question Why do women fail to follow health advice, such as guidelines for folic acid supplementation, during the periconceptional period?

Summary answer Women may not comply with periconceptional health recommendations because their mental models make them view pregnancy as immune to internal or external threats.

What is known already Women do not comply with periconceptional advice. One example is folic acid supplementation, which is as low as 31% despite being the best way of avoiding neural tube defects. Non-compliance is strongly linked to maternal characteristics. Psychological theory suggests that non-compliance is due to mental models that make people feel immune or insusceptible to poor health outcomes. However research is lacking on the role of perceived susceptibility in periconceptional health behaviour or folic acid supplementation.

Study design, size, duration Cross-sectional international survey (n = 651) implemented in four European countries (France, Germany, Belgium, and Poland) via a social research panel.

Participants/materials, setting, methods Participants were women planning a pregnancy (n = 325) or in the first trimester of pregnancy (n = 326). Survey items measured maternal characteristics, beliefs, barriers and behaviour in relation to pregnancy preparation and folic acid supplementation and were generated based on a review and the Health Belief Model.

Main results and the role of chance Overall most women (82.8%) had heard of folic acid but only 45.5% were taking folic acid supplements. Folic acid supplementation was highest in Poland (63.8%) and lowest in France (26.8%) and was neglected in favour of other beneficial but less effective periconceptional health preparations (e.g., 82% eating more healthily). Further there was evidence that maternal background characteristics shaped women's mental models of pregnancy. Women who believed they had good general and obstetric health (e.g., no history of illness or miscarriage) and those living in adverse health environments (e.g. smoking and drinking during pregnancy, living in poverty) were the poorest users of folic acid supplements (p<.01; p<.001) and felt the least susceptible to the health consequences of folic acid deficiency (p<.001).

Limitations, reason for caution The data are cross-sectional so causality cannot be inferred. Online samples tend to have higher socio-economic status and education. Replication using a prospective study in the general population is needed to address these issues.

Wider implications of the findings The 'Robust Mum' mental model views pregnancy as protected from threat via the mother's good health whereas the 'Robust Pregnancy' model views pregnancy as naturally invulnerable, evidenced by observations of healthy births occurring despite adverse health conditions. Healthy mothers and pregnancies may be robust but babies are not immune to threats such as neural tube defects. The challenge for the practitioner is to elicit and correct patients' erroneous mental models of the invulnerability of pregnancy.

Study funding/competing interest(s) J Boivin has received speaker fees, honorarium and/or research funding from Weber Shandwick. Weber Shandwick funded the research project. B Fulford is funded by an ESRC/Medical Research Council PhD studentship.


U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) seems to be denying more petitions than ever these days. Cases that were solid approvals a few years ago now are receiving denials, even though the law and regulations have not changed. But don't give up hope. Opportunities exist to overcome denials.

This practice advisory focuses on post-denial strategies for petitions filed with USCIS, not strategies in immigration court. The article discusses motions to reopen, motions for reconsideration, appeals to the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office (AAO), and litigation. This practice advisory also discusses when filing a new petition may be a better option, and how the beneficiary's status, including unlawful presence, may affect the options.


In order to define more precisely the most proximal portion of chromosome 3R in Drosophila melanogaster, several new chromosome aberrations involving this region have been recovered and analyzed. These new arrangements were recovered as induced reversions of two dominant mutations, ANTPNs and dsxD, located in the region of interest. The results of the analysis have allowed the localization of several existing mutations, have further elucidated the complex homoeotic locus which resides in this region, and have confirmed the efficacy of this type of screen in the analysis of specific chromosome regions.


We report part of the design experience gained in X-Media, a system for knowledge management and sharing. Consolidated techniques of interaction design (scenario-based design) had to be revisited to capture the richness and complexity of intelligent interactive systems. We show that the design of intelligent systems requires methodologies (faceted scenarios) that support the investigation of intelligent features and usability factors simultaneously. Interaction designers become mediators between intelligent technology and users, and have to facilitate reciprocal understanding.


This article attempts to show how the conventional opposition between art and culture, on the one hand, and administration and organization, on the other, has been displaced. The main reason given for this phenomenon is the convergence of the collapse of notions of the political and aesthetic causality of art and culture with the destabilizing effects of postmodernism on organizational and administrative stability. After a discussion of the emergence of political regimes of audit within relations between culture and administration, the article locates the causes of the dominance of 'cultural governance' within the dynamics of modernist aesthetic values such as autonomy. The article concludes with a discussion of some optimistic possibilities that may arise from this scenario.


Preliminary results from a set of laboratory experiments aimed at producing a high-quality dataset for modeling underwater landslide-induced tsunami are presented. A unique feature of these experiments is the use of a method to measure water surface profiles continuously in both space and time rather than at discrete points. Water levels are obtained using an optical technique based on laser induced fluorescence, which is shown to be comparable in accuracy and resolution to traditional electrical point wave gauges. The ability to capture the spatial variations of the water surface along with the temporal changes has proven to be a powerful tool with which to study the wave generation process. In the experiments, the landslide density and initial submergence are varied and information of wave heights, lengths, propagation speeds, and shore run-up is measured. The experiments highlight the nonlinear interaction between slider kinematics and initial submergence, and the wave field. The ability to resolve water levels spatially and temporally allows wave potential energy time histories to be calculated. Conversion efficiencies range from 1.1%-5.9% for landslide potential energy into wave potential energy. Rates for conversion between landslide kinetic energy and wave potential energy range between 2.8% and 13.8%. The wave trough initially generated above the rear end of the landslide propagates in both upstream and downstream directions. The upstream-travelling trough creates the large initial draw-down at the shore. A wave crest generated by the landslide as it decelerates at the bottom of the slope causes the maximum wave run-up height observed at the shore.


Abstract In the present study, we improve the probabilistic seismic‐hazard assessment (PSHA), taking into account fault rupture‐related parameters that sensibly affect the azimuthal variability of the ground motion. The study area is the Marmara region (Turkey), characterized by one of the highest levels of seismic risk in Europe and the Mediterranean region. The seismic hazard in the city of Istanbul is mainly associated with two active fault segments having well‐defined geometry, focal mechanism, and rate of activity. Deterministic dynamic models are also available in this area (Aochi and Ulrich, 2015) that aimed at evaluating the seismic potential of the Marmara region. These models provide the statistical distribution for the hypocenter position, which is particularly relevant for rupture directivity. The aim of this work is to incorporate all the available information about the seismic potential of the Marmara region in a PSHA framework. We use an analytical model for directivity (Spudich and Chiou, 2008; Spudich et al. , 2013) to integrate rupture‐related parameters inside the PSHA standard procedure. Because the directivity effect is conditional on the hypocenter position, which is not a priori known, we assume at first ad hoc Gaussian distributions centered in the western, eastern, or middle part of the two fault segments. Our results show that the correction for directivity introduces a significant contribution (up to 25% of relative increase at 2 s) to the hazard maps computed with the standard PSHA practice (given in terms of pseudospectral accelerations having 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years). The hazard maps sensibly change when we use the distribution for the hypocenter position informed by the statistical treatment of dynamic simulations. Thus, integrating new variables in the PSHA in combination with properly informed probability density functions is not only feasible, but also recommended for a comprehensive PSHA.


How successful, and by what measure, has the accession of the 10 Member States in 2004 been? Reviewing European Union Accession addresses a wide range of issues, deliberately without any thematic constraints, in order to explore EU enlargement from a variety of perspectives, both scientific and geographical, internal and external. In contrast to the major works in this field, we highlight the interrelated, and often unexpected, nature of the integration process – hence the subtitle, unexpected results, spillover effects and externalities.


Summary Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is a perennial liana that possesses characteristics of both herbaceous and woody plants. With the development of molecular biology, an increasing number of tools have been invented and exploited in order to cope with the growing repertoire of grapevine genes. These tools provide evidence in studies on the evolutionary relationships of grapevine genes. In this study, 20 grapevine genes and 80 homologous genes were used for a multitype structural analysis using bioinformatics software. These analyses included sequence alignments and the construction of phylogenetic trees, predictions of subcellular localisation, protein primary structure analysis, secondary structure prediction, and tertiary protein structure model construction. From an analysis of all these data, only ten genes (50%) showed clear clustering, with only six genes keeping their clustering during translation into proteins. According to these results, most protein sequences from grapevine genes did not have characteristics that distinguished them from genes in other woody plants. This study revealed that grapevine genes have co-evolved with genes in herbaceous and woody plants, and not as separate events. This agrees with the taxonomy of grapevine, a perennial liana plant which displays characteristics of both herbaceous and woody plants.


Objective To examine the characteristics of patients with erectile dysfunction in a family physician led erectile dysfunction clinic; To review association of chronic disease spectrum and erectile dysfunction; To review initial treatment pattern and outcome. Design Retrospective case series review. Subjects All consecutive patients seen in a regional hospital family physician led erectile dysfunction clinic from April 2014 to March 2015. Main outcome measures The severity of erectile dysfunction, based on International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5). The associated chronic comorbidities of patients. Treatment patterns and patient outcomes. Results One hundred and eighty three patients presented with erectile dysfunction (ED) with mean age 58.7 (range 23 to 82) years old were seen during the study period. One hundred and twenty seven patients (69.4%) had comorbidity of chronic diseases, including 50.8% had hypertension, 38.8% had diabetes mellitus and 33.9% had hyperlipidaemia. Their mean body mass index was 25.2 kg/m2, the mean blood pressure was 137.3/79.5 mm Hg (1 mm Hg = 0.133 kPa). According to IIEF-5 score, 50.3%, 30.6% and 18.6% had severe, moderate and mild erectile dysfunction respectively. The average duration of ED before seeking medical help was 3.9 years. Phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors were prescribed to 119 patients (65%), and 57.1% of them achieved good response. Twenty nine patients (15.8%) were referred to other specialty for further management, including 27.6% had contraindication for PDE5 inhibitor. Conclusion High proportion of erectile dysfunction patients had comorbitiy of chronic diseases. 57.1% of those patients receiving PDE5 inhibitors showed good response.


Long-distance human migration across the Pacific Ocean occurred during the late Holocene and originated almost entirely in the west. As prevailing tradewinds blow from the east, the mechanisms of prehistoric seafaring have been debated since the sixteenth century. Inadequacies in propositions of accidental or opportunistic drifting on occasional westerlies were exposed by early computer simulation. Experimental voyaging in large, fast, weatherly (windward-sailing) double-canoes, together with computer simulation incorporating canoe performance data and modern, averaged, wind conditions, has supported the traditional notion of intentional passage-making in a widely accepted hypothesis of upwind migration by strategic voyaging. The critical assumption that maritime technology and sailing conditions were effectively the same prehistorically as in the historical and modern records is, however, open to question. We propose here that maritime technology during the late-Holocene migrations did not permit windward sailing, and show that the episodic pattern of initial island colonization, which is disclosed in recent archaeological data, matches periods of reversal in wind direction toward westerlies, as inferred from the millennial-scale history of ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation).


The present paper attempts to explore FitzGerald's overall approach to translation by examining his translated works and particularly by focusing on his translation of Khayyam's Rubaiyat. Khayyam Rubaiyat is selected as the text to gather data and it is compared to its English translation by FitzGerald in order to identify the strategies he used in translating it into English. In order to do so, first this paper traces translation theories common in Victorian era and the extent FitzGerald adheres to them. Second it discusses translation of poetry and potential obstacles inherent in it according to form, meaning, culture-specific terms and the role of interpretation in poetry translation. Then it focuses on Khayyam Rubaiyat translation and identifies strategies used in its translation which ranged from addition, selection, omission, domestication to foreignization, all of which transformed Khayyam into a Epicurean westernpoet philosopher. It further concludes that FitzGerald has employed the same strategies and theory in all of his translated works. In addition to Persian language and literature, It is useful to examine his approach to translation in his non-Persian translated works like Greek literature and make a comparison among Persian and non-Persian translations.


Algorithmic risk assessment holds the promise of reducing mass incarceration while remaining conscious of public safety. Yet presumptions of transparent and fair algorithms may be unwarranted. Critics warn that algorithmic risk assessment may exacerbate inequalities in the criminal justice system's treatment of minorities. Further, calls for third party auditing contend that studies may reveal disparities in how risk assessment tools classify minorities. A recent audit found a popular risk tool overpredicted for Blacks.

An equally important minority group deserving of study is Hispanics. The study reported herein examines the risk outcomes of a widely used algorithmic risk tool using a large dataset with a two-year followup period. Results reveal cumulative evidence of (a) differential validity and prediction between Hispanics and non-Hispanics and (b) algorithmic unfairness and disparate impact in overestimating the general and violent recidivism of Hispanics.


What do Ford Financial, IBM, and Victoria's Secret have in common? Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB). As the industry standard for platform-independent reusable business components, EJB has just become Sun Microsystem's latest developer certification. Whether you want to be certifiable or just want to learn the technology inside and out, Head First EJB will get you there in the least painful way. And with the greatest understanding. You'll learn not just what the technology *is*, but more importantly, *why* it is, and what it is and isn't good for. You'll learn tricks and tips for EJB development, along with tricks and tips for passing this latest, very challenging Sun Certified Business Component Developer (SCBCD) exam. You'll learn how to think like a server. You'll learn how to think like a bean. And because this is a Head First book, you'll learn how to think about thinking. Co-author Kathy Sierra was one of Sun's first employees to teach brave, early adopter customers how to use EJB. She has the scars. But besides dragging you deep into EJB technology, Kathy and Bert will see you through your certification exam, if you decide to go for it. And nobody knows the certification like they do - they're co-developers of Sun's actual exam! As the second book in the Head First series, Head First EJB follows up the number one best-selling Java book in the US, Head First Java. Find out why reviewers are calling it a revolution in learning tough technical topics, and why Sun Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy says, "Java technology is everywhere...if you develop software and haven't learned Java, it's definitely time to dive in "Head First." And with Head First book, you don't even have to feel guilty about having fun while you're learning; it's all part of the learning theory. If the latest research in cognitive science, education, and neurobiology suggested that boring, dry, and excruciatingly painful was the best way to learn, we'd have done it. Thankfully, it's been shown that your brain has a sense of style, a sense of humour, and a darn good sense of what it likes and dislikes. In Head First EJB, you'll learn all about: Component-based and role-based development The architecture of EJB, distributed programming with RMI Developing and Deploying an EJB application The Client View of a Session and Entity bean The Session Bean Lifecycle and Component Contract The Entity bean Lifecycle and Component Contract Container-managed Persistence (CMP) Container-managed Relationships (CMR) EJB-QL Transactions Security EJB Exceptions The Deployment Descriptor The Enterprise Bean Environment in JNDI Programming Restrictions and Portability The book includes over 200 mock exam questions that match the tone, style, difficulty, and topics on the real SCBCD exam. See why Kathy and Bert are responsible for thousands of successful exam-passers-- "The Sun certification exam was certainly no walk in the park, but Kathy's material allowed me to not only pass the exam, but Ace it!" --Mary Whetsel, Sr. Technology Specialist, Application Strategy and Integration, The St. Paul Companies "Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates are two of the few people in the world who can make complicated things seem damn simple, and as if that isn't enough, they can make boring things seem interesting." --Paul Wheaton, The Trail Boss, javaranch.com "Who better to write a Java study guide than Kathy Sierra, reigning queen of Java instruction? Kathy Sierra has done it again. Here is a study guide that almost guarantees you a certification!" --James Cubetta, Systems Engineer, SGI


Cells have a complex mechanism to control the expression of genes so that they are capable of adapting to environmental changes or genetic perturbations. A major part of the mechanism is fulfilled by transcription factors which can regulate the expression of other genes. Transcriptional regulatory relationships between genes and their transcription factors can be represented by a network, called a transcription regulatory network.

Many algorithms have been proposed to learn transcription regulatory networks from gene expression data. In particular, the module network method, a special type of Bayesian networks, has shown promising results. In a module network, a regulatory module is a set of genes that show similar expression profiles and are regulated by a shared set of transcription factors (i.e., the regulation program of the module). This method significantly decreases the number of parameters to be learned. Module network learning consists of two tasks: clustering genes into modules and inferring the regulation program for each module. This thesis concentrates on designing algorithms for the latter task.

First, we introduce a regression tree-based Gibbs sampling algorithm for learning regulation programs in module networks. The novelty of this method is that a set of tree operations is defined for generating new regression trees from a given tree. We show that the set of tree operations is sufficient to generate a well mixing Gibbs sampler even for large datasets.
Second, we apply linear models to infer regulation programs. Given a gene module, this method partitions all experimental conditions into two condition clusters, between which the module's genes are most differentially expressed. Consequently, the process of learning the regulation program for the module becomes one of identifying transcription factors that are also differentially expressed between these two condition clusters.

Third, we explore the possibility of integrating results from different algorithms. The integration methods we select are union, intersection, and weighted rank aggregation. The experiments in a yeast dataset show that the union and weighted rank aggregation methods produce more accurate predictions than those given by individual algorithms, whereas the intersection method does not yield any improvement in the accuracy of predictions. In addition, somewhat surprisingly, the union method, which has a much lower computational cost than rank aggregation, archives comparable results as given by rank aggregation.


Since mid-1990s social sciences have re-started to give attention to the role played by the state in promoting economic growth, with important contributions from economists, sociologists and political scientists. This attention further increased after the economic and financial crisis of 2007/08 with a rising strand of research that is focusing on the institutional foundations of different growth models in advanced economies. This paper is related to this wide strand of research and analyses how industrial policies can favor the emerging of institutional conditions that are conducive to economic growth. In particular, the paper analyzes the neglected relationship between public policies and labor productivity in OECD countries. The focus is on four policy arenas that have a direct impact on labor productivity: labor market, human capital, innovation and on the efficiency of public administration. The analysis underlines a strong association between labour productivity and public policies addressed to promote training and activation, tha quality of educational institutions and inter-institutional networks in innovation. Other kind of policies, such as those addressed to flexibilise the labour market or to reduce labour costs or to increase the average number of years of schooling seem to play a minor role.


Recently, a new approach to penal policy making has emerged in the UK and elsewhere. An elitist model is giving way to a more populist model, in which governments consult ordinary people, especially those living in areas undermined by crime and disorder, before formulating and implementing policies to tackle crime. This trend has been accompanied by a continuing drift towards less tolerant and harsher policies. This article proposes a critical response to this phenomenon. There is little point, it suggests, in yearning for a return to the elitist model. Rather, what is required is a move in the opposite direction, i.e. towards a more participatory style of policy making. A participatory crime policy would not necessarily be intolerant and repressive. To the contrary, participation is likely to develop and foster the very qualities people need to imagine, formulate and implement more rational responses to escalating rates of crime, violence and disorder. Some principles and ideas which could inform the development of a more participatory crime policy are outlined.


These documents describe a short transition session for medical students entering the third-year clinical clerkships, and features small-group teaching by clinically experienced near-peer medical students. The goal of this course is to supplement the traditional clinical orientation, with experience-based training from peer-students, as well as to provide teaching experience to these clinically experienced peer-students. The two-hour sessions consist of simulated cases specific to the beginning rotation of each new clinical student including practice with daily progress note writing and oral presentations, question-and-answer time, and an overview of basic useful skills like reading patient flow-charts and accessing laboratory and study results. The documents include a narrative description of the course, instructions and recruitment materials for near-peer teachers, example cases for the clinical clerkships (Obstetrics and Gynecology, Psychiatry, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, Family Medicine, and Neurology), and survey assessments used to determine the effectiveness of the course and for planning future improvements.


In the tourism development and sustainability literature, conflicts among local communities, i.e. horizontal conflicts, about community-based tourism have been found to be detrimental to the sustainability of their village. This qualitative study aims to counter that perception. In-depth interviews were conducted with the village's communities, including local community group members and local authorities. The findings revealed that the 'responsible manner of local communities' is the best practice to mitigate horizontal conflicts. Specifically, we discovered that local community groups in the tourism village are aware that their collaborations may potentially lead to conflicts; therefore, they preemptively prepared themselves with a platform that enables them to discuss intrapersonal, intragroup, and intergroup matters in a manner that avoids and minimizes horizontal conflicts. This platform emerged through their ancestral tradition called liwetan. Although liwetan is not a new concept, using it in the management of tourism villages is not a common practice. We thus suggest that the approach discussed in this study be replicated and applied in other tourism villages all over Indonesia, given that the liwetan tradition can be found in many villages, albeit with different names.


Abstract : This study provides a detailed chemical and structural profile of first-year and multiyear Arctic sea ice. Ice cores were collected during April- May 1986 and 1987 near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Concentrations of Cl, Br, SO4, Na, Ca, K, Mg, PO4, SiO4, NO3, NO2 and NH4 were determined for samples chosen on the basis of structural ice type. Chemical and statistical analyses indicate that finer-grained structures incorporate more impurities and that major ion chemistry is controlled almost entirely by salinity. Mg is enriched in the ice indicating precipitation is occurring at temperatures higher than previously reported. K is depleted in the ice suggesting preferrential drainage. Ratios of the major ions are the same for first-year and multiyear ice and are similar to that of seawater indicating that as the ice ages no significant changes occur in ice chemistry. Nutrient concentrations in the ice are enriched with respect to the underlying water, indicating that biological activity occurs in the ice and processes other than the overall salinity effect and brine drainage are affecting nutrient concentrations within the ice. (edc)


The main goal of this study is to investigate the effects of plaque structure on its stress distribution. Rupture of plaque causes cerebrovascular diseases which lead to high mortality rates all over the world. Computers are powerful tools to understand the mechanism of plaque rupture. In this study, 3D fluid structure interaction simulation is constructed in ABAQUS 6.13 to clarify the relation between stress distribution of plaque and its structure. A model of common carotid artery with distributed stenosis was chosen for the simulation. To investigate the effects of plaque structure on stress distribution, thickness of fibrous cap and lipid core size were varied in the stenosis. Furthermore material properties of plaque were changed to study their effects on stress distribution. The models were simulated under pulsatile flow during the heart cycle and the stress distribution, maximum plaque wall stress and the flow shear rates were analyzed. The results of this study show that the viscoelastic properties of the plaque and the vessel wall reduces flow shear rate. Moreover it was shown that the thickness of fibrous cap is a more important parameter than lipid core size and the maximum plaque wall stress is more dependent to fibrous cap thickness rather than the lipid core size.


Petascale systems will present several new challenges to performance and correctness tools. Such machines may contain millions of cores, requiring that tools use scalable data structures and analysis algorithms to collect and to process application data. In addition, at such scales, each tool itself will become a large parallel application - already, debugging the full Blue-Gene/L (BG/L) installation at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory requires employing 1664 tool daemons. To reach such sizes and beyond, tools must use a scalable communication infrastructure and manage their own tool processes efficiently. Some system resources, such as the file system, may also become tool bottlenecks. In this paper, we present challenges to petascale tool development, using the stack trace analysis tool (STAT) as a case study. STAT is a lightweight tool that gathers and merges stack traces from a parallel application to identify process equivalence classes. We use results gathered at thousands of tasks on an Infiniband cluster and results up to 208 K processes on BG/L to identify current scalability issues as well as challenges that will be faced at the petascale. We then present implemented solutions to these challenges and show the resulting performance improvements. We also discuss future plans to meet the debugging demands of petascale machines.


As an effect of a protracted situation of conflict, the economy in Gaza Strip has largely developed through international humanitarian assistance. Over the time, the isolation of markets, widespread unemployment, and the economic crisis have caused a serious decline in the population living standards, with a high level of food insecurity. Today, the population in Gaza Strip has dramatically increased reaching an estimated 1.65 million in an area of only 360 km2 (PCBS). The rapid increase in urban population (3.2% of yearly growth rate), land scarcity and the challenge of food security have accelerated the phenomenon of urban agriculture. In Gaza Strip, despite many constraints, agriculture and related activities are still offering the opportunity of food, income and employment for the local population. By participating in activities related to projects of international cooperation promoting the dairy cattle sector we have investigated ways of breeding cattle and proposed a reflection on the sector, highlighting the main strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and constraints. We have also explored the livelihoods of dairy cattle keepers and analysed related resilience and sustainability.


This book collects studies with a 'critical education policy orientation', and presents itself as a handbook of matters of public concern. The term 'critical' does not refer to the adoption of a particular theoretical framework or methodology, but rather it refers to a very specific ethos or way of relating to the present and the belief that the future should not be the repetition of the past. This implies a concern about what is happening in our societies today and what could or should be happening in the future. As a consequence, the contributors to the book rely on a general notion of public policy that takes on board processes, practices, and discourses at a variety of levels, in diverse governmental and non-governmental contexts, and considers the relation of policy to power, to politics and to social regulation. Following the detailed introduction that aims at picturing the landscape of studies with a 'critical education policy orientation', the book presents re-readings of six policy challenges; globalization, knowledge society, lifelong learning, equality/democracy/social inclusion, accountability/control/efficiency and teacher professionalism. It seeks to contextualise these in relation to issues of current global concern at the start of the 21st century. Despite the diversity of approaches, this collection of critical education policy studies shares a concern with what could be called 'the public, and its education,' and represents a snapshot of education policy research at a particular time.


Introduction Morocco has recently developed a plan of reducing sugar consumption to reinforce prevention of non-communicable diseases and to contribute to the achievement of global voluntary targets for non-communicable diseases set by ICN2 by 2025. The objective of the present study was to assess acceptance of yogurts with different percentage reduction of sugar by the Moroccan population. Methods A total of 201 participants (age > 15 y.) were recruited to determine the level of sugar reduction in yogurt. Sucrose was added to a plain yoghurt in the following different concentrations 166.5; 149.8; 133.2; 116.5; 99; 83.2 mM/l, corresponding to the reduction of sugar of 0%, -10%, -20%, -30%, -40% and -50%, respectively, compared available yogurt in local market. Overall, the acceptability scores of the different yoghurts were based on liking, "Just About Right" (JAR) and purchase intent scales was used to score the different yoghurts. Results Yogurts containing -20% and -30% added sugar were highly accepted by 81% and 74% of respondents. Based on JAR score, yoghurt with 20% (133.2mM/l) and 30% (116.5 mM/l) reduction were considered as "Just about right" by 42.7% and 44.3% respectively. Best average score of purchase intent was obtained for sucrose concentration of 149.8 mM/l. 35.8% and 40.3% for yoghurt with sucrose concentration of 133.2 mM/l and 116.5 mM/l respectively. Conclusion The finding from this study indicated that yogurts containing -20% and -30% added sugar were most accepted by respondents. Advocacy before dairy industry to have them commit towards sugar reduction in yogurt is needed, in order to help achieving the national sugar reduction strategy in Morocco.


Objective To determine the prospective association between physical workload—in terms of specific physical exposures and the number of exposures—and long-term sickness absence (LTSA). Methods Using cox-regression analyses, we estimated the risk of register-based incident LTSA (at least 3 consecutive weeks) from self-reported exposure to different physical workloads among 11 908 wage earners from the general working population (Danish Work Environment Cohort Study year 2000 and 2005). Results The incidence of LTSA was 8.9% during two-year follow-up. Spending 25% or more of the total work time with a bent or twisted back (HR 1.59 (95% CI 1.39 to 1.83)), arms above shoulder height (HR 1.35 (95% CI 1.14 to 1.59)), squatting or kneeling (HR 1.30 (95% CI 1.09 to 1.54)), pushing/pulling or lifting/carrying (HR 1.40 (95% CI 1.22 to 1.62)) and standing in the same place for 50% or more of total work time (HR 1.19 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.42), were risk factors for LTSA when adjusted for baseline age, gender, psychosocial work environment, lifestyle, musculoskeletal and mental disorders, and socioeconomic status. HR increased from 1.25 (95% CI 1.04 to 1.51) for one to 1.94 (95% CI 1.56 to 2.41) for four combined physical workloads. Results largely remained stable in subgroup analyses including only blue-collar workers (n=5055). Population attributable risks for LTSA from one or more physical workloads were 26% and 40% in the general working population and among blue-collar workers, respectively. Conclusions Several of the investigated types of physical workload were risk factors for LTSA when exceeding 25% of the work time. A higher number of combined physical workloads was associated with progressively increased risk. Our study underscores the importance of physical workload as risk factors for LTSA in the general working population as well as among blue-collar workers.


As computational cluster computers rapidly grow in both size and complexity, system reliability and, in particular, application resilience have become increasingly important factors to consider in maintaining efficiency and providing improved compute performance over predecessor systems. One commonly used mechanism for providing application fault tolerance in parallel systems is the use of checkpointing.
 We demonstrate the impact of sub-optimal checkpoint intervals on application efficiency via simulation with real workload data. We find that application efficiency is relatively insensitive to error in estimation of an application's mean time to interrupt (AMTTI), a parameter central to calculating the optimal checkpoint interval. This result corroborates the trends predicted by previous analytical models. We also find that erring on the side of overestimation may be preferable to underestimation.
 We further discuss how application monitoring and resilience frameworks can benefit from this insensitivity to error in AMTTI estimates. Finally, we discuss the importance of application monitoring at exascale and conclude with a discussion of challenges faced in the use of checkpointing at such extreme scales.


There exist today plenty of algorithms and many papers about dehazing or defogging, that is enhancing images taken in hazy or foggy conditions. To our knowledge none of them has got a significant result for dense and non-dense haze image at the same time. In this master thesis, we will propose an algorithm that are able to dehaze both dense and non-dense hazy images. Our hope comes from the fact that we observe in dense hazy images, the Spatio-Temporal Retinex-inspired with Stochastic Sampling (STRESS) framework (Kol̊as et al., JIST, 55(4), 2011) gives a more visually pleasing result when we compare it with the DCP algorithm (He et al., CVPR, 2009) for the same input. Our hypothesis is that STRESS uses one or more of its principles to enhance efficiently dense hazy images. In this work, we will show how we find out this hypothesis and also justify it. For the purpose of our experiment, we define a new database where images are separeted according to their degree of haziness (fuzzy, medium and very fuzzy). The dehazing algorithms that we consider are typically (Fattal, Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH, 27(3), 2008), (Fattal, Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH, 34(1), 2014), To evaluate the quality of these dehazed images, we use some metrics and a psychophysical approach. From this experiment on the previous works, we show their relationships with STRESS and finally the performance of the new algorithm which is the combination with some of them with STRESS idea is showed as well. Basically our algorithm assesses the hidden free-haze layer by assuming that there are three patterns almost in outdoor hazy images namely: sky region (or regions which have the same behaviour, like snow), far objects and near objects. The experiment shows also that our algorithm based on the two-scale STRESS approach, edge detection and Hidden Markov Model has often more visibility level than most of state-of-the-art algorithm when using the metrics defined in (Hautière et al., Image Analysis & Stereology Journal, 27(2), 2008). .


Empirical data indicate that the so-called "Buddhism of yellow color" that is predominantly associated with Japanese "immigrant" Buddhism, is constantly in decline in terms of "explicit" adherents. After some methodological observations, this article gives an overview of the relevant statistical data. The last part discusses possible reasons for these negative dynamics, referring to causes within Buddhist institutions, the ethnic community, and at the level of the individual. KEYWORDS: Japanese immigration - ethnic Buddhism - preservation of tradition - acculturation UNLIKE Western countries such as Germany, where Buddhism was introduced from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards through the efforts of a handful of occidental protagonists especially interested in Theravada Buddhism (USARSKI 1989), the history of Buddhism in Brazil was initiated with the arrival of the first Japanese (mostly of rural origin) in the port of Santos in 1908. For many decades thereafter, Japanese immigrant Buddhism, not exclusively (NAKAMAKI 2002) but predominantly in the form of Amida Buddhism, continued to be the only expression of Buddhism in the so-called largest Catholic country in the world. Moreover, at the beginning of the 1960s the traditional Soto Zen temple Busshinji, in the city of Sao Paulo, became the first and primary source for a small circle of non-Japanese pioneers interested in the practice of zazen (ROCHA 2006, 78). The same institution was for some time the spiritual home of perhaps the symbolic figure of the Brazilian branch of "conversion Buddhism," Claudia Souza de Murayama, alias "Monja Coen" (USARSKI 2006). Finally, in order to evaluate the influence of Japanese immigration on Brazilian Buddhism in general, one must not forget the high proportion of Pure Land and Nichiren Buddhist temples and centers within about three hundred Buddhist entities in Brazil, while keeping in mind that the Brazilian field has become as pluralistic as that of other countries (see FIGURE 1). Problematization Headlines such as "Buddhism is leaving the temples,"1 flanked by repeatedly published "news" in the Brazilian media regarding a supposed "boom" of the Brazilian sangha,2 suggest that, after decades of relative encapsulation, traditional Japanese Buddhism has successfully gone through a process of acculturation and turned into a "trendy" religion. This optimistic image was severely challenged by an article published on 19 January 2001 by the weekly magazine Isto e whose title "Don't let Buddhism disappear from Brazil" did not fit at all with previous reports about the almost inevitable advance of Buddhism. According to the article, the urgent issue, at least among representatives of traditional Japanese Buddhists institutions, was not how to respond to a dramatic increase of conversions or to overcrowded sessions, retreats, and workshops, but to declining communities and internal difficulties such as the lack of staff in certain local temples. While many readers might have been taken by surprise by these "revelations," the Isto e report is not only in tune with similar statements from within traditional Japanese Buddhist communities, but also in line with the results of empirical research on the subject. One example for a pessimistic "emic" evaluation of the current situation of Japanese Buddhism is the statement of an official of the Comunidade Budista Nichirenshu of Sao Paulo, who, in 1995, had already emphasized that "There are many, both within and outside the Japanese community, who think that Buddhism is only for older people, and that monks fulfill their functions only in terms of funeral rites" (FEDERACAO DAS SEITAS BUDISTAS DO BRASIL 1995, 42). And in 2004 a leading Jodo Shinshu minister of Sao Paulo added that When it comes to religious practice, one can easily notice that the descendents of immigrants are not very interested in what is happening in a Buddhist temple. They are more concerned with integrating themselves into Brazilian society than in maintaining the traditions of their ancestors. …


We consider vertical contracting arrangements between a manufacturer and a retailing network when retailers have private information and the organization is run through bilateral contracts. We highlight a new form of informational opportunism arising when the manufacturer manipulates information learned separately in each relationship. We characterize the set of allocations robust to such opportunism by means of simple ex post incentive compatibility constraints. Those constraints limit the manufacturer's ability to use yardstick competition among retailers. They simplify contracts and restore a rent/efficiency trade-off even with correlated information. We show that sell-out contracts are optimal under a wide range of circumstances. (JEL D21, D86, L14, L60, L81)


Abstract Previous studies of predominantly Western populations have reported inconsistent associations between age at menarche and risk of diabetes. We examined this relationship among Chinese women, who generally experience menarche at a later age than Western women. In 2004–2008, China Kadoorie Biobank recruited 302,632 women aged 30–79 years from 10 areas across China, and recorded 5,391 incident cases of diabetes during 7 years of follow-up among 270,345 women without baseline diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer. Cox regression models yielded adjusted hazard ratios for incident diabetes associated with age at menarche. Overall, the mean age at menarche was 15.4 years, and decreased across successive generations. Age at menarche was linearly and inversely associated with incident diabetes, with adjusted hazard ratio of 0.96 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.94, 0.97) per year delay. Hazard ratios were greater in younger generations (for women born in the 1960s–1970s, hazard ratio (HR) = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.90, 0.97; for women born in the 1950s, HR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.93, 0.98; and for women born in the 1920s–1940s, HR = 0.97, 95% CI: 0.95, 0.99). Further adjustment for adulthood body mass index significantly attenuated the association (HR = 0.99, 95% CI: 0.97, 1.00), especially among those born before 1950 (HR = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.97, 1.02). Much of the inverse association between age at menarche and incident diabetes was mediated through increased adiposity associated with early menarche, especially in older generations.


This paper draws on observations from a long-established network in France, located around the town of Cognac – site of distilled beverages with the same name. Firms within this network have been successful in developing new types of products in the past decades, drawing on and diverging from the conservative culture upon which the region and beverage have built their reputation. The paper reveals that a thick institutional setting, which has been in place for more than a century and is being maintained to preserve the quality and authenticity of the Cognac product, also serve as enablers for new development among local firms


Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is the principal method of amplifying target DNA regions and, as such, is of great importance when performing microbial diversity studies. An unfortunate side effect of PCR is the formation of unwanted byproducts such as chimeras. The main goal of the work covered in this article is the development of an algorithm that simulates realistic chimeras for use in the evaluation of chimera detection software and for investigations into the accuracy of community structure analyses. Experimental data has helped to identify factors which may cause the formation of chimeras and has provided evidence of how influential these factors can be. This article makes use of some of this evidence in order to build a model with which to simulate the PCR process. This model helps to better explain the formation of chimeras and is therefore able to provide aid to future studies that intend to use PCR.


The balance between supply and demand for electricity is mainly disrupted by the growing contribution of renewable energy sources to the electrical grid since these sources are intermittent by nature. Therefore, the energy storage systems, mainly those of considerable size, become essential to restore the electricity balance. The compressed air energy storage (CAES) system is one of the mature technologies used to store electricity on a large scale. Therefore, this article discusses the energy and exergy analysis of different configurations of a constant-pressure CAES system to improve its overall efficiency and energy density. The exergy efficiency of our basic adiabatic configuration using water as thermal storage medium is 56.4% and the energy density is 12.17 kWh/m3. The results show that the CAES system using a packed bed of quartzite rock as thermal storage medium has the best efficiency (67.2%) and energy density (17 kWh/m3) among adiabatic systems. The diabatic CAES systems could have a net efficiency up to 70.1% and an energy density up to 31.95 kWh/m3 by using combustion chambers. Finally, the waste heat recovery from other installations such as a gas turbine power plant has the potential to improve the energy density to 20.53 kWh/m3 without using fossil fuel sources.


In this thesis, the beneficial effect of ultrasound (US) energy is utilized for accelerating thrombolysis efficacy through non-thermal mechanisms. The outcome of the research, can be applied in the future for clinical use, providing alternative techniques (either noninvasive or invasive), for treating ischaemic stroke under MR guidance.

To study the effect of US on thrombolysis efficacy, three different in vitro circulating flow clot models were developed. Fully retracted porcine blood clots were treated with US waves as an adjunct to thrombolytic drug tenecteplase (TNK-tPA), in the presence or absence of microbubbles (MBs). Each one of the flow clot models used, was designed to reproduce a different physiologic situation of middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion, since it is the most common cause of stroke. In all the proposed treatment protocols, temperature elevation at beam focus never exceeded 1 0C, providing that the contribution of thermal mechanisms to clot lysis was negligible.

The first model, was reproducing a deep-seated MCA occlusion in a brain tissue. To provide a more realistic clinical environment, the study was conducted into a brain tissue mimicking phantom. Flow rate was set to 20 % of the maximum value occur in an open MCA and TNK-tPA dose was not exceeding the 30 % of the average maximum concentration in blood. Using 1.18 MHz focused US (FUS) waves, various experimental parameters that influence thrombolysis efficacy, were optimized. Maximum thrombolysis efficacy was observed when FUS pulses were used as an adjunct to thrombolytic drug in the presence of MBs. With this technique, 370 mg of clot mass was removed in 30 min, which may not be enough to achieve significant clinical benefits. However, further improvement was done (increase of flow rate and TNK-tPA concentration), to enhance thrombolysis efficacy.

The second model, was reproducing a MCA occlusion occurred superficially. Flow rate was increased four times and TNK-tPA concentration was doubled. The optimum operating mode parameters obtained before, were employed in this study in order to investigate the impact of frequency and acoustic intensity on thrombolysis efficacy. Study findings established that higher FUS frequencies (1.18 MHz), are associated with enhanced thrombolysis compared to lower frequencies (0.6 MHz). Also, a linear increasing dependence between acoustic intensity and thrombolysis efficacy was observed. After 30 min of treatment with 1.18 MHz FUS exposures in synergy with TNKtPA and MBs, 1050 mg of clot mass was removed, which should be sufficient for timely recanalization of an occluded cerebral artery.

The third model, was reproducing a MCA occlusion, treated invasively with a catheter-directed US device. The efficacy of two small planar ultrasonic transducers (operating at frequencies 3.7 and 5.2 MHz respectively), on clot lysis was evaluated. The values of flow rate and TNK-tPA concentration were kept the same with those used in the previous study. Using 3.7 MHz US waves in association with TNK-tPA and MBs for 30 min, 700 mg of clot mass was removed, showing that potentially, intravascular sonothrombolysis with such a transducer can be an effective method for treating stroke.

Finally, the knowledge gained in vitro for enhancing TNK-tPA induced thrombolysis, was translated in vivo using an animal model. A blood clot was artificially formed into the right carotid artery of a rabbit, mimicking a MCA occlusion in humans. The complete flow blockage as well as the recanalization procedure were monitored using a 3D time of flight MR angiography. This novel technique, clearly demonstrated that the combination of 1.18 MHz FUS pulses with MBs, strongly accelerated the action of TNKtPA, leading through non-thermal mechanisms to full artery recanalization within 19 min.


This paper considers Just-In-Time Job-Shop Scheduling, in which each activity has an earliness and a tardiness cost with respect to a due date. It proposes a constraint programming approach, which includes a novel filtering algorithm and dedicated heuristics. The filtering algorithm uses a machine relaxation to produce a lower bound that can be obtained by solving a Just-In-Time Pert problem. It also includes pruning rules which update the variable bounds and detect precedence constraints. The paper presents experimental results which demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach over a wide range of benchmarks.


Recent business scandals point to a disturbing breakdown of values in corporate America. This book responds to the crisis by examining the responsibilities of "gatekeepers" -- corporate directors, regulators, auditors, lawyers, investment bankers, and business journalists -- who stand between corporate misconduct and the public. The essays, by prominent scholars and practitioners, argue that market pressures have made gatekeepers too focused on financial self-interest and too heedless of the public good to live up to society's legitimate expectations. A key part of the book is a set of recommendations for enhancing gatekeeper professionalism. These range from specific steps for improving boards of directors to a call for the investment banking community to establish a uniform code of conduct and articulate its obligations to the investing public.This book grew out of the Corporate Responsibility Project undertaken by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The contributors come from institutions ranging from Wall Street and the nation's leading law and business schools to the AFL-CIO; they include such prominent figures as John S. Reed of the New York Stock Exchange, investment banker Felix Rohatyn, corporate lawyer Martin Lipton, and media commentator and professor of journalism Geneva Overholser.


Purpose – After identifying two kinds of internal knowledge transfer strategies, the purpose of this paper is to examine their effectiveness and whether they induce knowledge spillovers among firms. Design/methodology/approach – This study collected data in China and 219 questionnaires were achieved. Then, structure equation model by LISREL was used for hypotheses testing. Findings – The empirical results suggest that both codification and rich-media strategies have positive effects on internal knowledge transfer. Moreover, codification strategy has a negative effect on knowledge spillovers while rich-media strategy does not influence knowledge spillovers significantly. Thus, codification and rich-media strategies are not double-edged swords. Practical implications – This study provides firms with two strategies, codification and rich-media, to promote internal knowledge transfer. Moreover, these strategies do not accelerate knowledge spillovers, and codification strategy even reduces knowledge spillovers. Firms can use these strategies to construct and sustain competitive advantages. Originality/value – While many knowledge creation, storage and protection strategies are studied, little is known about internal knowledge transfer strategies. This study suggests two internal knowledge transfer strategies and confirms their effectiveness. Moreover, because the relationship between internal knowledge transfer strategies and knowledge spillovers has been puzzling for a long time, this study clarifies the relationship and finds that these strategies do not accelerate knowledge spillovers and some even restrain knowledge spillovers.


Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code is organized around the absolute priority rule. This rule mandates the rank-ordering of claims. If one creditor has priority over another, this creditor must be paid in full before the one junior receives anything. Many have suggested various modifications to the absolute priority rule. The reasons vary and range from ensuring proper incentives to protecting nonadjusting creditors. The rule itself, however, remains the common starting place. This paper uses relative priority, an entirely different priority system that flourished until the late 1930s, to show that using absolute priority even as a point of departure is suspect. Much of the complexity and virtually all of the stress points of modern Chapter 11 arise from the uneasy fit between its starting place (absolute instead of relative priority) and its procedure (negotiation in the shadow of a judicial valuation in-stead of a market sale). These forces are leading to the emergence of a hybrid system of priority that may be more efficient than one centered around absolute priority.


Studies of the three human creatine phosphokinase (EC 188.8.131.52) isoenzymes, MM, MB, and BB, show that important differences exist in substrate dependency of the reaction rates. A method was developed to study these properties in which the ATP formed in the reverse reaction was measured by means of firefly luciferase. With substrate conditions at which the isoenzymes showed substantial differences in activity the method could be used for the detection of changes in the isoenzyme pattern of the serum of patients with an acute myocardial infarction. The MB isoenzyme appearing in this condition could be detected quantitatively.


For interactive systems to communicate in a cooperative manner, they must have knowledge about their users. This article explores the role of user models in such systems, with the goal of identifying when and how user models may be useful in a cooperative interactive system. User models are classified by the types of knowledge they contain, several user modelling characteristics that serve as dimension for an additional classification of user models are presented, and user model representations are discussed. These topics help to characterize the space of user modelling in cooperative interactive systems‐addressing how they can be used‐but do not fully address when it is appropriate to include a user model in an interactive system. Thus, a set of design considerations for user models is presented, while a final example illustrates how these topics influence the user model for a hypothetical investment consulting system.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to determine how exercise affects thyroid hormones and testosterone levels in sedentary men receiving oral zinc for 4 weeks.

METHODS
The study included 10 volunteers (mean age, 19.47+/-1.7 years) who did not exercise. All subjects received supplements of oral zinc sulfate (3 mg/kg/day) for 4 weeks and their normal diets. The thyroid hormone and testosterone levels of all subjects were determined at rest and after bicycle exercise before and after zinc supplementation.

RESULTS
TT3, TT4, FT3, and total and free testosterone levels decreased after exercise compared to resting levels before supplementation (p<0.01). Both the resting and fatigue hormone values were higher after 4 weeks of supplementation than the resting and fatigue values before supplementation (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION
The results indicate that exercise decreases thyroid hormones and testosterone in sedentary men; however, zinc supplementation prevents this decrease. Administration of a physiologic dose of zinc can be beneficial to performance.


Smart contracts combine protocols with user interfaces to formalize and secure relationships over computer networks. Objectives and principles for the design of these systems are derived from legal principles, economic theory, and theories of reliable and secure protocols. Similarities and differences between smart contracts and traditional business procedures based on written contracts, controls, and static forms are discussed. By using cryptographic and other security mechanisms, we can secure many algorithmically specifiable relationships from breach by principals, and from eavesdropping or malicious interference by third parties, up to considerations of time, user interface, and completeness of the algorithmic specification. This article discusses protocols with application in important contracting areas, including credit, content rights management, payment systems, and contracts with bearer.


Purpose
Performance on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), among the most widely used global screens of adult cognitive status, is affected by demographic variables including age, education, and ethnicity. This study extends prior research by examining the specific effects of bilingualism on MMSE performance.

Method
Sixty independent community-dwelling monolingual and bilingual adults were recruited from eastern and western regions of the United States in this cross-sectional group study. Independent sample t tests were used to compare 2 bilingual groups (Spanish-English and Asian Indian-English) with matched monolingual speakers on the MMSE, demographically adjusted MMSE scores, MMSE item scores, and a nonverbal cognitive measure. Regression analyses were also performed to determine whether language proficiency predicted MMSE performance in both groups of bilingual speakers.

Results
Group differences were evident on the MMSE, on demographically adjusted MMSE scores, and on a small subset of individual MMSE items. Scores on a standardized screen of language proficiency predicted a significant proportion of the variance in the MMSE scores of both bilingual groups.

Conclusions
Bilingual speakers demonstrated distinct performance profiles on the MMSE. Results suggest that supplementing the MMSE with a language screen, administering a nonverbal measure, and/or evaluating item-based patterns of performance may assist with test interpretation for this population.


Background The question of how the brain encodes letter position in written words has attracted increasing attention in recent years. A number of models have recently been proposed to accommodate the fact that transposed-letter stimuli like jugde or caniso are perceptually very close to their base words. Methodology Here we examined how letter position coding is attained in the tactile modality via Braille reading. The idea is that Braille word recognition may provide more serial processing than the visual modality, and this may produce differences in the input coding schemes employed to encode letters in written words. To that end, we conducted a lexical decision experiment with adult Braille readers in which the pseudowords were created by transposing/replacing two letters. Principal Findings We found a word-frequency effect for words. In addition, unlike parallel experiments in the visual modality, we failed to find any clear signs of transposed-letter confusability effects. This dissociation highlights the differences between modalities. Conclusions The present data argue against models of letter position coding that assume that transposed-letter effects (in the visual modality) occur at a relatively late, abstract locus.


In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the taxonomic response of marine microbial communities to oil and dispersants has been extensively studied. However, relatively few studies on the functional response of these microbial communities have been reported, especially in a longitudinal fashion. Moreover, despite the fact that marine oil spills typically impact thousands of square kilometers of both coastal and offshore marine environments, little information is available on how the microbial response to oil and dispersants might differ between these biomes. The results of this study help fill this critical knowledge gap and provide valuable insight into how oil spill response efforts, such as chemically dispersing oil, may have differing effects in neighboring coastal and offshore marine environments. ABSTRACT Marine oil spills can impact both coastal and offshore marine environments, but little information is available on how the microbial response to oil and dispersants might differ between these biomes. Here, we describe the compositional and functional response of microbial communities to different concentrations of oil and chemically dispersed oil in coastal and offshore surface waters from the Texas-Louisiana continental shelf. Using a combination of analytical chemistry and 16S rRNA amplicon and metatranscriptomic sequencing, we provide a broad, comparative overview of the ecological response of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria and their expression of hydrocarbon-degrading genes in marine surface waters over time between two oceanic biomes. We found evidence for the existence of different ecotypes of several commonly described hydrocarbon-degrading bacterial taxa which behaved differentially in coastal and offshore shelf waters despite being exposed to similar concentrations of oil, dispersants, and nutrients. This resulted in the differential expression of catabolic pathways for n-alkanes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)—the two major categories of compounds found in crude oil—with preferential expression of n-alkane degradation genes in coastal waters while offshore microbial communities trended more toward the expression of PAH degradation genes. This was unexpected as it contrasts with the generally held view that n-alkanes, being more labile, are attacked before the more refractory PAHs. Collectively, our results provide new insights into the existence and potential consequences of niche partitioning of hydrocarbon-degrading taxa between neighboring marine environments. IMPORTANCE In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the taxonomic response of marine microbial communities to oil and dispersants has been extensively studied. However, relatively few studies on the functional response of these microbial communities have been reported, especially in a longitudinal fashion. Moreover, despite the fact that marine oil spills typically impact thousands of square kilometers of both coastal and offshore marine environments, little information is available on how the microbial response to oil and dispersants might differ between these biomes. The results of this study help fill this critical knowledge gap and provide valuable insight into how oil spill response efforts, such as chemically dispersing oil, may have differing effects in neighboring coastal and offshore marine environments.


This paper investigates wage inequality and wage mobility in Turkey using the Surveys on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). This is the first paper that explores wage mobility for Turkey. It differs from the existing literature by providing analyses of wage inequality and wage mobility over various socioeconomic groups such as gender, age, education and sector of economic activity. We first present an overview of the evolution of wages and wage inequality over the period 2005-2011. Next, we compute several measures of wage mobility and explore the link between wage inequality and wage mobility. Further, we compute the transition matrices which show movements of individuals across the wage distribution from one period to another and investigate the determinants of transition probabilities using a multinomial logit model. The results show that overall the real wages increased over the study period and wage inequality exhibits a slight increase. Wage inequality is one of the highest among the European Union (EU) countries. The wage mobility in Turkey is lower than what is observed in the European Union countries although it increases as time horizon expands. Wage mobility has an equalizing impact on the wage distribution, however; this impact is not substantial enough to overcome the high and persistent wage inequality in Turkey.


A new-style silica planar lightwave circuit (PLC) hybrid integrated triplexer, which can demultiplex 1490-nm download data and 1550-nm download analog signals, as well as transmit 1310-nm upload data, is presented. It combines SiO2 arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) with integrated photodetectors (PDs) and a high performance laser diode (LD). The SiO2 AWGs realize the three-wavelength coarse wavelength-division multiplexing (CWDM). The crosstalk is less than 40 dB between the 1490- and 1550-nm channels, and less than 45 dB between 1310- and 1490- or 1550-nm channels. For the static performances of the integrated triplexer, its upload output power is 0.4 mW, and the download output photo-generated current is 76 A. In the small-signal measurement, the upstream 3-dB bandwidth of the triplexer is 4 GHz, while the downstream 3-dB bandwidths of both the analog and digital sections reach 1.9 GHz.


The feeding ecology of leptocephali has remained poorly understood because they apparently feed on particulate organic matter (POM), which varies in composition, and it is unclear which components of the POM they assimilate. The δ13C and δ15N stable isotope (SI) and fatty acid (FA) compositions of 3 families of leptocephali and POM were compared in 3 latitudinal current zones of the western South Pacific. The δ15N signatures of leptocephali and POM overlapped, with both having their lowest values in the southern current zone. POM in general (across all zones) contained 38 FAs and was rich in saturated FAs (SFA) (16:0, 18:0, 14:0), while leptocephali contained 50 FAs, with high proportions of 16:0, and higher contributions of 22:6ω3, 20:5ω3, 18:1ω9, 16:1ω7 and other FAs than found in the POM. Serrivomeridae leptocephali in the north had higher δ15N signatures and were also distinguished from Nemichthyidae and Muraenidae larvae by their FA compositions (higher SFAs, lower 22:6ω3 and 20:5ω3). Although SI signatures of the Serrivomeridae larvae did not clearly vary with size, 16:0 and 18:0 FA proportions decreased with increasing larval size, and 22:6ω3 and 16:1ω7 increased in larger larvae. Correspondences between the latitudinal variations in nitrogen SI signatures and FA compositions of POM with those of leptocephali and the presence of FA markers of both autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms were consistent with leptocephali feeding on POM. POM can contain various materials from primary producers and heterotrophic microorganisms, but differences in the SI signatures and FA compositions in leptocephali remain to be explained through further research. (Resume d'auteur)


Conventional wisdom in public transport planning suggests that transfers should be minimized because of the negative perceptions associated with them. However, little is known about how transferring affects overall satisfaction levels. This study aims to answer the following three research questions: (1) Are people that require transfers on their daily commute less satisfied with their trips compared with their non-transferring counterparts? (2) How many transfers appear to be too many transfers to remain satisfied with a trip? (3) Do mode-specific transfers have different impacts on overall satisfaction levels? Using data from a 2017/18 commuting survey of students, faculty, and staff at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, this study tries to answer the above questions through two statistical models, general and mode-specific. The general model showed that compared with trips involving zero transfers, no statistical difference in trip satisfaction was observed for one-transfer trips, whereas trip satisfaction declines by 32% when a rider must transfer at least two times. The mode-specific transfers showed that transferring between bus routes, and between a bus and subway, negatively affects trip satisfaction. However, transferring between subway lines did not show an impact in the models. These results show that transferring between high-frequency routes does not affect total trip satisfaction levels in the same way as transfers involving low-frequency services. Findings from this study are expected to contribute to both scholarly and practical discussions of the relationship between transferring and customer satisfaction.


Structure in musical rhythm can be measured using a number of analytical techniques. While some techniques—like circular statistics or grammar induction—rely on strong top-down assumptions, assumption-free techniques can only provide limited insights on higher-order rhythmic structure. I suggest that research in music perception and performance can benefit from systematically adopting phase space plots, a visualization technique originally developed in mathematical physics that overcomes the aforementioned limitations. By jointly plotting adjacent interonset intervals (IOI), the motivic rhythmic structure of musical phrases, if present, is visualized geometrically without making any a priori assumptions concerning isochrony, beat induction, or metrical hierarchies. I provide visual examples and describe how particular features of rhythmic patterns correspond to geometrical shapes in phase space plots. I argue that research on music perception and systematic musicology stands to benefit from this descriptive tool, particularly in comparative analyses of rhythm production. Phase space plots can be employed as an initial assumption-free diagnostic to find higher order structures (i.e., beyond distributional regularities) before proceeding to more specific, theory-driven analyses.