The study of religion can be undertaken using diverse methods. This thesis focuses on the novel as a medium for exploring theoretical, experiential, and fictional materials alongside each other. It is divided into two principle sections. The first is an essay explaining the reasons for choosing the medium of the novel, and exploring its advantages over traditional, non-fiction works. The second section is reserved for the novel itself, an original story that makes use of ideas obtained both through daily experience and formal study. The novel, entitled The Magpie , tells the story of a woman in search of religious affiliation as a means of grounding and structuring her ideas about God. Her goal pushes her to accept a job in Guatemala, working alongside a Catholic priest and a Protestant missionary. The experience does not yield the desired results. Instead, the main character is forced to come to terms with what she has learned about herself. One of the goals of writing such a novel is the synthesis of potentially disparate materials, treated both objectively and subjectively by way of a set of characters. By placing the narrative in time, there is also opportunity to imitate the types of transformations that can occur in the mind of individuals. Finally, as students of religion must consider a variety of forms of expression, it further made sense to experiment with a less academic form of written expression.


This thesis focuses on Distributed Constraint Optimization as an approach to coordinate
the actions of a network of cooperative agents. Different scenarios pose very different
problems if we intend to endow agents with coordinated behaviour due to availability
of resources. Some resource-bounded problems require complete DCOP algorithms
that can find the most effective use of resources to achieve an optimal coordination,
while others need incomplete algorithms that sacrifice optimality in favour of low-cost
suboptimal solutions.
This motivates the main goal of this dissertation: the design of efficient DCOP algorithms
to cope with different resource-bounded scenarios while ensuring that agents
select the actions that allow their coordination. Quality assessment is likely to play an
important role in this endeavour, because it is fundamental to weigh the cost of coordination
against the quality of the solution reached (trade-off quality versus cost). Unfortunately,
quality assessment for incomplete DCOP algorithms is a major challenge that
requires a broader concept of guarantees that includes approximate quality guarantees.
This thesis addresses these two major issues: efficiency and approximate quality
assessment. We make significant contributions to both issues. The main idea behind
these contributions is to design algorithms, and frameworks, which exploit a DCOP
structure, namely the structure of agents dependencies and of their rewards, to assess
and bound high quality solutions.
Regarding optimality guarantees, we contribute with Action-GDL, a complete
DCOP algorithm that generalises and improves the efficiency of existing dynamic programming
DCOP algorithms, unifying them under the GDL framework. The key idea
behind Action-GDL is to better exploit a DCOP structure by using a novel problem
representation based on junction trees.
As to approximate quality assessment, we propose two general frameworks: Divide-and-
Coordinate (DaC) and Region Optimality.
First, the DaC framework enables to trade-off quality versus cost from an agent
perspective by defining a family of algorithms, the DaC family, which allows agents
to bound the quality of their solutions at run time. The DaC framework defines a new
approach to DCOP solving by: (i) splitting the problem into simpler sub-problems that
are computationally tractable; and (ii) having sup-problems agree on a solution. We
define DaCSA and EU-DaC, two DaC-compliant, incomplete DCOP algorithms. Both
algorithms can return anytime solutions with quality guarantees.
Secondly, this dissertation introduces the region optimal framework, a general framework that generalises local optimality frameworks introduced in the literature such
as k-size or t-size. Region optimality allows to obtain quality guarantees for arbitrary
criteria and depending on the available information about a DCOP. Moreover, we show
that there are criteria that outperform state-of-the-art local criteria such as (k-)size or
(t-)distance by introducing the novel size-bounded distance criterion. This contribution
finishes by proposing C-DALO, an asynchronous region optimal DCOP algorithm to
search for region optimal solutions in any region characterised by any arbitrary criteria.
Finally, we prove that region optimality is a valuable tool for bounding the quality
of the solutions achieved by the Max-Sum algorithm on convergence. These results
shed light on the relationship between the Max-Sum performance and the structure of
the problem. Moreover, they help identify new classes of graph structures for which
Max-Sum is guaranteed to converge to high-quality solutions.


Patients with overt alcoholic liver disease who had participated in a multicenter therapeutic trial and subgroups of controls (i.e., alcoholic patients without liver disease and patients with neither alcoholism nor liver disease) were tested for hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus antibodies to determine the prevalence of these antibodies and any clinical association in the progression and outcome of alcoholic liver disease. Antibodies to hepatitis B (anti–HBs and/or anti‐HBc) were found in 29.2% of patients with alcoholic liver disease, in 26.1% of hospitalized alcoholic patients without liver disease and in 24.2% of hospitalized nonalcoholic patients without liver disease; frequencies were not significantly different from one another. HBsAg was not evaluated because HBsAg+ patients had been excluded from the original trial. The presence of these antibody markers correlated with ethnic origin of and immunoglobulin levels in the patients. In contrast, antibody to hepatitis C, as detected by enzyme immunoassay, was positive in 27.1%, 4.8% and 3.0% of the three groups, respectively, the first differing significantly from the other two. Antibody to hepatitis C virus positivity correlated significantly with clinical severity of the disease and with the presence of histological features that imply chronic viral infection (periportal inflammation, cirrhosis), despite the fact that the supplementary assay for antibody to hepatitis C virus, using recombinant immunoblot assay, reduced the positive rate by 79%. Although the presence of hepatitis B antibodies did not correlate with patient survival, some categories of patients with antibody to hepatitis C virus did; the survival of those with antibody to hepatitis C virus and recombinant immunoblot assay reactivity was 67%; for those with antibody to hepatitis C virus positivity but recombinant immunoblot assay negativity the survival was 29% (p < 0.01). The reason for the poor prognosis for those with antibody to hepatitis C virus positivity and recombinant immunoblot assay negativity is not clear, although some theories are offered. (HEPATOLOGY 1991;14:581–589.)


We present some initial findings of a long-term project to identify the flight dynamics of large birds of prey, during free-flight outdoors. This paper outlines our methods for dealing with the particular challenges a project of this nature provides, and some preliminary results outlining the flight characteristics of soaring flight, and providing detailed descriptions of some of the manoeuvres observed during flight.


OBJECTIVE--To estimate the prevalence of hip osteoarthritis (OA hip) and hip dysplasia in a sample of Hong Kong men who were unselected with respect to hip symptoms. METHODS--The postmicturition films of 999 men aged 60-75 years, consecutive attenders for intravenous urography between 1987 and 1990 at a regional hospital, were reviewed. OA hip was diagnosed as the occurrence of two or more features of OA using a modified version of the Kellgren and Lawrence scale, or a minimal joint space of 1.5 mm or less. Hip dysplasia was defined as a centre-edge angle of less than 25 degrees, or an acetabular depth of less than 9 mm. The results were compared with British data obtained by similar methods. RESULTS--In the Hong Kong sample, the proportion of men with two or more features of osteoarthritis in at least one hip was about 50% that of the men in the British study (5.4% and 11.0%, respectively). Severe joint space narrowing (of 1.5 mm or less) occurred in 0.7% of the hips in Hong Kong men, compared with 2% in the British men. The proportion of hips with centre-edge angles less than 25 degrees was 4.5% in Hong Kong, compared with 3.6% in Britain, and the prevalence of shallow acetabular depth was greater in Chinese (14.5%) than in the British (2.1%). Radiographic measures of hip dysplasia were not associated with minimal joint space. CONCLUSIONS--Our results have confirmed the lower prevalence of radiographic hip osteoarthritis in Hong Kong men compared with British men. However, acetabular dysplasia was as prevalent among Chinese men as in the British sample. This is evidence against the hypothesis that variations in the frequency of hip osteoarthritis are caused by differences in the occurrence of hip dysplasia.


The article examines the key reasons why Kenya, which had avoided the major conflicts that afflict Africa and considered as one of Africa's more stable States, so quickly descended into violence and anarchy "in the typical African way" after disputed elections in 2007. While many were shocked that a country that has held regular elections since independence in 1963 and with the trappings of a functional democracy—a parliament, a judiciary and a vibrant civil society—could tread the path of failed states, this article argues that democracy is not just about holding elections but the mechanics and procedures of accountability in between elections. The article thus examines the deadly consequences of impunity, unchecked corruption, and woefully bad governance in Kenya, and how all these factors combine to feed and fuel inequality and injustice. In seeking answers to what went wrong in Kenya the article provides practical steps to making democracy work in the context of Kenya's long search for equilibrium.


Letter from George A. Wilson to Charles B. Moore discussing recent news and farming, as well as the war and the hardships it has caused. There is an envelope addressed to C. B. Moore at Rocky Bayou, Izard County, Arkansas. Part of the envelope has been torn away. According to the note written in the bottom left corner, it was received on December 9, 1861.


Images are commonly used on a daily basis for research, information and entertainment. The introduction of digital cameras and especially the incorporation of cameras in mobile phones makes people able to snap photos almost everywhere at any time since their mobile phone is almost always brought with them. The fast evolution in hardware enables users to store large image collection without high costs. Making use of these image collections requires efficient image retrieval techniques. Traditional image retrieval techniques like text-based image retrieval and content-based image retrieval techniques have shortcomings. New techniques or combination of existing techniques must be established to provide users with adequate image retrieval functionality. This thesis describes two systems enabling users to retrieve information such as images, textual information, WAP-links or videos using SMS or MMS. One of the services, M2S is meant for tourists to retrieve information about attractions in Lofoten. M2S uses content-based image retrieval to retrieve the information requested. This service is designed and implemented in cooperation with Telenor R&I. The other system, CAIR is meant for users who want to retrieve images from an image collection using SMS. CAIR uses a context-based image retrieval to retrieve images. This system is designed, but not yet implemented.


This is a comprehensive, technique-oriented guide to abdominal organ transplantation. It is a Doody's Core Title for 2015! Valuable to the seasoned and novice transplant surgeon as well as the multidisciplinary team that tends to both the living donor and the recipient of abdominal organs, Living Organ Donor Transplantation puts the entire discipline in perspective while guiding you step-by-step through the most common organ transplant surgeries. Organized into four cohesive parts and featuring numerous surgical illustrations, this sourcebook delivers an incisive look at every key consideration for general surgeons who perform transplantations, from patient selection to recipient workup and outcomes, and emphasizes the most humanitarian approaches. Features: The first A-to-Z, operation-oriented guide to the field of living donor organ transplantation; unparalleled examination of a wide spectrum of solid organ transplantation procedures (liver, pancreas, kidney, intestine), with accompanying chapters on the history of the procedure, the donor, the recipient, and cost analysis; skill-building coverage of techniques that explains adequate pretransplant workup and post transplant care; chapters on cultural differences, ethical and legal issues, social issues, current financial incentives, and the illegal organ trade; up-to-date survey of the future possibilities of organ transplantation, covering new immunosuppressive protocols, xenotransplantation, gene therapy, organogenesis and therapeutic cloning, and more Reflections from pioneers in the field.


Research in the area of academic writing has demonstrated that writing varies significantly across disciplines and among genres within disciplines. Two important approaches to studying diversity in disciplinary academic writing have been the genre-based approach and the corpus-based approach. Genre studies have considered the situatedness of writing tasks, including the larger socio-cultural context of the discourse community (e.g., Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Bhatia, 2004) as well as the move structure in specific genres like the research article (e.g., Swales, 1990, 2004). Corpusbased studies of disciplinary writing have focused more closely on the linguistic variation across registers, with the research article being the most widely studied register (e.g., Cortes, 2004; Gray, 2011). Studies of undergraduate writing in the disciplines have tended to focus on task classification (e.g., Braine, 1989; Horowitz, 1986a), literacy demands (e.g.,Carson, Chase, Gibson, & Hargrove, 1992), or student development (e.g., Carroll, 2002; Leki, 2007). The purpose of the present study is to build on these previous lines of research to explore undergraduate disciplinary writing from multiple perspectives in order to better prepare English language learners for the writing tasks they might encounter in their majors at a US university. Specifically, this exploratory study examines two disciplines: psychology and chemistry. Through writing task classification (following Horowitz, 1986), qualitative interviews with faculty and students in each discipline, and a corpus-based text analysis of course readings and upper-division student writing, the study yielded several important findings. With regard to writing tasks, psychology writing tasks showed more variety than chemistry. In addition, lower division classes had fewer writing assignments than upper division courses, particularly in psychology. The findings also showed a mismatch between the expectations of instructors in each discipline and students' understanding of such writing expectations. The linguistic analysis of course readings and student writing demonstrated differences in language use both between registers and across disciplines. INDEX WORDS: Writing in the disciplines, Undergraduate writing, Multi-dimensional analysis, Readingwriting relationship, Writing expectations, Academic genres EXPLORING UNDERGRADUATE DISCIPLINARY WRITING: EXPECTATIONS AND EVIDENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY AND CHEMISTRY


The following paper describes the importance and the way that AVC (Collaborative Virtual Environment) has been implemented into AVAL (Online Learning Virtual Environment). Both of these platforms have been designed and developed with the objective of creating communities for information exchange and integration of work groups. It is also the objective of AVC to provide the means and tools for the execution of activities, which are oriented to generating an academic follow up of each participant. This is based on the gathering of learning evidence that results from documents in which every participant transmits his or her knowledge and experience -acquired through the study and handling of e-learning materials.


We derive limit distributions for certain empirical regularized optimal transport distances between probability distributions supported on a finite metric space and show consistency of the (naive) bootstrap. In particular, we prove that the empirical regularized transport plan itself asymptotically follows a Gaussian law. The theory includes the Boltzmann-Shannon entropy regularization and hence a limit law for the widely applied Sinkhorn divergence. Our approach is based on an application of the implicit function theorem to necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for the regularized transport problem. The asymptotic results are investigated in Monte Carlo simulations. We further discuss computational and statistical applications, e.g. confidence bands for colocalization analysis of protein interaction networks based on regularized optimal transport.


For two given graphs $G_1$ and $G_2$, the Ramsey number $r(G_1,G_2)$ is the smallest integer $n$ such that for any graph $G$ of order $n$, either $G$ contains $G_1$ or the complement of $G$ contains $G_2$. Let $K_m$ denote a complete graph of order $m$ and $K_n-P_3$ a complete graph of order $n$ without two incident edges. In this paper, we prove that $r(K_5-P_3,K_5)=25$ without help of computer algorithms.


Despite Shane Meadows' apparent awareness of the ways in which white, working-class women were subjugated within a male dominated environment of Northern England in the Thatcher era there appears to be little evidence in his films to date of an explicit critique of those power dynamics and their impact on women's lived experience since his debut Small Time. The absence of a detailed and deliberate consideration of female experience sits in sharp contrast to the dominant thematic concern of his films: what it means to be a man. Indeed there exists a marked dichotomy in Meadows' treatment of gender that elaborates on questions of British working class masculinity at great length and in great depth while simultaneously containing and limiting female narrative agency and truncating the representational spectrum of British working class femininity. The limited representation of British working class femininity in Meadows' work is noteworthy especially because the discourses about unemployment and financial disempowerment that are rigorously articulated in his films invoke an emasculatory female figure. The devastating effects of Tory economic policy were not wholly levelled at the Conservative party per se but very specifically at Margaret Thatcher herself; the common reference to 'That bloody woman' functions, for Meadows to authenticate and legitimate both his own experiences and the narratives that he constructs for his characters. Just as this discursive strategy prioritises the damaging effects of a woman on male-centric communities Meadows also invokes femininity as problematic. This chapter serves as a response to the overall lack of attention paid to the ways in which women's lived experiences are presented within Meadows' work, a lack of attention that is mirrored in the academic focus on this British filmmaker.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of the presence of Commelina diffusa weeds on the agronomic characteristics and mineral content of bean grains ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.). The experiments were conducted using a completely randomized design with five replications in a greenhouse. The treatments consisted of two bean cultivars (BRS Ametista and BRS Estilo) grown in the presence and absence of the weeds. The weeds affected the agronomic and mineral characteristics of the varieties; caused a decrease in the number of leaves; reduced the chlorophyll content in the leaves; and reduced the nitrogen, phosphorus and iron contents in the grains. Competition with spreading dayflower did not cause significant effects on the stem diameter or the levels of potassium, calcium, and magnesium in the grains. The BRS Estilo variety was less affected by weed competition than BRS Ametista and showed higher values for the number of leaves, chlorophyll content, and accumulation of manganese and iron in the grains.


Synopsis A U–Pb monazite age of 474 ± 2 Ma has been determined for a weakly foliated granite boulder > 1 m in diameter from the Corsewall conglomerate, SW Scotland. The clast contains xenoliths and partly assimilated xenoliths of regionally metamorphosed rock from which the monazites have been derived. The age constrains the original emplacement of the pluton to between 474 ± 2 and c. 458 Ma, the age of the deposit in which the boulder is found. This age confirms an earlier Rb–Sr muscovite Ordovician age for boulders of this type and contradicts a pre-existing age of 1265 Ma used to suggest a source in Newfoundland and a post-Caradoc major lateral displacement of the Southern Uplands. The monazite age reaffirms that a basement-arc complex once existed north of the Southern Uplands and was the principal contributor of sediment to Ordovician–Silurian basins of southern Scotland. A source for the metamorphic detritus in the Dalradian block is unlikely, as the boulders would have been transported for > 150 km through zones of actively accreting terranes and marginal basins. The possibility of Archaean crust within this basement complex is further suggested by the Sm–Nd systematics of the granite boulders at Corsewall Point.


Modern society can be said to be a "car society" since it has been designed to fit the needs of the private car. This paper discusses the relation between cars, mobility, planning and sustainability in cultural perspectives. It discuss the historical roots and contemporary landscape of car culture and the sociocultural factors that reproduce it, such as planning and infrastructure (urban-rural-traffic); the car as sign of status, adulthood, flexibility, masculinity, and the car as "space of one's own" in embodied habits. In recent years, cars and mobility have been subject to several studies and interdisciplinary research projects. Many of these highlight the ambivalent position of the car: on the one hand as symbol of individual freedom, mobility and speed, but on the other as the source of problems as fatal accidents, pollution, smog, noise, congestion, road rage, barrier creation, unjust land use, erosion of natural cultural heritage, reduced bodily exercise/movement, hazardous particles and not at least climate change. An important point is the gap between science and policy: for decades research has problematised increased motoring, and with the goals to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, most research and government agencies says that driving need to reduce. In spite of this motorized mobility is reinforced on local, national and global level. However we can initiatives around the world that that challenge "car-normativity", which will be discussed. What kinds of mobility and movements are sustainable for humans, other beings and the world?


The article presents the rationale, methodology, and selected outcomes from More than a body's work, a collaborative, international, arts educational interactive research project. The project, taking place in both New York and England, explored the ways in which young people construct and 'perform' identity through the construction of their body and its appearance. The project's central intention was both to investigate diversity in young people's personal and cultural experience, and demonstrate their potential for creative engagement in mediating and expressing identity through a visual form. With its inclusive ethos, More than a body's work facilitated opportunities for young people who may not ordinarily have access to the arts to be partners in collaborative arts production, generating models of wider participation through innovative participatory approaches to visual art and interdisciplinary practice.

The ongoing project is developmental, continuing to involve young people as participants, responding to the synthesis of local, national and international influences creatively deployed within youth culture. In considering More than a body's work's significance as a model for inclusive practice within art education, the article will discuss its strategies and its potential impact in relation to current initiatives and policies within the arts, culture and education.


This study identified the attitudes toward using computers and Web-based technology as measured by the Computer attitude scale (CAS) and the Web-based attitude scale (WAS). Also this study examined individual and technological factors which determine learner levels of anticipation to adopt Web-based learning technology in postsecondary education. A conceptual and modified model that was an extension of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), TAM2, and Webbased Instruction (WBI) provided the theory and design for the study. Data were analyzed through two-way MANOVA to decipher learner behaviors related to adopting Web-based learning technology in postsecondary education. A combination of behavioral and psychometric questionnaires consisting of TAM perceptions, computer attitude scales, Web-based attitude scales, and demographic information was created. Results in this research noted that prior computing experiences had significant correlations between the CAS and the WAS. Perceptions of usefulness and ease of use, intentions to use for supplementary learning and distance education had significant relationships based on CAS and WAS. The study suggested that the TAM assessment process may be potentially valuable in teacher candidate assessment and recruitment, with an eye to increasing the pace of online resource diffusion. The aim is to model and predict the learner behavior and to assess the motivation of computing identification for some technological factors. Knowledge of social change process, as it synthesizes motivations and beliefs with technological innovations, is necessary for leaders who seek to build a better world through using technology in education.


Introduction and Hypothesis: Previous studies suggest worse outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) at night. We analyzed whether patients admitted after OHCA receive induced hypothermia at equal rates and equally prompt during day- and night, as well as potential differences in neurologic outcomes. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data of non-traumatic OHCA patients who regained restoration of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and were admitted to our emergency department with an integrated intensive care unit (resuscitation center) at a tertiary care university hospital between 01/01/2006 and 10/31/2012. Data reported include admission time (day defined from 8am to 4pm based on staffing), first blood gas, use of induced hypothermia (IH) and time from admission to initiation of hypothermia. A good neurologic outcome after 6 months was reported as CPC 1 or 2. Results: Of 1172 OHCA patients admitted during the study period, 970 patients (73.8% male, n= 716) with a median age of 60 (IQR 49-70) were included. Times from arrest to ROSC, and ROSC to admission were similar in day- and night-admissions [19 (IQR 10-29) min vs. 18 (IQR 8-29) min; p= 0.69 and 36 (IQR 24-51) vs. 38 (IQR 24-52) min; p=0.58, respectively]. Similarly, there was no difference between day and night in first measured pH (7.17 vs. 7.16; p=0.9) and lactate (7.3 vs. 7.9 mmol/l; p=0.54) after admission. Induced hypothermia was applied to 338 (75.6%) of 447 day-admissions and to 410 (78.4%) of 523 night-admissions (p =0.30). For the patients whose cooling was initiated after admission, time from admission to cooling start did not differ between day and night (mean time 52 ± 5 minutes during day vs. 58 ± 8 minutes at night, p=0.54). At 6 months, a good neurologic outcome was achieved in 202 patients (45.2%) after day admission and 231 patients (44.2%) after night admission (p= 0.75). Conclusion: Patients admitted to our facility after OHCA were equally likely to receive timely high-quality post-resuscitation care irrespective of time of day. Similarly, favorable neurologic outcomes did not differ between day and nighttime admissions. Reported circadian differences in OHCA outcomes may be due to differences in the quality of post-resuscitation care provided at non-specialized centers.


In Cratinus' Seriphioi 223, 1 K.-A., Perseus is informed of the populations that he is going to face during his journey to Medusa's land. In the text transmitted by the manuscripts, one of these populations is Sakai. However, in order to make Perseus' route more geographically coherent, Kassel and Austin accept Holstein's emendation Sabai. Instead of taking Holstein's emendation for granted, this paper argues for the political implication of Cratinus' naming of Sakai.


In this paper, we propose algorithms for finding the optimum multi-hop routes and corresponding transmit powers that maximize the throughput between a pair of device-to-device (D2D) nodes, under a constraint on the maximum interference caused to the cellular network. Our solution involves two steps. In the first step, we determine the set of feasible D2D links, based on the interference constraint. In the second step, we use the celebrated Dijkstra's algorithm to find throughput-optimal routes between a given pair of D2D nodes under two scenarios: a) The Fixed Rate Scheme and b) The Fixed Power Scheme. The dependency of the net D2D throughput on the system parameters such as target SINR is analyzed for both the schemes, and a procedure to find the optimum parameter setting is proposed. The performance of the algorithms is illustrated using computer simulations. The results show that, depending on the network topology, a significantly higher throughput can be achieved by using multi-hop paths compared to using single-hop, direct D2D communication.


The Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) is now accepting applications at the national level for the "World Summit Awards 2020". The World Summit Awards (WSA) is an international competition that selects and promotes the world's best start-ups in digital content and innovative applications that are having a significant impact on improving society. Combining an ongoing series of international events and activities with a global network o f s t a r t u p s , s o c i a l entrepreneurs, mentors, jurors, speakers, experts, government leaders, academics and civil society, WSA seeks to raise awareness and give recognition to the best e-content produced around the world. Companies, institutions and individuals across the country are now invited to join the competition by submitting their best digital content applications to compete in eight award categories, with winners representing Qatar at the world level. Applications will be accepted until July 16, 2020. The eight award categories are: government & citizen engagement, health & wellbeing, environment & green energy, business & commerce, learning & education, culture & tourism, smart sett lements & urbanisation, and inclusion & empowerment. A local jury, chaired by the official national expert for WSA in Qatar, Reem Al Mansoori, MoTC Assistant Undersecretary of Digital Society Development Affairs, will assess the submissions and select one qualified project for each category to represent Qatar. The international selection process involves four stages, from local country selection to a global shortlist of five projects per category, and finally the announcement of the winners. Jury panels consist of renowned international experts. Winners will be announced to the public and will be invited to the WSA Global Congress where they will have the opportunity to pitch their projects to an international on-site panel. All submissions must be no more than two years old (after January 1, 2018) when submitted to the competition, and may include any applications that offer useful, high quality, innovative digital content such as webpages, interactive and SMS-based products, etc. Submitted projects should be real ventures that are already up and running. Incomplete trial versions will not be accepted and will be automatically eliminated. All work must be free of offensive or plagiarised content and may not violate human rights as laid out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Submissions that encourage war, violence or discrimination will not be accepted. Similarly, submissions that violate international copyright provisions will be excluded. Those interested in joining the competition are invited to send detailed information on their work to MoTC via email: email@example.com.


Along with explosion of information, how to cluster large-scale documents has become more and more important. This paper proposes a novel document clustering algorithm (CLCL) to solve this problem. This algorithm first constructs lexical chains from feature space to reflect different topics which input documents contain, and documents also can be separated into clusters by these lexical chains. However, this separation is too rough. So, idea of self organizing mapping is used to optimize cluster partition. For agglomerating documents with semantic similarities into one cluster, influences from similar features are also considered. Experiments demonstrate that because effects of semantic similarities between different documents are considered, CLCL has better performance than traditional document clustering algorithms.


This review paper evaluates the potential of hyperspectral remote sensing for assessing species diversity in homogeneous (non-tropical) and heterogeneous (tropical) forest, an increasingly urgent task. Existing studies of species distribution patterns using hyperspectral remote sensing have used different techniques to discriminate different species, in which the wavelet transforms, derivative analysis and red edge positions are the most important of them. The wavelet transform is used based on its effectiveness and determined as the most powerful technique to identify species. Furthermore, estimations of relationships between spectral values and species distributions using chemical composition of foliage, tree phenology, selection of signature training sites based on field measured canopy composition, selection of the best wavelet coefficient and waveband regions may be useful to identify different plant species. This paper presents a summary on the feasibility, operational applications and possible strategies of hyperspectral remote sensing in forestry, especially in assessing its biodiversity. The paper also reviews the processing and analysis of techniques for hyperspectral data in discriminating different forest tree species.


Religious entities play significant roles in the current forced migration crisis. These roles include innovative and experience based ideas to address flawed aspects of the humanitarian system, overall advocacy on behalf of refugees and migrants based on humanitarian and spiritual principles, direct action in refugee camps and communities, action in communities that refugees and migrants flee, and support for refugee integration in host countries, including explicit efforts to promote social cohesion and address trauma. Further, assumptions about religion and the religious identity of refugees and migrants play an influential role in societal and policy debates surrounding the crisis, particularly in relation to security and violent extremism. Broadly, however, religious factors and contributions are poorly understood and insufficiently taken into account by policy makers and in think tank analyses of these (among other) issues. In each area of measures to increase religious engagement, including understanding, harmonization and coordination of efforts, and support, could increase impact. G20 agendas and gatherings, as well as those of think tanks, can benefit from purposeful attention to these often neglected dimensions of a central global challenge.


In this research, an effort is made to analyze the costs of fare collection on heavy rail and motorbus systems in the U.S. Since existing ticketing and fare collection (TFC) systems are major elements of transit infrastructure and there are several new alternative TFC technologies available on the market, the need to evaluate the performance of existing TFC systems arises. However, very little research has been done, so far, to assess impacts of TFC technologies on capital and operating expenses in public transit. The two objectives of this research are: (1) to formulate a conceptual evaluation framework and a plan to assess the operating costs of existing TFC systems in transit and (2) to analyze the operating expenses associated with existing TFC systems on heavy rail and motorbus transit in the U.S. with the aid of the evaluation framework and plan. This research begins with a review of the current state of knowledge in the areas of transit TFC evaluation, the economics of public transit operations, and fare collection practices and technologies. It helps to determine the scope of work related to assessment of TFC operating costs on public transit and provides the basis for the development of a conceptual evaluation framework and an evaluation plan. Next, this research presents a systematic approach to define and describe alternative TFC systems and suggests that the major TFC system determinants are payment media, fare media, TFC equipment, and transit technology (mode). Following this is the development of measures of effectiveness to evaluate alternative TFC systems. These measures assess costeffectiveness and labor-intensiveness of TFC operations. The development of TFC System Technology Index follows. This Index recognizes the fact that TFC systems may consist of different sets of TFC technologies both traditional and innovative. Finally, this research presents statistical results that support the hypothesis that TFC operating costs are related to transit demand, transit technology (mode) and TFC technologies. These results further suggest that: (1) TFC operating costs per unlinked passenger trip on heavy rail systems are higher than on motorbus systems and (2) TFC operating costs per unlinked passenger trip tend to increase as the use of non-electronic fare media increases. Actions for further research are also recommended.


Although his activity as a private collector has been documented, the extent to which William Ewart Gladstone's interest in art was implicated in his thought on church and state has been overlooked. Previously unnoticed memoranda and correspondence of the 1830s and 1840s with the French art historian and Roman Catholic thinker, François Rio, demonstrate a fascination with religious painting of early Renaissance Italy, of the sort which only came to be appreciated in Britain many years later. For Rio, however, introducing Gladstone to 'Christian art' was as much about encouraging Gladstone in his hopes of reuniting the Protestant and Catholic churches as it was about reforming his taste. The manuscripts considered here show Gladstone to have viewed art history in terms of a struggle between sanctity and sensuality, visualized in terms both of the individual as well as of nationalities. In so far as the young Conservative politician formulated this history in tandem with his theory of the religious personality of the state, a study of his model of Christian art's development affords a new path into an old debate: did Gladstone betray the principles of his first book, The state in its relations with the church (1838) in his subsequent political evolution into Liberal statesman?


In the last two decades in OECD countries there has been increased development of Social Responsible (CSR is the acronym of Corporate Social Responsibility) certified firms. This certification is assigned by public and private companies which guarantee that the behaviour of a certain firm is environmentally and sociologically correct. The first part of our work is devoted at establishing a certification index defined as the intersection of two of the three main international indices (Domini 400 Social Index, Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, FTSE4Good Index). The purpose of this is to overcome certain problems related to the multiplicity of CSR definitions and certifications. The sample obtained is a data panel of 417 enterprises (317 CSR firms and 100 firms as a control sample) belonging mainly to OCSE countries. The core of our analysis makes some probit analyses in order to study the structural causes that push enterprises towards social certification. The descriptive statistics, combined and supported by probit analysis, seem to stress the focal role of economic development as one of the main causes of social certification. Moreover, we have also studied the role of industrial sectors in social certification and other variables such as critical consumption and the structural production system of the enterprises.


BACKGROUND
Vital pulpotomy is a single-stage procedure defined as the surgical amputation of the coronal portion of exposed vital pulp, usually as a means of preserving the vitality and function of the remaining radicular portion.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study was to compare the clinical and radiographic success rates for electrosurgical vs formocresol pulpotomy in human primary molar teeth.

SETTINGS AND DESIGN
This was a prospective, randomized clinical trial.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this randomized clinical trial, pulpotomies were performed on 70 primary molars in children aged 5-10 years. The teeth were treated using either a conventional formocresol (35 teeth) or electrosurgical technique (35 teeth). Following the pulpotomy procedure, the teeth were evaluated for clinical and radiographic success for three, six and nine months. The teeth were evaluated for the presence of pain, abscess, fistula, mobility, internal and external resorption, and radiolucency.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
The data were assessed with Fishers' Exact test.

RESULTS
After nine months of follow-up, the clinical and radiographic success rates were 96 and 84% respectively in the electrosurgical group and 100 and 96.8% respectively in the formocresol group. There was no statistically significant difference between the success rates in the two groups ( P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
Our results showed the failure rates for electrosurgical pulpotomy to be equal to those for formocresol pulpotomy. Although electrosurgical pulpotomy is a nonpharmacological technique giving favorable results, it is still a preservative technique. Further studies using larger samples and longer evaluation periods are recommended.


The violence in the Middle East obfuscates the fact that there exists also a story of peace efforts across the region — a story of small successes, big frustrations, setbacks, and failures. Through these efforts, UN mediators have sought to achieve the often irreconcilable goals of ending violence while facilitating a political transition and reconciling the parties.Building on the findings of papers previously published by IPI on UN mediation in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, this report draws crosscutting lessons for ongoing and future UN mediation in similarly complex and violent political transitions. These lessons are organized around five key challenges that mediators confront:-Mandate: Much of the success or failure of a mediation depends on the mandate. While mediators do not necessarily need a clear mandate from the beginning, their success depends on unequivocal support from the Security Council at certain key stages of their mediation. This lack of clarity and the perception that the end result — political transition — was a precondition for negotiation frustrated the processes in Libya and Syria.-Impartiality and inclusivity: It is neither possible nor always necessary for mediators to be completely impartial, but they must make proposals agreeable to the parties — a particular challenge during political transitions. Regarding inclusivity, every mediator is forced to make choices about who to include, and though any deficiencies generally involve leaving key actors out, sometimes a less inclusive process could have worked better.-Entry and consent: Finding a favorable entry point — a moment when the conflict is "ripe" for resolution — is a challenge for mediators. While in Syria the UN is often faulted for being late to the conflict, the UN's early entry in Libya did not improve the chances of mediation. The case of Yemen, however, demonstrates how early, low-profile engagement can help develop more favorable entry points.-Strategy: Mediators face a dilemma in how to use cease-fires as conflict management tools; they can help build confidence among the parties, but they can also prolong the conflict by creating a tolerable stalemate. Cease-fires were only a minor part of the strategy of the mediators in all three countries. Greater emphasis on this mediation tool should be considered in future processes.-Leverage: The greatest challenge UN mediators faced in leveraging power is that they represented a multilateral organization made up of many member states with competing agendas. But mediators who are UN insiders can also work the system in their favor. There are also other forms of leverage available to them, such as personal prestige and informational power.


The article identifies the drivers of media attention for climate change in three countries: Australia, Germany and India. It calculates the monthly amount of climate change-related coverage in two leading newspapers for each country in relation to all articles published in the respective newspapers over a 15-year time span (1996–2010). Based on an explanatory model derived from agenda setting theory, punctuated equilibrium theory and multiple streams theory, it uses time series regression analysis to assess the influence of weather and climate characteristics as well as various social events and feedbacks on issue attention. The results show that weather and climate characteristics are no important drivers for issue attention in two of the three countries, and that societal activity, particularly international climate summits and the agenda building efforts from international non-governmental organizations, has stronger impacts on issue attention.


In vivo imaging of the dopamine transporter, a protein on the terminals of dopaminergic projections from the substantia nigra to the striatum, provides an excellent marker of the dopaminergic system in patients with parkinsonism. 1–8 Previous studies have demonstrated that SPECT and [123I] b-CIT (2bcarboxymethoxy-3 b-(4-iodophenyl)tropane), an agent which targets the dopamine transporter, is a sensitive marker of Parkinson's disease diagnosis and severity. 9,10 The pattern of loss of [123I] b-CIT uptake in Parkinson's disease has been shown to be region-specific within the basal ganglia (putamen > caudate) consistent with postmortem evaluation of the dopaminergic transporter in Parkinson's disease. 10,11 Furthermore, all Parkinson's disease patients have demonstrated significant bilateral loss of [123I]b-CIT uptake even in patients early in their disease with hemi-parkinsonism symptoms. 12 In this report, we present the results of dopamine transporter imaging in a patient with hemi-parkinsonism with a history of repeated hemorrhages due to a midbrain arteriovenous malformation treated with radiation.


Unlike the many "comprehensive" books on optical communications, DWDM
 focuses strictly on the technology, its enablers, and its system implications. There
 are no general chapters on optical data formats, on receiver types, or on legacy
 telecommunications networks. Instead, the book covers only DWDM-related topics, and
 it covers them very well.


Why do governments manipulate elections at varying levels? This paper argues that variation in electoral manipulation can in part be explained by the fundamental trade-off between an incumbent's desire to signal his popularity and his risk of losing elections. Incumbents with a secure office do not need to convince the opposition of their wide support and avoid electoral risks by manipulating elections. Insecure incumbents, however, want to generate a strong signal of their popularity and adopt a riskier strategy of electoral uncertainty. Measuring office insecurity through the incidence of economic crises, coup threats, and protests, I document robust evidence supporting this proposition in a panel of autocracies and transitional democracies using a variety of measures and statistical designs. Politically insecure incumbents are more likely to hold elections, to tolerate electoral competition, and ultimately to lose in the very competition they permit.


European Union member countries are currently exposed to negative implications of the economic and debt crisis. Questions associated with disputable implications of fiscal incentives seem to be contrary to the crucial need of the effective fiscal consolidation that is necessary to reduce excessive fiscal deficits and high sovereign debts. While challenges addressed to the fiscal policy and its anti-cyclical potential rose steadily but not desperately since the beginning of the economic crisis, the call for fiscal consolidation became urgent almost immediately and this need significantly strengthen after the debt crisis contagion flooded Europe.
In the paper we provide an overview of main trends in public budgets and sovereign debts in the Euro Area member countries during last two decades. We identify episodes of successful and unsuccessful (cold showers versus gradual) fiscal (expenditure versus revenue based) consolidations by analyzing effects of improvements in cyclically adjusted primary balance on the sovereign debt ratio reduction. We also estimate VAR model to analyze effects of fiscal shocks (based on one standard deviation in total expenditure, direct and indirect taxes) to real output. It is expected that responses of real output to different types of (consolidating) fiscal shocks may vary and thus provide more precise ideas about a feasibility (i.e. side effects on the macroeconomic performance) of expenditure versus revenue based fiscal consolidation episodes. Economic effects of fiscal consolidating adjustments are evaluated for two periods (pre-crisis and extended) to reveal crisis effects on fiscal consolidation efforts.


In lowland Amazonian rainforests, specific ants collect seeds of several plant species and cultivate them in arboreal carton nests, forming species-specific symbioses called ant-gardens (AGs). In this obligate mutualism, ants depend on the plants for nest stability and the plants depend on ant nests for substrate and nutrients. AG ants and plants are abundant, dominant members of lowland Amazonian ecosystems, but the cues ants use to recognize the seeds are poorly understood. To address the chemical basis of the ant-seed interaction, we surveyed seed chemistry in nine AG species and eight non-AG congeners. We detected seven phenolic and terpenoid volatiles common to seeds of all or most of the AG species, but a blend of the shared compounds was not attractive to the AG ant Camponotus femoratus. We also analyzed seeds of three AG species (Anthurium gracile, Codonanthe uleana, and Peperomia macrostachya) using behavior-guided fractionation. At least one chromatographic fraction of each seed extract elicited retrieval behavior in C. femoratus, but the active fractions of the three plant species differed in polarity and chemical composition, indicating that shared compounds alone did not explain seed-carrying behavior. We suggest that the various AG seed species must elicit seed-carrying with different chemical cues.


The paper is designed to provoke discussion of the circumstances under which expulsion of aliens from an economy can increase the total income of the remaining residents. The presumption, based on a first approximation assuming competitive equilibrium and convex constant-returnsto-scale production technology, is that expulsion cannot increase total citizen income and may diminish it, unless it is accompanied by expropriation. How this presumption might be modified or reversed by failure of its assumptions is discussed. The most important possibility is that aliens held monopolies in high marginal product occupations from which qualified or potentially qualified citizens were excluded. Readers are invited to speculate about other possibilities, including dynamic effects and changes of social psychology, which cannot be analyzed with the techniques of static economic theory used here.


Previous research which has considered task allocation and fault-tolerance together has concentrated on constructing schedules which accommodate a fixed number of redundant tasks. Often, all faults are treated as being equally severe. There is little work which combines task allocation with architectural level fault-tolerance issues such as the number of replicas to use and how they should be configured, both of which are tackled by this work. An accepted method for assessing the impact of a combination of faults is to build a system utility model which can be used to assess how the system degrades when components fail. The key challenge addressed here is how to design objective functions based on a utility model which can be incorporated into a search algorithm in order to optimise fault-tolerance properties. Other issues such as how to extend the local search neighbourhood and balance objectives with schedulability constraints are also discussed.


In this paper I propose that identity is momentary, fluid, and multiple while simultaneously providing us with a sense of sameness and continuity. Building on Valsiner's ideas about human sense-making I suggest that we can reasonably deal with the multiplicity/unity paradox if we conceive of this process as resulting in the construction of a fuzzy field of hyper-generalized personal sense, which ordinarily functions as an implicit and unspeakable background of our everyday functioning, while being constantly re-created through momentary instances of foregrounded and explicit identity-dialogues. I illustrate the ideas put forward in the paper by analysing a case of a young woman experiencing a change in her being. Finally, in an attempt to illustrate and further develop the case I introduce a metaphor of carpet-weaving as an apposite image for thinking about identity as a process of a multiple and fragmented, yet also a united and constant being.


The study focuses on three impersonal constructions in Modern Hebrew: subjectless sentences with 3rd person plural main verbs, subjectless sentences with modal operators that take a complement clause, and sentences with generic pronoun subjects. Structural and semantic analyses elaborate on earlier studies in a discourse-embedded functional perspective based on authentic adult-child conversational interchanges and extended texts elicited from schoolchildren, adolescents, and adults in Hebrew and other languages. These serve to demonstrate the effects of such usage-based factors as genre, age-schooling development, as well as target language typology. The study concludes by arguing for a confluence of structural devices that combine to form a cline of impersonalization in the expression of a more or less depersonalized discourse stance.
Keywords: discourse; genre; Hebrew; impersonals; language development; subjectless


Subset space logics have been introduced and studied as a framework for reasoning about a notion of effort in epistemic logic. The seminal Subset Space Logic (SSL) by Moss and Parikh modeled a single agent, and most work in this area has focused on different extensions of the language, or different model classes resulting from restrictions on subset spaces, while still keeping the single-agent assumption. In this paper we argue that the few existing attempts at multi-agent versions of SSL are unsatisfactory, and propose a new multi-agent subset space logic which is a natural extension of single-agent SSL. The main results are a sound and complete axiomatization of this logic, as well as an alternative and equivalent relational semantics.


Assuring the sustained availability of groundwater from all parts of an aquifer system is analagous to assuring that the potentiometric surface does not change over the long term. Such a steady-state surface is maintained by a specific spatially distributed pattern of groundwater withdrawal. The finite difference form of the linearized Boussinesq equation for steady two-dimensional flow through porous media is used in models that design optimal regional potentiometric surfaces and the conjunctive water use/sustained yield strategies that maintain them. Presented objectives of such models include minimization of unmet water needs, minimization of the regional cost of attempting to satisfy water needs and bi-objective optimization.


Bennett Delinquent and Neurotic Children (1960) Hb: 0-415-26397-2 Donaldson A Study of Children's Thinking (1963) Hb: 0-415-26399-9 Stott Studies of Troublesome Children (1966) Hb: 0-415-26400-6 Tanner and Inhelde Discussions on Child Development: Volume 1 (1956) Hb: 0-415-26401-4 Tanner and Inhelde Discussions on Child Development: Volume 2 (1956) Hb: 0-415-26402-2 Tanner and Inhelde Discussions on Child Development: Volume 3 (1958) Hb: 0-415-26403-0 Tanner and Inhelde Discussions on Child Development: Volume 4 (1960) Hb: 0-415-26404-9 Winnicott Collected Papers: Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis (1958) Hb: 0-415-26405-7 Winnicott and Hardenberg The Child and the Outside World (1957) Hb: 0-415-26406-5


Classic interest rate models, such as those by Vasicek-Hull-White and Heath-Jarrow-Morton, assume one or more underlying stochastic processes of a particular form, with Gaussian disturbances. Interest-dependent securities are then priced under the assumption of market equilibrium, given the rates processes. These models are theoretically elegant but they can be hard to implement in practice because the probability distributions for rates at future discrete dates are no longer Gaussian. Practitioners have largely turned to "market models," e.g., the LIBOR Market Model (LMM) of Brace, Gatarek, and Musiela, and the Swap Market Model (SMM) of Jamshidian, that do not model the instantaneous evolution of spot rates, but rather the behavior of the forward rates for the specific future dates on which a security's cash flows will occur. This allows the use of the basic Black model for individual caplets and easy calibration of the model to the market. In this article, Wu and Chen develop closed-form valuation equations for caps, floors, and swaps with barriers within the LMM and SMM frameworks. The key is to model the joint distribution of the rate on each future payment date and the maximum or minimum level the forward may reach over the time period up to that date. Monte Carlo simulation confirms that the closed-form equations provide very accurate pricing.


Recent reports indicate that 77% of all college seniors participate in one or more internships prior to graduation. Colleges, recognizing the importance and attractiveness of internship programs, are increasingly emphasizing internships as a part of their programs. Employers are increasingly recognizing the value of internships as part of their employment process. In this paper we present the results of a study of companies in southern New Jersey that regularly hire interns from area colleges and universities. Companies were asked about the quality of their interns, about their relationships with the colleges and about details of their programs.


Improvements in methodologies for measuring and capturing data for the UK's sustainability indicators (social, economic and environmental) means there is now a wealth of accurate and reliable approaches to assess sustainability levels. However the majority of these indicators focus on one aspect of sustainability at a time. An understanding of these issues in a unified approach is required. This research draws on the power of geographical information systems to investigate the multiple sustainability indictor datasets. It pulls together the datasets into a unified interactive system, which enabled the examination of the complex interconnectedness between urban physical characteristics, growing diversity of lifestyles and NI, across scales. At a smaller scale, the research demonstrated that successful places work as system of interconnected sets of activities. The larger scale analysis consisted of an examination of the relationship between active travel and road network, as well as three measures of centrality (straightness, closeness and betweeness). The findings revealed that activity networks are more complex than is depicted in traditional spatial planning networks. These results have important implications on determining natural strategies of urban planning and design.


Suicide is still a taboo issue in Iraqi society. Many in Iraq still feel shame in admitting that they have lost a loved one to suicide for fear of societal stigmatisation. With a lack of understanding about mental illness, it can be even more difficult for professionals to treat mental health issues properly. The cultural norms that stigmatise suicide create obstacles that discourage, or even prevent, many vulnerable people from reaching out for help. While life is full of challenges, suicide prevention is riddled with even more. Suicide prevention requires collective multisectoral intervention, but in the absence of endorsed national strategy, the interventions have been so far short-term and sporadic. Nongovernmental organisations like Azhee are not funded adequately to implement long-term, multisectoral interventions for effective suicide prevention. Different official entities collect and disseminate statistics on suicide, contradicting one another more than often. Absence of credible statistics at regional and national levels adversely affects the quality of interventions. The media in Iraq and its Kurdistan Region report irresponsibly on suicide which serves as a risk factor in relation to suicide. Another challenge is the weakness of coordination among national and international actors working in suicide prevention interventions.


MapReduce is a framework for processing large data sets largely used in cloud computing. MapReduce implementations like Hadoop can tolerate crashes and file corruptions, but there is evidence that general arbitrary faults do occur and can affect the correctness of job executions. Furthermore, many individual cloud outages have been reported, raising concerns about depending on a single cloud. We present a MapReduce runtime that tolerates arbitrary faults and runs in a set of clouds at a reasonable cost in terms of computation and execution time. The main challenge is to avoid sending through the internet the huge amount of data that would normally be exchanged between map and reduce tasks.


Abstract. We present a statistical framework for estimating global navigation satellite system (GNSS) non-ionospheric differential time delay bias. The biases are estimated by examining differences of measured line-integrated electron densities (total electron content: TEC) that are scaled to equivalent vertical integrated densities. The spatiotemporal variability, instrumentation-dependent errors, and errors due to inaccurate ionospheric altitude profile assumptions are modeled as structure functions. These structure functions determine how the TEC differences are weighted in the linear least-squares minimization procedure, which is used to produce the bias estimates. A method for automatic detection and removal of outlier measurements that do not fit into a model of receiver bias is also described. The same statistical framework can be used for a single receiver station, but it also scales to a large global network of receivers. In addition to the Global Positioning System (GPS), the method is also applicable to other dual-frequency GNSS systems, such as GLONASS (Globalnaya Navigazionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema). The use of the framework is demonstrated in practice through several examples. A specific implementation of the methods presented here is used to compute GPS receiver biases for measurements in the MIT Haystack Madrigal distributed database system. Results of the new algorithm are compared with the current MIT Haystack Observatory MAPGPS (MIT Automated Processing of GPS) bias determination algorithm. The new method is found to produce estimates of receiver bias that have reduced day-to-day variability and more consistent coincident vertical TEC values.


We present optical and ultraviolet (UV) photometry and spectra of the very nearby and highly reddened supernova (SN) 2014J in M82 obtained with the Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope (UVOT). Comparison of the UVOT grism spectra of SN 2014J with Hubble Space Telescope observations of SN2011fe or UVOT grism spectra of SN 2012fr are consistent with an extinction law with a low value of RV ∼1.4. The high reddening causes the detected photon distribution in the broadband UV filters to have a much longer effective wavelength than for an unreddened SN. The light curve evolution is consistent with this shift and does not show a flattening due to photons being scattered back into the line of sight (LOS). The light curve shapes and color evolution are inconsistent with a contribution scattered into the LOS by circumstellar dust. We conclude that most or all of the high reddening must come from interstellar dust. We show that even for a single dust composition, there is not a unique reddening law caused by circumstellar scattering. Rather, when considering scattering from a time-variable source, we confirm earlier studies that the reddening law is a function of the dust geometry, column density, and epoch. We also show how an assumed geometry of dust as a foreground sheet in mixed stellar/dust systems will lead to a higher inferred RV. Rather than assuming the dust around SNe is peculiar, SNe may be useful probes of the interstellar reddening laws in other galaxies.


Distinct on-fault and off-fault seismicity in the trifurcation area of the San Jacinto fault zone. The trifurcation area of the San Jacinto fault zone has produced more than 10% of all earthquakes in southern California since 2000, including the June 2016 Mw (moment magnitude) 5.2 Borrego Springs earthquake. In this area, the fault splits into three subparallel strands and is associated with broad VP/VS anomalies. We synthesize spatiotemporal properties of historical background seismicity and aftershocks of the June 2016 event. A template matching technique is used to detect and locate more than 23,000 aftershocks, which illuminate highly complex active fault structures in conjunction with a high-resolution regional catalog. The hypocenters form dipping seismicity lineations both along strike and nearly orthogonal to the main fault, and are composed of interlaced strike-slip and normal faults. The primary faults change dip with depth and become listric by transitioning to a dip of ~70° near a depth of 10 km. The Mw 5.2 Borrego Springs earthquake and past events with M > 4.0 occurred on the main faults, whereas most of the low-magnitude events are located in a damage zone (several kilometers wide) at seismogenic depths. The lack of significant low-magnitude seismicity on the main fault traces suggests that they do not creep. The very high rate of aftershocks likely reflects the large geometrical fault complexity and perhaps a relatively high stress due to a significant length of time elapsed since the last major event. The results provide important insights into the physics of faulting near the brittle-ductile transition.


This paper introduces a reflective perspective on the role of computing in architectural design over the generations of computer aided architectural designs. Paradigms of the design process and computational models of designing are discussed. The evolution of computer aided architectural design is investigated. Both deadly sins and arguable virtues of computing in architecture and their implications are reviewed. The paper introduces an approach for the new generations of computer aided architectural design (CAAD) that has the potential to provide a better CAAD future for architectural researchers, educators and professionals


Purpose: Genetic testing for hereditary cancer facilitates medical management and improves health outcomes. Genetic testing is not currently available for prostate cancer, but trials are underway to investigate if antiandrogens and selenium have a preventive role for at-risk individuals. To inform future genetic counseling, we sought to understand the pre-existing beliefs and behaviors of men with a family history of prostate cancer and explore their intention to adopt possible preventive behaviors in response to test results.Methods: A survey was completed by 280 men (response: 59%).Results: The belief that diet influenced prostate cancer risk was held by 73% of participants, whereas 37% believed in medication/natural therapies. Thirty-nine percent reported at least one change to their diet, alcohol consumption, smoking, exercise patterns, vitamin/mineral/supplement intake and/or medication/natural therapy in response to their family history. The men expressed interest in genetic testing with 92% "definitely" or "probably" interested. Definite interest was associated with number of affected relatives and prostate cancer-related anxiety. A positive genetic test would motivate 93% of men to make at least one behavioral change.Conclusions: Participants commonly believed behavioral factors influenced prostate cancer risk and reported that they would alter their behavior to reduce risk after (hypothetical) genetic testing.


Intentionally defect-rich zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorod-arrays were grown from solution by carefully adjusting the concentration ratio of the growth-precursors used followed by various post-deposition thermal treatments. Post-deposition rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at moderate temperatures (350 °C-550 °C) and in various atmospheres was applied to vary the defect composition of the grown nanorod-arrays. It is demonstrated that, intense, defect-related orange emission occurs solely upon RTA around 450 °C and is essentially independent of the atmosphere used. Extensive materials characterization was carried out in order to evaluate the origin of the orange-luminescent defects and what influence they have on the ZnO material properties. It is concluded that the oxygen vacancy-zinc interstitial defect complex (VO-Zni) is responsible for the orange luminescence in the prepared materials. A kinetic formation mechanism of the VO-Zni complex dependent on the RTA temperature is proposed and shown to be in accordance with the experimental findings. Furthermore it is shown that this bulk deep-level defect could act as a trap state for photo-generated electrons prolonging the charge carrier lifetime of photo-generated holes and therefore improving the charge carrier separation in the material. As a result the photo-current density under simulated sunlight is found to increase by almost 150% over as-grown samples. The potential use of this defective material in applications such as solar water splitting is outlined.


Abstract Reactive airway disease is a prevalent condition that can be detected in the early infancy period. The condition might also deteriorate into asthma in some cases. If infants do not respond to the treatment of persistent wheeze and coughing, other rare causes should be investigated. The complete form of vascular ring is an extremely uncommon congenital cardiovascular abnormality. Double aortic arch constitutes the most significant portion of the complete vascular ring anomalies. Clinical manifestations of the anomaly are mainly respiratory due to the tracheal compression and mimicking the conditions of asthma. There have not been many reports about the clinical presentations of double aortic arch being remarkably similar to the same clinical manifestations of asthma in the literature. As far as we can be sure, there have not been any reported cases about severe reactive airway disease that caused a patient to have a life-threatening condition in the pediatric intensive care unit. Herein, we present a 5-month-old girl who had double aortic arch. Her anatomical aberration was diagnosed by three-dimensional computed tomography angiography of thorax, and the anomaly mimicked the clinical characteristics of life-threatening severe reactive airway disease.


The advancement and spread of digital technologies is reshaping the global financial landscape. These technologies could dramatically increase financial efficiency and inclusion by expanding access to financial services and offering a broader range of financial products at lower cost. Despite the potential benefits, significant risks must also be managed. From blockchain development to the use of cryptocurrency, a range of policy and regulatory issues have emerged. This policy brief reviews key policy issues and challenges related to fintech development, in particular digital ledger technology applications. It proposes a functional and proportional approach to these issues that balances the evident challenges—such as in transparency, cybersecurity, and immutability—arising alongside the significant opportunities for innovation.


We analyze the possibility that several instability points may be formed, due to the Paczyński mechanism of violation of mechanical equilibrium, in the orbiting matter around a supermassive Kerr black hole. We consider a recently proposed model of a ringed accretion disk, made up by several tori (rings) that can be corotating or counter-rotating relative to the Kerr attractor due to the history of the accretion process. Each torus is governed by the general relativistic hydrodynamic Boyer condition of equilibrium configurations of rotating perfect fluids. We prove that the number of the instability points is generally limited and depends on the dimensionless spin of the rotating attractor.


The article sheds light on some historical crossings of organic chemistry and chemical crystallography. It connects past and present bringing into the focus Prof. Kata Mlinarić-Majerski's research. An impact of structural chemistry on organic synthesis and reactivity is shown. X-ray structure analysis was established as a unique method to determine the composition and architecture of synthetic and natural organic molecules, already in the second decade of the last century; some of historical and scientific milestones are shown. Numerous controversies were solved, when intriguing molecular structures had been determined and the nature of chemical bond was clarified. An absolute structure (chirality) determination using an anomalous dispersion of X-rays was an important step forward, particularly in pharmaceutical industry. Structural data provided by X-ray crystallography, stored by Cambridge Structural Data Centre have been of great impact on many areas of science. They are closely related to intra- and intermolecular forces and structure/function correlations directing us to synthesis of compounds with designed properties. The developments of supramolecular chemistry, crystal engineering, materials science, and most of all of molecular machines have been assisted by chemical crystallography. The essay does not aim to review the complete scientific opus of Prof. K. Mlinarić-Majerski but it is focused on some of the highlights of her research. The interdisciplinary approach in her research is related to the use of X-ray structural analysis to define molecular architecture, conformational chirality, conformational isomerism, and get insight into reaction paths, interactions governing molecular assembling, and to recognise chemical properties of new compounds. In these researches the X-ray crystallographers were involved.


"The goal of this accelerator complex is to provide a 10 MW proton beam for driving the Energy Amplifier recently proposed by C. Rubbia [1]. It is lower (by one order of magnitude) than the requirements of most of the accelerator-ddrive projects based on c-w linacs [2]. Therefore, the requirements for the Energy Amplifier open an alternative solution based on ring cyclotrons [3], [4] producing a continous beam. Thus taking into account the present development of high-intensity cylotrons (cf. PSU [5]), a three-stage cylotron accelerator is a possible solution. It comprises:* the injector(s) which should be able to deliver a 10 mA beam in a given phase width. A solution based on two 5 mA compact isocchronous cyclotrons (CIC) working in parallel is proposed.* the intermediate stage (ISSC) which is a four-separated-sector cylotron accelerating the injected beam up to 120 MeV. * the final booster (BSSC) which has ten separate sectors and six cavities raising the kinetic energy up to about 1000 MeV. [1] F. Carminati et al., An Energy Amplifier for cleaner and inexhaustible nuclear energy production driven by a particle beam accelerator, CERN Internal Report [CERN-AT-93-47 ET] (November 1993). [2] R. Jameson et al., Accelerator-driven transmutation technology for energy-production and nuclear-waste treatment, Proc. of the 3rd EPAC, Berlin (1992) 230-234. [3] P. Bonnaure et al., Actinide transmutation by spallation in the light of recent cyclotron development, Proc. of the ICENES 86, Madrid (July 1986). [4] C. Rubbia, P. Mandrillon and N. Fietier, A high intensity accelerator for driving the Energy Amplifier, Proc. of the 4th EPAC, London (July 1994) 270-272. [5] Th. Stammbach et al., Potential of cyclotron based accelerators for energy production and transmutation, Proc. of the 1st Int. Conf. on Accelerator-Driven Transmutation Technologies and Applications, Las Vegas (July 1994)."


Arsenic and metals Pb, Zn, Cu, Fe, Cd concentrations were determined in four substrates near mine tailings. After 70 days growth, accumulation of those elements and effects in the development of young maize ( Zea mays L.) H-515, raised in greenhouse under controlled conditions (temperature, relative humidity and solar radiation) were also evaluated. Maize planted in substrates (S3 and S4) with higher concentrations of As and metals (Toxic metals and metalloids TMM) showed visible affectations such as: chlorosis, thinner leaves and growth inhibition. Zinc and Pb reached the highest contents among the studied elements in substrates and plants. In substrates, Zn concentrations ranged from 175.2 to 16193 mg/kg, and Pb from 66.5 to 6166 mg/kg. After 70 days growth, Zn concentrations in roots ranged from 54.7 to 3555.4 mg/kg, and Pb from 11.1 to 320.3 mg/kg. In the aerial part Zn contents varied from 30.8 to 519.8 mg/kg and Pb ranged from 3.7 to 38.5 mg/kg. Metal concentrations were also evaluated in 30 days growth maize plants. Zinc contents in roots ranged from 88.9 to 504.8 mg/kg, and Pb from 25.2 to 300.9 mg/kg; in the aerial part concentration ranges were 15.5 to 555.6 mg/kg for Zn, and 2.2 to 10.8 mg/kg for Pb. Generally low translocation (TF) and bioconcentration factors (BF) were determined for all elements. However, TF for Zn and Cd were slightly higher in plants after 30 and 70 days growth, with 0.86 and 0.85 for Cd and 0.82 for Zn in agricultural soils; arsenic had higher TF in all substrates for 70 days growth plants. Differences were also observed in maize development; plants grown in agricultural soils far from tailings showed better growth (46 cm on average) while those grown in tailings had lower growth (24 cm on average). Anatomic characteristics, fresh and dry weight, biomass and number of leaves also presented a similar behavior showing significant differences (p<0.05) among experimental units with S1 presenting the highest values, followed by S2, S3 and S4. Results suggest that TMM in zones close to tailings accumulate and affect young maize plants development, disturb their growth and cause phytotoxic effects that are shown in their appearance.


Many climate impact assessments require high-resolution precipitation time series that have a spatio-temporal correlation structure consistent with observations, for simulating either current or future climate conditions. In this respect, weather generators (WGs) designed and calibrated for multiple sites are an appealing statistical downscaling technique to stochastically simulate multiple realisations of possible future time series consistent with the local precipitation characteristics and their expected future changes. In this study, we present the implementation and validation of a multi-site daily precipitation generator re-built after the methodology described in Wilks (1998). The generator consists of several Richardson-type WGs run with spatially correlated random number streams. This study aims at investigating the capabilities, the added value and the limitations of the precipitation generator for a typical Alpine river catchment in the Swiss Alpine region under current climate. The calibrated multi-site WG is skilful at individual sites in representing the annual cycle of the precipitation statistics, such as mean wet day frequency and intensity as well as monthly precipitation sums. It reproduces realistically the multi-day statistics such as the frequencies of dry and wet spell lengths and precipitation sums over consecutive wet days. Substantial added value is demonstrated in simulating daily areal precipitation sums in comparison to multiple WGs that lack the spatial dependency in the stochastic process. Limitations are seen in reproducing daily and multi-day extreme precipitation sums, observed variability from year to year and in reproducing long dry spell lengths. Given the performance of the presented generator, we conclude that it is a useful tool to generate precipitation series consistent with the mean climatic aspects and likely helpful to be used as a downscaling technique for climate change scenarios.


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The possibilities of the hyphenated isotopic chromatographic spectral method (ICSM) of inorganic gas analysis are considered. The technique allows detection of both the individual element and molecular admixtures. For evaluation of the total content of the element, isotope balancing and conversion of all components containing this element into a molecular compound more suitable for chromatographic isolation and spectroscopic detection are used. High sensitivity is achieved by preconcentration of admixtures with the simultaneous monitoring of possible distortions of the sample composition at all stages of analysis by means of the introduction of a rare stable isotope. The fields of application are the analysis of high-purity gases, evaluation of the total contents of individual elements, metrological tasks of apparatus calibration, and so on. The method does not need reference samples prepared from the analyzed gaseous matrices for the calibration itself.


Post-annealing was conducted to investigate the control efficiency of template-directed growth of organic molecules. Disordered organic patterns can be converted to ordered ones via elimination of randomly distributed molecular islands by annealing, resulting in full control of organic molecules on templates with tunable spacing. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations revealed that the strong interaction between the molecule and the template plays a key role in tuning the control efficiency. With this method, direct growth of multicolor patterns is demonstrated.


Social protection systems are intended to support households in financial difficulties, a role that has been underlined during the recent Great Recession in many countries around the world. This volume presents new results on the dynamics of social assistance, minimum-income and related out-of-work benefits in a range of different country contexts. It contains eight original articles, which shed light on benefit spell durations, the movements into and out of receipt of safety net benefits, the individual or family characteristics associated with these movements, the extent of state dependence or 'scarring', and the interaction of various welfare programs. The results establish an evidence base for an informed policy debate in a range of OECD countries. They also provide methodological background for future work on benefit receipt patterns.


Semi-implicit variational inference (SIVI) is introduced to expand the commonly used analytic variational distribution family, by mixing the variational parameter with a flexible distribution. This mixing distribution can assume any density function, explicit or not, as long as independent random samples can be generated via reparameterization. Not only does SIVI expand the variational family to incorporate highly flexible variational distributions, including implicit ones that have no analytic density functions, but also sandwiches the evidence lower bound (ELBO) between a lower bound and an upper bound, and further derives an asymptotically exact surrogate ELBO that is amenable to optimization via stochastic gradient ascent. With a substantially expanded variational family and a novel optimization algorithm, SIVI is shown to closely match the accuracy of MCMC in inferring the posterior in a variety of Bayesian inference tasks.


Understanding inertia and change in professionalized organizational fields like health care is key to addressing inefficiencies like poor access to services, high costs, and inconsistent quality. New entrants are one source of change that may reduce the inefficiencies, but we lack a good understanding of how new entrant organizations overcome jurisdictional barriers of license and legitimacy that shelter professionalized fields. I analyze a case of emergence of retail health clinics in the U.S. primary care to theorize a strategy that allows external change agents to enter a professionalized field. Circumventing jurisdictional barriers and overcoming resistance of the incumbent profession requires jurisdictional work — cultural and market actions that effectively put forth a jurisdictional claim. Two aspects of jurisdictional work by retail clinics appear important: employing individual professionals as "front-men" who legitimize the new organizational form and finding allies among incumbent organizations that value efficiency. The problem of professional collective action allowed for the front-men strategy, in which organizations decoupled rights encoded in professional license and their use and thus turned license from a barrier into a vehicle for entry. The heterogeneity of logics and the competitive tensions among field incumbents allowed for the subsequent integration. The elaborated process model of entry generalizes the theory of professional jurisdictional competition by including organizations as actors in the division of expert labor.


We describe the architecture of a network, in which the
traffic ow is controlled by a market. The network access is controlled
by a trusted access node, that separates traffic into best effort and
first class traffic, adds a source route header, and shapes the
traffic. The network core consists of rapid forwarding devices, such
as label switches, and source routing gateways. Network services,
including dynamic routing, load balancing, and fault tolerance, are
built by bundling the transmission capacity in several independent
network domains into a service, a bundle of resources with the right
properties. The service is priced as financial derivative contract,
and traded on a market, independent of the network access
control. Besides describing the network model, we show how to
implement parts of the network access node functionality on a standard
Linux machine. The implementation has been tested on a system of
virtual Linux machines.


The purpose of this paper is to understand how Italian micro-entrepreneurs responded to the economic crisis and strategies they adopted to deal with it. A comparison between male and female entrepreneurs is presented, in order to understand if they adopted similar or different strategies. The paper also aims to understand if variables, other than gender, influenced strategies adopted to face the economic crisis. Drawing from a telephone questionnaire survey involving a sample of 300 (150 male and 150 female) owners of Italian micro-enterprises, located in Marche Region, findings suggest that entrepreneurs mostly dealt with the crisis through a defensive approach (restructuring and resizing strategies). Compared to men, female entrepreneurs had a lower propensity towards offensive strategies (innovation, development and growth). Differences in the approach towards the crisis were also identified with respect to company's age, indus - try and impact of the crisis. These findings contribute to the debate on gender-based differences in behaviors, attitudes and preferences. Moreover, they can help to identify economic policy measures useful to help men and women entrepreneurs to address the crisis. Policy-makers who want to support female entrepreneurship should consider these aspects, in order to identify tools and policies that can help female firms to resist the crisis more effectively in the short-term and to seize new market opportunities in the recovery phase. The sample is restricted to sole proprietors and to a limited geographical context. So further analysis should involve companies of different sizes and located in different geographical contexts, both in Italy and abroad.


Since originating in the early-mid 1990s, sex offender registration and community notification laws have swept the country, now affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals. The laws require that individuals provide, update and at least annually verify personal identifying information, which governments make publicly available via the Internet and other means. Typically retrospective in their reach, and sweeping in their breadth, the laws can target individuals for their lifetimes, imposing multiple hardships. This symposium contribution surveys the extent to which states now afford registrants an opportunity to secure relief from registration and community notification and examines the important legal and policy ramifications of the limited exit options made available.


Rocks belonging to the Lower Oligocene to Middle Miocene Wainimala Group in southwestern Viti Levu can be divided into an are assemblage, representing the axial part of a volcanic are, and a basinal assemblage, representing the trenchward flank of the are and the inner part of the fore-are basin. The are assemblage consists mainly of volcaniclastic rudites and lava flows, with minor shallow-water limestones, and is intruded by Mid- to Late Miocene gabbro and tonalite stocks. The basinal assemblage to the north is floored by part of an earlier, Eocene to Lower Oligocene are. The lower part of this assemblage includes volcaniclastic rudites representing the dispersal aprons of major volcanic edifices to the trenchward of the are axis, and basaltic lavas and fissure-fed rhyolite lava domes and breceia ridges erupted in deeper water away from these centres. The rhyolites are directly related to the acidic members of a dense, compositionally bimodal dyke swarm that intrudes the underlying earlier are rocks, recording substantial crustal extension. The basinal volcanic rocks are interbedded with and overlain by a sequence of pelagic carbonates, thin-bedded epiclastic turbidites, and acidic tuffs. The basinal succession evolved from an intra-are to an inner fore-are setting as volcanism within the assemblage died away in the Early Miocene. In the late Early Miocene increased uplift and emergence of the are massif increased the sediment yield to the fore-are basin, resulting in the deposition of thicker-bedded, coarser-grained turbidites.


The propagation of a surface plasmon polariton along a finite grating is studied numerically. It is shown that there is a forbidden band of frequencies. The transmittivity of the system exhibits oscillations that are attributed to finite size effects. We also investigate the properties of acceptor defects, which produce localized states. The excitation of these modes yields a peak of the transmittivity within the gap and an enhancement of the near field. Finally, we study the transmittivity and the near field for random gratings that are periodic on average. We observe that the gap width decreases. In addition, we show that the reflectivity of the finite grating increases when the length of the finite grating increases for a frequency out of the gap but close to the band edge. This behavior indicates the presence of Anderson localization.


The Wickersham Commission report on The Third Degree, found in the Commission's famous Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement ended with the argument that the "real remedy" for police misconduct "lies in the will of the community," which in turn depends on evidence about the nature and extent of police abuse. In this brief essay, I argue that the report's call for information about policing has gone largely unanswered. Eighty years later, we still lack enough data about what the police do to shape their conduct effectively. Public policy and legal decisions about policing depend heavily on empirical judgments, but police chiefs and local government officials do not generate sufficient data about the police absent external regulation. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the primary federal agencies charged with collecting information on policing, have focused on serving the law enforcement community rather than facilitating governance of the police. The consequence is that we do not have the information we need to secure effective and rights-protecting policing.


Isolated chitinozoans from the Soom Shale Member of the Cedarberg Formation, SW South Africa are described and provide a date of the latest Hirnantian–earliest Rhuddanian. The recovered chitinozoans are typical of the latest Ordovician Spinachitina oulebsiri Biozone, although an earliest Silurian age is possible. They indicate a very short time span (less than 1 Ma) across the Ordovician–Silurian boundary. This is currently the highest biostratigraphical resolution attainable for the Soom Shale Lagerstätte. Correlation of the Soom Shale chitinozoans with identical assemblages in post-glacial, transgressive deposits of Northern Africa is possible; both faunas occur in shales that overlie glacial diamictites of the Hirnantian glaciation. A new species, Spinachitina verniersi n. sp. is described.