Adverb positions vary within a single language as well as across diverse languages. Based on the study of adverbs in English, French and German, this monograph shows that the distribution of adverbs is influenced by various factors at distinct levels of linguistic representation – comprising semantics, syntax, phonology and information structure –, which interact in determining adverb positions. The results of the investigation are formulated within the theoretical framework of Optimality Theory, which captures the complex interaction of these factors by hierarchically ranked constraints, deriving cross-linguistic variation of adverb positions by differences in the language-specific constraint hierarchies. The book is divided into two parts: While Part I examines adverb positions in general, Part II investigates under which circumstances an adverb may attach to a phonetically empty constituent in the languages under discussion. The book appeals to a linguistic audience interested in Germanic and Romance languages as well as in theoretical syntax in general.


The launch of the Advanced Scatterometer ASCAT on MetOp-A is planned on 17 July 2006. Development of scatterometer products in Europe is organised through the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facilities. Product developments are focussed on using the data for Numerical Weather Prediction and short-range weather forecasting. The former is well suited by the SeaWinds products as currently produced at KNMI at 100-km resolution (see http://www.knmi.nl/scatterometer ) in preparation of the operational ASCAT production suite. For short-range forecasting or in semienclosed sea areas such as the Mediteranean, however, higher resolution is desirable, and both an experimental 25-km SeaWinds product and the Early Advanced Retransmission Service, EARS, ERS2 product are available. The European Space Agency ERS-2 scatterometer KNMI product provides quasi real-time winds in the North Atlantic and European seas. It is currently provided in the ASCAT BUFR format to facilitate the development of ASCAT user interfaces. KNMI attempts to improve the spatial filtering properties of the wind retrieval by using prior information on the expected meteorological balance, e.g., favouring rotational structures in high-latitude regions. Moreover, solutions in all wind directions, weighted by their inherent probability, are retained in the processing, the so-called Multi Solution Scheme. The 2D-VAR method has the advanced filtering properties needed for maintaining small-scale meteorological information in SeaWinds, while reducing noise. This is shown by comparing the autocorrelation of the KNMI products, with those of the NOAA SeaWinds product, and, for reference, those of the NCEP model. It is shown that scatterometer wind fields at high resolution contain noise, but that this noise is effectively removed in the Multi Solution Scheme. These findings will help KNMI to develop a 12.5-km ASCAT scatterometer wind product in the coastal zone in the next phase of the SAF project.


An examination of how changing public information infrastructures shaped people's experience of earthquakes in Northern California in 1868, 1906, and 1989.When an earthquake happens in California today, residents may look to the United States Geological Survey for online maps that show the quake's epicenter, turn to Twitter for government bulletins and the latest news, check Facebook for updates from friends and family, and count on help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). One hundred and fifty years ago, however, FEMA and other government agencies did not exist, and information came by telegraph and newspaper. In Documenting Aftermath, Megan Finn explores changing public information infrastructures and how they shaped people's experience of disaster, examining postearthquake information and communication practices in three Northern California earthquakes: the 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. She then analyzes the institutions, policies, and technologies that shape today's postdisaster information landscape.Finn argues that information orders?complex constellations of institutions, technologies, and practices?influence how we act in, experience, and document events. What Finn terms event epistemologies, constituted both by historical documents and by researchers who study them, explain how information orders facilitate particular possibilities for knowledge. After the 1868 earthquake, the Chamber of Commerce telegraphed reassurances to out-of-state investors while local newspapers ran sensational earthquake narratives; in 1906, families and institutions used innovative techniques for locating people; and in 1989, government institutions and the media developed a symbiotic relationship in information dissemination. Today, government disaster response plans and new media platforms imagine different sources of informational authority yet work together shaping disaster narratives.


In this paper we provide a unified methodology for conducting likelihood-based inference on the unknown parameters of a general class of discrete-time stochastic volatility (SV) models, characterized by both a leverage effect and jumps in returns. Given the nonlinear/non-Gaussian state-space form, approximating the likelihood for the parameters is conducted with output generated by the particle filter. Methods are employed to ensure that the approximating likelihood is continuous as a function of the unknown parameters thus enabling the use of standard Newton-Raphson type maximization algorithms. Our approach is robust and efficient relative to alternative Markov Chain Monte Carlo schemes employed in such contexts. In addition it provides a feasible basis for undertaking the nontrivial task of model comparison. Furthermore, we introduce new volatility model, namely SV-GARCH which attempts to bridge the gap between GARCH and stochastic volatility specifications. In nesting the standard GARCH model as a special case, it has the attractive feature of inheriting the same unconditional properties of the standard GARCH model but being conditionally heavier-tailed; thus more robust to outliers. It is demonstrated how this model can be estimated using the described methodology. The technique is applied to daily returns data for S&P 500 stock price index for various spans. In assessing the relative performance of SV with leverage and jumps and nested specifications, we find strong evidence in favour of a including leverage effect and jumps when modelling stochastic volatility. Additionally, we find very encouraging results for SV-GARCH in terms of predictive ability which is comparable to the other models considered.


Social commerce is an emerging trend in which online shops create referral hyperlinks to other shops in the same online marketplace. We study the evolution of a social commerce network in a large online marketplace. Our dataset starts before the birth of the network (at which points shops were not linked to each other) and includes the birth of the network. The network under study exhibits a typical power-law degree distribution. We empirically compare a set of edge formation mechanisms (including preferential attachment and triadic closure) that may explain the emergence of this property. Our results suggest that the evolution of the network and the emergence of its power-law degree distribution are better explained by a network evolution mechanism that relies on vertex attributes that are not based on the structure of the network. Specifically, our analysis suggests that the power-law degree distribution emerges because shops prefer to connect to shops with more diverse assortments, and assortment diversity follows a power-law distribution. Shops with more diverse assortments are more attractive to link to because they are more likely to bring traffic from consumers browsing the WWW. Therefore, our results also imply that social commerce networks should not be studied in isolation, but rather in the context of the broader network in which they are embedded (the WWW).


Populations of waders breeding on lowland wet grassland in England and Wales have
declined markedly in recent decades; the loss of once widespread species such as Lapwing
Vanellus vanellus, Snipe Gallinago gallinago and Redshank Tringa totanus from many areas is
of particular conservation concern (Wilson et al 2004). These declines are due to loss of
grassland to other land uses, and to significant changes in grassland management. The same
can be applied to many bird species of lowland farmland that have declined substantially in
the United Kingdom over the past 30 years (Gregory et al 2004). Declines among farmland
'specialists' are steeper than for 'generalists' and were most rapid for these specialists in the
1970s and 1980s. These changes have also been linked to increased agricultural
intensification and are reflected in Red or Amber conservation concern status for many
common farmland species, as well as for rarer ones.
In March 2005, DEFRA (now Natural England) launched Environmental Stewardship , an agrienvironment
scheme that could herald big changes in the farmed countryside in England.
Environmental Stewardship has a number of primary objectives, one of which is wildlife
conservation. An index of long-term trends in farmland bird populations has been adopted by
the UK government as one of the 15 headline 'Quality of Life Indicators' - the 'indicator' in this
case being declines in biodiversity in the wider countryside (Vickery 2005).
This research is focused on a practical approach to Environmental Stewardship at a local
level, guiding the landowner of a small dairy farm on the south Fylde towards the management
and conservation of breeding waders and farmland birds and aims to give a recommended
prescription to successful application.


The London Earth field survey followed a systematic sampling approach to collect a representative suite of soil samples from across London from a variety of land uses, in order to ensure a robust, unbiased dataset which will represent the baseline geochemistry of the city's environment.
Soil geochemical baseline data can be used to investigate soil quality and geochemical processes in the urban environment, as well as determining where the levels of certain chemical elements are potentially hazardous to humans as well as the natural environment (Johnson and Ander, 2008).
In addition to the collection of samples, important accompanying information including observations about the soil colour and composition, and land use details for each sampling site were recorded. This data is an important aspect of the survey as it allows us to assess the site and supports interpretation of the geochemical results.
The combination of the geochemical survey data and related field observations provides a comprehensive data resource which will provide valuable information to land use planning and development applications such as urban regeneration as well as provide opportunity for science in the interest of national good.
The aim of this report is to present and assess the observational data in order to:
i. show the spatial distribution of certain properties of the data set, such as the land use types that were recorded for each sample;
ii. to discuss their relative proportions; and,
iii. to explain, where possible, any trends or patterns that can be seen in the data.
This will be done primarily by presenting maps and graphs of the data and by some discussion of the information they contain. This is intended to provide a useful resource to support the ongoing interpretation of the geochemical data.


The GCC region has recently witnessed the creation of a customs union between the countries of the region as well as the signature of many free trade areas with countries/blocs outside the region (i.e. US and EU). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of trade of the GCC countries within the context of the old and the emerging preference trade arrangements in the region of Middle East and North African Countries (MENA). A gravity trade model was estimated based on pooled time series-cross-sectional data of bilateral trade of the MENA countries with their major trading partners. The results indicate that in spite of the fact that the share of GCC intra-trade is too small in absolute terms, it is actually higher than expected on the basis of underlying trade determinants. However the level of the GCC intra-trade has not changed significantly over the years and had probably reached its full potential during the first decade of the GCC creation. Trade with the Mashreq countries are more than expected, while it is less than expected with the Maghreb countries despite the implementation of the GAFTA a decade ago. The GCC trade with the European Union and the US was found to be quite intensive although no formal trade arrangement existed between the GCC and both blocs for the time-period used in the analysis. The results suggest that the newly signed trade arrangements are promising in enhancing new opportunities of trade in the GCC region.


Objective To examine the longitudinal associations between caregiver strain and patients' clinical and psychosocial characteristics as well as caregivers' psychosocial characteristics. Methods At 4-month intervals during the 12 months study period, longitudinal data on caregiver strain and patient and caregiver factors potentially associated with caregiver strain were collected from 126 couples, who participated in a randomised controlled trial on the effectiveness of case management in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Caregiver strain was assessed with the Caregiver Strain Index (CSI). Patient and caregiver factors included sociodemographic characteristics, distress, coping style and perceived quality of care, as well as the patient's functional status and emotional functioning. Multilevel regression analyses were performed. Results Caregiver strain increased significantly during the study period (β=0.315 points/months, p<0.001) and was significantly associated with patient time-dependent factors functional status (β=−0.131 points/months, p<0.001) and emotional functioning (β=0.022 points/months, p=0.03), and caregiver time-dependent factors passive coping style (β=0.152 points/months, p=0.03), symptoms of anxiety (β=0.186 points/months, p<0.001) and perceived quality of care for the caregiver (β=−0.452 points/months, p<0.001). Conclusions Our study has identified that apart from the patient's physical disability and emotional well-being, a passive coping style of the caregiver, increased symptoms of anxiety and feeling less supported by the ALS-team impact on caregiver strain. The multidisciplinary teams involved with the care of patients with ALS need to be aware of these factors and increase their attention for the caregiver. This will help guide the development of evidence-based supportive interventions that focus on caregiver's coping style and avoiding distress. Trial registration number Netherlands Trial Register, number NTR1270.


A recent study aimed to estimate the potential of carpooling in Switzerland. Part of this study was a survey in which the attitude of the public towards this transport option was investigated using both multi-response questions and stated preference (SP) experiments. In order to gain an insight on how innovative modes are perceived in general, the SP part was composed of two different experiments, one of them including carsharing as alternative. In the first experiment respondents were choosing among car, public transport, carpooling as driver and carpooling as passenger. In the second experiment respondents were choosing among car, public transport and carsharing. This paper reports on the multinomial logit choice models, which were estimated based on participants' responses. Both SP experiments were based on a trip reported by participants during a phone interview. For each experiment two specifications, a linear and a nonlinear one were estimated. The nonlinear specification allows investigating the impact of selected socio-demographic variables, in this case income and travel time, on the parameters of the models and on willingness to pay indicators. Such indicators permit to complement the qualitative discussion of the results with quantitative analyses and provide a useful background for policy evaluation and planning. Experiment 1: Carpooling In the first SP experiment four alternatives were considered: car, public transport, carpooling as driver and carpooling as passenger. Each respondent received eight situations and was invited to choose the preferred alternative. The respondent's burden of having to choose among four alternatives in each situation was a concern. For this reason respondents were randomly assigned to one of three groups, each of them corresponding to a combination of three of the four modes listed above. By limiting the burden on the respondents, this strategy keeps the response rate high. The large sample was supposed to guarantee the statistical significance of the results despite each alternative mode being evaluated in a smaller number of cases. The three combinations proposed were: - Car – Public Transport – Carpooling as driver - Car – Public Transport – Carpooling as passenger - Car – Carpooling as driver – Carpooling as passenger For carpooling it was assumed that gasoline cost would be simply split between driver and passenger (50% each). Travel distance was considered the same as for the mode car (and consequently the cost for gasoline) while travel time was increased by five minutes to take into account waiting times at the meeting point. Parking for the driver was as for the mode car. It was also considered that a few times per year driver and passenger would miss each other and thus need to reorganize the trip. The ranges of attributes for this experiment are shown in Table 1. Those ranges were chosen with the aim to be large enough in order to induce change in the behavior of respondents but still be realistic. No particular assumptions on future developments of prices or travel times were made.


"The Violence Volcano" is for managers and workers in all types of business and government organizations, including law enforcement and other first-responders. Its purpose is to assist all organizations and their employees in fulfilling their obligations under U.S. Government regulations to reduce the risks of any and all forms of violence that affect workers during the time they are carrying out their duties as employees. "The Violence Volcano" is written at an appropriate level for either self-study, training programs, or classroom settings. It could be used as a supplement in business, educational administration, criminal justice and law enforcement classes, or other academic and trade programs. It uses the volcano metaphor to provide a simple and unique way to help readers under stand and remember how violence builds. It provides a broader approach than other books toward recognizing and dealing with the issue of workplace violence, including both internal and external causes as well as signs of impending acts of violence. It identifies and discusses the nature and complexity of violence in a variety of workplaces. It helps: management compare violence prevention costs with the immediate and direct costs plus the delayed and hidden costs of violent incidents at work; management, employees, and law enforcement personnel recognize environmental and organizational influences on employee behavior; and, management and employees develop an awareness of personal characteristics and work behaviors that build toward violent behavior, so that timely intervention can perhaps eliminate the threat of violence. It assists management in establishing a crisis management team, an organizational crisis plan, a violence intervention plan, and a post-violence trauma plan. It develops a comprehensive definition of workplace violence and examines its rapid growth. It suggests administrative ways of reducing risks, such as establishing anti-violence policies, improving asset security, and providing an adequate support system. It introduces the topics of legal responsibilities and liabilities, and working with law enforcement.


We infer system-scale fluid flow in the Late Jurassic Salt Wash fluvial succession (SW USA) by plotting uranium deposit distribution against sedimentological data, using uranium distribution as a proxy for subsurface fluid flow. More than 90% of uranium deposits in the Salt Wash occur where sandstone forms 40–55% and sand-rich channel-belts form 20–50% of the succession, which coincides with changes in channel-belt connectivity and gross-scale architecture. The paucity of uranium below these cut-off values suggests that fluid flow is related directly to predictable downstream fining and facies variations in distributive fluvial systems. Supplementary material: A summary table of location data, key trends and the amalgamation ratio method is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.2849581.


Shop floor performance has great influence on performance of a manufacturing system. Traditionally, shop floor operational policies concerning maintenance scheduling, quality control and production scheduling have been considered and optimized independently. Anyway, these aspects of operations planning have an interaction effect on each other significantly and hereupon for improving the system performance; they need to be considered commonly. The main objective of this study is to provide a new approach in the quality control process. x control chart has been used in previous models, but in this study to improve the quality and increase the accuracy, cumulative sum control chart which is useful for detecting small changes by considering previous information of process is used and causes 5% improvement in objective function in the case that x control chart was used.


A full-length cDNA of the accessory (beta) subunit of mitochondrial DNA polymerase from Drosophila embryos has been obtained, and its nucleotide sequence was determined. The cDNA clone encodes a polypeptide with a deduced amino acid sequence of 361 residues and a predicted molecular mass of 41 kDa. The gene encoding the beta subunit lies within 4 kilobase pairs of that for the catalytic subunit in the Drosophila genome, on the left arm of chromosome 2. The two genes have similar structural features and share several common DNA sequence elements in their upstream regions, suggesting the possibility of coordinate regulation. A human cDNA homolog of the accessory subunit was identified, and its nucleotide sequence was determined. The human sequence encodes a polypeptide with a predicted molecular mass of 43 kDa that shows a high degree of amino acid sequence similarity to the Drosophila beta subunit. Subunit-specific rabbit antisera, directed against the recombinant catalytic and accessory subunit polypeptides overexpressed and purified from Escherichia coli, recognize specifically and immunoprecipitate the native enzyme from Drosophila embryos. Demonstration of the physical association of the two subunits in the Drosophila enzyme and identification of a human accessory subunit homolog provide evidence for a common heterodimeric structure for animal mitochondrial DNA polymerases.


Real-time particulate matter (PM) size distributions, 4-hour time resolution, PM2.5, carbonaceous materials, and their optical properties were measured during a severe pollution event in Xi'an, China. High PM2.5/PM10 ratios were observed on both pollution (0.83) and non-pollution (0.73) days, emphasizing the abundance of fine particles during sampling days. The particle number (PN) first peaked with a wide size range (30–100 nm) before morning rush hours (approximately 01:00–05:00) on pollution and non-pollution days, demonstrating that PN was governed by the accumulation of freshly emitted diesel particles and characterized by distinct aerosol condensation growth. By contrast, the second peak time and size range differed between pollution and non-pollution days because of different formation mechanisms. The light-absorbing coefficients of both black carbon (BC, babs-880nm, BC) and brown carbon (BrC, babs-370nm, BrC) were high on pollution days and decreased to approximately half of those values on non-pollution days, indicating that the degree of light absorption is reduced by rain. The diurnal variation in babs-880nm, BC pollution peaked with traffic on January 1 and 2. By contrast, it remained in relatively stable and high ranges (120–160 Mm–1) in the second period (January 3–5) without traffic peaks, illustrating that the dominant sources changed even during the same pollution period. High values of both babs-370nm, BrC and babs-880nm, BC coincided in the afternoon and evening due to emissions from primary sources, and abundant aqueous secondary organic carbon, respectively. A highly variable mass absorption coefficient of BrC also indicated the variety of fuel combustion sources of primary BrC in Xi'an.


The drift diffusion model (DDM) provides an excellent account of decisions and response times. It also features the optimal property of tracking the difference in evidence between two options. However, the DDM struggles to account for human confidence reports, because responses are triggered when the difference in evidence reaches a set value, suggesting confidence in all decisions should be equal. Previously considered extensions to the DDM fall short of providing an adequate quantitative account of confidence. Possibly because of this, much confidence research has used non-normative models of the decision mechanism. Motivated by the idea that perceptual decision-making will reflect optimal computation, we consider 9 variants of the DDM. Motivated by the idea that the brain will not duplicate the representation of evidence, in all model variants confidence is read out from the decision mechanism. We compare the models to benchmark results, and make 4 qualitative predictions which we verify in a preregistered study. Modelling confidence on a trial-by-trial basis, we find that a subset of model variants provide an excellent account of the precise quantitative effects observed in confidence data. Specifically, models in which confidence reflects a miscalibrated Bayesian readout perform best. These results support the claim that confidence is based on the decision mechanism, which is itself optimal. Therefore, there is no need to abandon the idea that the implementation of perceptual decision-making will reflect optimal computation.


The authors report the results of a study of no-fault insurance premiums. They conclude that premiums are no higher in fault states than in no-fault states. They suggest that it is not clear whether no-fault is "less costly" as proponents claim, and argue that the abrogation of tort rights should be weighed against any purported cost savings.


This study examined gender differences of various types of leaders in acquiring and exerting power. This paper followed the format, at least tangentially, used by French and Raven (1959), examining the impact of gender differences regarding by referent, expert, reward, coercive, and legitimate power. The research question was, "Do men or women use power more, and how do they acquire it?†Subjects were surveyed using a closed-ended questionnaire. Quantitative, descriptive, and qualitative data were analyzed. The results suggest that women want power more than men do in order to make a positive contribution to the organization. The outcomes also indicate that a high percentage of people have witnessed leaders exerting power use coercion, rewards, special knowledge, and respect to get subordinates to comply with them. This study is consistent with the findings of other researchers that women use transformational leadership as an integrative management approach for their own personal power. It does offer some theoretical and practical inferences.


"We examine access to, use of, and participation in decisions on improved water supply in the Volta basin of Ghana, one of the first countries to introduce a community-based approach to rural water supply on a large scale. While 71 percent of the households interviewed have access to improved water, 43 percent of these continue to use unsafe sources as their main domestic water source. Our results indicate that quality perceptions and opportunity costs play an important role in households' choice of water source. The effect of prices and income levels on this choice differs according to the pricing system used. Given that supply characteristics such as the location and pricing system affect household decisions to use the improved source, households may try to influence these characteristics in their favor during the community decision-making process for the improved source. However, less than 40 percent of the households interviewed participated in decisions on location or technology. We argue that the decision whether to participate depends on three main factors: (i) the household's bargaining power, (ii) the potential benefits from influencing outcomes, and (iii) the cost of participation, (mainly opportunity cost of time). Our results indicate that bargaining power matters In some developing countries the potential exists for agroterrorism to cause widespread disruption through loss of sustenance, income and production. Defense of agriculture may also be problematic because of the lack stability and basic biosecurity infrastructure for the detection and prevention of diseases or invasive species. Currently new methodological approaches for terrorism risk assessments are being actively explored for resource prioritization. One such methodology for risk based allocation of resources is Threat, Vulnerability, and Consequence (TVC) Analysis. A qualitative application of the TVC framework is used to analyze the risk of agroterrorism in developing countries relative to industrialized countries. The analysis suggests that evidence exists to demonstrate general terrorist threats, vulnerability of agriculture and, depending on the country, potentially serious consequences arising from argoterrorism. Where specific threats emerge, action may be needed by the international community to strengthen biosecurity systems in developing countries through: increasing global cooperation, capacity building in monitoring, remediation and risk analysis technologies, and the dissemination of novel technologies for control of pests and diseases." Authors' Abstract


This book contains the complete lyrics to 200 rap songs, with a history and overview of this musical form. Once dismissed as a fashionable music form, rap is a vital force in American culture itself. From music awards to McDonalds adverts, sounds of rap have permeated the media. Controversies caused by groups such as Public Enemy, sometime coarse language and lyrics of the street have caused the public at large to scrutinize popular music in an attempt to control it. The lyrics run from the socially aware to the hedonistic and selfish. While the Beastie Boys sing crudely about sex, durgs, music, and defy anyone to stop them, de la Soul, whose album sold 1.5 million copies, rap against drugs, oppression and for a sense of individuality.


The objective of the peer-reviewed online journal Traversea is to give emerging scholars the opportunity to publish their research in the field of transatlantic history. Transatlantic history is a problem-oriented conceptual approach that allows for the non-Eurocentric and transnational study of the interactions of people, goods, and ideas between any of the four continents surrounding the Atlantic basin between the time of the European "discovery" of the Americas in the 1500s and the present day. Situated primarily in the fields of both social and cultural history, it draws not just on modern social theory but also on discourse analysis and semiotics. Its approaches are transnational and comparative history as well as intercultural transfer. Rejecting the conceptualization of cultural transmission as a one-way imposition, transatlantic scholars examine the reciprocity of cultural exchange. By taking a transnational approach, scholars can look beyond and below the nation state, focusing instead on the qualities of individual communities or individuals rather than framing them as mere extensions of their nation states. Sharing the geographic focus of Atlantic history, transatlantic history seeks to move beyond the limitations established by colonial/imperial and national history. Compared to the more traditional and established Atlantic history, transatlantic history offers scholars a more inclusive approach.


The atmospheric pollution has lead to the research and development of a variety of
sensors using different materials and technologies particularly for low cost and lower
operating temperatures. An n-type semiconducting oxide such as tin oxide (SnO2) is
one of the most important and extensively used materials for the detection of gases.
In this project, the I-V characteristic and thermal diffusivity of pure SnO2 and SnO2-
CuO was studied. The I-V characteristic was measured using two-probe technique
while the thermal diffusivity was measured using a photoflash method. The X-Ray
Diffraction was used for identification of the phase in the sample and Scanning
Electron Microscopy (SEM) was used to provide supportive evidence for the factor
causing the changes of the parameters included. These methods are important to
confirm the existence of SnO2 peaks which is critical to CO2 gas.
It was found that the I-V characteristics of sensor materials remain linear in a
temperature range of 27 0C � 340 0C both in air and CO2 environment. Sensor
sensitivity was found to be dependent on temperature. Pure SnO2 showed maximum sensitivity (~2.5) at operating temperature 300 0C. Operating temperature is defined
as the temperature that gas sensor give a maximum reaction (sensitivity) with tested
gas. With addition of CuO into SnO2, the gas sensing temperature and electrical
conductivity of the sensor was found to decrease. The operating temperature also
rapidly decreased from 300 0C (pure SnO2) to 220 0C (addition of 40 mol% CuO). It
is also observed that the annealing process has lowered the operating temperature of
the sensor from 220 0C (sample as prepared) to 180 0C (samples annealed 600 0C,
700 0C and 800 0C). The effect of gas pressure on operating temperature did not
change with increasing gas pressure but it showed higher sensitivity at higher gas
pressure. The sensor response time was also studied as a function of SnO2
composition and gas pressure. It was found that by increasing the gas pressure, the
sensor response time decreased. The addition of CuO also has lowered the response
time of SnO2 from 10 minutes to 6 minutes. We found that 60 mol% SnO2 - 40
mol% CuO system which annealed at 600 0C, 700 0C and 800 0C has the best sensing
properties and lower operating temperature at 180 0C. In this study, thermal
diffusivity of SnO2 - CuO system and 60 mol% SnO2 - 40 mol% CuO system was in
range of 1.4 to 7.8 x10-2 cm2/s.


The viscoelastic behavior of concrete, nearly completely attributable to changes in properties in the cement paste, is an ongoing area of research with the objective of avoiding unpredictable response and potentially failure of concrete structures. This research explores the elastic and viscoelastic response in cement paste beams using relaxation testing, with and without strain reversals in the load history. It was seen that strain reversal imparts significant changes in mechanical response, retarding load relaxation. Companion beams were tested for chemical composition at varying depths in the beam section and the results were compared to those of control specimens not subject to stress. Results indicate significant variations in composition implying that stress accelerates the hydration process. The reasons behind the acceleration are discussed and incorporated into a preliminary solidification-dissolution model for beam relaxation. The model, though in need of improvement through further research, shows promise in potentially predicting relaxation in cement paste and by extension, in concrete structures.


In this paper we describe a set of visualization techniques that can help the task of operating and managing a network by representing network traffic information in a concise and intuitive manner. We have implemented these visualization techniques in Flamingo, a software tool that can be used to explore Internet traffic flow data. Flamingo is able to process live Netflow data in real-time and present a set of interactive visualizations and associated manipulation tools that can help users in network data analysis. Flamingo is comprised of a server and a client component. The Flamingo server is responsible for receiving raw Netflow feeds from devices in the network that can sample traffic, and then sending processed information to the client for display. The Flamingo client receives data from the server and provides concise intuitive data visualizations, 3D space navigation, as well as filtering capabilities that can help the operator to extract or monitor specific information of interest. Flamingo also supports a playback mode which allows users to select specific historical Netflow data for visualization. We illustrate with the help of simple examples, based on traffic data from a busy Internet backbone router, how Flamingo can be used to perform network monitoring tasks as well as network security related data forensics


We expose analogies between turbulence in a fluid heated from below (Rayleigh-Bénard (RB) flow) and shear flows: The unifying theory for RB flow (see Grossmann S. and Lohse D., J. Fluid Mech., 407 (2000) 27 and subsequent refinements) can be extended to the flow between rotating cylinders (Taylor-Couette flow) and pipe (Poiseuille) flow. We identify "wind" dissipation rates and momentum fluxes that are analogous to the dissipation rate and heat flux in RB flow. The proposed unifying description for the three cases is consistent with the experimental data.


Copper(II) hydroxide (as the rarely occurring mineral spertiniite) is formed under alkaline, oxidising conditions. It has been observed as a naturally occurring corrosion product of brass in sea water. But most occurrences on copper alloys are due to conservation treatments using basic solutions (sodium hydroxide or ammonia) or to intentional patination. Classical brass centrepieces (c. 1800), 'cleaned' with ammonia solution, developed a blue spertiniite patina in gaps, where evaporation was hindered. Additional to the danger of stress corrosion cracking this is another reason now outlawing this treatment. Copper pigment layers will transform to copper hydroxide when exposed to bases. The treatment of basic copper salts with bases has been used intentionally in the production of Bremen blue and similar pigments which can be composed of copper hydroxide as well.


We present two experiments on the automated detection of racist discourse in Dutch social media. In both experiments, multiple classifiers are trained on the same training set. This training set consists of Dutch posts retrieved from two public Belgian social media pages which are likely to attract racist reactions. The posts were labeled as racist or non-racist by multiple annotators, who reached an acceptable agreement score. The different classification models all use the Support Vector Machine algorithm, but use different (sets of) linguistic features, which can be lexical, stylistic or dictionary-based. In the first experiment, the models are evaluated on a test set containing unseen comments retrieved from the same pages as the training set (and thus also skewed towards racism). In the second experiment, the same models from Experiment 1 are tested on an alternative test set, containing more neutral comments, retrieved from the social media page of a Belgian newspaper. In both experiments, the best performing model relies on a dictionary containing different word categories specifically related to racist discourse. It reaches an F-score of 0.47 (exp. 1) and 0.40 (exp. 2) for the racist class and ROC Area Under Curve scores of 0.64 (exp. 1) and 0.73 (exp. 2). The dictionaries, code, and the procedure for requesting the corpus are available at: https://github.com/clips/hades


This study draws lessons for the debate about the proposed partial privatization of Social Security in the United States based on evidence from the United Kingdom. The British case suggests that privatization may lead to a reduction in the pension burden on the national budget if combined with substantial cuts in benefits. Such reforms may have positive effects on the economy, but any such benefits would come at the cost of increased inequality and lower pension benefits for many low-wage workers, particularly women. Because Social Security is a path dependent process, policy history differences make it less likely that Americans will easily accept the level of privatization found in Britain.


Summit troughs wider than 500 m and 30-110 m deep are present along 15-20% of the fast spreading East Pacific Rise (EPR). They occur only along ridge segments with large cross-sectional areas, indicative of a time-averaged robust magma supply. Where available, seismic data confirm that these troughs are underlain by an axial magma chamber (AMC) 1.2-1.6 km below the seafloor. Furthermore, detailed investigation of the large summit troughs which notch the EPR between 17°56' and 18°35'S indicates that the vertical relief of the troughs tends to be maximum where the AMC is shallowest. Both of these observations are inconsistent with the predictions from a model in which large summit troughs form by rifting of the brittle upper crust during phases of amagmatic extension. Rather, we propose that they represent elongated collapsed calderas that form when the melt supply to formerly inflated AMCs wanes or nearly ceases. Because seismic studies constrain the melt lens along the EPR to be only 30-80 m thick, the proposed existence of collapsed calderas 40-110 m deep implies that the entire magma reservoir comprising the melt lens and the underlying crystal mush zone deforms and compacts during periods of waning magma supply. In particular, we suggest that a voluminous crystal mush zone will stretch in response to steady state seafloor spreading when the magma supply temporarily decreases. The resulting caldera will further widen with each subsequent dike intrusion. When an abundant melt supply finally resumes, the associated tumescence of the neovolcanic zone and profuse lava flows will combine to smooth out the caldera.


Mapping application of a  vulnerable  area of nutrition and Nutritional Status of Infants and Balita in Semarang using Geographic Information System Background Geographic Information System (GIS) is a potential as information systems more effective in the management of health programs because GIS has the ability to process database and display both spatial information (image maps) and non-spatial information in the forms of writing or numbers. Given the magnitude of nutrition problems in the community needed a system for recording and reporting reliable. The system will help of health workers to analyze data on the situation place/area and specific time so that decision-making will be more rapid, precise and accurate. Objective to design and create mapping application of a vulnerable  area  of nutrition and nutritional status ofiInfants and balita in Semarang by using GIS Methode types of this research is descriptive qualitative research with waterfall approach (system engineering, analysis, design, programming and testing) for its design. Object under study is a process  the information on seksi gizi Subdin Kesehatan Keluarga. Research subject are seksi gizi Subdin Kesehatan keluarga staffs. The collection of data through observation, interview and literature study and analyzed the data descriptively. Result The research is the system specification to be developed, which is modeled in the context diagram and data flow diagram to obtain the data base, design inputs, outputs and interfaces. The design was changed to a program using the programming language  and performed manual is digitation digital maps and tested the resulting application use . Conclusion 1). Getting a database consisting of  files balita, district and village 2) Getting a draft mapping of vulnerable areas of nutrition and nutritional status of infants and balita based on the  Semarang city.3  mapping application getting a vulnerable area of nutrition and nutritional status of infants and balita based GIS in the Semarang City. Keyword Nutrition Status, vulnerable area of nutrition, Geographic Information System


The exploration and evaluation of design parameters is introduced for applications of compact spherical loudspeaker arrays in the context of human-interactive systems. Applications include: electro-acoustic music–live and reproduced, multi-observer interactive auditory displays, communications, and acoustical engineering tasks. We describe the basic situational operation of an array of this type: its perceptual effects and their magnitude, and how to control the system in the context of spatial auditory display design. Several interactive paradigms are explored including: 3D pointing and selection, person-tracking, 3D haptic controls, and live audio.


Sixtytwo lichen species containing cyanobacteria in thallus or cephalodia are reported from East Africa. Fuscopannaria leucosticta and Leptogium rivulare are new to Africa. Collema subnigrescens, Parmeliella triptophylla and Polychidium dendriscum are new to East Africa and further ten species are new to Tanzania. Notes on ecology and occurrence in Africa are given.


Krienitz L., Bock C., Kotut K. And Luo W. 2012. Picocystis salinarum (Chlorophyta) in saline lakes and hot springs of East Africa. Phycologia 51: 22–32. DOI: 10.2216/11-28.1 The occurrence of Picocystis salinarum in saline inland waters of East Africa was investigated using a polyphasic approach of small-subunit (SSU) rDNA phylogeny and light microscope observations. Recent studies have found that Picocystis occasionally replaces the dominant cyanobacterium (Arthrospira fusiformis), which is the main food resource of Lesser Flamingos, in soda lakes of Bogoria and Nakuru. This article discusses the consequences of a high abundance (maximum cell numbers of > 3 billion cells l−1) of Picocystis on food chains of African saline waters. During the study, we found a new morphotype of Picocystis characterized by larger cell sizes and absence of lobes in hot springs near Lake Magadi. SSU rRNA genes of Picocystis strains and uncultured field clones collected from Lake Nakuru were subjected to phylogenetic analyses together with other picoplankton from field and culture samples from saline, marine or freshwater. Picocystis salinarum from saline inland waters represents a link between marine and freshwater habitats from both an ecological and a phylogenetic point of view and is therefore of great interest.


Written by noted quantum computing theorist Scott Aaronson, this book takes readers on a tour through some of the deepest ideas of maths, computer science and physics. Full of insights, arguments and philosophical perspectives, the book covers an amazing array of topics. Beginning in antiquity with Democritus, it progresses through logic and set theory, computability and complexity theory, quantum computing, cryptography, the information content of quantum states and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. There are also extended discussions about time travel, Newcomb's Paradox, the anthropic principle and the views of Roger Penrose. Aaronson's informal style makes this fascinating book accessible to readers with scientific backgrounds, as well as students and researchers working in physics, computer science, mathematics and philosophy.


Estimation of mixed revealed-preference (RP) and stated-preference (SP) data has become almost common practice. However, most attention has gone to estimation, with the correct use of these much-improved models in forecasting left in need of better understanding. In particular, their potentiality in accounting for nonlinear effect has not been fully explored, either in estimation or in prediction. The problem of using an RP-SP mixed model for accounting for nonlinear effects in the attributes in forecasting, especially when the nonlinearities have been specifically estimated only for the SP data, is addressed. By using a mixed RP-SP data set gathered especially for a modal choice context in Cagliari, Italy, several nested logit models with nonlinear systematic utility functions were estimated and used to provide empirical evidence on the effect of incorrect use of RP-SP specifications in forecasting under different policies. It was concluded that the partial data enrichment approach is well suited to treat nonlinearities and allows for consistent improvements in model estimation results. More important, nonlinearities might impose severe limitations in the applicability of these models in forecasting because of more restrictive microeconomic conditions. Failure to treat these problems correctly can lead to serious forecasting errors, even in the case of relatively mild policies.


Reputation is a well established means to determine trustworthiness in online systems in various contexts, e.g. online transactions, product recommendation, e-mail spam fighting, etc. However, typically these reputation systems are ``closed'' outside of the community: the set of participants, their possible actions, their evaluation and the mechanism to derive trust evaluations are predetermined in the system design. Therefore, existing information is hardly reused and emerging online communities have a "cold" start regarding trustworthiness. In this paper, we discuss the various opportunities that arise by combining reputation information from different communities and provide a detail discussion on related challenges, namely identification, mapping of reputation semantics, contextual distance, reputation disclosure (dis) incentives and privacy. For example, the critical issue of identification can more effectively be dealt with based on entity-matching and the social structure of different systems. Furthermore, we argue and theoretically prove that even na\"{i}ve combinations of reputation values from different communities can result in a system capable of detecting misbehavior more effectively than the individual reputation mechanisms themselves under certain conditions on reputation semantics.


Introduction: The umbilical scar is due to the fall of the umbilical stump that occurs a few days after birth. Its presence, shape, and location on the abdominal wall provide the individual with an aesthetic and sensual connotation. Methods: A primary prospective interventional study. The sample was of convenience, from February 2006 to June 2016, and included patients of both sexes attending the outpatient clinic of the Hospital das Clínicas of the Federal University of Pernambuco (HC-UFPE), a private clinic . The inclusion criteria were patients with abdominoplasty indications presenting with compromised circulation to the skin of the umbilical and periumbilical region caused by hernia defects in this area. The study followed the criteria of Helsinki and the patients signed an Informed Consent Form. Results: Twenty-eight patients underwent surgery and good integration of the grafted skin was observed. This resulted in an umbilical scar with a natural appearance and without complications. Conclusions: Neoomphaloplasty with a cutaneous graft is easy to perform and, in the long term, has shown to provide good aesthetic results, especially in thick abdominal flaps, thus proving to be an additional technical option for neoomphaloplasty procedures. ■ ABSTRACT


Police in developing or post-conflict countries are often inadequately trained in criminal investigation methods and processes. It can be a challenge for police in these countries to investigate even a simple case of robbery, let alone murders or complex cases like trafficking in persons. In many such countries, confession-based evidence continues to be relied on, almost exclusively, to secure a conviction. In many instances, confessions are extracted through torture, duress or mistreatment, which raises a whole slew of related human rights issues.Assistance to nascent police forces in increasing their criminal investigation capacity has been a big part of international assistance to developing and post-conflict countries. While there have been successes, there have also been some severe critiques of assistance programs for their failure to deliver evidence-based success stories, tangible outcomes and improvements in police practices. Commentators have also criticized the standard approach to building police investigative capacity, which has been to focus on 'train and equip' projects, without assessing their efficacy, addressing true needs, or providing culturally-relevant instruction or equipment. Moreover, international assistance providers have shied away from documenting failures through comprehensive and honest monitoring and evaluation, which has inhibited the international community's ability to learn from and improve its assistance.This research memo gathers the field experience of INPROL's Police Council of Experts, generous contributions from work of INPROL members, and lessons from limited available literature, with the aim of distilling potential good practices and discussing prospective pitfalls in seeking to improve investigative capacity in developing countries.


Organisational dependence upon IT continues to grow yet experiences of satisfaction vary widely. Problematic, aged IT is often cited as being a fundamental problem in this respect and this is commonly termed legacy information systems. However, in this paper the author offers an alternative, and arguably more comprehensive, theory of legacy information systems that accommodates multiple viewpoints and recognises its inherent dynamism. The paper suggests a theory of legacy information systems that comprises of the concepts of temporal effects, interpretations and characteristics. It is argued that legacy information systems are constructed of many 'legacies' that are handed down continuously, forming an amorphous set of sociotechnical interdependencies and relationships.


Background and Purpose: The display resolution of the Apple iPad? is 1024 × 768 pixels, which is greater than that
required for generating the typical CT or MRI images. The purpose of this study
is to determine if specific CT and MR sequences can be interpreted accurately
on mobile device/PACS software platforms when compared to a traditional
stationary high resolution monitor/PACS radiological workstation. If so, this
allows radiologists to provide comparable interpretation as if they were onsite
at an imaging center or hospital. Materials
and Methods: This study is an investigator initiated, single site,
retrospective, nonrandomized, IRB approved study. Five radiologists were included
in this study. Each independently interpreted specific CT and MR sequences on
traditional high-resolution LCD monitors via eFilm? software as well as an
iPad? mobile device using Osirix? software program. Repeat interpretations were
performed, with 4 weeks minimum interval between interpretations of each
patient. This investigation included: 50 patients with CTA perfusion imaging,
50 patients with MRI of the brain, and 50 patients with MRI of the spine, which
were image study orders generated through emergency room requests.
Subsequently, interpretive results of each radiologist for each patient were
statistically compared to evaluate for intra-observer and inter-observer
reliability. Results: The parameters set within the CTA perfusion brain studies
demonstrated excellent intra-observer variability. All of the parameters within
the MRI brain studies demonstrated excellent intra-observer variability with a
Cohen's kappa value > 0.75. The Cohen's kappa values for the board certified
neuroradiologist demonstrated excellent variability for all parameters; the
resident radiologists had good variability, with a majority of kappa values
near 0.75. Conclusions: The data and statistical analysis demonstrated that portable mobile
devices such as the Apple iPad? can display adequate resolution of CT and MRI
sequences to accurately diagnose acute central nervous system injuries and
other non-acute pathology.


The subject of the present licentiate thesis is density functional theorybased electronic structure calculations of organic thermoelectric materials and novel organic molecules. We used the Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics method in order to investigate the electronic structure of "green energy" and "greenchemistry" compounds.First, we have investigated the electronic structure of the poly(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and its derivatives - the best studied and successfully implemented by industry organic thermoelectric material. Its transparency, low toxicity and high stability in the oxidized state are combined withan ability to produce electrical current when applying a temperature gradient. This makes PEDOT a perfect "organic metal" and a first candidate for organic thermoelectrogenerators - devices that can produce "green energy" from a temperature difference. The average structures found in these quantum dynamical simulations agree well with earlier static electronic structure studies. The energy gap of two, four and six unit oligomers of PEDOT was calculated and was found to lie in the range of previous theoretical studies. We have also calculatedthe point-charge distributions along the polymer backbone in order to investigate the polaron formed by doping agents of PEDOT. Our analysis allowed us to predict possible localization of the charge in the center of the polymer chain. However, further calculations of the twelve unit PEDOT and its selenium and tellurium derivatives will provide more information. First-principles calculations for the tellurium derivative of PEDOT are here presented for the first time.The second part of our investigation concerns theoretical calculations of novel piperidine-containing acetylene glycols. These molecules were newly synthesized by our experimental collaborators and are expected to provideplant growth stimulation properties, the same as its diacetylene analogs. We performed quantum mechanical calculations of four compounds, presented ananalysis of the highest occupied and lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals and collected detailed information on point-charges for further parametrization of novel molecules for future computational studies. According to these results, the low production yield found in the experiments cannot be attributed to chemical instability in these novel compounds.


With the advances and evolution of semantic Web services, service providers need to be more competitive, efficient, flexible, and integrated in the service network at different scenarios, including static and dynamic deployments and interactions. Recently, OWLS and QoS-aware services have been distinguished due to their significance and their impact on decentralised network. JXTA and BPEL allow peers to cooperate and automate business processes and reengineer their structure, so as to rationally select and make use of all resource in decentralised environment; in addition, they increase efficiency and reduce costs. We incorporated several typical constraints to testify the possibility of the application of QoS-aware services in a P2P network, and enhanced the performance of the relevant prototype.


When thrust into an unfamiliar environment and charged with solving a series of tasks, an effective agent should (1) leverage prior knowledge to solve its current task while (2) efficiently exploring to gather knowledge for use in future tasks, and then (3) plan using that knowledge when faced with new tasks in that same environment. We introduce two domains for conducting research on this challenge, and find that state-of-the-art deep reinforcement learning (RL) agents fail to plan in novel environments. We develop a recursive implicit planning module that operates over episodic memories, and show that the resulting deep-RL agent is able to explore and plan in novel environments, outperforming the nearest baseline by factors of 2-3 across the two domains. We find evidence that our module (1) learned to execute a sensible information-propagating algorithm and (2) generalizes to situations beyond its training experience.


"Scott Schnoll has the amazing ability to present deeply technical information in an easy-to-understand, light-hearted way. This book is a must-read for anyone who is implementing Exchange 2003."-Paul Bowden, lead program manager, Exchange Server Development, Microsoft Corporation"Scott Schnoll's clear, concise writing style and diverse knowledge makes his Exchange 2003 book readable and valuable to anyone deploying, inheriting, or considering Exchange Server 2003. An excellent, thorough, all-purpose Exchange 2003 book."-William Lefkovics, senior messaging and systems analyst,eEye Digital Security"This is one Exchange Server book that you'll actually enjoy reading from cover to cover. You won't want to put it down . . . I didn't! It's easy to read, yet it contains all of the essential information that you need to know."Christopher Meirick, co-blogger, MS Exchange Blog: http://www.msexchange.co.uk"Scott Schnoll's knowledge of Exchange is second to none, and he has the ability to take very technical topics and explain them in a manner that is easy to digest. This book should be in every Exchange administrator's toolkit."Mark Fugatt, MCT,Exchange MVP"I really enjoyed reading this book. I found it to be extremely informative, especially in covering the new features of Exchange 2003. I have no doubts in recommending this book to those who are serious about Exchange 2003."-Neil Hobson, Exchange MVP, lead messaging consultant,Silversands"Scott has written the essential administrative guide for Exchange 2003 deployment. Not only covering the 'how-to,' but also truly exploring the 'what-if' scenarios as well."-Kevin T. Price, deputy chief technical officer, CMS Information Services, Inc."An essential technical reference containing the critical information necessary for successful administration and deployment of Exchange Server 2003. New features, removed features-this book covers it all."-James V. Walker, consultant"Scott Schnoll's clear, concise writing style and diverse knowledge make his Exchange 2003 book readable and valuable to anyone deploying, inheriting, or considering Exchange Server 2003. An excellent, thorough, all-purpose Exchange book."-William Lefkovics, Senior Messaging and Systems Analyst, eEye Digital SecurityNearly three years in the making, Exchange Server 2003 is the most reliable and secure messaging solution that Microsoft has ever produced. Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Distilled is a practical, hands-on guide designed to bring readers quickly up to speed on the latest changes and enhancements to the leading e-mail server.Drawing on his involvement in Microsoft's Exchange Server 2003 Joint Development Program, author Scott Schnoll offers the detailed technical information that Exchange administrators need to know. He has a clear and concise style, and focuses on what's new, what's improved, and what's been removed from Exchange Server 2003. Throughout the book Scott illustrates key points with real-world scenarios, and provides best practices drawn from his years of experience working with Exchange.You will find answers to a variety of important questions, such as: What features have been included in Exchange Server 2003 to replace Exchange Server 2000 and 5.5 features? Chapter 3 How do you use Internet Mail Wizard to configure Exchange for Internet messaging? Chapter 4 What does Exchange Server 2003 offer for remote security, and how can you now better block unwanted e-mail? Chapter 6 How do you back up, restore, and recover data using Recovery Storage Groups, Windows Volume Shadow Service, and other features? Chapter 8 How do you use the new Outlook Mobile Access and Exchange ActiveSync features? Chapter 9 What tuning and configuration patterns will work best for your organization? Chapter 10032124592XB04022004


This article addresses the Trump administration's consistent misinterpretation and misapplication of legal precedent to support unnecessary religious exemptions that exceed Constitutional mandates and impair the rights of third parties to access federal services and programs. Proponents of this routinized repeal of civil rights protection argue that the Trump administration is merely restoring the correc balance of religious liberties in the federal government. However, the regulations and policies included in this campaign unconstitutionally broaden the already robust religious protections provided by statutes and court decisions and have the effect of dismantling the civil rights infrastructure of the past 50 years.

Despite the absence of clear guidance from the Court, the Trump administration has consistently pointed to Trinity Lutheran Inc., v. Comer and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., as mandates to protect and enable religious-based discrimination by federal grantees and contractors delivering federal services. In doing so, the administration has dismissed the consensus of legal scholars and commentators regarding the limitations of these opinions. This article concludes that, given the faulty legal support of these cases, all regulations implemented under them are legally specious and should be vacated by courts when challenged. The federal register is no place for "alternative facts."


The retirement decisions of individuals are strongly influenced by spousal retirement, financial incentives and institutional constraints such as access to early retirement benefits. In the European Union (EU), farm retirement is encouraged by early retirement provisions for farmers. As exit from farming determines the characteristics of structural change in agriculture, it is important to find out how spousal retirement and economic incentives affect the timing and type of retirement decisions among elderly farmers. This paper analyses the timing of early retirement decisions of farming couples using duration analysis and different exit channels. The empirical analysis is based on Finnish farm-level panel data for the period 1993-1998. The results suggest that an expected pension particularly advances farm transfers. Farming couples are found to co-ordinate their early retirement decisions. However, farmers are not found to co-ordinate their early retirement according to spousal retirement under other pension schemes.


Abstract Governmental water quality agencies are faced with identifying water quality goals to protect aquatic biota, applying the best available science in development of water quality standards and associated management principles, implementing water quality laws so that there is consistency with goals, developing guidance documents for applying science to law, monitoring, and enforcement. Deviations in this path from goals to standards to enforcement, however, are common across countries as well as among States within the United States and can result in failure to protect the aquatic biota. The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the key US law for water quality protection. Its goal is to 'restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters' and to fully protect the most sensitive beneficial uses. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Gold Book guidance for development of protective water temperature standards, dating from 1973, still recommends the use of MWAT (Maximum Weekly Average Temperature) as an index for assigning protective chronic temperature standards to coldwater fisheries. MWAT, applied according to EPA guidance, is typically used in conjunction with an acute upper limit. Unfortunately, MWAT is a criterion that is not protective, as can be shown by reference to several case studies on salmonids. Use of MWAT at a basin scale can result in considerable reduction in available salmonid rearing area and can, in many cases, be little better than recommending the upper incipient lethal temperature as a standard. Although MWAT is not used by many US States in standards, it is problematic in that it is cited as the official EPA model for a protective standard. The conceptual use of MWAT highlights some critical problems in application of the Clean Water Act and its associated federal regulations for protection of coldwater fishes, such as the concepts of full protection, protection of the most sensitive species, restoration of water quality, and support of species' viability at a basin scale. Full implementation of the CWA in support of salmonids' thermal requirements has been patchy, with some States taking criteria development, monitoring, listing, and TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) development seriously and others virtually ignoring the problem. In addition, Section 316 of the CWA conflicts with the basic goals of the CWA by giving deference to the thermoelectric power industry to discharge heated effluent under a process where variances granted supersede water quality-based limits. This is exacerbated by EPA 316 guidance permitting evaluation of biological trends amidst shifting or uncertain baselines in a limited set of RIS (Representative Important Species), rather than application of best available science to protect both the most sensitive species and the entire aquatic community that is reflective of high quality habitat conditions. Designing water temperature standards to be fully protective and supportive of species viability (abundance, productivity, spatial structure, and diversity) benefits from application of concepts of optimum growth and survival temperatures distributed at a basin scale with reference to the natural thermal potential along a river continuum. Some notable successes in standards development found in the US Pacific Northwest are offered as future national models.


This thesis begins by questioning the applicability of Western concepts and measures of workplace bullying to the Far East culture. Facing such an issue, the thesis aims to address the role of culture on workplace bullying by examining the emic and etic dimensions and developing an indigenous bullying scale. By emic was meant culturally specific dimension while by etic was meant culturally neutral dimension. Three studies were conducted which illustrated the emic and etic dimensions of workplace bullying. The first study was based on a questionnaire survey with 50 Korean and 43 UK employees and showed the extent of cultural differences in the employees' concepts of and attitudes towards workplace bullying. Based upon these results, the qualitative part of the second study developed an indigenous bullying questionnaire (KBAQ: Korean Bullying Acts Questionnaire) through a repertory grid with 42 Korean participants. Then, the quantitative part of the study tested employees' agreement of the KBAQ items being examples of bullying using a questionnaire survey with 76 Korean and 75 UK participants. Finally, the third study conducted a questionnaire survey utilising KBAQ and NAQ-R (Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised). 193 Korean and 167 UK employees participated. The study highlighted cultural differences in the descriptive aspects of workplace bullying such as the prevalence rate, bully/perpetrator status, health outputs (e.g., job satisfaction and work-related burnout) and predictors (e.g., leadership style, role conflict, and interpersonal conflict). The results also evidenced the validity and reliability of KBAQ and revealed that KBAQ had a greater applicability for Korean employees and NAQ-R for UK employees. The consistent findings of cultural differences suggest the need for an indigenous approach in examining workplace bullying. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the literature on workplace bullying in the Far East and provides the ground for the advancement of the indigenous approach to workplace bullying research.


Abstract— Computing a curve to approximate data points is a problem encountered frequently in many applications in computer graphics, computer vision, CAD/CAM, and image processing. In this paper the concept of interval B-spline curve fitting is introduced. The four fixed Kharitonov's polynomials (four fixed B-spline curves) associated with the set of given interval data points and the interval B-spline curve are obtained. Then the problem is converted into determining a set of fixed control points that generates a B-spline curve for a set of given four fixed Kharitonov's polynomials (four fixed B-spline curves) associated with the interval data points. The problem of choosing the parameter value and the knot vector is also discussed, and how their choice affects the shape and parameterization of the curve. Where an improper data parameterization may considerably compromise the quality and efficiency of approximation. Finally the interval control polygon is obtained from the calculated fixed control polygons. A numerical example is included in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


We present B , V and I CCD stellar photometry for a sample of 20 field irregular dwarf galaxies. Their corrected radial velocity is 500 km s-1 . Most of them have been resolved into stars for the first time. Based on photometry of their brightest blue stars we have derived the following distances: 5.9 Mpc (UGC 685), 5.4 Mpc (UGC 1281), 7.2 Mpc (UGC 3303), 7.0 Mpc (UGC 3476), 7.3: Mpc (UGC 3600), 7.2: Mpc (UGC 3698), 7.9 Mpc (NGC 2337), 8.6 Mpc (UGC 3817), 5.7 Mpc (UGC 3860), 5.6 Mpc (UGC 4426), ≥ 7.9 Mpc , 7.4: Mpc (UGC 5086), 7.1 Mpc (UGC 5272), 5.9 Mpc (UGC 5340), 7.1 Mpc (UGC 5427), 2.7: Mpc (UGC 5456), 6.6 Mpc (NGC 3274), 9.3 Mpc (UGC 5889), 5.2 Mpc (NGC 5238), and 8.0 Mpc (UGC 9405). Our sample exhibits diverse morphological properties evidently caused by their different starburst activity. The galaxy sample has a median integral absolute magnitude MB = -14.6 and a median integral colour . One dwarf, UGC 5340, stands out by its very blue colour, , and by its high M (HI)/L ratio, as expected for young galaxies. Four objects of the sample are IRAS sources. Being well isolated systems, the considered galaxies may be used to estimate a local value of the Hubble parameter, . For half of the sample galaxies their individual H- values are concentrated within [ 58-68] km s-1 /Mpc with a median of 65 km s-1 /Mpc.


ABSTRACT Recently, there has been an intense debate around the concept of mobility justice, which has been developed from approaches in political theory in articulation with social struggles. In this paper, I argue that a political–economic foundation of the concept is helpful to determine the constitutive meaning of inequality within the framework of capitalist societies and, based on this, to elicit the possibilities and limits of implementing the concept in practice. The analysis focuses on the debate concerning the ongoing sustainable transformation of transportation and mobility (the Verkehrswende) in Germany. I contend that issues of justice are fundamental to such a transition and, in practice, are implicitly negotiated; nevertheless, at present, narrow interpretations of the Verkehrswende (as shaped and constrained by dominant political and economic actors) effectively marginalise considerations of mobility justice. Aspects of justice (climate justice, just transition) that are compatible with straightforward automotive electrification are taken up, whereas aspects that go beyond this, such as resource justice or questions of access to mobility, remain marginalised.


In this paper we investigate lossy channel games under incomplete information, where two players operate on a finite set of unbounded FIFO channels and one player, representing a system component under consideration operates under incomplete information, while the other player, representing the component's environment is allowed to lose messages from the channels. We argue that these games are a suitable model for synthesis of communication protocols where processes communicate over unreliable channels. We show that in the case of finite message alphabets, games with safety and reachability winning conditions are decidable and finite-state observation-based strategies for the component can be effectively computed. Undecidability for (weak) parity objectives follows from the undecidability of (weak) parity perfect information games where only one player can lose messages.


The reactivity and stability of the edge faces of swelling clay minerals can be altered by layer charge and the stacking structure; however, these effects are poorly understood due to experimental limitations. The structure and stability of the montmorillonite {110}, {010}, {100}, and {130} edge faces with a layer charge of either y = 0.50 or y = 0.33 (e−/Si4O10) were investigated using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory. Stacked- and single-layer models were tested and compared to understand the effect of stacking on the stability of montmorillonite edge faces. Most stacked layers stabilize the edge faces by creating hydrogen bonds between the layers; therefore, the surface energy of the layers in the stacked-layer model is lower than in the single-layer model. This indicates that the estimates of edge face surface energy should consider the swelling conditions. Negative surface energies were calculated for these edge faces in the presence of chemisorbed water molecules. A high layer charge of 0.50 reduced the surface energy relative to that of the low layer charge of 0.33. The isomorphic substitution of Mg for Al increased the stability of interlayer Na ion positions, which were stable in the trigonal ring next to the Mg ions. The lowest surface energies of the {010} and {130} edge faces were characterized by the presence of Mg ions on edge faces, which had a strong cation adsorption site due to the local negative charge of the edges. The coordination numbers of O atoms around cations adsorbed to these edge faces were small in comparison to interlayers without water.


Coal and coal seam gas (CSG) development can potentially affect water-dependent assets (either negatively or positively) through direct impacts on surface water hydrology. This product presents the modelling of surface water hydrology within the Clarence-Moreton bioregion. First, the methods are summarised and existing models are reviewed, followed by details regarding the development of the model. The product concludes with predictions of the hydrological characteristics of the system that may change due to coal resource development (referred to as hydrological response variables) also taking into account uncertainty. Results are reported for two potential futures considered in the Clarence-Moreton Bioregional Assessment (BA): baseline coal resource development (baseline): a future that includes all coal mines and CSG fields that are commercially producing as of December 2012. coal resource development pathway (CRDP): a future that includes all coal mines and CSG fields that are in the baseline as well as those that are expected to begin commercial production after December 2012. The difference in results between CRDP and baseline is the change that is primarily reported in a BA. This change is due to the additional coal resource development – all coal mines and CSG fields, including expansions of baseline operations, that are expected to begin commercial production after December 2012. The Clarence-Moreton bioregion baseline includes one existing coal mine, the Jeebropilly Coal Mine in the Bremer river basin. An additional coal resource development is the Metgasco West Casino CSG project near Casino, NSW, in the Richmond river basin. As the baseline coal mine is far from the additional coal resource development, and there is no hydraulic connectivity between the Richmond and Bremer river basins, the conceptual hydrogeological model focuses on the geological, hydrogeological and hydrological characteristics of the Richmond river basin. A recent decision by Metgasco (16 December 2015) to sell back their petroleum exploration licences (PELs) to the NSW Government, as well as withdraw their petroleum production license application (PPLA), effectively means that future development of any CSG resources in the Clarence-Moreton bioregion is highly uncertain. However, as per companion submethodology M04 for developing a CRDP, once the CRDP is determined, it is not changed for BA purposes, even in cases such as this where Metgasco have discontinued their operations in the Clarence-Moreton bioregion. Surface water modelling in the Clarence-Moreton bioregion follows the approach outlined in companion submethodology M06 for surface water modelling. No river modelling has been carried out because the effects of regulation are small. There is an existing river system model of the Richmond River that uses Department of Primary Industries' (DPI Water's) Integrated Quantity and Quality Model (IQQM). Alternatively, the integrated modelling environment software known as Source IMS could be used to develop a Richmond River model. Neither IQQM nor Source IMS will be used in BAs. The Richmond river basin has low levels of stream regulation, so the routing parameters in IQQM are not needed for impact predictions. Instead, predicted streamflow is obtained by accumulating output from the Australian Water Resources Assessment landscape model (AWRA-L). AWRA-L has an accessible code, is relatively easy to set up and calibrate, and there is ready access to local expertise. AWRA-L performed well at estimating streamflow in the Richmond river basin and surrounding area. The conceptual model for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion in product 2.3 (Conceptual modelling for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion) indicates, based on current information, no new coal mines are expected in the foreseeable future and CSG development is restricted to the Richmond river basin of north-eastern NSW. The surface water modelling domain comprises parts of the Richmond river basin and includes 16 model nodes, which are located where daily streamflow predictions are reported as output. The model simulation period is from 2013 to 2102. Seasonal climate scaling factors are used that result in a reduction in mean annual precipitation of 1.8% per degree of global warming for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion. The AWRA-L model was regionally calibrated at nine unregulated streamflow gauging stations using two calibration schemes: one biased towards high streamflow and another towards low streamflow. Two parameter sets obtained from the two model calibrations were used as starting points to generate 10,000 parameter sets that can be used for the uncertainty analysis. It is noted that when the regional model is calibrated against observations from the nine streamflow gauging stations it does not generate a uniform model performance. While in general, model calibration results performed well across both the high- and low-streamflow calibrations, they both perform poorly in some areas. Quantitative and qualitative uncertainty analyses were undertaken for surface water modelling in the Clarence-Moreton bioregion to provide a systematic overview of the model assumptions, their justifications and the effect on predictions. In the uncertainty analysis the optimised parameters are used to inform the prior parameter distributions. The quantitative uncertainty analysis highlights the importance of constraining parameters with observations of the same type as the prediction, and it is clear that the hydrological response variables are sensitive to different parameters. For the high-flow metrics, the most important parameters are those controlling the quick-flow and interflow components of the hydrograph. The low-flow hydrological response variables are most responsive to the variable that controls the slow-flow component of the simulated hydrograph. The qualitative uncertainty analysis provides a summary of the major assumptions and model choices underpinning the Richmond river basin surface water model. The change in surface water hydrology predicted due to the additional coal resource development in absolute terms is predicted to have a median decrease of less than 0.01 GL/day, which corresponds to a change of about 0.01%. These changes are several orders of magnitude smaller than the observed mean streamflow. Their effect on mean and high-flow hydrological response variables will therefore be minimal. Even the effect on low-flow hydrological response variables will be very small, especially in the perennial streams. In addition to this, such low changes in flow are extremely hard to observe as the largest uncertainties in the rating curves used to transfer measured stage heights to flows are associated with low-flow measurements. The modelled impacts indicate that the number of zero-flow days (ZFD) across the region will not increase, with the exception of two nodes (CLM_007 and CLM_006). CLM_006 is at the downstream end of Shannon Brook where the median change in the number of ZFD is 3 days. The 95th percentile of change in zero-flow days is 120 days. As noted earlier, small changes in simulated flow can result in large changes in the number of zero-flow days, as zero-flow days are defined as days with streamflow less than 0.01 ML/day. The modelling of measurement of such low flows are problematic and uncertainty in these predicted impacts is high. Accurately measuring and simulating low-flow conditions is very challenging and requires further efforts. The surface water numerical modelling described in this product provides input into product 2.6.2 (groundwater numerical modelling) for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion. The impact and risk analysis (product 3-4) will not be conducted in the Clarence-Moreton bioregion due to very small hydrological changes predicted at or near the surface due to the additional coal resource development. Outcome synthesis (product 5) is the final technical product being developed for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion.


The rise of interest in online education from pedagogical, administrative, and technological perspectives presents numerous possibilities and challenges for researchers and practitioners, the most basic of which is the fundamental question of the determination of the concepts, categories, and values used to guide their work within this rapidly developing field. Drawing from contemporary discussions of the possibility for the instantiation of values and categories in the work of design, critical approaches to questions of technology and conceptual development surrounding the design of technological systems are discussed. It is argued that current value driven approaches to technological design, when refined and considered through a logic of conceptual deconstruction, offer a broad and open basis from which the direction of online education can best be considered. In the formulation of such an approach, general lessons for interaction design and information science as a whole can be found.


The goal of this paper is to identify the main vegetation factors in the terrain, which are important for the analysis of forest structure. Such an analysis is important for forestry, rescue operations management during crises situations and disasters such as fires, storms, earthquakes and military analysis (transportation, cover, concealment, etc.). For the forest structure determination, both LIDAR and the forest growth prediction analysis were used. As main results, the vegetation height, tree spacing and stem diameters were determined


From 2015 there has been a spate of incidents of violence and intimidation around issues of cow slaughter and beef. These ranged from the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq for alleged cow theft, slaughter and eating beef in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, to Zahid Ahmed being burnt alive on the Jammu and Kashmir highway on suspicion of transporting cow carcasses in his truck, to the shutting down of the Kerala Bhavan canteen in Delhi, on allegations of serving beef biryani. The draconian framework underlying punishments for alleged slaughter and smuggling necessarily enhances the power and importance of cow vigilantism in the name of protection. Given the political prominence of the issue, the task of documenting vigilantism becomes a necessary exercise for understanding repression in the name of the cow. It is against this political and legal background that the forms of attack against Muslims and Dalits whose livelihoods depend on cattle and beef are to be understood.


Globalization implies that companies must redefine the approach to the environment, namely through a global perspective. Organizations can not develop strategies based only on national boundaries of a particular state because it became extremely clear that an incident in one country could affect other countries as macro-phenomenon of the global financial crisis reflects it - 2008. Thus the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has substantially contributed to the awareness of several issues previously considered to be unimportant or simply ignored.
As general concept CSR refers not only to organizations but also to all kinds of entities. This way, the responsibility for an entity reflects the impact of its decisions and its activities on society and environment. The CSR concept strictly links with the concept of sustainable development, which it is followed by ethical and transparent behavior, taking into account the expectations of all stakeholders. Specifically, it refers to the integration of ethics into the strategic vision of the entities to effectively manage the social and ethical issues associated with its activity. So the CSR main goal is to drive change in organizations towards sustainability, with the condition to protect the interests of stakeholders.
In order to achieve this goal also (e-learning) training programs is needed. Organizations choose this "option" - e-learning training programs - because such approach regarding employees instruction is the most cost-effective ways, plus in addition is simple, flexible and with immediate results.
In light of the previously mentioned the paper develops this framework regarding CSR e-learning training programs due to the fact that e-Learning became highest priority for many organizations.


Influence of the variations of the scattering properties of a disordered medium with respect to frequency on the polarization of scattered light is investigated. We focus on the strongly scattering regime with the sum of random phasors scattering model that is extended to chromatic media and made frequency-sensitive. It is numerically shown how the scattered polarization depends on the incident polarization and the incident light bandwidth to scattering coefficients chromatic length ratio. Under the presented approach, both phenomena of depolarization and enpolarization of light appear unified.


This paper examines the effect of conflict on agricultural production of small farmers. First, an inter-temporal model of agricultural production is developed in which the impact of conflict is transmitted through violent shocks and uncertainty brought about by conflict. We test the model using a unique household survey applied to 4,800 households in four micro- regions of Colombia. Our findings suggest households learn to live amid conflict, albeit at a lower income trajectory. When presence of non-state armed actors prolongs, farmers shift to activities with short-term yields and lower profitability from activities that require high investments. If violence intensifies in regions with presence of non-state armed actors, farmers concentrate on subsistence activities.


The paper reports a study of a videoconference-based environment in decentralized university education and factors determining the success of teaching and learning in the environment. The focus of the paper is on the role of a person having the formal responsibilities of a technician. An ethnographic study conducted over the course of a year revealed that the contribution of this person far exceeded the scope of formal responsibilities. The person, who was acting in the setting as a facilitator, was found to possess expertise, which was critically important for supporting interaction between remote participants at several levels, such as attention management, time management, acquisition of setting-specific skills, and coordination within a larger institutional context. The findings suggest that "supra-situational" activities can be an important factor of successful functioning and development of emerging learning environments.


Aeromagnetic data were collected over the Hall Basin and adjacentcoastal land areas of northern Nares Strait during the 2001 Canadian-GermanNares Strait Expedition to provide an improved onshore-offshore linkage ofgeological structures related to the Late Cretaceous Early PaleogeneEurekan Orogeny. The total field magnetic anomaly data are characterized bybroad long-wavelength anomalies compatible with thick sequences of nonmagneticSilurian and Devonian carbonate facies. On the Greenland side ofthe survey block, the magnetic anomalies are generally positive, possiblyreflecting the magnetic characteristics of deeply buried crystalline rocks of thePaleozoic platform. Over Ellesmere Island, the magnetic anomalies are low inamplitude, suggesting a different basement composition from Greenland. Twolinear northeast oriented positive magnetic anomalies are observed on JudgeDaly Promontory. One extends along the south coast between Carl Ritter Bayand the mouth of Daly River. The second occurs over the northern end of thepeninsula and extends offshore from Cape Baird to Robeson Channel. Fromfield samples, this anomaly has been correlated with thrust fault-boundedTertiary sedimentary basins, which have increased susceptibility valuescaused by the content of basalt clasts. The thrust fault, bounding the southernedge of these basins has been mapped as a continuous feature across JudgeDaly Promontory, however, the absence of a continuous magnetic anomaly islikely the result of complete erosion of the sedimentary wedge. The amplitudeof this anomaly decreases south of Carl Ritter Bay, as a result of decreasedcontent of basalt clasts. A small magnetic anomaly at 81.3 °N, 66.8 °W alsocoincides with an isolated outcrop of Tertiary rocks, associated with a differentfault. The offshore extension of these anomalies indicates a continuity ofthe Tertiary basins northeastward to Robeson Channel and to the LincolnSea. It does not follow a simple continuous line, but appears to be broken insubsections of slightly differing directions. Similar offsets are observed in aparallel magnetic anomaly in Hall Basin suggesting crosscutting NWSEtrending faults. The magnetic anomalies and onshore geological observationssuggest that the Wegener Fault is not a simple strike-slip fault, but a complexsystem of faults and a chain of blocks and basins.


The turbulen flow in an asymmetric diffuser has been en studied by the means of Reynold average Navier-Stokes equations with both differential and explict algebraic expressions to model the Reynolds stress tensor. Modifications to the differential stress model have been derived, using the inverse turbulence timescale to obtain the dissipation of turbuence kinetic energy. The explicit algebraic Reynolds stress model has been used in combination with a two-equation platform to close the system of equations. Modifications made to the transport equation for the inverse turbulence timescale has made it possible to substantially relax the deman on near-wall resolution of this quantity. The rapid growth wth present in the original formulation can be treated as an explicit function of the wall-normal distance. In order to use the new formulation for the transport equation, an equation has as been derived to obtain the shortest distance bettwee a point and the closest wall, regardles of the geometric complexity of the domain. An explicit algebraic expression to model the passive scalar flux vector has been investigated using a comparison with a standard eddy-diffusivity model in the asymmetric diffuser. Results show a substantial improvement of the complexity of the scalar field and scalar flux vector in sepaarated flows. Automated code generation has been used in all the above studies to generate versatile model testing tools for general two-dimensional geometries. Finite element formulations are used for these tools.


The evolution of Computer Aided Design (CAD) calls for the incorporation of design specifications into a microelectronics system development cycle. This expansion requires the establishment of a new generation of CAD procedures, defined as Very High Level Logic Synthesis (VHLLS). The fundamental characteristics of open-ended VHLLS are: (1) front-end graphical interface; (2) time encapsulation; and (3) automatic translation into a behavioral description. Consequently, the VHLLS paradigm represents an advanced category of CAD-based microelectronics system design, built on a deep usage of expert systems and intelligent methods. Artificial Intelligence (AI) formalisms such as Knowledge Representation System (KRS) are necessary to model properties related to the very high level of specification such as: dealing with ambiguities and inconsistencies, reasoning, computing high-level specification, etc. A prototype VHLLS design suite, called Specification Procedure for Electronic Circuits in Automation Language (SPECIAL), is defined, compared with today's commercial tools and verified using numerous design examples. As a result, a new family of formal and accelerated development methodologies has become feasible with a better understanding of formalized knowledge driving these design processes.