Novel computer vision architectures monopolize the spotlight, but the impact of the model architecture is often conflated with simultaneous changes to training methodology and scaling strategies. Our work revisits the canonical ResNet (He et al., 2015) and studies these three aspects in an effort to disentangle them. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that training and scaling strategies may matter more than architectural changes, and further, that the resulting ResNets match recent state-of-the-art models. We show that the best performing scaling strategy depends on the training regime and offer two new scaling strategies: (1) scale model depth in regimes where overfitting can occur (width scaling is preferable otherwise); (2) increase image resolution more slowly than previously recommended (Tan&Le, 2019). Using improved training and scaling strategies, we design a family of ResNet architectures, ResNet-RS, which are 1.7x - 2.7x faster than EfficientNets on TPUs, while achieving similar accuracies on ImageNet. In a large-scale semi-supervised learning setup, ResNet-RS achieves 86.2% top-1 ImageNet accuracy, while being 4.7x faster than EfficientNet NoisyStudent. The training techniques improve transfer performance on a suite of downstream tasks (rivaling state-of-the-art self-supervised algorithms) and extend to video classification on Kinetics-400. We recommend practitioners use these simple revised ResNets as baselines for future research.


Co-training is a well-known semi-supervised learning approach which trains classifiers on two or more different views and exchanges pseudo labels of unlabeled instances in an iterative way. During the co-training process, pseudo labels of unlabeled instances are very likely to be false especially in the initial training, while the standard co-training algorithm adopts a "draw without replacement" strategy and does not remove these wrongly labeled instances from training stages. Besides, most of the traditional co-training approaches are implemented for two-view cases, and their extensions in multi-view scenarios are not intuitive. These issues not only degenerate their performance as well as available application range but also hamper their fundamental theory. Moreover, there is no optimization model to explain the objective a co-training process manages to optimize. To address these issues, in this study we design a unified self-paced multi-view co-training (SPamCo) framework which draws unlabeled instances with replacement. Two specified co-regularization terms are formulated to develop different strategies for selecting pseudo-labeled instances during training. Both forms share the same optimization strategy which is consistent with the iteration process in co-training and can be naturally extended to multi-view scenarios. A distributed optimization strategy is also introduced to train the classifier of each view in parallel to further improve the efficiency of the algorithm. Furthermore, the SPamCo algorithm is proved to be PAC learnable, supporting its theoretical soundness. Experiments conducted on synthetic, text categorization, person re-identification, image recognition and object detection data sets substantiate the superiority of the proposed method.


The well-established negative correlation between staggered boards (SBs) and firm value could be due to SBs leading to lower value or a reflection of low-value firms' greater propensity to maintain SBs. We analyze the causal question using a natural experiment involving two Delaware court rulings—separated by several weeks and going in opposite directions—that affected the antitakeover force of SBs. We contribute to the long-standing debate on staggered boards by presenting empirical evidence consistent with the market viewing SBs as leading to lower firm value for the affected firms.


Extruded longitudinal double-skinned aluminium body plates with integrated stiffeners are recently used for manufacturing in automobile industry like front rails and railway carriages. These extrusions provide light and heavy rigid structures. However, since it is not feasible to produce large parts by extrusion, these plates need to be connected, mostly by welding techniques. The crashworthiness performance of laser welded columns is evaluated using finite element (FE) analysis. This is very important in automobiles, since more attention is being paid to crashworthiness of the structures in recent years. The analysis method is based on the Superfolding Element (SE) concept, which originates from experimentally observed folding patterns of crushed shell elements. The FE model is used to predict accurately the progressive axial collapse of the lased welded columns and impact strength is greatly improved by laser welding technique.


Recognizing irregular text in natural scene images is challenging due to the large variance in text appearance, such as curvature, orientation and distortion. Most existing approaches rely heavily on sophisticated model designs and/or extra fine-grained annotations, which, to some extent, increase the difficulty in algorithm implementation and data collection. In this work, we propose an easy-to-implement strong baseline for irregular scene text recognition, using offthe-shelf neural network components and only word-level annotations. It is composed of a 31-layer ResNet, an LSTMbased encoder-decoder framework and a 2-dimensional attention module. Despite its simplicity, the proposed method is robust. It achieves state-of-the-art performance on irregular text recognition benchmarks and comparable results on regular text datasets. The code will be released.


This chapter outlines how complete genome sequences promote the development of broad genome-wide or functional-genomics approaches for investigating individual genes to entire gene sets. Classical approaches had focused on a small portion of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Bacillus subtilis, and Escherichia coli genes. The power of genetically tractable model systems is that they facilitate the analysis of gene function at the level of the intact organism. In various adaptations of this method, PCR-generated replacement DNAs are used for constructing strains harboring simple point mutations or large deletions, making reporter gene constructs for any gene, inserting epitope or fluorescent tags in any protein, and studying the regulatory information controlling gene expression. Regulatable promoter replacement cassettes in combination with the availability of complete genome sequences will be important resources for studying gene function in yeasts and other eukaryotic systems. New methods for assessing gene expression, protein-protein interactions, and protein-nucleic acid interactions mean that it is now possible to use genome-wide approaches to study gene function. These global approaches should significantly accelerate progress toward a detailed understanding of the model organisms B. subtilis, E. coli, and S. cerevisiae. Genome-wide methods will generate exponentially increasing amounts of biological data. Effective systems of data storage, management, and analysis must keep pace with data generation so that the data and the tools necessary to apply these resources to individual research programs are accessible to all researchers.


Extensive bone defects complicate the adequate placement of dental implants and the required angulation. In such cases, alveolar-ridge augmentation techniques such as guided bone regeneration, particulate or block grafting, and alveolar bone distraction are needed. The present study describes a case in which a large vertical bone defect in the anterior mandibular zone was corrected via vertical alveolar bone distraction. Six dental implants were posteriorly placed for implant-supported restoration of the mandible, with early implant loading. The clinical and radiologic control showed good implant and soft tissue conditions 12 months later.


: This article examines two bande dessinée versions of the Breton legend of the flooded city of Ker-Is, Robert Lortac's 1943 À la découverte de Ker-Is (published in children's magazine O lo lê ) and Claude Auclair and Alain Deschamps' 1981 Bran Ruz . It argues that through the continuation or appropriation of the legend, these comics offer ideologically filtered views of Bretonness and Brittany from two different politico-historical contexts, occupied France and the postcolonial era. The article also analyses how comic art can be used in productive ways to represent Brittany as a stateless culture, including through text/image reiteration or supplementarity, and using the double page for a bilingual parallel textual-visual practice. It concludes by suggesting that the study of internal colonialism and peripheries such as Brittany is an important addition to research into postcolonial comics.


International Public Relations: Perspectives from deeply divided societies is positioned at the intersection of public relations (PR) practice with socio-political environments in divided, conflict and post-conflict societies. While most studies of PR focus on the activity as it is practiced within stable democratic societies, this book explores perspectives from contexts that have tended to be marginalized or uncharted. Presenting research from a diverse range of societies still deeply divided along racial, ethnic, religious or linguistic lines, this collection engages with a variety of questions including how PR practice in these societies may contribute to our understanding of PR theory building. Importantly, it highlights the role of communication strategies for actors that still deploy political violence to achieve their goals, as well as those that use it in building peace, resolving conflict, and assisting in the development of civil society. Featuring a uniquely wide range of original empirical research, including studies from Israel/Palestine, Mozambique, Northern Ireland, former Yugoslavia, former Czechoslovakia, Spain, Malaysia and Turkey, this groundbreaking book will be of interest not only to scholars of public relations, but also political communication, international relations, and peace and conflict studies.


States have long taken the lead in protecting consumers' privacy and ensuring the accuracy of credit reports. In 1992, Vermont was the first state to pass a law providing a free annual credit report on request, followed by Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. California adopted other comprehensive reforms in 1994. California later became the first state to require disclosure of credit scores and protections for identity theft victims. In 2003, Congress followed the states' lead in these areas, adopting the free credit report and access to a credit score as well as enacting some new identity theft protections. The model law proposes additional safeguards in some of the numerous areas which the 2003 federal FACT Act left for future action by the states. The model law's provisions address some of areas where federal law permits states to give consumers greater protection. The State Clean Credit and Identity Theft Protection Act offers specific, workable provisions that state legislatures can adopt to reduce the risk of identity theft and to give consumers tools to prevent some of the harm from identity theft. By the end of 2005, 21 states have passed some form of notice of breach legislation, while 12 states have passed security freeze laws with more states currently considering such legislation. The model law offers specific types of protections, many of which have actually been adopted by state legislatures. This updated version of model identity theft legislation has been compiled with the intent to put forth the best language and practices in providing consumers with protections from identity theft. This model law was first issued in 2004, and has provided a framework for state bills, particularly on security freezes and notice of data breach, throughout the country. Most of the changes in this 2005 revision are updates to reflect improvements that have been adopted, or considered, in state legislatures. The model act addresses the following in eleven sections: - Definitions; - Security Freeze; - Protection for Credit Header Information; - Right to File a Police Report Regarding Identity Theft; - Factual Declaration of Innocence After Identity Theft; - Consumer-Driven Credit Monitoring; - Prevention of and Protection From Security Breaches; - Social Security Number Protection; - Banning Credit Scoring and Insurance Scoring for Use in Insurance Decisions; - Adequate Destruction of Personal Records; and - Severability Clause. The model law can be enacted as discrete, separate pieces of legislation or as a single package. If enacting a provision separately, states should use any definitions from section one that are referenced in that provision. In addition, states should include the severability clause outlined in section eleven of the model law when enacting any of its provisions. Each section of this model law has an introduction, explains the section, describes similar state laws, and contains explanatory footnotes. The Appendix provides an extensive analysis of the authority of states to enact laws in the areas covered by this model law.


'Mutter matter; murmurings from the Drawing Room Table', a collaborative, site responsive installation by Jane Fox and Irene Mensah was developed and shown at Pitzhanger Manor House, London W5 in June/July 2012 at the invitation of curator Carol Swords. The work attends to the fragile and elusive nature of memory and the significance of domestic objects and materials in exploring and re-siting the past. It builds on the artists' previous work 'Mutter Matter - murmurings from the kitchen table' selected by curator Celia Davies for 'House' festival, May 2011 at The Regency Town House, Brighton. The impetus for the work was two domestic books, each inherited from a grandmother: 'Enquire Within Upon Everything' 114th edition, 1929 inherited from Hilda Fox (Fox) and 'Quotations and Recipes' 1931, Wisbech, inherited from Lily Shaw (Mensah). The books provided a lens through which the artists explored their own and their grandmother's lives via collisions of memory and material, and in conversation between themselves in an original re-working of recipes, texts and domestic convention, and in response to site. At Pitzhanger Manor, owned by the architect Sir John Soane from 1800 -1809, a new voice enters the dialogue – Dr William Kitchiner, Regency cook and author of 'The Cook's Oracle' (4th edition 1822). 'Mutter matter; murmurings from the Drawing Room table' draws on this and other traces from Soane family life to expand and hone the work, creating new collisions and resonances within its layers. The artists tread a careful collaborative path and test a range of shared creative strategies within which to hold and develop a multi faceted artwork. 'Mutter matter; murmurings from the drawing room table' was funded by Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England and supported by Wright's Baking and PM Gallery and House.


DECT is the European standard for digital cordless telecommunication. Currently, most DECT systems have been established as standard PABX islands only. However, emerging application areas for DECT networks include data communication oriented mobile computing, making OS1 conformance a major issue. This paper presents an approach towards the integration of mobile and fixed OSI-based networks using DECT as an examplie. Problems to be addressed include the registration, tracking and localization of mobile users roaming across Cooperating DECT islands, in order to provide network-wide reachability and service access. We propose the ITU-T X.500 directory service as the natural solution to this problem. Using X.500 enables mapping of a DECT international portable users identity onto the user's current location. After briefly introducing the X.500 and the DECT standard, different schemes for location management using X.500 are discussed. Once the X.500 directory system is established, it can be accessed and utilized by telecommunication services and mobile applications. Examples include wireless access to an overall X.400 service as well as trading services for X.9tr based mobile distributed computing applications.


PURPOSE
To determine utilization of eye care services, in particular those relating to glaucoma, in a rural population of southern India aged 40 years or older.

METHODS
A total of 5,150 subjects aged 40 years or older selected through a random cluster sampling technique from three districts in southern India underwent detailed ocular examinations for vision impairment, blindness, and ocular morbidity. Information regarding previous use of eye care services was collected from this population through a questionnaire administered by trained social workers prior to ocular examinations.

RESULTS
One thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven persons (35.5%) gave a history of prior eye examinations, primarily from a general hospital (n = 1,073, 58.7%). Increasing age and education were associated with increased utilization of eye care services. Among the 3,323 persons who had never sought eye care, 912 (27.4%) had felt the need to have an eye examination but did not do so. Only one third of persons with vision impairment, cataracts, refractive errors, and glaucoma had previously utilized services. Of the 64 subjects diagnosed as having primary open-angle glaucoma, 32 (50%) had previously seen an ophthalmologist, but none had had an eye examination within 1 year before the study. Only six (19%) of the 32 had been diagnosed as having glaucoma (9% of all subjects found to have glaucoma in the survey). Thirteen (20.3%) of the 64 subjects were blind in either eye due to glaucoma, including one person who was bilaterally blind.

CONCLUSIONS
A large proportion of persons in a rural population of southern India who require eye care are currently not utilizing existing eye care services. Strategies to improve the uptake of services are required to reduce the burden of blindness due to glaucoma in southern India.


Protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation reactions play key regulatory roles in many fundamental cellular processes. Due to the large number of kinases and phosphatases in the genome, the identification of the specific enzymes responsible for a given site in a given protein is immensely challenging. However, because protein kinases and phosphatases recognize local specificity determinants within proteins, it is possible to use small peptides to study the characteristics of site-specific phosphorylation. In addition, phosphorylation usually causes retardation in gel mobility, providing an opportunity to investigate peptide phosphorylation and dephosphorylation by monitoring migration on high resolution peptide gels. In this study, we demonstrate the utility of such a technique using small peptides corresponding to cyclin-dependent kinase-1 (Cdk1)/cyclin B1 sites in two important apoptotic regulatory proteins, Bcl-xL and caspase-9. We show that the mobility of the peptides is retarded following Cdk1-mediated phosphorylation, and that peptide dephosphorylation, catalyzed either by purified phosphatase or by crude cell extracts, is readily observable by increased peptide gel mobility. Furthermore, the procedure can be conducted without the use of radioactive adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and does not require any specialized reagents or apparatus. The method can be used to identify and characterize specific kinase and phosphatases responsible for phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of specific sites in any protein of interest.


Epitaxial Vx Mo (1-x)Ny thin films grown by ultrahigh vacuum reactive magnetron sputter deposition on MgO(001) substrates are analyzed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This contribution presents analytical results for 300-nm-thick single-crystal V0.47 Mo 0.53N0.92/MgO(001) films deposited by reactive cosputtering from V (99.95% purity) and Mo (99.95% purity) targets. Film growth is carried out in a UHV chamber with base pressure 2 × 10−9 Torr at 700 °C in mixed Ar/N2 atmospheres at a total pressure of 5 mTorr, with a N2 partial pressure of 3.2 mTorr; a bias of −30 V is applied to the substrate. Films composition is determined by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS). XPS measurements employ monochromatic Al K α radiation (hν = 1486.6 eV) to analyze V0.47 Mo 0.53N0.92(001) surfaces sputter-cleaned in-situ with 4 keV Ar+ ions incident at an angle of 70° with respect to the surface normal. XPS results show that the ion-etched sample surfaces have no measurable oxygen or carbon contamination; film composition, obtained using XPS sensitivity factors, is V0.34 Mo 0.66N0.81. All core level peaks, including the nearby Mo 3p3/2 (binding energy of 394.1 eV) and N 1s (at 397.5 eV) peaks, are well-resolved. Comparison to the V0.48 Mo 0.52N0.64 single-crystal film, submitted separately to Surface Science Spectra, indicates that with decreasing growth temperature from 900 to 700 °C (and increasing nitrogen concentration in Vx Mo (1-x)Ny from y = 0.64 to 0.81) the N 1s core level peak shifts towards lower binding energy by 0.1 eV while all metal atom peaks move in the opposite direction by the same amount.


Anonymous information platforms (e.g. Airbnb) provide information about experience goods while keeping agents' identity hidden until the transaction is completed. In doing so, they generate heterogeneity in the information levels across consumers. In this paper, I show that such platforms induce a weak increase of offline prices and that only low-valuation goods are cheaper online than offline. Platforms always lead to an increase in profits. In terms of consumer welfare, the platform equilibrium is Pareto superior for low-and high-valuation goods, while for intermediate ranges some buyers benefit while others lose from the presence of the platform.


The article deals with justification of generally binding legal acts as part of a state governed by the rule of law. The "state of exception" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic adds a new dimension to the issue of justification. The practice prevailing in the Czech Republic in 2020 did not reflect even the minimum requirements for justifying emergency measures, which brought on problems both in the practical application of the adopted measures and in their subsequent judicial review. The article attempts to find an appropriate level of justification, referred to as the threshold of justification and based on the coherentist theory of epistemic justification. The basis of such justification lies in the idea that individual grounds for justification can be found in the explanatory reports of the legislation, on the one hand, and in various pieces of relevant information available to the addressees, on the other hand. All these reasons should form a coherent whole and they should ultimately legitimize restrictions on the freedom of individuals. The final part of the article describes the importance of the threshold of justification for the review of proportionality and even reasonableness of the law.


Bio-energy has the potential to be a key mitigation option if combined with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS) because it generates electricity and absorbs emissions at the same time. However, biomass is not distributed evenly across the globe, and regions with a potentially high demand might be constrained by limited domestic supply. Therefore, climate mitigation policies might create the incentive to trade biomass internationally. This paper uses scenarios generated by the integrated assessment model WITCH to study trade of woody biomass from multiple perspectives: the volume of biomass traded, its value, the impact on other power generation technologies and on marginal abatement costs. The policy scenarios consist of three representative carbon tax policies (4.8 W/m2, 3.8 W/m2 and 3.2 W/m2 radiative forcing in 2100) and a cap-and-trade scheme (3.8 W/m2 in 2100). Results show that the incentive to trade biomass is high: at least 50% of biomass consumed globally is from the international market. Regions trade 13-69 EJ/yr of woody biomass in 2050 and 55-81 EJ/yr in 2100. In 2100 the value of biomass traded is equal to US$ 0.7-7.2 Trillion. Trade of woody biomass sensibly reduces marginal abatement costs. In the tax scenarios, abatement increases by 120-323 Gt CO2 over the century. In the cap-and-trade scenario biomass trade reduces the price of emission allowances by 34% in 2100 and cumulative discounted policy costs by 14%.


We propose a method to reconstruct and analyze a complex network from data generated by a spatio-temporal dynamical system, relying on the nonlinear mutual information of time series analysis and betweenness centrality of the complex network theory. We show that this approach reveals a rich internal structure in complex climate networks constructed from reanalysis and model surface air temperature data. Our novel method uncovers peculiar wave-like structures of high-energy flow, that we relate to global surface ocean currents. This points to a major role of the oceanic surface circulation in coupling and stabilizing the global temperature field in the long-term mean (140 years for the model run and 60 years for reanalysis data). We find that these results cannot be obtained using classical linear methods of multivariate data analysis, and have ensured their robustness by intensive significance testing.


Plants often accumulate cadmium (Cd) in their edible parts that causes a decrease in crop yield and quality. In order to evaluate the effect of different concentrations of potassium (100, 200 and 300 mg/L) in tomatoes under Cd stress (0, 2 and 4 mg/L) and its efficiency in reducing stress effects, a factorial experiment was carried out based on completely randomized design with 3 replications. Results showed that application of Cd significantly increased Cd concentration in fruits. Existence of Cd in nutrient solution significantly decreased fresh and dry weight of fruit, firmness, titratable acidity, and finally yield. Also, the negative effect of Cd stress on fruit titratable acidity and firmness was neutralized by increasing the potassium (K) level. Potassium caused an increase in total soluble solids and color by affecting a color parameter and fruits had more red color and ripeness. The treatments had no significant effect on fruit pH and pericarp thickness.


Due to their similarity and proximity along strike the rocks of Anglesey and the southeast corner of Ireland have long been the subject of comparison. The most frequent correlation is between the sedimentary and metasedimentary successions which lie northwest of the central gneisses in Anglesey and the Rosslare Complex in southeast Ireland. Crimes & Dhonau (1967) considered the Cullens-town Formation to have a correlative in the South Stack Group of Holy Island due to their lithological similarity and comparable complex deformation history. However, Barber & Max (1979) considered the style of deformation and metamorphic grade of the Cullenstown Formation to be more reminiscent of the New Harbour Group. Until recently the Monian Supergroup in Anglesey was believed to be Precambrian and as such could only be correlated with Precambrian rocks in southeast Ireland. With the recognition of Lower Cambrian microfossils (Muir et al. 1979) in the Gwna Group, there emerged the possibility that much of the Monian Supergroup is Lower Palaeozoic, and thus that correlation may be attempted with younger rocks in southeast Ireland. Recent work in southeast Ireland makes a more detailed comparison between the two areas possible. Much of the stratigraphic terminology used here is newly introduced and will be formally defined in forthcoming papers. On the basis of lithological correlation it is possible to demonstrate that the Cullenstown Formation is an integral part of the Cambrian Cahore Group (Crimes & Crossley 1968), and that its structure is not incompatable with that developed elsewhere in that group. The


The spectacle of modern sport displays all the latest commercial and technological innovations, yet age-old religious concerns still thrive at the stadium. Coaches lead pre-game and post-game prayers, athletes give God the credit for home runs and touchdowns, and fans wave signs with biblical quotations and allusions. Like no other nation on earth, Americans eagerly blend their religion and sports. "Playing with God" traces this dynamic relationship from the Puritan condemnation of games as sinful in the 17th Century to the near deification of athletic contests in our own day. Early religious opposition to competitive sport focused on the immoderate enthusiasm of players and spectators, the betting on scores, and the preference for playing field over church on Sunday. Disapproval gradually gave way to acceptance when "wholesome recreation" for young men in crowded cities and soldiers in faraway fields became a national priority. Protestants led in the readjustment of attitudes toward sport; Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and Muslims followed. The Irish at Notre Dame, outstanding Jews in baseball, Black Muslims in the boxing ring, and born-again athletes at Liberty University represent the numerous negotiations and compromises producing the unique American mixture of religion and sport.


The effect of maturity (time to maturity) on seed composition in soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) genotypes is not well understood because maturity is generally confounded with genotypic background. Therefore, the effects of maturity on seed composition were estimated in two sets of near isogenic soybean lines ('Clark' and 'Har- osoy'), where the maturity of each line within a set varied, but all had a common genotypic background. There was a positive linear relation- ship between protein concentration and maturity among isolines of the Clark set in 2004 (r 2 = 0.75; P ≤ 0.001) and 2005 (r 2 = 0.63; P ≤ 0.001). How- ever, in Harosoy isolines there was no relation- ship between protein and maturity. There was a negative linear relationship between oil concen- tration and maturity for Clark (in 2004, r 2 = 0.82, P ≤ 0.001; in 2005, r 2 = 0.91, P ≤ 0.0001) and Harosoy (in 2004, r 2 = 0.19, P ≤ 0.05; in 2005, r 2 = 0.36, P ≤ 0.01). Maturity had greater effects on seed composition than maximum tempera- ture. The results indicate that the relationship between seed composition and maturity was different between the Clark and Harosoy sets of isolines. However, the overall mean of protein and oil concentration was not different between genotypic backgrounds. This information will be useful for soybean breeding in developing new germplasm for seed composition.


Cyclic injection is a process that improves waterflooding efficiency in heterogeneous reservoirs. The concept of cyclic injection is based on (1) pulsed injection and (2) alternating waterflood patterns. Cyclic injection has been successfully applied in a number of sandstone and carbonate oil fields in Russia. In the rest of the world, pulsed injection has had limited application, and only in naturally fractured reservoirs. Although changing the waterflood patterns is a common approach to deal with increasing water cuts, a more systematic approach with both pulsed injection and alternating flow directions is not. Cyclic injection has the greatest potential for improved recovery in heterogeneous, high-permeability-contrast sandstones and in naturally fractured carbonates and dolomites. The efficiency of the process is high in preferentially water-wet rocks saturated with compressible fluids. Capillary pressures and relative permeability effects are responsible for the improved cyclic oil displacement at the micro level. Improved sweep of the less permeable layers in communication with more permeable thief zones, better horizontal sweep achieved by changing waterflood patterns, and alternating the dominance between gravity and viscous forces are the key effects of cyclic injection on the macro level. The potential of cyclic injection at the Lower Tilje/Åre formations of the Heidrun Field in the Norwegian Sea has been evaluated. Some of the reservoir levels are highly heterogeneous, with large permeability contrasts vertically and horizontally. The current drainage strategy for these formations is water injection, with gas lift in producers when needed. Cyclic injection will improve waterflooding efficiency at virtually zero additional cost. Improved sweep, accelerated oil production, and reduced water cut are the main positive effects expected from cyclic waterflooding. The reserves are predicted to increase by 5 to 6% from the targeted reservoirs at Heidrun after 10 years of cyclic waterflooding.


ABSTRACT This article provides the broad historical context necessary to understand contemporary developments in federalism doctrine. It shows that dual federalism has a long and varied history and that federalism is a content-neutral principle to which both sides in major political contests have appealed. It seeks to show that the predominant perspective on federalism today-that it is an inherently conservative principle-is the result of historical misperception. This article reinterprets the history of American federalism in light of recent historical scholarship concerning various periods: principally the country's founding; slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction; the late nineteenth-century social question; and the Progressive Era. INTRODUCTION Since 1976, and especially in the last few Supreme Court terms, legal scholars have detected a "new federalism." Several decisions suggest that Congress can no longer exercise virtually unlimited control over the nation' s socioeconomic life from its power to "regulate commerce among the States."1 These decisions point toward a revival of the constitutional principle of "dual federalism," in which both federal and state governments enjoy sovereign powers.2 From the ratification ofthe Constitution until the New Deal, a consensus held that the national government was one of limited, enumerated powers and that the states reserved the vast bulk of ordinary government functions. The Tenth Amendment stated this principle, that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."3 In the early years of the twentieth century, the "progressive era," this dual system began to erode as Congress began to exercise local or "police powers" - the general power to legislate on matters concerning the safety, health, welfare, and morals of the people.4 The Supreme Court and the American people were fundamentally ambivalent about this development, favoring greater national power but deeply divided about how far it should go.5 The economic crisis of the Great Depression and political realignment of the New Deal swept that ambivalence away.6 After 1937, the Supreme Court no longer struck down acts of Congress regulating economic activity as beyond the delegated powers of the Constitution.7 The Court and informed public opinion accepted all regulation as coming under Congress's power "to regulate commerce among the States." Suddenly, in 1976, the Court reopened the federal question. In National League of Cities v. Usery* it held that Congress could not impose the Fair Labor Standards Act on state employees.9 To do so limited an "attributeQ of sovereignty attaching to every state government."10 Ten years later, in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority,11 the Court overturned National League of Cities and declared that it would no longer act as the umpire in settling federal-state boundary disputes, leaving such conflicts to the political branches.12 After another decade, the Court effectively overruled Garcia, striking down the Gun-Free School Zones Act.13 Congress could not claim that the criminalization of the possession of a firearm within one thousand feet of a school was a regulation of commerce among the states.14 Two years later, the Court held that Congress could not compel state officers to help enforce the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.15 In 2000, the Court struck down the Violence Against Women Act on similar grounds.16 "Indeed, we can think of no better example of the police power, which the Founders denied the National Government and reposed in the States, than the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims," the court declared.17 All of these decisions were 5-4, and nobody knows what they may amount to.18 It is far too early to predict the future or to sort out profitably the intricate legal distinctions of this tumultuous and closely divided set of cases. …


The buckling behavior of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) plates resting on Winkler-Pasternak elastic foundations under in-plane loads for various temperatures is investigated using element-free Galerkin (EFG) method based on first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The modified shear correction factor is used based on energy equivalence principle. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are embedded in polymer matrix and distributed in four types of arrangements. The temperature-dependent material properties of an FG-CNTRC plate are assumed to be graded along the thickness direction of the plate and estimated through a micromechanical model based on the extended rule of mixture. Full transformation approach is employed to enforce essential boundary conditions. The modified shear correction factor is utilized based on energy equivalence principle involving the actual non-uniform shear stress distribution through the thickness of the FGCNTRC plate. The accuracy and convergency of the EFG method is established by comparing the obtained results with available literature. Moreover, the effects of elastic foundation parameters are investigated for various boundary conditions, temperatures, plate width-to-thickness and aspect ratios, and CNT distributions and volume fractions. Detailed parametric studies demonstrate that the elastic foundation parameters, CNT distributions along the thickness direction of the plate and the temperature change have noticeable effects on buckling behavior of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) plates. © 2016 IAU, Arak Branch.All rights reserved.


Two trends intersect in the present: rising temperatures and the rise of the far right. What happens when they meet? In recent years, the far right has done everything in its power to accelerate the heating: an American president who believes it is a hoax has removed limits on fossil fuel production. The Brazilian president has opened the Amazon and watched it burn. In Europe, parties denying the crisis and insisting on maximum combustion have stormed into office, from Sweden to Spain. On the brink of breakdown, the forces most aggressively promoting business-as-usual have surged – always in defense of white privilege, against supposed threats from non-white others. Where have they come from? The first study of the far right in the climate crisis, White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism presents an eye-opening sweep of a novel political constellation, and reveals its deep historical roots. Fossil-fueled technologies were born steeped in racism. None loved them more passionately than the classical fascists. As such forces rise to the surface, some profess to have the solution – closing borders to save the climate. Epic and riveting, White Skin, Black Fuel traces a future of political fronts that can only heat up. (Less)


Controlled plasma viral load to levels below limits of detection off antiretroviral therapy (ART), referred to as a functional cure, or remission, is an aspiration for people living with HIV avoiding the need for daily ART while preserving immunological function. For the majority of people, stopping suppressive ART is associated with virological rebound. Spontaneous viral control is reported among rare individuals in the absence of ART. More recently, strategic use of transient ART, initiated close to the time of HIV acquisition, has been associated with a phenotype of viral control after stopping therapy termed post-treatment control. We explore the phenotype of post-treatment viral control, potential underlying mechanisms, and how this area of research can inform HIV cure research.


Chaucer's Comic Providence presents readings of five of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales that dramatize sexual division and the lack of rapport between the sexes. These readings are founded on the psychoanalytic thinking of Jacques Lacan in his rereading of Freud and are motivated by Thormann's conviction that Chaucer understood what psychoanalysis would come to study as an unconscious operating in the subject that is independent of conscious control and desire. For psychoanalysis, the subject is interminably engaged with unconscious sexual difference and with what Lacan saw as the absence of sexual rapport. Chaucer's Comic Providence analyzes Chaucer's plots of sexual adventures, mishaps, and surprise to show how the five tales dramatize the lack of symmetry and absence of accord between the sexes.
 Ultimately, Thormann's interest here is in the ways these five narratives represent and deal with sexual division, in their means of handling what, in any case, cannot be avoided or mastered. Consequently, the resolutions of the narratives sponsor an ethics of desire: they affirm sexual pleasure and acknowledge misprision and limitation, but they do not compromise, close down, or finish with incompatibility, contraction, and limitation. Her reading, then, claims that Chaucer's poetry already reveals the unconscious that Freud is credited with discovering. As well, Chaucer not only anticipates Lacan's pronouncement that "the unconscious is structured like a language," but also his emphasis on unconscious sexual difference and the absence of rapport between the sexes.
 With few exceptions, while there has been much consideration of gender in Chaucer's stories, contemporary criticism of Chaucer has remained inimical or, at the least, largely indifferent, to psychoanalysis, yet because it considers both difference and continuity, change and perpetuation, and because it incorporates psychic processes, motives, functions, and dynamics operating outside of conscious awareness, psychoanalysis offers a wider range for analysis of Chaucer's tales than does gender theory alone. Chaucer's Comic Providence also addresses the unexpected, surprising, and providentially comic resolutions of Chaucer's tales, the concomitant abeyance of sexual conflicts, and the links between emergence and abeyance, which issue in the hope of a beneficent future.


Phase reconstruction of complex components in the time-frequency domain is a challenging but necessary task for audio source separation. While traditional approaches do not exploit phase constraints that originate from signal modeling, some prior information about the phase can be obtained from sinusoidal modeling. In this paper, we introduce a probabilistic mixture model which allows us to incorporate such phase priors within a source separation framework. While the magnitudes are estimated beforehand, the phases are modeled by Von Mises random variables whose location parameters are the phase priors. We then approximate this non-tractable model by an anisotropic Gaussian model, in which the phase dependencies are preserved. This enables us to derive an MMSE estimator of the sources which optimally combines Wiener filtering and prior phase estimates. Experimental results highlight the potential of incorporating phase priors into mixture models for separating overlapping components in complex audio mixtures.


Few morphological differences have been identified so far that distinguish the human brain from the brains of our closest relatives, the apes. Comparative analyses of the spatial organization of cortical neurons, including minicolumns, can aid our understanding of the functionally relevant aspects of microcircuitry. We measured horizontal spacing distance and gray-level ratio in layer III of 4 regions of human and ape cortex in all 6 living hominoid species: frontal pole (Brodmann area [BA] 10), and primary motor (BA 4), primary somatosensory (BA 3), and primary visual cortex (BA 17). Our results identified significant differences between humans and apes in the frontal pole (BA 10). Within the human brain, there were also significant differences between the frontal pole and 2 of the 3 regions studied (BA 3 and BA 17). Differences between BA 10 and BA 4 were present but did not reach significance. These findings in combination with earlier findings on BA 44 and BA 45 suggest that human brain evolution was likely characterized by an increase in the number and width of minicolumns and the space available for interconnectivity between neurons in the frontal lobe, especially the prefrontal cortex.


Salt marshes and mangrove forests, the intertidal wetlands of the world's coastlines, provide key ecological services to all areas of the globe. This cutting-edge, richly illustrated book introduces the essential elements of coastal wetlands and their applications. The book opens by introducing coastal oceanography, the physical features of wetlands, their ecology, and human impacts upon them, giving all students the necessary background for wetlands studies. It then presents detailed case studies from around the world with extensive illustrations, supplying a wider, global-scale picture of wetlands geomorphology and biodiversity. The final chapters discuss some unique applications of coastal wetlands, including geological monitoring, uses in biotechnology and agriculture, and various experimental mesocosms. This is ideal as supplementary reading to support students on a wide range of earth and life science courses, from environmental science, ecology and palaeoecology to geomorphology and geography. It will also be a valuable interdisciplinary reference for researchers.


Nowadays, automation is crucial in databasing laboratories especially for countries which are relative new in the field and must quickly reach the minimum standards of consecrated databasing laboratories from Europe and USA. In our efforts to supply genetic profiles for Romanian National DNA Database, we evaluated the Freedom Evo 150 liquid handling platform with AGOWA sep9600 magnetic separator in different running conditions and workflows, for reaching the most efficient ones. We compared the results with those obtained from manual DNA isolation with Chelex resin and paramagnetic particles. For this we used a total of 6246 biological reference samples (5220 - automated processed and 1026 - manually processed), amplified using AmpFlstr Identifiler Kit and analyzed by capillary electrophoresis using ABI Prism 3100 Genetic Analyzer.


The vertically oriented postcard depicts two women in clothing stylish in the 1920s. In the lower right hand corner is a silhouette of a man in a top hat. The shadows of the women are sharply delineated behind them. There is some Japanese text in the upper right hand corner of the postcard.


We hold these truths to be self-evident: libraries are valuable to humankind; libraries preserve knowledge; libraries enable access to information; libraries serve the information needs of their users. To the believer the truth is evident. But libraries are not natural phenomena like the sun rising and setting every day. Libraries are institutions created and supported by those individuals who hold that these statements are true even if not self-evident to everyone. The caretakers of libraries have gathered data on library performance for decades and have used this information to understand how to improve services and programs they provide to their users. The ability to measure the quality of library services is extremely important as libraries are faced with the need to make informed decisions about the best way to meet the needs of the users of those services. This ability has become even more important as libraries make transformative changes during times of fiscal constraint and increased competition. ARL has built a program of assessment over the past 20 years and continuously looks for ways to strengthen this capacity for member libraries. This issue of RLI highlights ways in which assessment tools have helped libraries improve their services and programs. These improvements are the result of library leadership and their staff using data to make decisions that would have the most impact. This issue also captures some of the newer initiatives focused on demonstrating the value of library services. LibQUAL+ has now been used for a decade by upwards of 1,200 libraries around the world in 20 language versions. The results have helped libraries understand users' perceptions of library service quality. Colleen Cook and Michael Maciel provide a brief historical look at the evolution of LibQUAL+ and highlight how the administration of this tool enabled the Texas A&M University Libraries to make significant service improvements based on sound data. The RLI 271 1


ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to advance our understanding of how women negotiate their business and family demands in a developing country context. The highest cited motivation for women's pursuit of entrepreneurship has been their need to attend to these demands. Yet, empirically we know little about the negotiating actions taken by, and the business satisfaction of women in the context of both livelihood challenges and patriarchal contexts, despite several scholarly calls for contextualized accounts of women's entrepreneurship. We explore these issues by employing a qualitative study of 90 women engaged in primarily informal entrepreneurial activities in three Nepalese regions. Our findings highlight three main and interrelated themes – negotiating consent, family resource access and gaining status. These themes allow us to contextualize the process of negotiating business and family demands by highlighting how women legitimize their business activities, respond to family/societal expectations and mobilize support for, and find satisfaction in their business. Overall, our study contributes towards accounts of business–family interface that incorporate the everyday practices of entrepreneurial activities amongst those less privileged in terms of resource access in particular sociocultural contexts.


OBJECTIVES--To evaluate gonococcal (GU) and nongonococcal urethritis (NGU), chlamydia antigen, and serostatus for syphilis and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among males attending a Malawian STD clinic with complaints of urethral discharge and/or dysuria. To collect demographic and behavioural data and to determine the effectiveness of five treatments for urethritis. METHODS--Urethritis was diagnosed using microscopy and culture for Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Sera were screened with rapid plasma reagin (RPR) and if reactive, with microhaemagglutination for Treponema pallidum (MHA-TP). HIV antibodies and chlamydia antigen were detected using enzyme immunoassay. Patients were randomised for treatment, cure was assessed 8-10 days later. RESULTS--At enrolment, GU was diagnosed in 415 (80.3%) and NGU in 59 (11.2%) of 517 males. Chlamydia antigen was found in 26 (5.2%) of 497 specimens tested. Syphilis seropositivity rate (RPR and MHA-TP reactive) was 10.7%. Overall HIV seroprevalence was 44.2%; 71.7% of men with reactive syphilis serology were HIV(+) compared with 40.9% of syphilis seronegatives (OR: 3.6, p < 0.001). Trimethoprim 320 mg/sulphamethoxazole 1600 mg by mouth for 2 days (TMPSMX), or the combination of amoxicillin 3 gm, probenicid 1 gm, and clavulanate 125 mg by mouth once (APC), failed to cure gonorrhoea effectively. Amoxicillin 3 gm, probenicid 1 gm, and clavulanate 125 mg, by mouth once with doxycycline 100 mg BID for 7 days (APC-D), gentamicin 240 mg IM once (GENT), ciprofloxacin 250 mg by mouth once (CIPRO) cured 92.9% to 95% of gonorrhoea. APC-D treatment did not generate less NGU at follow-up. HIV serostatus did not affect cure of urethritis. CONCLUSION--All patients presenting with urethritis should be treated syndromically using a simple algorithm and screened for syphilis seroreactivity for appropriate treatment and counselling.


Tiny insects called bark beetles have devastated forests in western North America over the past decade. Life has drained from millions of hectares of forest so quickly that it seemed as if they had been abruptly unplugged, like a Christmas tree before bedtime. And many people have feared the infestation9s fallout, worrying that the dry, beetle-killed trees would give birth to huge, damaging wildfires. Those concerns seemed to come true as spectacular blazes, such as the 2012 High Park Fire near Fort Collins, Colorado, incinerated forests, setting records for hectares burned and homes destroyed. Now, however, a growing body of research—including a study published last week—is challenging the widespread notion that beetle-killed forests are more vulnerable to more severe fires than those that have escaped infestation. The findings are highlighting the complex causes of western wildfires and raising new questions about the efficacy of some fire prevention policies, such as plans to remove beetle-killed trees from vast swaths of forest.


During the revision of the curriculum in the early 1990s, it was decided by the University of Tartu Faculty of Medicine to create an independent subject called clinical chemistry. Agu Tamm, MD PhD, DMedSc, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of General and Molecular Pathology, was originally nominated to prepare and provide instruction in this subject. In1993 Tiit Salum, MD, biochemist; and Milvi Topmann, MD (0.5 work load), head of the laboratory of the Children's Hospital, were employed as the first lecturers/assistants. In order to modernize the subject, instruction was provided both to domestic doctors (at the hospital and on the primary care level) and at foreign practices (in Holland and Finland). In the years 1994–1997, financial support was received under the PHARE / TEMPUS (Trans-European Mobility Project of University Studies) program JEP 7784 "Development of Academic Laboratory Medicine in Estonia" for staff training and the development of teaching infrastructure. Updating the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula was supported by experienced specialists from the University of Glasgow (project leader M. Dominiczak), Odense University (Prof. M. Hǿrder) and University of Turku (Prof. V. Nanto). In addition to the lecturers, during the project term, 24 people from future basic hospital laboratories, computer specialists from the Tartu University Hospital, as well as key personnel from the faculty and the University Hospital administration were trained in partner universities. The aim was to transform the general attitude towards the specialty and its needs. As an output of the project, Tartu University Hospital established United Laboratories (1996) and the University of Tartu established the Chair of Laboratory Medicine (1997). The project also facilitated the reform of the entire curriculum of the Faculty of Medicine, as a programme of seven guest lecturers was established and four symposiums on curriculum design was organised in several universities. During the project, specialists from Estonian medical laboratories got acquainted with the Finnish Center for Quality Control (first at Labquality Days). Thenceforward, an external quality control system for hospitals' laboratories began to operate, and it is still the predominant system to date. Two summer school programs for Estonian laboratory staff were also organized in the framework of the project. Summer schools have also remained in our calendar even now. Initially, scientific research in our field proceeded from the needs of practical work, e.g., verification of laboratory reference values (former test "norms") and quality assurance. This was followed by the introduction of a few new bone and heart biomarkers (2003–2006). These implementation projects launched research and development in the field of tissue biomarkers, which still continues today. Our specialty reached a new level of maturity in the 2010s, when our lecturers (T. Salum, 2011 and M. Tonisson, 2014) and former residents (J. Kumm, 2012 and I. Kerna, 2014) completed and defended their dissertations. Our international cooperation was largely based on participation in the Baltic Bone and  Cartilage Conference (BBCC 2003–2013) and on the successful application of two EU 7th Framework Programme projects. The facts presented above confirm that laboratory medicine as an academic specialty has found its feet in Estonia.


A two-year study was conducted of phlebotomine sand fly fauna in a defined focus of Leishmania tropica. A total of 17,947 sand flies representing 10 species were collected from the location. Phlebotomus guggisbergi, a vector of L. tropica in Kenya, was the most prevalent species through the entire period, representing about 80% of the total catch. There was marked seasonal fluctuation in the populations of the three most common species, with highest population levels reached in December and lowest levels reached in July and August. Leishmania-like infections were encountered in 489 P. guggisbergi. No flagellate infections were observed in any other species of sand fly. Although infected P. guggisbergi were collected during each month of the year, the percent parous infected flies was highest (27.5%) during the November through January time period. These data show that the greatest risk of transmission to humans at this focus occurs during December, when the vector is prevalent and infections are common.


The effect of a new additive, oxide magnesium (MgO), on preventing or reducing the leakage of Cr(VI) from a fly ash (coal ash) has been investigated by batch contact and column percolation tests. The test results indirectly indicate that the MgO additive has an obvious effect on reducing Cr(VI) to Cr(III), which is less environmentally hazardous. However, the process of reducing Cr(VI) to Cr(III) may be reversible because adding H2SO4 or CaH2O2 into the balanced solid-liquid mixture for partially simulating possible environmental change increased Cr(VI) concentration in the liquid phase. Adding 10% to 30% of Ariake clay into the fly ash not only further reduced Cr(VI) concentration, but also reduced total Cr concentration. Hence, Cr(III) ions may be absorbed by the clay minerals. For the conditions investigated, the column percolation test resulted in higher initial Cr(VI) concentration in the liquid phase than that of the batch contact test. Further, the results of the column percolation test using the samples with different curing time (up to three weeks) indicate that with MgO additive, curing the sample does not have an obvious effect on Cr(VI) concentration.


This paper considers how meaningful social information is conveyed with the use of sentence final particles in Macau Cantonese. The purpose in this research is to provide a general sociolinguistic account of sentence final particles in Macau Cantonese, and specifically to illustrate that social meanings of SFPs are variable, and do not constitute rigid or fixed meanings and interpretations. These social meanings, this paper argues, are a potential for indicating speaker identity at the individual level, and constitute a rich resource for communicating speaker identity in Macau Cantonese. This study uses an eclectic sociolinguistic approach, and combines elements of distributionist analyses, social network theory and constructionist approaches with a view to accounting for the dynamics underlying sentence final particle variation. Finally, this research considers constraints such as conversation topic, the affective relations between interlocutors, and gender as impinging on the distribution and use of SFPs in Macau Cantonese.


It is commonly accepted in various disciplines and contexts that history writing often (if not always!) contribute to the process of identity (re)formation. Using the past in order to find a renewed identity in new (socio-political and socio-religious) circumstances, is something that we also witness in Hebrew Bible historiographies. The so-called Deuteronomistic History, as well as the works of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, are often read from the perspective of a community trying to find a new identity in changed circumstances. In the Historical Books section at the 2008 Auckland SBL International Meeting, this perspective was investigated further. The papers presented included theoretical reflections on the relationship between historiography and identity (re)formation, as well as illustrations from Hebrew Bible historiographies (of the Exilic and Second Temple periods).A These papers, together with a few responses to the papers, are offered here to a wider scholarly audience.Contributors include Jon Berquist, Mark Brett, Louis Jonker, Mark Leuchter, Christine Mitchell, Klaas Spronk, Gerrie Snyman, Ray Person, Armin Siedlecki, and Jacob Wright."


Due to its environmental, economical and safety implications, methane leak detection is a crucial task to address in the biogas production industry. In this paper, we introduce Gasbot, a robotic platform that aims to automatize methane emission monitoring in landfills and biogas production sites. The distinctive characteristic of the Gasbot platform is the use of a Tunable Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) sensor. This sensor provides integral concentration measurements over the path of the laser beam. Existing gas distribution mapping algorithms can only handle local measurements obtained from traditional in-situ chemical sensors. In this paper we also describe an algorithm to generate 3D methane concentration maps from integral concentration and depth measurements. The Gasbot platform has been tested in two different scenarios: an underground corridor, where a pipeline leak was simulated and in a decommissioned landfill site, where an artificial methane emission source was introduced.


Skin covers the entire body. It is the most important protective organ. Since the burn injury is most painful of all injuries, dressings play an important part of the management. Dressing of the burn wound is very essential to provide pain relief, to promote early healing, to prevent contractures, and to help early mobilization. Many workers from time immemorial have used different types of dressings so as to provide desired results. I use sterile polyethylene drape as a dressing material after covering it with the first layer of gauze soaked in silver sulfadiazine cream. The results are encouraging as there is near total absence of pain experienced by patients and removal is totally pain-free without any bleeding. There is no need for escharotomies, and there is early removal of the slough with no contracture. The polyethylene drapes are easily available in the market, easy to store, available sterile, and totally cost-effective. They help reduce the hospital stay of the patient. The need of anesthesia for surgeries such as escharotomies and debridement is significantly reduced.


We thank the commentators very much for their reaction to our article.1 We appreciate the theoretical issues they raised concerning the approaches to competence, as well as their discussion of the cases we have presented.

In some cases of mental illness, for example, in severe dementia or paranoid delusions, the line between competence and incompetence is not very difficult to draw. However, in clinical practice healthcare professionals may encounter cases where the line becomes less clear, and the criteria commonly used do not seem to cover the specific problems the patients encounter when deciding about their treatment. This appears to be particularly true for cases of chronic mental illness. Previously, Tan et al pointed at the limits of the cognitive model in patients with anorexia nervosa.2 In our study, we looked deeper into decision-making in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, in order to articulate the challenges, they face when deciding about treatment options. We suggest that in such cases neither the cognitive nor the emotions or values approach enable us to really grasp how competence may be challenged—and supported—in these patients. We propose a practical wisdom approach to competence as an alternative. In what follows, we respond to Crisp and Sullivan-Bissett's thoughtful comments in some detail.

Crisp3 defends a cognitive approach, emphasising that competence requires the ability to reason. In his interpretation of the case of Mary, he argues that her expression that she was 'fed up' with treatment can be …


Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility of delivering a radiosurgery-quality integrated boost to visible brain metastases combined with hippocampal sparing whole brain radiotherapy using helical tomotherapy. Materials and Methods: Ten patients were planned on helical tomotherapy using MR-CT fusion-defined target and normal structure contours. Individually contoured hippocampi were used as conformal avoidance structures and limited to a mean-NTD2 of 6 Gy, where NTD2 denotes the normalized total dose delivered in 2 Gy fractions assuming an Α/Β-ratio of 2 Gy. A whole brain dose of 32.25 Gy and simultaneous boost doses to brain metastases of either 63.0 Gy (> 2.0 cm) or 70.8 Gy (< 2.0 cm) to be delivered in 15 fractions were prescribed. Plans were generated for a 2.5- and 1.0-cm field width (FW). To assess plan quality, the prescription isodose to target volume (PITV) ratio, target coverage, conformation number, and homogeneity index were computed. Results: Comparing treatment plans using a 1.0-cm FW to those using a 2.5-cm FW, the mean PITV ratio improved from 1.75 ± 0.61 to 1.48 ± 0.37, the whole brain homogeneity improved by 32% (p < 0.0004), and the mean dose in 2.0-Gy fraction equivalents received by the hippocampi varied from 5.8 ± 1.9 to 5.9 ± 1.3 Gy2. Conclusions: Delivery of radiosurgery-quality dose distributions to multiple brain metastases using helical tomotherapy is possible even when combined with whole brain radiation therapy and conformal avoidance of the hippocampi.


How can the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) be made a reality by 2015? If the MDGs are to halve global poverty and significantly improve conditions for the world's poor on schedule, it is essential to put the requisite funding in place. This is an up-to-date overview of the funding proposals and mechanisms now under discussion. The contributors have contributed their analyses as part of the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy - an inter-governmental initiative to develop new approaches to global problem-solving. Key resource flows examined include ODA, foreign direct investment, remittances by migrants, commodity export prices, and new ideas to secure sustainable debt relief, including debt cancellation, revaluation of IMF gold reserves, debt arbitration, and other proposals.


This article proposes that law students may find a better fit within the legal culture of argument if they are introduced to rhetorical alternatives to counter narrowly formalist and realist perspectives on how the law works and how judges decide cases. To support this proposal, the article describes and evaluates an upper-level elective course in Law & Rhetoric, which I have offered at two law schools since 2003.The article makes a two-part argument: first, introducing law students to rhetorical alternatives allows them to envision their role as lawyers as constructive, effective, and imaginative while grounded in law, language, and reason. Second, offering rhetorical alternatives allows law professors to enrich their own study and teaching and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the law school classroom as a rhetorical community. Set next to popular depictions of formalism and realism (which live on, despite much criticism), rhetorical alternatives would look at how the law works by exploring the meaning-making process through which the law is constituted as human beings located within particular historical and cultural communities write, read, argue about, and decide legal issues.Most students recognize the practical benefits of the course in Law & Rhetoric; they conclude that the course helps them become better rhetoricians because they are more aware and adept legal readers and writers, and they believe that better rhetoricians become better lawyers. I think this recognition that better rhetoricians become better lawyers carries with it something more profound: rhetorical alternatives recognize students' power and ability to affect outcomes in their rhetorical communities, both now, while they are law students, and later, when they are practicing lawyers. From the rhetorical point of view, law students, law teachers, and lawyers are human actors whose work makes a difference because they are the readers, writers, and members of interpretive and compositional communities who constitute the law.


This work investigates minimally-supervised methods for solving NLP tasks, without requiring explicit annotation or training data. Our motivation is to create systems that require substantially reduced effort from domain and/or NLP experts, compared to annotating a corresponding dataset, and also offer easier domain adaptation and better generalisation properties. We apply these principles to four separate language processing tasks and analyse their performance compared to supervised alternatives. First, we investigate the task of detecting the scope of speculative language, and develop a system that applies manually-defined rules over dependency graphs. Next, we experiment with distributional similarity measures for detecting and generating hyponyms, and describe a new measure that achieves the highest performance on hyponym generation. We also extend the distributional hypothesis to larger structures and propose the task of detecting entailment relations between dependency graph fragments of various types and sizes. Our system achieves relatively high accuracy by combining distributional and lexical similarity scores. Finally, we describe a self-learning framework for improving the accuracy of an unlexicalised parser, by calculating relation probabilities using its own dependency output. The method requires only a large in-domain text corpus and can therefore be easily applied to different domains and genres. While fully supervised approaches generally achieve the highest results, our experiments found minimally supervised methods to be remarkably competitive. By moving away from explicit supervision, we aim to better understand the underlying patterns in the data, and to create systems that are not tied to any specific domains, tasks or resources.


Pathogenic fungi cause a wide range of syndromes in immune-competent and immune-compromised individuals, with life-threatening disease primarily seen in humans with HIV/AIDS and in patients receiving immunosuppressive therapies for cancer, autoimmunity, and end-organ failure. The discovery that specific primary immune deficiencies manifest with fungal infections and the development of animal models of mucosal and invasive mycoses have facilitated insight into fungus-specific recognition, signaling, effector pathways, and adaptive immune responses. Progress in deciphering the molecular and cellular basis of immunity against fungi is guiding preclinical studies into vaccine and immune reconstitution strategies for vulnerable patient groups. Furthermore, recent work has begun to address the role of endogenous fungal communities in human health and disease. In this review, we summarize a contemporary understanding of protective immunity against fungi.


INTRODUCTION Teleradiology, a subset of telemedicine, is "a means of electronically transmitting radiographic patient images [X-rays, CT scans, etc.] and consultative text from one location to another." (1) In theory, teleradiology allows a radiologist to remotely diagnose images anywhere in the world from a phone or Internet connection. As a result, a nascent international outsourcing industry has formed, providing inexpensive and efficient diagnoses of images (2) sent by American medical groups. (3) Despite this growth, regulatory entities have not embraced offshore teleradiology because of the sensitive and private nature of the transmission data, the potentially life-threatening consequences of a mistaken diagnosis, and jurisdictional issues affecting a patient's legal recourse. This note argues that despite these legitimate concerns, the benefits of offshore teleradiology and other forms of telemedicine may increase the overall standard of medical care available to underserved and rural communities. Telemedicine may improve this standard by providing critical access to medical specialists in areas where no specialists practice, at a cost significantly lower than U.S.-based physicians. Impeding the growth of teleradiology, however, is a collection of professional organizations, federal and state statutes, and medical negligence laws that have decreased the incentive for domestic medical groups to implement telemedical protocols. While the general purpose of this regulatory collection is to protect healthcare consumers by upholding and enforcing the highest standard of medical care possible, this note argues that the regulations are too broad and unfocused. A more flexible approach by regulators may allow for and promote the use of telemedicine as a means of providing underserved and rural communities with a similar level of access to medical care as that found in urban medical centers throughout the U.S., while still protecting patients against sub-standard medical practices. The increased implementation of teleradiology and other forms of telemedicine may also create a type of "disruptive innovation that can transform traditional processes" to create benefits not currently anticipated or foreseeable. (4) Part I of this note defines teleradiology, discusses the differences between the onshore and offshore teleradiology models, and describes some of the potential benefits of teleradiology. Part II describes the current condition of rural medicine, arguing that the paucity of medical specialists in underserved and rural communities is due to a combination of government policies within the past fifty years and personal choices by physicians graduating from medical school. Part II also provides examples of current teleradiology practices in a rural medical context. Part III discusses impediments to the growth of offshore teleradiology, including the recommendations of professional medical organizations, state and federal statutes, and medical negligence law. Part IV argues that government policy should endorse teleradiology and recommends changes to current state licensure and medical negligence law. I. WHAT IS TELERADIOLOGY? "Telemedicine" is the use by medical practitioners of "telecommunication to diagnose and treat a patient." (5) Teleradiology, a subset of telemedicine, "is a means of electronically transmitting radiographic patient images [X-rays, CT scans, etc.] and consultative text from one location to another." (6) Teleradiology is a natural subset of telemedicine because radiologists have increasingly replaced traditional analogue film with digital imaging technology. (7) Advancements in data storage, data transmission and increased bandwidth have allowed radiologists to sit at a given workstation anywhere in the world and "send, receive and manipulate any digital information from imaging studies at the click of a button or turn of a dial." (8) This technical sophistication has enabled the growth of medical outsourcing, (9) where medical groups send delegable components of health care treatment to other countries. …


This historical narrative mixed with personal reminiscences, undertaken to provide background for Albert Hourani9s testimony before the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry elsewhere in this issue, focuses closely on the decade or so that precedes the committee9s hearings in 1946. In recounting the establishment of the committee and the Arab Office (which Hourani represented), the author highlights the complex interaction between the local, regional, and international dimensions: the intra-Palestinian (involving primarily Haj Amin al-Husayni, Musa Alami, and Jamal Husayni), the regional (involving especially Nuri Pasha al-Said of Iraq), and the international (especially the process by which the United States began to replace Britain as the pacesetter of events in postwar Palestine). A supporting cast includes George Antonius, Ahmad Hilmi Pasha, Hussein Fakhry Khalidi, Ahmad Shukayri, and Wasfi Tall.


This paper examines a decision support system (DSS) for the appraisal of complex decision problems using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). The DSS makes use of a structured hierarchical approach featuring the multiplicative AHP also known as the REMBRANDT technique. The paper addresses the influence of the progression factor used when transforming the decision makers' verbal responses from a semantic to a geometric scale in REMBRANDT. Conventionally, the progression factor 2 is used for calculating scores of alternatives and √2 for calculation of criteria weights. Tests are conducted on the magnitude of these progression factors in order to examine the sensitivity towards the final outcome of an analysis. For illustration a case study concerning the appraisal of a large infrastructure project is presented. The results of the sensitivity calculations are compared with the results of a conventional AHP calculation in order to examine what impact the choice of progression factors as well as the choice of technique have on the decision making. Based on this a modified progression factor for the calculation of scores for the alternatives in REMBRANDT is suggested while the progression factor for the criteria weights is suggested to be kept unchanged. Finally, conclusions and perspectives are set out.


Many of the signaling properties of neurons and other electrically excitable cells are determined by a diverse family of potassium channels. A number of genes that encode potassium channel polypeptides have been cloned from various organisms on the basis of their sequence similarity to the Drosophila Shaker (Sh) locus. As an alternative strategy, a molecular analysis of other Drosophila genes that were defined by mutations that perturb potassium channel function was undertaken. Sequence analysis of complementary DNA from the ether a go-go (eag) locus revealed that it encodes a structural component of potassium channels that is related to but is distinct from all identified potassium channel polypeptides.


Faced with the increasingly fierce competition in the aviation market, the strategy of consumer choice has gained increasing significance in both academia and practice. As ever-increasing travel choices and growing consumer heterogeneity, how do airline com- panies satisfy passengers' needs? With a vast amount of data, how do airline managers combine information to excavate the relationship between independent variables to gain insight about passengers' choices and value system as well as determining best personalized contents to them? Using the real case of China Southern Airlines, this paper illus- trates how Bayesian belief network (BBN) can enable airlines dynamically recommend relevant contents based on predicting passengers' choice to optimize the loyalty. The findings of this study provide airline companies useful insights to better understand the passengers' choices and develop effective strategies for growing customer relationship.


Changes in lipid content and fatty acid (FA) composition in decomposing mangrove leaves of Bruguiera gymnorrhiza (L.) Lamk and Kandelia candel (L.) were investigated in a subtrop- ical mangrove forest on Okinawa Island, Japan (26.5°N, 128°E) by field experiments for 18 wk (July to November 2000), using yellow senescent leaves, and compared with FAs in the green leaves and mangrove sediments. We tested the hypothesis that changes in FA composition during decomposition can indicate the state of leaf decay and periods of high and low microbial activity, and that bacteria may rapidly degrade polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). During decay, FA composition in the yel- low leaves changed in 2 wk from predominantly saturated FAs to monounsaturated FAs, and to the more branched FAs typical of bacteria, and lipid and N increased due to microbial colonization. How- ever, the microbial decomposition of leaves did not alter the concentrations of long-chain fatty acids (LCFAs), suggesting that these vascular plant-markers remain unchanged in mangrove detritus and surface sediments for more than 4 mo. Furthermore, bacteria did not degrade PUFAs as we had hypothesized, indicating that during decomposition of mangrove leaves, bacteria tend to conserve PUFAs (as they do nitrogen), thus enriching the detritus with nutrients. Comparison of ω3 and ω6 PUFAs between the 2 species showed that nutritional quality varies greatly with the state of the leaf material, increasing through time in B. gymnorrhiza and decreasing through time in K. candel.


Despite long-standing calls for more intentional professional development as a way to ensure a higher quality workforce in student affairs, little progress has been made. Various committees and task forces have suggested frameworks for program development, the certification of program quality and attendance, the recording of individual participation, and recognition of individual achievement; but associations have failed to act because of a variety of concerns. To date, information on the views of affairs professionals on such issues is limited and has not been studied in a systematic way. This study sought to fill this void.


Explanations for women's continued underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have popularly employed a "leaky pipeline" metaphor. Recently, however, some have found the pipeline metaphor lacking in explanatory power for dealing with subtle, yet pervasive barriers embedded in specific cultures of engineering. The tension between culturally prescribed notions of masculinity, femininity, and engineering identities is one such barrier. Ethnographic interviews of 118 engineering undergraduates revealed multiple and shifting projects of constructing and claiming certain femininities and masculinities associated with engineering. Our analysis uses an intersection of feminist and discourse theory for a critical examination of multiple discourses contributing to the gendering of images, roles, positions, and a particular engineering discipline within our college and university culture. Loosened from the boundaries of gendered norms, this particular engineering discipline has become more "inviteful" to both women and men but requires different identity projects from each. Our goal is to contribute to discussions about gendered identities and cultures in engineering and to add our support to an emerging model in engineering education, the boundary model, for conceptualizing the movement of students into, across, and through the various domains of engineering.


BACKGROUND
Infectious diseases and diabetes mellitus are very important issues. In this context, Beta vulgaris cicla L. var. flavescens is a leafy green vegetable that has been widely used in traditional medicine for the treatment of various health disorders.

OBJECTIVE
The current study was performed to evaluate the antimicrobial and anti-diabetic potential of different extracts and isolated flavone C- glycoside compounds from Beta vulgaris subspecies cicla L. var. flavescens leaves.

METHODS
Characterization of flavone C-glycosides isolated from n-butanol extract of Beta vulgaris subspecies cicla L. was carried out via using spectroscopic tools including 1D-NMR (1HNMR, 13C NMR), 2D-NMR (1H-1H-COSY, HMQC & HMBC) and comparison with literature. The isolated compounds were screened in vitro for their antibacterial activity against some human bacterial pathogens (which represent prominent human pathogens, particularly in hospital settings) viz.; Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Enterococcus faecalis, Proteus mirabilis, Proteus vulgaris, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Salmonella typhi. Also, were screened for their antidiabetic activity using α-glucosidase inhibitory assay.

RESULTS
Five flavone C-glycosides namely; Vitexin (1), Vitexin (1'''-2'')-O-xylopyranoside (2), Acacetin 8-C-β-D-glucopyranoside (3), Acacetin 8-C-α-L-rhamnoside (4), and 6,8-di-C-β-D-glucopyranosyl- apigenin (Vecinin-II) (5) were isolated from Beta vulgaris L. Compound (1); showed antibacterial potential against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria with minimum inhibitory concentrations range 15.63-1.95µg ml-1. On the other hand, compounds (1 & 3) showed superior in antidiabetic activity with IC50 35.7 and 42.64 µg ml-1 respectively, while the other compounds are inferior in antidiabetic activity.

CONCLUSION
B. vulgaris is a potential candidate for the treatment of several health disorders associated with infectious diseases and diabetes.


The Apollo asteroid 4179 Toutatis passed within 0.0242 AU of Earth in December 1992, and photometry was obtained by observers from at least 25 sites around the world, at solar phase angles between 121° and 0.2°. The phase curve is well described in the H, G system with a mean H of 15.3 and a slope parameter G of 0.10 ± 0.10. However, the rotational lightcurve is very unusual. The amplitude is large (1.2 magnitudes) and the rotation period is extremely long (several days). Most remarkably, the lightcurve does not appear to be periodic: it is unlikely that a single rotation period can account for the lightcurve even when the rapidly changing viewing and illumination geometry during the close Earth approach is taken into account, though strong lightcurve minima recurred approximately every 7.3 days. The likely explanation is that Toutatis has complex, tumbling, rotation with a characteristic period between 3 and 7 days. As noted by A. W. Harris (1994 Icarus 107, 209-211), the damping time scale from complex to simple rotation for a small, slowly rotating asteroid like Toutatis is so long that complex rotation is expected, but Toutatis is the first asteroid to show such strong observational evidence for complex rotation.


Despite modern advances in paediatric traumatology and orthopaedics in the treatment of patients with foot deformities, conservative and surgical strategies of cure are nevertheless considered unsuccessful, to a giant extent if the problem is a recurrent or justified congenital ailment of the central or peripheral apprehensive system. For the therapy of children with congenital clubfoot we have used a huge range of treatments, including purposeful techniques (corrective massage, TPT, carrying functional tires), fixation methods (bandaging, staged plaster bandages), physiotherapy (electrostimulation, hydrotherapy, UHF, ultrasound, electrophoresis, etc.). Specialized remedy included: orthopaedic (wearing orthopaedic footwear with inlays, shafts, bandages made of thermoplastic), conservative and surgical treatment. Analysis of the bought remedy effects in distinct age groups showed that the major undertaking of treatment and its success depends on early restoration of anatomical relations in the joint. Thus, in teenagers under one-year-old, appropriate diagnostics and software of atraumatic functional methods of remedy primarily based on Ponset approach allowed achieving good results with a significant discount in the number of plaster bandages and accordingly decreasing the cure duration in universal to 2 months. The find out about of the experience of cure of congenital clubfoot based totally on its cloth showed that the use of a unique cure approach relies upon on the assessment of the severity of foot deformation. The chosen treatment systems need to be intensive and consistent, beginning from the early duration after birth, when the foot deformity is cellular and bendy to correction. The new technique of surgical treatment, change of achillotomyms in accordance to the Ponset method, allowed us to get suitable beauty result barring lowering the effectivity of the surgical intervention. Another benefit of this technique reduces the length of the operation and reduces soft tissue trauma in the Achilles tendon area.


We review theoretical approaches to the study of galaxy formation, with emphasis on the role of hydrodynamic simulations in modeling the high redshift galaxy population. We present new predictions for the abundance of star-forming galaxies in the Lambda + cold dark matter model (Omega_m=0.4, Omega_L=0.6), combining results from several simulations to probe a wide range of redshift. At a threshold density of one object per arcmin^2 per unit z, these simulations predict galaxies with star formation rates of 2 msun/yr (z=10), 5 msun/yr (z=8), 20 msun/yr (z=6), 70-100 msun/yr (z=4-2), and 30 msun/yr (z=0.5). For galaxies selected at a fixed comoving space density n=0.003 h^3 Mpc^{-3], a (50 Mpc/h)^3 simulation predicts a galaxy correlation function (r/5 Mpc/h)^{-1.8} in comoving coordinates, essentially independent of redshift from z=4 to z=0.5. Different cosmological models predict global histories of star formation that reflect their overall histories of mass clustering, but robust numerical predictions of the comoving space density of star formation are difficult because the simulations miss the contribution from galaxies below their resolution limit. The LCDM model appears to predict a star formation history with roughly the shape inferred from observations, but it produces too many stars at low redshift, predicting Omega_* ~ 0.015 at z=0. We conclude with a brief discussion of this discrepancy and three others that suggest gaps in our current theory of galaxy formation: small disks, steep central halo profiles, and an excess of low mass dark halos. While these problems could fade as the simulations or observations improve, they could also guide us towards a new understanding of galactic scale star formation, the spectrum of primordial fluctuations, or the nature of dark matter.


One of the classic predictions of urban economic theory is that high-income and low-income households choose different residential locations and therefore, conditional on workplace location, have different commuting patterns. The effect of household income on commuting distance may be positive, because of an increased demand for housing as house prices are lower further from workplace locations, or negative, because of an increase in the value of travel time. In addition, the sign of this effect may depend on the location of residential amenities relative to workplaces. Empirical tests of this effect are not standard, due to reverse causation and lack of good control variables. To address reverse causation, this effect is derived using changes in household income and distance through residential moves keeping workplace location constant. Our results contradict previous results in the literature. We show that for Denmark, conditional on the workplace location, the income elasticity of distance is negative and in the order of −0.18. This elasticity is larger for single-earner than for dual-earner households. Conditional on that the household moves residence between municipalities, the elasticity is suggested to be around −0.60.


Wind farms create unique risks to birds because of the danger of the turbine blades, which can be up to 150 meters tall. Placement of wind farms in the wrong areas can have a detrimental impact on bird species. New Zealand's commitment to renewable energy is shared with its obligations to protect biodiversity, which are reflected in the ratification of international conventions such as the Convention on Migratory Species and the Biodiversity Convention. Domestic legislation, such as the Resource Management Act 1991, seeks to enhance the development of alternative sources of energy with the intention of reducing the effects of climate change on the environment and conserving indigenous biodiversity. Migratory bird protection in the wind farm context in New Zealand relies upon environmental impact assessment under Schedule 4 of the Resource Management Act 1991. International obligations include protecting or endeavouring to protect 37 migratory bird species along their complete flight paths. The Resource Management Act 1991 does not meet international obligations to protect migratory birds in the wind farm consent process because (1) the assessment of environmental effects process fails to adequately identify effects on migratory birds; and (2) even if the assessment of environmental effects process adequately identifies effects on migratory birds, the RMA fails to give priority weight to effects on birds when it balances those effects with other factors in deciding to approve the wind farm application. Other countries provide guidance on the next steps for New Zealand to take to comply with its international obligations to migratory birds.


Religious belief is an emotional attitude that is not based on a "certain" experience. Adolescence is a very uncertain stage of life and an unstable faith can mirror this turbulence. The aim of this work is to investigate the discursive construction of religious experience in late adolescence. We asked 230 university students to write about their religious views. Their texts were analyzed using content analysis and critical discourse analysis. We divided the responses into four groups: believers, atheists, doubters and agnostics. The different rhetorical strategies arising from the contrast between "believing" and "asserting" and, conversely, from the contrast between "not asserting" and "not believing" were discussed.


Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world. One of the biggest issues to address is energy. At the moment we get most of our energy from fossil fuels, like oil, coal and gas, but these release greenhouse gases that trap heat in the earth's atmosphere. To avoid dangerous levels of global warming and give a more secure future, we need to switch to clean, green renewable energy. With the increasing penetration of renewable energies as distributed generation (DG) in smart grid scheme, technical problems arise in both distribution and transmission system level. Today's storage technologies are becoming more efficient and higher performing. Power electronics based loads such as adjustable speed drives, rectifiers, power supplies, domestic appliances, and the like offer highly non-linear characteristics. These non-linear loads draw distorted currents from the grid and cause reactive power burden and excessive neutral current. The purpose of this thesis is to study and analyze the potential of smart power converters and batteries at telecom sites, to aid the grid in power quality improvement. Power converters can provide more information about the grid quality and also contribute to grid quality. When connected to energy storage and renewable energy, the power conversion system represents an additional flexibility. Converter-battery combination is studied in SAF (Shunt active filter) configuration to compensate harmonic and reactive currents. A control strategy based on p-q theory is used for extracting the three-phase reference currents for SAF , and performance evaluation is carried out with dq-PI and adaptive HCC controllers in Matlab/Simulink 2015a environment. When used in three-phase, three-wire configurations, the two controllers give a relatively similar compensation characteristics. The THD (Total harmonic distortion) in the source current reduced from 28.08% to 2.24% with dq-PI and to 3.10% using adaptive HCC control for distorted source and unbalanced load conditions. However, under three-phase, four-wire systems, they give significantly different results. The THD in the source current reduced from 28.17% to 7.23% with dq-PI control and to 0.51% with adaptive HCC control for the same source and load conditions. i


This article reviews the existing empirical research on employment arbitration and presents new findings based on analysis of data from recent American Arbitration Association employment arbitration case filings. Whereas past research often concluded based on more limited datasets that outcomes from employment arbitration were generally similar to those from litigation, results of the present study, which is based on a larger dataset focused on cases involving employer promulgated agreements, indicate that both employee win rates and damage awards in employment arbitration are significantly lower than in litigation. By contrast, results of the present study confirm previous research findings that time to hearing is generally shorter in employment arbitration than in litigation. As with past research, the present study finds evidence of a repeat player effect, though with some uncertainty as to the causal explanation for this effect. Self-representation of employees is found to be associated with significantly worse employee win rates and damage awards, particularly where the case involves by a repeat employer-arbitrator pairing. Lastly, the article reviews research indicating some positive impacts of employment arbitration on the adoption and operation of internal organizational dispute resolution procedures.


David Gefen, Chittibabu Govindarajulu, Prentice Hall, 2004, 0130893676, 9780130893673, 670 pages. This book teaches Visual Basic programming with a focus on the most required skills in the industry. It enables readers to develop awareness of the concepts behind Visual Basic through hands-on teaching. Each chapter presents a short theory basis of the topic to be covered and then involves readers directly into a guided Visual Basic project building activity.Extensive coverage of material current in the industry provides readers with industry-crucial material including Internet programming and incorporating database programming into programming applications. Website provides updated examples and revisions as new versions of Visual Basic and patches are released. CD-ROM provides readers with sample programs, exercises for reinforcement and practice, and detailed solutions to the programming examples in the text. Hands-on programming approach trains readers to effectively code in Visual Basic. Programming hints provided throughout highlight for readers those important programming ideas that improve the way readers write and understand code.For Visual Basic programmers and trainers..