This study proposes and tests a structural model of customer retention. It measures the effects of trust and involvement on customer retention assuming general customer satisfaction. The model is tested in an empirical study in the context of an existing long-term customer relationship. As expected, customer satisfaction is not a construct on its own but is combined with retention. Trust serves as a strong trigger for enhancing customer retention. Involvement is revealed to play a prominent role in explaining both trust creation and customer retention. Applying the scale of Jain and Srinivasan, effects of different involvement profiles are analysed. Based on a discussion of the conceptual framework and an empirical proof of its operationalisation, five different dimensions of involvement are distinguished. Trust creation is primarily triggered by affective components of involvement, whereas the cognitive components show distinct effects. Further differences between the individual dimensions of involvement are revealed, in accordance with theoretical considerations. We conclude that relational customer retention, where trust is a major constituent element, is differently supported by affective and cognitive involvement. Consequently, the focus of innovation and new product management should shift from the mere design of new physical properties towards a broader, proactive perspective of shaping both consumer involvement and long-term retention.


This study investigates the characteristics of first line managers (FLMs) required to manage absence 'effectively' within Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council. An important theoretical contribution to knowledge is made by focusing specifically on the role and impact of FLMs which is an issue that has previously been identified as being important, but has not been researched specifically. A wide range of literature was explored from the fields of health management, psychology and business management to present a clear picture of the key issues involved in absence management. Discussions are provided on personal, organisational and group level characteristics which have been found to have an association with levels of employee absence, before looking at best practice in the management interventions that can be used. Five major hypotheses were generated from the literature and were further broken down into 21 testable sub-hypotheses. A positivist approach was taken using a quantitative methodology in order to meet the objectives of this study. This consisted of a range of research methods including a survey to FLMs, policy analysis and analysis of internal organisational documents. Using this variety of methods a clear picture of existing practices was developed and then analysed. This extensive methodological approach makes an interesting contribution to this research field and is in response to some earlier criticisms of research designs in this area. The survey results show multiple statistically significant relationships between variables and levels of absence including; the age of the FLMs; the division (p=0.01) and departments (p=0.02) in which the FLMs work, and their levels of knowledge of the organisation's absence management policy and procedures (p= 0.048). This allowed the rejection of the null hypotheses and states that there is an association between these variables and levels of absence of the FLMs' employees. However, there are also other interesting results that are of high practical significance despite the results not being statistically significant. This includes looking at relationships between variables such as career history and relationships with other stakeholders, when correlated with the absence levels of the FLMs' employees. The main results from the other research methods utilised in this study demonstrate that there is some ambiguity over responsibilities for managing absence and that absence management is not fully integrated into associated HR policies. Despite attempts to implement best practice interventions, there remain some indications of differences between rhetoric and reality. Recommendations for the organisation include the need to include supplementary details in their absence management policy and to condense the seven existing documents into one comprehensive policy guide. In addition the organisation needs to support their FLMs so that they understand exactly what their role in absence management entails and how and when they should work in partnership with other stakeholders.


This paper focuses on flexible teamwork in dynamic and realworld multi-agent domains. Such teamwork is not simply a union of agents' simultaneous execution of individual plans, even if such execution pre-coordinated. Indeed, uncertainties in complex, dynamic domains often obstruct pre-planned coordination, with a resultant breakdown in teamwork. The central hypothesis in this paper is that for durable teamwork, agents should be provided explicit team plans, which directly express a team's joint activities. When agents execute such team plans, they abide by certain "commonsense" conventions of teamwork. Essentially, such conventions provide a deeper model of teamwork, facilitating flexible reasoning about coordination activities. Such a framework also frees the planner or the knowledge engineer from specifying very detailed low-level coordination plans. This framework has been implemented in the context of a real-world synthetic environment for helicopter-combat simulation.1


This thesis comprises studies of evolution and composition of object-oriented frameworks, a certain kind of reusable asset. An object-oriented framework is a set of classes that embodies an abstract design for solutions to a family of related problems. The work presented is based on and has its origin in industrial contexts where object-oriented frameworks have been developed, used, evolved and managed. Thus, the results are based on empirical observations. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches have been used in the studies performed which cover both technical and managerial aspects of object-oriented framework technology. Historically, object-oriented frameworks are large monolithic assets which require several design iterations and are therefore costly to develop. With the requirement of building larger applications, software engineers have started to compose multiple frameworks, thereby encountering a number of problems. Five common framework composition problems, together with existing solution approaches and the underlying causes for the problems are presented in this thesis. Adopting a reuse technology, such as object-oriented frameworks, in a software development organization causes changes and additions of practices and procedures. We present problems and possible solutions related to these issues. Examples of topics addressed are; domain scoping, business models, verification of the framework's abstract behavior, and when to release a framework. Object-oriented frameworks, as all software, evolve due to changed and new requirements. The evolution of object-oriented framework can be more costly than conventional software since there generally exist several applications based on and forced to evolve with the framework. In our studies, we characterize different views of framework evolution. Aspects investigated are structural and behavioral stability, change and growth rates using historical information and effort distribution of framework development and customization. We also provide an assessment of the methods used for characterizing the evolution against the following management issues; identification of evolution-prone modules, framework deployment, change impact analysis, benchmarking and requirements management. As part of these studies, we have extended and validated two proposed methods for software evolution; one for quantitatively assessing stability of a framework, which has been extended with a set of framework stability indicators, and one for identifying evolution-prone modules based on historical information (adapted for object-orientation). Our studies have validated that these methods are feasible and possible to apply on industrial object-oriented frameworks. In addition, we provide quantitative evidence that the use of framework technology reduces application development effort.


Among the diseases affecting the commercial citrus production, the citrus black spot (CBS) is considered to cause substantial losses. The analyses of particles in suspension in the orchards and collected into a disc have been applied as a preventive action trying to identify the presence of fungus spores before symptom appearance. In this paper, we show the results of several shape analysis methods applied to the fungus, the first step to the aimed computer aided vision system, capable to assist the identification process. Experiments and comparative results among the methods are presented in this paper, showing that better results were obtained applying the curvature method.


Asian Americans are often referred to as the "model minority" due to perceptions of their high income and educational attainment; yet relatively little is known about their economic assimilation experience. The purpose of this study is to determine economic assimilation of Chinese immigrants over time. This research follows a cohort of Chinese immigrants from 1994 to 2011 and compares their earnings performance with natives that have similar educational attainment. Multiple regression analysis is used to analyze data from the Current Population Survey. Results show that, although the cohort of Chinese immigrants initially has earnings substantially lower than the natives, it is only about 10 years before they reach income parity. By 2011, Chinese immigrants' earnings exceed natives' earnings by about 4 percent. The study concludes that despite the language and adjustment challenges, Chinese immigrants do show rapid economic assimilation in the United States.


Joint entity and relation extraction is to detect entity and relation using a single model. In this paper, we present a novel unified joint extraction model which directly tags entity and relation labels according to a query word position p, i.e., detecting entity at p, and identifying entities at other positions that have relationship with the former. To this end, we first design a tagging scheme to generate n tag sequences for an n-word sentence. Then a position-attention mechanism is introduced to produce different sentence representations for every query position to model these n tag sequences. In this way, our method can simultaneously extract all entities and their type, as well as all overlapping relations. Experiment results show that our framework performances significantly better on extracting overlapping relations as well as detecting long-range relation, and thus we achieve state-of-the-art performance on two public datasets.


Based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle and generalized Stokes theory, the evolution of polarization properties of beams generated by quasi-homogenous (QH) sources propagating in clear oceanic water was studied by the use of the oceanic turbulence spatial spectrum function. The results show that the beams have similar polarization self-reconstructed behavior under different turbulence conditions in the far field, but if the propagation distance is not long enough, the degree of polarization (DOP) fluctuates with much more complexity than state of polarization (SOP) of QH beams. The self-reconstructed ability of DOP at the special distance in turbulence would get to the best value if the values of coherence of width were chosen suitably, but for SOP, it has no best value.


: Can a society suffering contests between rich and poor achieve good governance in the face of endemic corruption? We examine a stylized poor state with weak institutions in which a 'culture of evasion' damages state authority. Many evade tax payments, limiting the state's economic development capability. In the face of extensive corruption, it is challenging for the state to establish and implement policies reflecting good governance; for example, a government that is accountable and transparent, efficient and effective, and follows the rule of law. The rich and poor possess different views on what is the appropriate level of enforcing proper payments of taxes due. The government needs to design an effective tax administration policy that minimizes corruption and is sensitive to the present and future needs of society. To do this it must understand what drives such widespread corruption.


Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are novel bioelectrochemical devices for spontaneous conversion of biomass into electricity through the metabolic activity of the bacteria. Microbial production of electricity may become an important source of bioenergy in future because MFCs offer the possibility of extracting electric current from a wide range of soluble or dissolved complex organic wastes and renewable biomass. However, the materials used in these devices are still not economic and researchers use different materials as cathode and anode in MFCs. This results in variable performance which is difficult to compare. We tested several commercially available materials for their suitability as anode in an acetate fed MFC. Besides, a novel non-platinized activated carbon (AC) based, gas porous air cathode was also tested. Both the anode and cathode were tested in a half cell configuration. Carbon cloth, graphite cloth and dynamically stable anode (DSA) served as ideal anode material with carbon cloth and graphite mesh reaching the open circuit voltage (OCV) of acetate oxidation (-500 mV vs. Ag/AgCl). The effect of increasing concentration of acetate on anode OCV was also investigated and results showed that on increasing the acetate concentration from 10 mM to 40 mM has no adverse impact on the anodic activity towards electrochemical oxidation of acetate. The AC cathode showed stable current (-1.2 mA/cm2) over a period of 100 days.


In this study, we present a selective paper-based method for the detection of L-Cys in serum using DTNB-modified Ag nanoprisms (AgP-DTNB). This method is based on the principle that L-Cys reacts with DTNB in AgP-DTNB to release a TNB2− chromophore and etches simultaneously AgP-DTNB to form Ag nanodisks, hence resulting in ratiometric changes of absorbance. Different biothiols have different affinities to etch the AgP surface and cause nanodisks of different sizes, which have slightly different resonance wavelengths. Thus, L-Cys can be discriminated with different biothiols on the basis of the different absorption spectral changes and different absorbance ratios. The linear dynamic range for the determination of L-Cys was 1–1750 μM, and the correlation coefficient (R2) was 0.9968 (y = 3.0859 × 10−4 [Cys] + 0.9376). The limit of detection for L-Cys was calculated to be 0.87 μM from 3 times the standard deviation of the blanks to the slope of the calibration curve. Compared with the other nanoparticle-based sensors in solution and on paper, AgP-DTNB possesses a much wider linear range and a comparable detection limit for L-Cys. This paper-based sensor exhibits selectivity, a wide linear sensing range, low-volume sampling, miniaturization, portability, and disposability.


Antinomy (Sb) has received considerable attention as one of the most promising anode materials for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) because of its high theoretical capacity and suitable working voltage. However, the large volume change of Sb during the alloying/dealloying process causes poor cycling stability and low rate capability, which hinder its practical application. Here, we substantially enhance the sodium storage performance of Sb by binding Sb nanoparticles in ionic liquid-derived nitrogen-enriched carbon (Sb@NC) via pyrolysis of an SbCl3/1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide mixture. The Sb@NC composite exhibits a high reversible capacity of 440 mA h g−1 at a current density of 100 mA g−1, superior rate performance of 285 and 237 mA h g−1 at the high current densities of 2 and 5 A g−1, respectively, and greatly improved cycle life of 328 mA h g−1 at the current density of 100 A g−1 after 300 cycles in the half cell of SIBs. In the full cell, the energy density of Sb@NC//Na3V2(PO4)3/C is approximately 147 W h kg−1 at a power density of 50 W kg−1. Even at 2.37 kW kg−1, an energy density of around 65 W h kg−1 is still retained. The remarkably improved electrochemical performance could be assigned to the synergistic effect of nanoscale size, uniform distribution, and chemical coupling effect between Sb and ionic liquid-derived nitrogen-enriched carbon.


The purpose of this study was to examine the constraining and facilitating effects of social structural position (age, sex, race, class, financial sufficiency, and number of friends) on opportunities for friendship. We hypothesized that the greater the number of people who share a given social structural location and the more access they have to situations where it is possible to meet new people, the less likely they are to have problematic friendships. The sample comprised 53 male and female community residents aged 55 to 84 years who enjoyed fairly good health. Logistic and multiple regression procedures revealed outcomes opposite to our predictions: those who were supposedly more social structurally advantaged actually reported greater numbers of problematic friendships. Potential interpretations include the possibility that these people are more critical than others of their friend relationships or more willing to acknowledge problems, that the norms regarding commitment to friends are weaker among these individuals, or that they learn to acquire friends but not to avoid and solve problems in their relationships. Apparently, people with more friends are not more likely than others to terminate problematic friendships or to redefine them as mere associations.


A large number of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices will soon populate our physical environments. Yet, IoT devices' reliance on mobile applications and voice-only assistants as the primary interface limits their scalability and expressiveness. Building off of the classic 'Put-That-There' system, we contribute an exploration of the design space of voice + gesture interaction with spatially-distributed IoT devices. Our design space decomposes users' IoT commands into two components—selection and interaction. We articulate how the permutations of voice and freehand gesture for these two components can complementarily afford interaction possibilities that go beyond current approaches. We instantiate this design space as a proof-of-concept sensing platform and demonstrate a series of novel IoT interaction scenarios, such as making 'dumb' objects smart, commanding robotic appliances, and resolving ambiguous pointing at cluttered devices.


As a club of the world's largest economies, the G20 determines the future of global economic governance. The G20 thus plays an important role in global rulemaking, beyond the individual interests of its members. Africa is significantly under-represented, with only South Africa a permanent member. Given that Africa has been a rule-taker since its decolonisation, its limited participation in this grouping runs the risk of perpetuating this situation. Africa and other less developed regions are full blown members of the international community with a vested interest in the future of global governance. The continent still faces huge developmental challenges, but it has also projected much stronger agency in recent years. Yet in discussions about the future world order, Africa is a participant, not an observer. Recently the G20 has started to pay more attention to Africa, and the continent's future development now occupies a somewhat more central position on the grouping's agenda. The G20 Initiative on Supporting Industrialization in Africa and Least Developed Countries, launched under China's G20 presidency of 2016, and the 2017 German presidency's Compact with Africa offered unprecedented moments of engagement. However, the question remains how Africa can use these initiatives to deepen its engagement with the G20 and boost its own development. This paper draws on extensive interviews with key stakeholders to analyse G20–Africa engagement by focusing on three presidencies: China in 2016, Germany in 2017, and Argentina in 2018. It shows how China's Industrialisation Initiative was crucially informed by its pre-existing African engagement, while Germany's Compact with Africa both gained and suffered from a more narrowly focused commercial engagement. It then shows how Argentina, despite lacking a similar African initiative, managed to continue G20–Africa engagement through person-to-person diplomacy. The paper points out both the benefits and the limits of these engagements. It suggests a series of further initiatives that could allow Africa a more significant say in the G20.


Access control is a key challenge in software engineering, especially in relational database applications. Current access control techniques are based on additional security layers designed by security experts. These additional security layers do not take into account the necessary business logic leading to a separation between business tiers and access control mechanisms. Moreover, business tiers are built from commercial tools (ex: Hibernate, JDBC, ODBC, LINQ), which are not tailored to deal with security aspects. To overcome this situation several proposals have been presented. In spite of their relevance, they do not support the enforcement of access control policies at the level of the runtime values that are used to interact with protected data. Runtime values are critical entities because they play a key role in the process of defining which data is accessed. In this paper, we present a general technique for static checking, at the business tier level, the runtime values that are used to interact with databases and in accordance with the established access control policies. The technique is applicable to CRUD (create, read, update and delete) expressions and also to actions (update and insert) that are executed on data retrieved by Select expressions. A proof of concept is also presented. It uses an access control platform previously developed, which lacks the key issue of this paper. The collected results show that the presented approach is an effective solution to enforce access control policies at the level of runtime values that are used to interact with data residing in relational databases. Keywords-security; access control; database, business tiers; software architecture.


I. INTRODUCTION The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC1 entered the national consciousness amid more than its fair share of controversy. During his 2010 State of the Union Address, with many of the robe-clad justices of the Supreme Court sitting front and center in the House Chambers, President Obama castigated the Court for "reversing] a century of law that [he] believefd] [would] open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations- to spend without limit in our elections."2 The President's criticism, warranted or not, prompted immediate standing applause from many members of the House and Senate and a very surprising reaction from one member of the Supreme Court. Although the Justices have historically remained silent and unresponsive during the State of the Union Address, Justice Alito could not restrain himself from reacting to what he viewed as the President's misstatement of the key holding and potential ramifications of Citizens United. Shaking his head and mouthing what appeared to be the words "not true," Justice Alito made his disagreement with the President clear to a world authence. This controversial exchange, which provided enough fodder to fill several days of twenty-four hour news channel programming, demonstrated how impassioned individuals can become when money and political speech are at issue. It also made clear that even after over 200 years of constitutional interpretation, significant First Amendment questions remain in flux. The central holding in Citizens United is that, under the First Amendment, "the Government cannot restrict political speech based on the speaker's corporate identity."3 With that question answered, at least for the time being, it is now left to the legal world to consider what the broader impact of this decision will be moving forward. Many serious questions remain as to how this holding will affect free speech rights and political campaigns. For instance, it remains unclear how this decision will affect the involvement of foreign corporations in American politics or the exact nature of Political Action Committees ("PACs") under the new framework. Additionally, there is significant uncertainty regarding the impact Citizens United will have on tax-exempt religious organizations that are restricted from engaging in political activities under § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.4 Although each of these questions is worth serious review in light of Citizens United, this Note will focus specifically on the last question - how the decision in Citizens United affects tax-exempt religious organizations under § 501(c)(3). Under § 501(c)(3) certain organizations, including those "organized and operated exclusively for religious [or] charitable . . . purposes," are exempt from paying federal taxes as long as they adhere to certain restrictions.5 These restrictions include limits on lobbying activities and participation in political campaigns.6 Over the years there have been a number of legal challenges to this political activities restriction, yet all have failed to overturn the prohibition.7 It is likely, however, that in light of the holding in Citizens United, new challenges to this restriction will arise.8 As such, it is helpful to anticipate the issues that may arise with these potential challenges, including whether or not Citizens United even applies to tax-exempt religious organizations and, if so, how that holding affects their rights under § 501(c)(3). With a new emphasis on First Amendment political speech rights under the Citizens United decision, it is likely that any challenge to the § 501(c)(3) restrictions would be based on the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions, which limits the types of conditions government can place on the benefits it provides.9 Although this doctrine has been used to make similar arguments in the past,10 the new First Amendment paradigm established by the Citizens United holding has changed the legal landscape on this issue. …


Differences in juice quality are associated with positional differences in canopy microclimate and exposure of individual fruit to light and temperature. Differences of internal fruit quality between fruit from different sectors of the tree were investigated. The trials were carried out with 'Mihowase' Satsuma and 'Nules' Clementine trees on Troyer citrange rootstock in Stellenbosch (34°S; 19°E) and 'Fairchild' and 'Temple' tangor trees on rough lemon rootstock in Citrusdal (32°30'S; 19°E), South Africa. Fruit were harvested from four sectors in each tree, viz. north, south, east and west. Within each sector, fruit were harvested from three sub-sectors, i.e. the top, and the inside and outside bottom sub-sectors. Fruit from each sector were scored for colour, size, juice content, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA) and TSS: TA ratio. (i) Colour: 'Fairchild' fruit from all sub-sectors were fully coloured (orange) at harvest. There were no fruit colour differences between the sub-sectors in each sector for each of the other cultivars. The north sector had significantly greener fruit than the south sector for Satsumas, Clementines and 'Temple', (ii) Fruit size: For Satsumas, Clementines and 'Temple' the top fruit were the largest and inside bottom fruit the smallest, but the opposite occurred for in 'Fairchild'. (iii) Juice content: The % juice content in all four cultivars was the lowest in top fruit and the highest in inside bottom fruit, (iv) Total soluble solids (TSS): The TSS in all four cultivars was the highest in top fruit and the lowest in inside bottom fruit. The TSS in fruit from the north sector was significantly higher than fruit from the south sector for 'Fairchild' and 'Temple', with no differences for Satsumas and Clementines, (v) Titratable acidity (TA): For Satsumas and Clementines the inside bottom fruit had the highest TA levels and outside bottom fruit the lowest levels, with no trends for 'Fairchild' and 'Temple', (vi) TSS:TA ratio: Outside bottom fruit (Satsumas) and top fruit (Clementines, 'Fairchild' and 'Temple') had the highest TSS:TA ratios and inside bottom fruit the lowest. The north sector in all the cultivars had higher TSS:TA ratios than the south sector. Top and outside bottom fruit had the best quality. This study provides information that can be used to set a standard for sampling fruit for quality determinations, as a guide for spot-picking and harvesting, and in developing pruning strategies.


Although "Anna Karenina" has been described as "the" European novel by Frank Leavis, the geographical setting of the novel and, increasingly, its temporal and cultural setting, render it a foreign novel to most readers. "A Karenina Companion" offers a wealth of information, including a great deal that has previously not been available in English, for the scholarly and literary appreciation of this great novel. Chapter 1 is a biographical introduction and Chapter 2 an examination of the way in which the novel was composed. In Chapter 3 the author brings together Tolstoi s own substantial comments on his work. Chapter 4 adduces the main differences between the latest edition of the text and what has been the standard edition for over 50 years. Chapter 5 outlines what Tolstoi was reading as he was writing the novel. The final chapter provides a survey of significant secondary literature, with English-language works listed in appendices. "A Karenina Companion" will facilitate both the reading and understanding of the novel by English speakers and the writing of informed and reliable critical appreciations. "


Abstract Objective: To examine resting and postprandial peripheral protease activity in healthy controls and individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and pre-T2DM. Methods: Individuals with T2DM or pre-T2DM and healthy controls (mean age 55.8 years) were studied before and for a span of 300 minutes following a single high-calorie McDonald's breakfast. Metalloproteases-2/-9 (MMP-2/-9), elastase, and trypsin activities were assessed in whole blood before and following the meal using a novel high-precision electrophoretic platform. Also assessed were circulating levels of inflammatory biomarkers and insulin receptor density on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in relationship to protease activity. Results: Premeal MMP-2/-9 and elastase activity levels in T2DM and in pre-T2DM participants were significantly elevated as compared to controls. The T2DM group showed a significant increase in elastase activity 15 minutes after the meal; elastase activity continued to increase to the 30-minute time point (p < 0.01). In control participants, MMP-2/-9, elastase, and trypsin were significantly increased at 15 minutes after the meal (p < 0.05) and returned to premeal values within a period of approximately 30 to 60 minutes post meal. PBMCs incubated for 1 hour with plasma from T2DM and pre-T2DM participants had significantly lower levels of insulin receptor density compared to those incubated with plasma from control participants (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that individuals with T2DM and pre-T2DM have higher resting systemic protease activity than nonsymptomatic controls. A single high-calorie/high-carbohydrate meal results in further elevations of protease activity in the systemic circulation of T2DM and pre-T2DM, as well as in healthy controls. The protease activity in turn can lead to a downregulation of insulin receptor density, potentially supporting a state of insulin resistance.


Using different end-pump methods, short-pulse generation in an active continuous-wave-injected ring cavity with homogeneously broadened Yb3+:YAG crystal is studied numerically. In the derived model, the saturation of the pump absorption is taken into account. The effects of the seeding intensity, the seeding frequency, the amplifier length, and the efficiency of the acousto-optic modulator on the peak intensity using different end-pump methods are analyzed. The results show that, of the end-pump methods considered, the optimum method is the backreflection pump method.


Adaptive combinations of adaptive filters are gaining popularity as a flexible and versatile solution to improve adaptive filters performance. In the recent years, combination schemes have focused on two different approaches: Convex and affine combinations, developing principally practical implementations with just two component filters. However, combinations of a higher number of adaptive filters can offer additional advantages, mainly in tracking environments. In this paper, we introduce a practical adaptation scheme for the affine combination of an arbitrary number of filters, including a steady-state analysis where the proposed rule is compared with the optimal combination. Several experiments both in tracking and stationary scenarios serve to demonstrate the appropriate performance of this approach.


In this paper, I describe a method for evaluating automatically generated text summaries. The method is inspired by research in text grammars by Teun Van Dijk. It addresses a text as a complex structure, the elements of which are interconnected both on the level of form and meaning, and the well-formedness of which should be described on both of these levels. The method addresses current problems of summary evaluation methods, especially the problem of quantifying informativity, as well as the problem of objective measurement of well-formedness of text. It is believed that the ideas from this research can contribute to evaluation methods for algorithms transforming complex meaningful entities into other complex meaningful entities (text, hypertext, sound, vision).


OpenACC was launched in 2010 as a portable programming model for heterogeneous accelerators. Although various implementations already exist, no extensible, open-source, production-quality compiler support is available to the community. This deficiency poses a serious risk for HPC application developers targeting GPUs and other accelerators, and it limits experimentation and progress for the OpenACC specification. To address this deficiency, Clacc is a recent effort funded by the US Exascale Computing Project to develop production OpenACC compiler support for Clang and LLVM. A key feature of the Clacc design is to translate OpenACC to OpenMP to build on Clang's existing OpenMP compiler and runtime support. In this paper, we describe the Clacc goals and design. We also describe the challenges that we have encountered so far in our prototyping efforts, and we present some early performance results.


Encouraging pensioner employment is one answer to the challenge of aging societies. Employment positively influences the subjective well-being (SWB) of working-age populations, but the implications for pensioners, including variance by gender and occupational class, are unclear. We examine this variance using mixed methods on data from Russia, where pensioner employment is comparatively high. Utilizing data on 5,703 individuals ages 45–70 from 12 waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (2003–15), we estimate individual fixed-effects models for life satisfaction, exploring mechanisms using longitudinal qualitative data. We find pensioner employment positively influences SWB of both genders across the occupational hierarchy. We attribute the muting of occupational variance to the decommodifying action of pensions. We find gender differences in mechanisms: pensioner employment gives women a noneconomic SWB boost, but additional income explains men's SWB improvements. We theorize this finding using our qualitative data, showing how gendered age schemas shape pensioner well-being.


A leak-off test (LOT) is a verification method to estimate fracture pressure of exposed formations. After cementing each casing string, LOT is run to verify that the casing, cement and formation below the casing seat can withstand the wellbore pressure required to drill for the next casing string safely. Estimated fracture pressure from the test is used as the maximum pressure that may be imposed on that formation. Critical drilling decisions for mud weights, casing setting depths, and well control techniques are based upon the result of a LOT. Although LOT is a simple and inexpensive test, its interpretation is not always easy, particularly in formations that give nonlinear relationships between pumped volume and injection pressure. The observed shape of the LOT is primarily controlled by the local stresses. However, there are other factors that can affect and distort LOT results. Physically the LOT, indeed, reflects the total system compressibility, i.e., the compressibility of the drilling fluid, wellbore expansion, or so-called borehole ballooning, and leak (filtration) of drilling fluids into the formation. There is, however, no mathematical model explaining the nonlinear behavior. Disagreement on determining or interpreting actual leak-off pressure from the test data among the operators is common. In this paper, a mathematical model using a well-known compressibility equation is derived for total system compressibility to fully analyze nonlinear LOT behavior. This model accurately predicts the observed nonlinear behavior in a field example. The model also predicts the fracture pressure of the formation without running a test until formation fracture.


Feed-forward convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are currently state-of-the-art for object classification tasks such as ImageNet. Further, they are quantitatively accurate models of temporally-averaged responses of neurons in the primate brain's visual system. However, biological visual systems have two ubiquitous architectural features not shared with typical CNNs: local recurrence within cortical areas, and long-range feedback from downstream areas to upstream areas. Here we explored the role of recurrence in improving classification performance. We found that standard forms of recurrence (vanilla RNNs and LSTMs) do not perform well within deep CNNs on the ImageNet task. In contrast, novel cells that incorporated two structural features, bypassing and gating, were able to boost task accuracy substantially. We extended these design principles in an automated search over thousands of model architectures, which identified novel local recurrent cells and long-range feedback connections useful for object recognition. Moreover, these task-optimized ConvRNNs matched the dynamics of neural activity in the primate visual system better than feedforward networks, suggesting a role for the brain's recurrent connections in performing difficult visual behaviors.


Fly photoreceptors that detect colors also contribute information to the processing of motion. From humans to insects, color and motion information are thought to be channeled through separate neural pathways for efficient visual processing, but it remains unclear whether and how these pathways interact in improving perception of moving colored stimuli. Using sophisticated Drosophila genetics, intracellular electrophysiology, two-photon imaging, and behavioral experiments, Wardill et al. found that, early in the processing stage, color photoreceptors influence the motion pathway and that this input improves the flies' optomotor performance in a flight simulator. T. J. Wardill, O. List, X. Li, S. Dongre, M. McCulloch, C.-Y. Ting, C. J. O'Kane, S. Tang, C.-H. Lee, R. C. Hardie, M. Juusola, Multiple spectral inputs improve motion discrimination in the Drosophila visual system. Science 336, 925–931 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Minority business set-asides were created as a prophylactic measure to redress discrimination against minority owned business firms. Predominantly minority jurisdictions found them especially attractive because they promised to provide minority firms a share of the procurement dollars expended by these jurisdictions. The Croson decision invalidated Richmond's ordinance and posed substantial barriers to further enactments. This article proposes an alternative to such set-aides. It argues that the proposed alternative, an Equal Opportunity Rating Agency (EORA), provides a superior business development policy tool and does not have the constitutional vulnerabilities of set-asides. An EORA would operate much like a credit rating agency, although instead of rating a borrower's likelihood of debt repayment, it would instead estimate the ability of local government contractors to perform a nondiscrimination obligation imposed by procurement contracts. Since, as with credit ratings, the most probative evidence of credit worthiness is a past history of debt repayments, the most persuasive evidence of the ability to perform a nondiscrimination obligation would be a prior history of fair dealings with minority firms, based upon their presence and size in the relevant markets. A bidder would receive the highest rating for its private sector transactions with minority firms. The information required to compile credit ratings comes from credit applicants, the accuracy of which is tied to loan covenants. Similarly, bid applications would require contractors to submit their prior history of transactions with minority firms. Inaccurate or fraudulent information would result in contractual penalties and barriers to future contracts. Nondiscrimination obligations applicable to private commercial transactions are not currently imposed on government contractors. Current contractual nondiscrimination obligations are limited to employment. Nondiscrimination obligations in government procurement contracts would harness market competition to inhibit discrimination in private business to business transactions. Contractors would compete with respect to their ability to perform this obligation. Those with the best ratings would have a competitive advantage in government procurement, just as those with excellent credit ratings can borrow at lower costs and on more favorable terms. This approach offers certain policy advantages. Unlike set-asides which allocate to minority firms a portion of a government contract and apply only to the narrow range of goods and services that governments buy, (mostly construction services), and often in unwieldy amounts, this approach would potentially open all industries and apply to a broad continuum of contract sizes on which even small and inexperienced minority firms might cut their teeth. By imposing the nondiscrimination obligation on both minority and non minority contractors and subcontractors, it would operate in a race neutral manner. If a local government can exclude a bidder from consideration because of an inadequate record of operating experience or poor finances, factors lacking constitutional significance, it can exclude bidders with suspect ability to perform a constitutionally favored nondiscrimination obligation.


With the momentum around the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), more recently the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), there is a steady increase in the number of mobile health (mHealth) pilots, feasibility studies and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) used to evaluate the potential for mHealth in developing countries. Recent research indicates the need for more robust ways of evaluating and measuring mHealth in order to truly understand the tangible benefits, and to better plan for, wide scale mHealth roll-out and implementation. In a number of large funded mHealth projects in Africa, RCTs have been selected as a means of assessing mHealth. However, there remains a dearth of research to support the selection of RCTs as a means of evaluating mHealth. The objective of this research is to investigate RCTs as a method of evaluating mobile health interventions in developing countries. Using a qualitative analysis approach, this study aims to explore the challenges associated with pursuing an RCT for the evaluation of mHealth in Malawi, Africa. Following this, as part of the wider study a checklist of factors will be proposed as a means of determining the suitability (or lack thereof) of RCTs as a means of mHealth evaluation.


This paper describes a voltage control scheme of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) wind turbine that can inject more reactive power to the grid during a fault so as to support the grid voltage. To achieve this, the coordinated control scheme using both rotor side converter (RSC) and grid side converters (GSC) controllers of the DFIG are employed simultaneously. The RSC and GSC controllers employ PI controller to operate smoothly. In the voltage control mode, the RSC and GSC are operated. During a fault, both RSC and GSC are used simultaneously to supply the reactive power into the grid (main line) depending on voltage dip condition to support the grid voltage. The proposed system is implemented for single DFIG wind turbine using MATLAB simulation software. The results illustrate that the control strategy injects the reactive power to support the voltage stability during a fault rapidly. Also, the braking system is designed to protect the wind turbine system from over speed. For this purpose, the braking resistors are being used.


Recently, Diebold and Li (2003) obtained good forecasting results for yield curves in a reparametrized Nelson-Siegel framework. We analyze similar modeling approaches for price curves of variance swaps that serve nowadays as hedging instruments for options on realized variance. We consider the popular Heston model, reparametrize its variance swap price formula and model the entire variance swap curves by two exponential factors whose loadings evolve dynamically on a weekly basis. Generalizing this approach we consider a reparametrization of the three-dimensional Nelson-Siegel factor model. We show that these factors can be interpreted as level, slope and curvature and how they can be estimated directly from characteristic points of the curves. Moreover, we analyze a semiparametric factor model. Estimating autoregressive models for the factor loadings we get termstructure forecasts that we compare in addition to the random walk and the static Heston model that is often used in industry. In contrast to the results of Diebold and Li (2003) on yield curves, no model produces better forecasts of variance swap curves than the random walk but forecasting the Heston model improves the popular static Heston model. Moreover, the Heston model is better than the flexible semiparametric approach that outperforms the Nelson-Siegel model.


Seafloor communities are a critical part of the unique and diverse Antarctic marine life. Processes at the ocean-surface can strongly influence the diversity and abundance of these communities, even when they live at hundreds of meters water depth. However, even though we understand the importance of this link, there are so far no quantitative spatial predictions on how seafloor communities will respond to changing conditions at the ocean surface. Here, we map patterns in abundance of important habitat-forming suspension feeders on the seafloor in East Antarctica, and predict how these patterns change after a major disturbance in the icescape, caused by the calving of the Mertz Glacier Tongue. We use a purpose-built ocean model for the time-period before and after the calving of the Mertz-Glacier Tongue in 2010, data from satellites and a validated food-availability model to estimate changes in horizontal flux of food since the glacier calving. We then predict the post-calving distribution of suspension feeder abundances using the established relationships with the environmental variables, and changes in horizontal flux of food. Our results indicate strong increases in suspension feeder abundances close to the glacier calving site, fueled by increased food supply, while the remainder of the region maintains similar suspension feeder abundances despite a slight decrease in total food supply. The oceanographic setting of the entire region changes, with a shorter ice-free season, altered seafloor currents and changes in food-availability. Our study provides important insight into the flow-on effects of a changing icescape on seafloor habitat and fauna in polar environments. Understanding these connections is important in the context of current and future effects of climate change, and the mapped predictions of the seafloor fauna as presented for the study region can be used as a decision-tool for planning potential marine protected areas, and for focusing future sampling and monitoring initiatives.


Last December, eleven years after the Public Health Service issued the first federal regulations addressing research misconduct, the Office of Science and Technology Policy published misconduct rules covering all research performed or sponsored by U.S. government agencies. Key to both policies was their definition of research misconduct. Although the latest government definition resembles the earlier PHS provision, the path from one to the other was far from direct. Between the first and the latest government regulations there was much debate over what research misbehavior warrants federal sanctions. Controversy over the Federal Definition During the 1980s, several high-profile cases of research misconduct captured media and congressional attention. In 1985, Congress directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop regulations requiring institutions applying for PHS funds to review allegations of "scientific fraud." Four years later, the regulations were issued. Instead of fraud, however, they targeted "misconduct in science," defined as: fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or other practices that seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the scientific community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research. It does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretations or judgments of data.(1) Soon after that, the National Science Foundation adopted a similar definition that added retaliation against good faith whistleblowers to the list of proscribed behaviors.(2) These definitions did not sit well with some scientists. The primary objections were to the phrase "other practices that seriously deviate." Critics claimed the phrase was vague and could be applied to unorthodox but defensible research approaches. Besides chilling innovative science, they said, the provision opened the door to investigations against unpopular or low-ranking scientists pursuing legitimate research strategies. In 1995, a National Academy of Sciences panel strongly criticized the PHS and NSF definitions and presented a counterproposal. According to the panel, misconduct should cover only "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism, in proposing, performing, or reporting research." The panel proposed a different label, "questionable research practices," to cover "actions that violate traditional values of the research enterprise and that may be detrimental to the research process."(3) In the panel's view, though such actions merited attention, scientific disagreement over their nature and seriousness meant they should not be considered misconduct. Yet another proposal came in 1995 from the DHHS Commission on Research Integrity, a group charged with developing an agency-wide misconduct definition. Although the commission dropped the reference to other serious deviations from its recommended definition, it also rejected the National Academy panel's preferred approach. The commission concluded that the panel's definition failed to cover forms of conduct that should be proscribed, such as sabotage of another scientist's research. The commission decided to try a different approach. Instead of describing specific offenses constituting research misconduct, it offered a general statement of the researcher's duty--to "be truthful and fair in the conduct of research and the dissemination of its results"--as well as a general definition of misconduct: Research misconduct is significant misbehavior that improperly appropriates the intellectual property or contributions of others, that intentionally impedes the progress of research, or that risks corrupting the scientific record or compromising the integrity of scientific practices. Such behaviors are unethical and unacceptable in proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or in reviewing the proposals or research reports of others. …


The study of grand strategy has historically been confined to a few great powers—preponderantly, the United States, China, and Russia. In contrast, this volume introduces readers to the novel field of "comparative grand strategy." Its co-editors offer a framework that expands the analysis beyond a traditional rationalist approach to incorporate significant cultural factors that influence strategists as they prioritize threats and opportunities in the global system. This framework then combines these factors with domestic political influences often understated or overlooked in the international relations literature. It considers both how grand strategy is actually formulated and the varied instruments used to implement it. Applying this framework, the volume's remaining contributors then examine how grand strategy is conceived, formulated, and implemented by ten states. These consist of the United Nations G5 members and five other states "pivotal" to global or regional economic development and security. This group is composed of Brazil and India—two regional powers operating in very different security environments—and Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, who confront each other in a truly existential conflict. Departing from a state-based analysis, an eleventh case study examines the European Union—an organization that lacks many of the trappings of a conventional state but which is able to call upon more resources than most. The volume's concluding chapter points to both the theoretical and empirical areas of convergence and divergence highlighted by these chapters, and the prospective questions for future analysis in the emergent field of comparative grand strategy.


For this paper we developed an integrated framework for English language education based on the four phases of design-based research (DBR). A qualitative investigation conducted during the first phase was able to identify a number of relevant problems at the Japanese university where this research was undertaken. To ameliorate these problems in the second phase of DBR, we (a) developed an original placement test, (b) created a classification technique by employing a Bayesian algorithm, and (c) established an e-learning system and comprehensive educational policy. In the third phase, the developed placement test was tested, and all the test items were analyzed using the Rash model. In the last phase, the framework for English language education was put into practice. Our findings confirmed that the new framework not only resulted in a substantial reduction of budgetary and manpower costs, but also successfully integrated the whole process of English language education.


Audience demand for Turkey's TV series has increased their strength in the regional market and beyond. By mid-2014 more than 70 Turkish TV dramas reached audiences in 75 countries. Some experts have characterized this as neo-Ottoman cool , referring to Turkey's growing "soft power" role in successfully combining Islam with democracy. However, survey data from 16 Arab countries, previous audience studies, and our in-depth interviews with Istanbul-based producers and distributors refute this. Neo-Ottoman cool does not register the full dynamics of contingent relations between economy, politics, ideology, and media flows. Our research underscores the region's glocal flexibility and the market articulations overarching Turkey's soft power ambitions, how the drama genre attracts women cross-culturally, and the limits of notions of cultural proximity.


Between 2001 and 2004, the state of North Carolina gave an annual salary bonus of $1,800 to certified math, science, and special education teachers in a set of low-performing and/or high-poverty secondary schools. Eligible teachers were to continue receiving the bonus as long as they continued in the school. In a survey of teachers and principals, the authors find evidence that school personnel favor the use of monetary incentives to increase the attractiveness of their workplace but were skeptical that the amount of the bonus would be sufficient to reduce the high turnover rates in their schools. Preliminary evidence on turnover rates supports this skepticism. Given that the survey evidence reveals widespread misunderstanding of the retention incentives incorporated into the program, the authors conclude that the bonus program was hampered by a series of flaws in design and implementation.


Finding an attractive or best-fit neighborhood for a new resident of any city is not only important from the perspective of the resident him or herself, but has larger implications for developers and city planners. The environment or mood of the right neighborhood is not simply created through traditional characteristics such as income, crime, or zoning regulations - more ephemeral traits related to user-perception also have significant weight. Using datasets and tools previously unassociated with real-estate decision-making and neighborhood planning, such as social media and machine learning, we create a non-deterministic and customized way of discovering and understanding neighborhoods. Our project creates a customizable ranking system for the 195 neighborhoods in New York City that helps users find the one that best matches their preferences. Our team has developed a composite weighted score with urban spatial data and social media data to rank all NYC neighborhoods based on a series of questions asked to the user. The project's contribution is to provide a scientific and calibrated understanding of the impact that socially oriented activities and preferences have towards the uses of space.


Recently there has been significant attention given to the fourth industrial revolution and its impact on employment. The present study aims to provide employee insights into their perceptions of the future of work, specifically around their job and career. These insights are important, as the respondents show how they plan to adapt (or more importantly, not plan or not adapt) to new jobs and careers in a rapidly changing world. Based on insights from 60 employees, which were collected online, the key findings suggest that people in the same line of work have varying degrees of knowledge and opinions about automation and how it may impact on their jobs. In addition, many employees are generally optimistic about the future of work and their long-term careers, with them acknowledging potential job changes around automation, but with a strong belief their type of work will remain. These are important findings when we consider how people plan their careers in the face of automation.


The Go-Betweens : Right Here is the feature length documentary about the people who created the seminal rock band the Go-Betweens. It is a heartfelt story of discovery, uncovering the intensely passionate, creative and fraught relationships that formed one of the most loved and influential bands in Australian rock history. It is also the universal story of a great creative adventure that spanned three decades, through countless successes, failures, romances, break-ups, betrayals, triumphs and tragedies.


The structure of the Dalradian rocks at the eastern end of Loch Leven has been re-examined. The geometry of the major folds as determined by Bailey (1934) is largely confirmed but a reappraisal of their relative ages, based on the evidence of minor structures, leads to a new interpretation of the overall structure. The new interpretation is extended into the Moine in the Blackwater area. The dominant structural element is the Di Kinlochleven Anticline that faces down to the NW in the west of the area. To the east the lower, inverted, limb of this fold has been deformed by three D3 folds which restore it to an upward-facing attitude at the Moine-Dalradian boundary at Blackwater. A major deflection in strike of the earlier structures is attributed to the D4 Loch Leven Antiform. The relation of these structures to the regional structure is briefly considered.


Various neuroimaging and neurophysiological methods have been used to examine neural activation patterns in response to faces. However, much of previous research has relied on static images of faces, which do not allow a complete description of the temporal structure of face-specific neural activities to be made. More recently, insights are emerging from fMRI studies about the neural substrates that underpin our perception of naturalistic dynamic face stimuli, but the temporal and spectral oscillatory activity associated with processing dynamic faces has yet to be fully characterized. Here, we used MEG and beamformer source localization to examine the spatiotemporal profile of neurophysiological oscillatory activity in response to dynamic faces. Source analysis revealed a number of regions showing enhanced activation in response to dynamic relative to static faces in the distributed face network, which were spatially coincident with regions that were previously identified with fMRI. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that perception of realistic dynamic facial stimuli activates a distributed neural network at varying time points facilitated by modulations in low-frequency power within alpha and beta frequency ranges (8–30 Hz). Naturalistic dynamic face stimuli may provide a better means of representing the complex nature of perceiving facial expressions in the real world, and neural oscillatory activity can provide additional insights into the associated neural processes.


In an age of dark money—the anonymous political spending facilitated by gaps in our campaign finance disclosure laws after Citizens United—the Supreme Court's campaign finance disclosure jurisprudence may be on a collision course with campaign finance disclosure laws. It is urgent for the Court to understand the informational benefits of campaign finance disclosure, so it may avoid this collision.

Campaign finance transparency teaches us more than one-dimensional information about the candidate's left- or right-leaning policy preferences. It also helps us learn about candidate type. Social scientists, including myself, have run several studies examining voter learning from campaign finance information. As I explain in this Article, when voters learn about a candidate's position with regard to dark money, they learn and vote differently than if they did not have that information. Experimental and observational research also suggests that voters punish noncompliance and reward overcompliance. In other words, transparency about campaign finance disclosure and compliance informs voters.

These findings point to useful policy innovations for states and cities, while the federal government is unable or unwilling to regulate. The innovations I propose include "disclosure disclaimers," which inform voters about the presence of dark money in a campaign, and campaign finance audits, which inform voters about compliance with campaign finance laws. But more basic loophole-closing can also provide helpful information to voters. I explain implications for the courts, campaigns, and policymakers, as well as limitations on the argument.


Chondroadherin, a leucine rich repeat extracellular matrix protein with functions in cell to matrix interactions, binds cells via their α2β1 integrin as well as via cell surface proteoglycans, providing for different sets of signals to the cell. Additionally, the protein acts as an anchor to the matrix by binding tightly to collagens type I and II as well as type VI. We generated mice with inactivated chondroadherin gene to provide integrated studies of the role of the protein. The null mice presented distinct phenotypes with affected cartilage as well as bone. At 3–6 weeks of age the epiphyseal growth plate was widened most pronounced in the proliferative zone. The proteome of the femoral head articular cartilage at 4 months of age showed some distinct differences, with increased deposition of cartilage intermediate layer protein 1 and fibronectin in the chondroadherin deficient mice, more pronounced in the female. Other proteins show decreased levels in the deficient mice, particularly pronounced for matrilin-1, thrombospondin-1 and notably the members of the α1-antitrypsin family of proteinase inhibitors as well as for a member of the bone morphogenetic protein growth factor family. Thus, cartilage homeostasis is distinctly altered. The bone phenotype was expressed in several ways. The number of bone sialoprotein mRNA expressing cells in the proximal tibial metaphysic was decreased and the osteoid surface was increased possibly indicating a change in mineral metabolism. Micro-CT revealed lower cortical thickness and increased structure model index, i.e. the amount of plates and rods composing the bone trabeculas. The structural changes were paralleled by loss of function, where the null mice showed lower femoral neck failure load and tibial strength during mechanical testing at 4 months of age. The skeletal phenotype points at a role for chondroadherin in both bone and cartilage homeostasis, however, without leading to altered longitudinal growth.


Epidermal cells with stem cell-like characteristics have been identified in the tympanic membrane (TM) and localized specifically to the umbo and annulus regions. While they have been proposed to play a role in the regeneration of both acute and chronic TM perforations, evidence for the mechanism and regulation of their contribution is not yet described. Indeed, the behavior of these putative stem cells is largely unknown, in part due to a lack of refined methods for efficient cell isolation. In this study, we compared different explant techniques using normal and perforated rat TM tissues and investigated their ex vivo characteristics. TM after perforation in vivo showed increased staining for epidermal stem cell markers integrin β1 and cytokeratin (CK) 19, and for proliferation Ki-67, indicating activation of the proliferative centers. A mixed population of fibroblasts and epithelial cells were isolated from explant cultures. Excised TM umbo implanted on a culture well insert was the most effective technique. Explants made from perforated TM produced cells before those from unperforated TM. More importantly, the implanted TM umbo organoid was capable of producing cells in a continuous manner, allowing subsequent harvest using trypsin. Primary rat TM epithelial cell cultures positive for pancytokeratin had colony forming activity and could be enriched for CK 19-positive cells that were capable of culture expansion by proliferation and cell migration when subject to a wound assay. Taken together, trauma to the TM activated the proliferative centers and prompted early cell production from TM umbo organoid cultures, which produced TM stem cell-like cultures that proved suitable for tissue engineering of the TM.


The analysis of resistance and resilience in the articles in this special volume of Music and Arts in Action illustrates the complexity of the terms, their definitional ambiguities and situated tensions when they are used in conflict contexts. Rigorous debates have underlined the contested nature of the terms resistance and resilience, whereby resistance is considered a means of destabilising interpersonal and state hegemony and resilience is variously seen as an individual strategy for survival and wellbeing or an intervention impacting upon socio-economic structures. Theoretical discord further highlights the need for careful and detailed ethnographic investigation. Thus, while it might be tempting to avoid the terms altogether as some critics argue, close, critical ethnographic reading of the particularities of sonic atmospheres, as well as their corresponding musical and performative dynamics can render productive the relationship between resistance and resilience as contributors to this volume show. Thus, rather than jettison these terms we encouraged our contributors, (the majority of whose research is based in protracted conflict contexts), to take up the challenge of examining their application through vernacular understandings in order to demonstrate how individuals embody, mobilise and strategise their effects in the sounds and performances of everyday life.


Agricultural Extension services in Nigeria had been making concerted efforts to make farmers adopt improved technology in their farm operations. If the country is to achieve increased food production for her teeming population, adoption of improved technology and increased farm size is inevitable. According to Amao et al , (2003) rural farmers cultivating an average of one hectare each still characterize the Nigerian agricultural sector. This paper examined the factors that influence the adoption of mechanized farm technology and farm size increase among rural farmers in Nigeria. Data on methods of farm land preparation, farm size and Agricultural Development Program (ADP) inputs to rural farmers were randomly collected from 435 rural farmers between 2006 and 2009. The instrument for data collection was a set of structured questionnaire cum oral discussion. The oral discussion focused on methods of farmland preparation, need for increased farm size as a means of improving farm output and sustainability. The data generated were subjected to t-test and regression analysis. Result show that farm size increased as irrigational facilities and loan to farmers were increased while farm technology is positively influenced by irrigation facilities, loan and presence of extension agents. The implication is that increased food production will be achieved if farmers are provided irrigation facilities and loans as these motivates the adoption of mechanized farm technology.


Title of thesis: Nested Sampling and its Applications in Stable Compressive Covariance Estimation and Phase Retrieval with Near-Minimal Measurements Heng Qiao, Master of Science, 2016 Thesis directed by: Professor Piya Pal Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Compressed covariance sensing using quadratic samplers is gaining increasing interest in recent literature. Covariance matrix often plays the role of a sufficient statistic in many signal and information processing tasks. However, owing to the large dimension of the data, it may become necessary to obtain a compressed sketch of the high dimensional covariance matrix to reduce the associated storage and communication costs. Nested sampling has been proposed in the past as an efficient sub-Nyquist sampling strategy that enables perfect reconstruction of the autocorrelation sequence of Wide-Sense Stationary (WSS) signals, as though it was sampled at the Nyquist rate. The key idea behind nested sampling is to exploit properties of the difference set that naturally arises in quadratic measurement model associated with covariance compression. In this thesis, we will focus on developing novel versions of nested sampling for low rank Toeplitz covariance estimation, and phase retrieval, where the latter problem finds many applications in high resolution optical imaging, X-ray crystallography and molecular imaging. The problem of low rank compressive Toeplitz covariance estimation is first shown to be fundamentally related to that of line spectrum recovery. In absence if noise, this connection can be exploited to develop a particular kind of sampler called the Generalized Nested Sampler (GNS), that can achieve optimal compression rates. In presence of bounded noise, we develop a regularization-free algorithm that provably leads to stable recovery of the high dimensional Toeplitz matrix from its order-wise minimal sketch acquired using a GNS. Contrary to existing TV-norm and nuclear norm based reconstruction algorithms, our technique does not use any tuning parameters, which can be of great practical value. The idea of nested sampling idea also finds a surprising use in the problem of phase retrieval, which has been of great interest in recent times for its convex formulation via PhaseLift, By using another modified version of nested sampling, namely the Partial Nested Fourier Sampler (PNFS), we show that with probability one, it is possible to achieve a certain conjectured lower bound on the necessary measurement size. Moreover, for sparse data, an l1 minimization based algorithm is proposed that can lead to stable phase retrieval using order-wise minimal number of measurements. Nested Sampling and its Applications in Stable Compressive Covariance Estimation and Phase Retrieval with Near-Minimal Measurements by Heng Qiao Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2016 Advisory Committee: Professor Piya Pal, Chair/Advisor Professor Rama Chellappa Professor Min Wu


Cases raising claims for personal injury, even those presenting similar claims based on the same facts, have to be run by lawyers. There is no other way to provide for fair and efficient progress of cases towards satisfactory resolutions. Providing full and fair information to the plaintiffs for whom such lawsuits were filed is important, and this essay will address how that goal may be accomplished. But the fair and efficient management of a mass tort litigation must be the primary objective of the trial judge. I explore these management themes in a comprehensive manner in Marking the Boundaries of Managerial Judging: The 9/11 Respondera' Tort Litigation, a piece I co-authored with Professors James A. Henderson, Jr. and Aaron D. Twerski.1 However, lawyers have their own needs and concerns that can create powerful and hard-to-check motivations. Their need to finance their cases over several years of hard-fought and expensive litigation creates substantial debts, financed at high compound interest rates.2 Repayment of the loans tends to depend on settlements or recoveries in the lawsuits, the outcomes of which tend to be far from certain.3 These debts create powerful motivations that potentially can interfere with the lawyer's professional obligation to serve clients' interests first and foremost. In many cases, lawyers assemble large numbers of litigants to represent. These litigants inevitably possess claims of varying merits and varying potential recoveries. The litigants may have differing interests and expectations. For these reasons, representing a mass of litigants may interfere with a lawyer's ability to represent particular litigants. A desire for an early mass settlement may compromise the potential for maximizing individual settlements. Democratization, however desirable intrinsically, is not likely to solve these problems. I experienced these issues in the 9/11 respiratory injury cases, more than 10,000 in number.4 Most plaintiffs were represented by a single law firm. The claims were alleged in conclusory fashion, which made it difficult to differentiate between claims of lesser and greater merit and lesser and greater severity of injury.5 The conclusory allegations tended to improve the status of weaker claims, but made it more difficult to advance the stronger claims. The allegations also posed obstacles to obtaining early, substantial settlements of the stronger claims. Indeed, a third of the claims proved not to involve any adverse effects from cleanup work at the World Trade Center,6 and these claims remained in the litigation and participated in the mass settlement. It is impossible to know if the presence of these weaker cases affected the claims that were of stronger merit. I considered it important, as presiding judge, to create procedures to ensure fair and even treatment among the entire span of cases. With the assistance of special masters and with the consent of counsel, I developed discovery proceedings devised to provide full information about each plaintiff in a systematic, reliable, and cost-efficient manner, so that the court and counsel could evaluate the merits and the degree of injury of each case.7 Individual cases then were selected - several by counsel and several by the court - for more intensive discovery through traditional methods, followed by early and firm trial dates. I detailed this process in In re World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation.8 I had not anticipated a mass settlement, but counsel agreed to one, after discovery and before trial.9 I anticipated that individual cases would settle, and would create values that could be extended to many more cases, and perhaps all cases. The mass settlement provided an overall settlement for all plaintiffs, with different recoveries for different categories of injury.10 The largest individual settlements were provided to plaintiffs who incurred the most severe injuries and whose injuries had the strongest causal relation to the pollutants to which all plaintiffs had been exposed. …


The relation between performance poetry and poetry criticism, as the latter is generally practiced in newspapers and journals, appears to be strained. This is the result of a clash between two different performance traditions: on the one hand, a tradition that goes back to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conventions of poetry declamation or recitation; and on the other hand, a tradition based on performance experiments carried out by avant-garde movements during the first half of the twentieth-century. This article charts the different sets of expectations associated with these traditions by analyzing how these expectations became manifest during the Dutch poetry event 'Poezie in Carre' (Febraury 28th, 1966). As will become clear, individual authorship, textual unity, and poetic significance play important, yet very different roles in these two traditions. Furthermore, I put forward an alternative approach to the issue at hand, by focusing on one particular participant in 'Poezie in Carre,' Johnny van Doorn (1944-1991). Thus, this article aims to contribute to a historically aware and more constructive analysis of performance poetry.


Although the Danish Golden Age is celebrated as a period of autochthonous genius, the success of a Danish author during the reign of critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg depended on his or her ability to appropriate the literary modes of Europe's geographic center, i.e., France and, above all, Germany, the Goethean notion of Bildung being especially important here. Eager to ingratiate himself to Heiberg, the young Kierkegaard, in his review From the Papers of One Still Living and the second volume of his novel Either/Or , strove to prove himself a proficient critic and practitioner of the Bildungsroman . After Heiberg's dismissive criticism of Either/Or , however, Kierkegaard (as Joakim Garff argues) abandoned the Bildung paradigm. Instead of depicting characters who become integrated with their social milieu like Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Kierkegaard's own Judge Wilhelm, Kierkegaard now turned his attention to exceptional isolates such as Abraham and Job, who appear in Fear and Trembling and Repetition , respectively. Among these radical outsiders, one might also include Shakespeare's Gloucester (Richard III), who is cited as an example of the Bard's mastery in Fear and Trembling . Kierkegaard's sudden enthusiasm for Shakespeare—which first arose with Fear and Trembling and would persist throughout his pseudonymous authorship—is hardly coincidental; rather, I argue, it was part of a concerted effort to both rebuff Heiberg and to distinguish himself from him, since the professor had written disparagingly about English literature in general and Shakespeare in particular in his On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age . Furthermore, I claim that Kierkegaard turned to Britain not merely as a geographic periphery but also, in the case of authors such as Byron, Defoe, Ossian, Percy Shelley, Swift, and Young, as a psychological periphery running counter to the Apollonian concept of Bildung propagated by Heiberg.


In a constantly evolving context, team working situations during the design of new products pose the awkward question of achieving a match between the activities (supposed to generate innovation while managing unpredictability) and individuals (with multi-faceted expertise and availed of an essential autonomy of action). What enables them to work together, within a project team for example, and take part actively in 'risk-free' innovative collective production? What determines the action of each within such a process of concerted design? In order to answer these questions, we pursued a communicational scientific analysis of professional interactions 'as they emerge' within a design team working in the aeronautical sector. The design activity for a complex system is mainly distributed between specialised players. This coordination fits into relations of mutual prescription that are expressed by intermediate objects reflecting the current status of the design activity. The present article adopts the approach of recent works on the theme of naturalistic decision making. Theories of the cognitive approach and situated action seem however to be complementary and not contradictory.


Dandy-Walker malformation is defined by enlarged posterior fossa, cystic dilatation of the fourth ventricle, and cerebellar hypoplasia. Although developmental delay and mental retardation are common in Dandy-Walker malformation cases, other comorbid psychiatric conditions have been rarely reported. There are limited numbers of case reports about comorbidity of bipolar disorder with Dandy-Walker malformation in the literature. Herein, a Dandy-Walker malformation case presenting affective symptoms is reported, and psychiatric symptoms which might be seen in this rare malformation are discussed along with diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up processes. A 27-year-old male patient, hospitalized for compulsory treatment, had been diagnosed with Dandy-Walker malformation in childhood. First complaints were attention deficiency, behavioral problems, learning difficulties; and manic and depressive episodes have occurred during follow-ups. He recently complained of decreased need for sleep, irritability, and increased speed of thought, and psychiatric examination was consistent with manic episode. Cranial computed tomography (CT) revealed bilateral ventriculomegaly, enlarged third and fourth ventricles with posterior fossa cyst, and cerebellar hypoplasia. His treatment included 30 mg/day aripiprazole, 1000 mg/day valproic acid, 200 mg/day quetiapine, 4 mg/day biperiden, and 100 mg/month paliperidone palmitate. Beside its traditional role in the regulation of coordination and motor functions, cerebellum is increasingly emphasized for its involvement in the mood regulation. Thus, as seen in Dandy-Walker malformation, cerebellar anomalies are suggested to play a role in the pathophysiology of mood disorders. Further studies are needed to better understand the relationship between mood disorders and cerebellum. Moreover, treatment options should be considered carefully in terms of resistance to treatment and potential side effects, for psychiatric disorders occurring in these cases; and detailed examinations, including cranial imaging, would be beneficial in bipolar cases with early onset, unresponsiveness to treatment, presenting atypical symptoms, mental retardation, and developmental delay as well as neurological symptoms and signs.


Utilizing data from surveys of mass-market consumer fraud sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission in 2005, 2011, and 2017, this paper explores whether victims of such mass-market consumer frauds complain to anyone beyond their families and friends about being victimized, and if they do complain, to whom they complain. It also explores whether victims with different demographic characteristics are more or less likely to complain.

 In about 45 percent of instances, victims complained to someone beyond their family and friends. This might have been the seller or manufacturer of the fraudulent product of service; a provider of payment services such as a credit card company, a bank or another payment service; a Better Business Bureau; or a government agency. This figure is stable across the three surveys included in this analysis.

 While there is little, if any, variation in complaint rates across the three surveys, there is considerable variation in the likelihood that victims of different types of frauds complained. Those who were billed for an item that they had never agreed to purchase were the most likely to report having complained – with 61 percent of those victims indicating that they had complained to at least one party. Fifty-eight percent of those who paid for a product or service that they never received reported having complained. For victims who experienced other types of frauds, no more than 40 percent complained. Of those who purchased fraudulent credit card insurance or a fraudulent computer repair, less than 20 percent complained.

 Not surprisingly, complaints were most frequently directed at someone directly involved in the transaction – a seller or a manufacturer. Thirty percent of victims reported having complained either to a seller or to a manufacturer. About 12 percent complained to a credit card company, a bank, or some other payment service provider.

 Less than 3 percent of victims complained to a government entity. Somewhat more than half of these – 1.5 percent of victims – complained to a local authority – the local police or a local consumer agency. Less than 1 percent complained to a state Attorney General or other state authority or to a federal agency. Just over 2 percent of victims reported having complained to a Better Business Bureau. Together, 4.8 percent of victims complained to a BBB or to a government agency.

 To whom a complaint is directed varies somewhat with the type of problem being considered. While a seller or manufacturer is the most frequent recipient of complaints for most of the types of fraud considered here, the percentage of victims who complained to a seller or manufacturer ranged from 43 percent among victims who paid for an item that they never received to 6 percent for victims of fraudulent computer repair offerings. The percentage of complainants who complained to a governmental entity or the BBB likewise varied with the type of fraud – with around 20 percent of victims of a debt-relief fraud complaining to one of these entities, while less than 1 percent of those who purchased a fraudulent weight-loss product did so.

 Rates of complaining differ somewhat depending on the demographic characteristics of the consumer who was reporting on the experience. Consumers who were more educated were more likely to complain about their experiences. Looking at race and ethnicity, Latinos were less likely to complain than were those in other racial and ethnic groups, though overall the differences across racial and ethnic groups are not statistically significant. There was no statistically significant relationship between the age of a victim and likelihood of the victim complaining.


This article reports on a dyad model of lesson study aimed at scaffolding the theory and practice of learning to teach physical education. Participants were pre-service teachers (PSTs) completing a 38-week Master's-level Postgraduate Certificate in Education in eastern England, training to teach the secondary age range (11–18 years). A total of 40 PSTs volunteered to participate in the study during their school-based training. A three-year cross-sectional case-study framework involving three distinct cohorts of PSTs allowed for a comparison of data, captured through computer-mediated communication. Dialogue through email communications and electronic evaluations was analysed inductively. Three substantive themes were identified as a result of the PSTs' experiences: (a) developing confidence in the classroom through collaboration with a peer; (b) developing physical education pedagogies to support students' individual learning needs; and (c) developing physical education pedagogies to support assessment of students' progress. The dyad lesson study model provided a safe and non-hierarchical platform for collaboration between PSTs. Peer-to-peer reflection on aspects of their own practice instilled confidence and enhanced understanding, particularly in relation to understanding students' individual learning needs to promote progress and assessing such progress. Dyad lesson study positively supported PSTs' professional development against prescribed Teachers' Standards beyond the formal hierarchical rules and structures associated with the school-based training process. Such collaborative conversations can help to minimise professional isolation for PSTs during their school-based training and address the juxtaposition of connecting the theory of learning to teach with a holistic view of student learning in practice.


We present the design, fabrication process and characterization of multilayer miniaturized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based dielectric elastomer diaphragm actuators. The conductive stretchable electrodes are obtained by lowenergy metal ion implantation. To increase force, decrease the required voltage, and avoid dielectric breakdown, we present here a technique to fabricate multilayer devices with embedded electrodes with complex shapes. By implanting electrodes on a partially cured PDMS film, then casting on it the next layer of PDMS, it is possible to have the compliant electrodes "molded" inside PDMS. Using custom shadow masks allows defining electrodes of any shape or size, we report sizes down to 0.1 mm. The minimal distance between independent electrodes inside the PDMS is limited solely by the breakdown voltage of PDMS and can be also as small as 0.1 mm. Using this approach, we have fabricated miniature compact devices consisting of several independent dielectric elastomer actuators on a single PDMS film. Applying different voltages to the separate actuators allows to achieve complicated movements of the whole device, e.g. to act as a 3-DOF parallel manipulator. A distinctive feature of the multi-layer actuators is that they attain similar strain with lower voltage than the single-layer actuators of the same thickness. We report on a 3 mm diameter 2-axis beam steering device combining three actuators.


Objective: To document the tobacco industry's litigation strategy to impede tobacco control media campaigns. Methods: Data were collected from news and reports, tobacco industry documents, and interviews with health advocates and media campaign staff. Results: RJ Reynolds and Lorillard attempted to halt California's Media Campaign alleging that the campaign polluted jury pools and violated First Amendment rights because they were compelled to pay for anti-industry ads. The American Legacy Foundation was accused of violating the Master Settlement Agreement's vilification clause because its ads attacked the tobacco industry. The tobacco companies lost these legal challenges. Conclusion: The tobacco industry has expanded its efforts to oppose tobacco control media campaigns through litigation strategies. While litigation is a part of tobacco industry business, it imposes a financial burden and impediment to media campaigns' productivity. Tobacco control professionals need to anticipate these challenges and be prepared to defend against them.


We present deep two-dimensional spectra of 22 candidate and confirmed Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at redshifts 2 < z < 4 in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) obtained at the Keck II telescope. The targets were preferentially selected with spatial extent and/or multiple knot morphologies, and we used slitmasks and individual slits tilted to optimize measurement of any spatially resolved kinematics. Our sample is more than 1 mag fainter and is at higher redshift than the kinematic LBG targets previously studied by others. The median target magnitude was I814 = 25.3, and total exposure times ranged from 10 to 50 ks. We measure redshifts, some new, ranging from z = 0.2072 to z = 4.056, including two interlopers at z < 1, and resulting in a sample of 14 LBGs with a median redshift z = 2.424. The morphologies and kinematics of the close pairs and multiple knot sources in our sample are generally inconsistent with galaxy formation scenarios postulating that LBGs occur only at the bottom of the potential wells of massive host halos; rather, they support "collisional starburst" models with significant major merger rates and a broad halo occupation distribution. For 13 LBGs with possible kinematic signatures, we estimate a simple dynamical mass, subject to numerous caveats and uncertainties, of the galaxies and/or their host dark matter halos. Dynamical mass estimates of individual galaxies range from 4 × 109 h−1 M☉ to 1.1 × 1011 h−1 M☉ and mass estimates of halos, based on close LBG pairs, range from <1010 h−1 to ∼1014 h−1 M☉ with a median value 1 × 1013M☉. Comparison with a recent numerical galaxy formation model implies that indeed the pairwise velocities might not reflect true dynamical masses. We compare our dynamical mass estimates directly to stellar masses estimated for the same galaxies from SEDs, and find no evidence for a strong correlation. The diversity of morphologies and dynamics implies that LBGs represent a broad range of galaxy or protogalaxy types in a variety of evolutionary or merger stages rather than a uniform class with a narrow range of mass.


Purpose: The aim of this article is to present results of estimating grey economy in Poland and detailed presentation of chosen solutions of legal-organisational and IT type introduced to Polish tax system in order to limit grey economy. Design/Methodology/Approach: The authors presented detailed analyses of empirical material from reports and surveys including those from the Central Statistical Office, the State Fiscal Administration, the Institute of Forecasting and Economic Analyses and the Ministry of Finance moreover they also included results of estimating grey economy by international experts for Europe and the world. In the article a descriptive and analytical-synthetic method was used. The article is a continuation of many years of research in the area of grey economy. Findings: An evaluation of grey economy must take into consideration advantages and disadvantages. Negative points are falsifying economic statistics, decreasing tax incomes to the state budget, faulty construction of macro-economic policy, false allocation of social funds. Functioning of economic entities in grey economy leads to destruction of social-economic life generating pathologies. An advantage of grey economy is an increasing number of working places, particularly for marginal workforce. People employed in this economy while not paying taxes directly, regulate indirect taxes, purchase goods and services taxed. Practical Implications: In order to more efficiently limit grey economy in Poland, it is necessary to constantly and systematically perform actions of a system type and not coercive. An important element is primary tax education and building tax mentality and morality. Originality/Value: The article presents a scope of actions taken and implemented by the government in the area of limiting grey economy in Poland in the last 5 years – economiclegal perspective of a problem. It constituted a basis for further research.


[1] The Water Vapor Millimeter-wave Spectrometer (WVMS) system has been making measurements from the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change site at Mauna Loa, Hawaii (19.5N, 204.4E), since 1996, covering nearly the complete period of solar cycle 23. The WVMS measurements are compared with Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) (1992–2005), Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) (2004 to present), and Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) Fourier transform spectrometer (2004 to present) measurements in the mesosphere. In the upper mesosphere Lyman a radiation photodissociates water vapor; hence, water vapor in the upper mesosphere varies with the solar cycle. We calculate fits to the WVMS and HALOE water vapor data in this region using the Lasp Interactive Solar Irradiance Datacenter Lyman a data set. This is, to our knowledge, the only published validation of the sensitivity of HALOE water vapor measurements to the solar cycle, and the HALOE and WVMS water vapor measurements show a very similar sensitivity to the solar cycle. Once the solar cycle variations are taken into account, the primary water vapor variations at all of these altitudes from 1992 to the present are an increase from 1992 to 1996, a maximum in water vapor in 1996, and small changes from 1997 to the present. Measurements from 2004 to 2008, which are available from WVMS, MLS, and ACE, show not only good agreement in interannual variations but also excellent agreement in their absolute measurements (to within better than 3%) of the water vapor mixing ratio from 50 to 80 km.


The administration of any pharmaceutical agent to a professional or elite sportsman is fraught with danger. There is the risk of giving a banned substance to an ailing athlete and destroying a career. Then there are the potential problems of drug interactions with any of the multitude of agents that the sportsman may be taking. One should also be alert to being asked to treat the side-effect of a banned, illegal, experimental or veterinary agent. The rules for banned substances apply not only to able-bodied athletes, as athletes with disabilities are governed by the same rules and may need treatment for their chronic conditions.