Four seismic refraction velocity models integrated with 2-D gravity modelling outlinethe East Greenland continent-ocean transition zone (COT) between the Jan Mayen and Greenland fracture zones. The offshore margin structures are illustrated by regional transects and maps of basement and Moho depth as well as the thickness of the crystalline crust and the 7+ km/s lower crustal body. A correlation with the regional magnetic anomalies revealed constraints of the timing and involved pre- syn- and post break-up magmatism. Break-up propagation is proposed from north to south between 54 to 50 Ma. The delayed break-up in the southern part of the margin coincides with a large high velocity body beneath the COT, intruded transitional crust and concealed flood volcanism mixed with syn-rift sediments. Oceanic crustal thickness seaward of the COT decreases rapidly to normal thicknesses. The two northern transects show a clearly different picture of the margins structure. A strong velocity and density anomaly beneath Shannon Island can be related to the Shannon High. A basin filled with continental Devonian to Cretaceous sediments and with probably unresolved horsts and grabens down to 15 km was modelled eastwards. No high velocity lower crustal body or large scale intrusions were identified contrarily to the southern transects. The northern most profile located south of the Greenland Fracture Zone revealed even less crustal intrusions associated with break-up related magmatism. The crustal architectures give rise to variations in rifting processes with a possible transition near 75°N. If these rifting processes influenced the magmatism or a sequence of magmatic events formed the investigated crustal architecture is a matter of debate. Different scenarios will be discussed for their applicability, e.g. long term rifting and magmatism or mutli-phase emplacement of magma during North Atlantic and Jan Mayen break-up.


The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a systematic, explicit, intensive Tier 3 (tertiary) intervention on the mathematics performance of students in second grade with severe mathematics difficulties. A multiple-baseline design across groups of participants showed improved mathematics performance on number and operations concepts and procedures, which are the foundation for later mathematics success. In the previous year, 12 participants had experienced two doses (first and second semesters) of a Tier 2 intervention. In second grade, the participants continued to demonstrate low performance, falling below the 10th percentile on a researcher-designed universal screener and below the 16th percentile on a distal measure, thus qualifying for the intensive intervention. A project interventionist, who met with the students 5 days a week for 10 weeks (9 weeks for one group), conducted the intensive intervention. The intervention employed more intensive instructional design features than the previous Tier 2 secondary instruction, and also included weekly games to reinforce concepts and skills from the lessons. Spring results showed significantly improved mathematics performance (scoring at or above the 25th percentile) for most of the students, thus making them eligible to exit the Tier 3 intervention.


De-skill Re-skill was a project by Juliet MacDonald involving an exhibition and a residency. It took place between the 5th and the 23rd of November at Drawing Spaces. The exhibition consisted on a series of drawings produced over a number of years representing a continuous line of enquiry. This investigation was concerned with the status of the body and the activity of drawing as a mode of embodied knowledge. In this way, the exhibited works showed an increasing concern with the body as an entanglement rather than a singular entity. They included drawings made in the street in response to the movement of people walking past and, also, a number of notes, diagrams, workings and doodles extracted from numerous files. Among the notes and diagrams there were also many drawings made quickly from glimpses of faces. Through these multiple approaches, carefully learned drawing skills were confounded by fleeting perceptual experiences. During her residency, Juliet developed a new series of drawings which were aimed to examine the manual, visual and tool-using elements that constitute drawing as a skilled practice. Her intention was to experiment with ways in which a drawing practice can incorporate dexterity and clumsiness, vision and blindness, figurative conventionality and animal immediacy. On the 13th of November Juliet delivered a presentation of her project, which was followed by the 2nd Drawing Lesson delivered by Paulo Luis Almeida with the title Faked Acts: Aspects of the performative dimension of drawing.


A bioclimatic analysis of different South African towns and cities indicates that, if the correct mix of passive design principles is used, they all have a significant passive design potential. Of all such measures, solar protection and shading is the single most important passive design measure to reduce energy usage and to improve internal comfort for buildings in all South African climatic regions. The correct design of public open spaces and streets facilitates, to a great extent, energy-efficient buildings, whilst at the same time providing functional and comfortable urban open spaces and streets. Passive solar buildings aim to maintain interior thermal comfort throughout the sun's diurnal and annual cycles, whilst reducing the requirement for active heating and cooling systems. The aim of this article is to investigate the effect of climate zones on passive design potential, of which shading design is an integral part, using Pretoria as a case study. This includes the effect of street width, building height, street layout, orientation, and the amount of sunlight available for trees and plants in the urban environment. The Spatial Planning and Land Management Act (2013), City of Tshwane Land Use Management By-law (2016) and the Tshwane Town-Planning Scheme 2008 (Revised 2014) were used as regulatory framework. To support the research, an Early Design Phase (EDP) experimental research platform was used to investigate the amount of sunlight on building facades with different orientations. This method enables the calculation of shading angles where there is a balance between the hot periods (requiring cooling) and cool periods (requiring heating) from the urban and building perspective. This has been achieved by means of the development of analytical software that uses weather files as one of the inputs to calculate critical solar angles. Over and above the calculation of current building solar protection angles, this method also facilitates the calculation of the increase in solar protection that will be required with climate change such as with the expected A2 climate change scenario (business-as-usual scenario) for South Africa. To support the EDP analysis, detailed simulations were also undertaken by means of Ecotect v5.60. Keywords : Cities, climate change, natural daylight, shade, sun, South Africa


A study was conducted to describe our group's experience using the NCCN Distress Thermometer in an outpatient breast cancer clinic. The NCCN Distress Thermometer was administered to patients attending the breast cancer clinic at Huntsman Cancer Institute during a 4-month period. Effects of disease, treatment, and demographic variables on distress level were analyzed. Patients reporting high distress were contacted by a social worker to determine the cause of the distress. Two hundred and eighty-six (286) subjects completed 403 questionnaires, with 96 patients (34%) reporting high levels of distress (5 or greater on a 10-point scale). No relationship was seen between high distress and stage of disease, type of current treatment, time since diagnosis, age, or other demographic factors. Underlying mental health disorders were associated with a higher level of distress. The Distress Thermometer was a useful method to screen, triage, and prioritize patient interventions. In our experience, the tool promoted communication between the patient and the health care team, which enhanced treating psychosocial and physical symptoms. Methods to optimize the use of this screen are proposed.


ABSTRACT This paper analyses the conceptual, social and ethical dimensions of online collaborative translation and particularly one of its major subtypes, translation crowdsourcing. Since online collaborative translation is still a rather young field of research there are still conceptual uncertainties, particularly surrounding the selection of the meta- or top-level concept for recent forms of online translation (such as translation crowdsourcing), unsolicited and self-managed forms of online translation (like Wikipedia translation), and the various forms of online fan translation. This paper argues for using online collaborative translation as the meta-concept, based on a painstaking analysis and justification of the concept against its competitors. The paper focuses on translation crowdsourcing for profit-oriented companies like Facebook and its social and ethical consequences. It concludes by investigating whether this kind of translation is exploitative despite the seemingly mutually beneficial transaction between the volunteer translators and the profit-oriented companies employing them, usually unpaid.


Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) have been highly vulnerable to attacks due to the dynamic nature of its network infrastructure. Among these attacks, routing attacks have received considerable attention since it could cause the most devastating damage to MANET. Even though there exist several intrusion response techniques to mitigate such critical attacks, existing solutions typically attempt to isolate malicious nodes based on binary or naıve fuzzy response decisions. However, binary responses may result in the unexpected network partition, causing additional damages to the network infrastructure, and naıve fuzzy responses could lead to uncertainty in countering routing attacks in MANET. In this paper, we propose a risk-aware response mechanism to systematically cope with the identified routing attacks. Our riskaware approach is based on an extended Dempster-Shafer mathematical theory of evidence introducing a notion of importance factors. In addition, our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with the consideration of several performance metrics. Keywords— Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Intrusion Response, Risk Aware, D-S Theory


In This Remote Country: French Colonial Culture in the AngloAmerican Imagination, 1780-1860. By Edward Watts (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Pp. ix, 288. Index, notes, bibliography. Cloth $59.95; Paper $19.95). American attention to the French has been paid only intermittently and, when it has been paid, has often been ambiguous. This is all the more intriguing because the two nations have shared basic values rooted in the Enlightenment. Illinois historiography has roughly paralleled this pattern, with Clarence Alvord's discovery in 1905 of Kaskaskia records (1720-1790) in the Randolph County courthouse spiking interest in France's Illinois Country, only to lapse after midcentury, then recently to regain historians' attention. Edward Watt's In This Remote Country contributes to this rebirth of interest and brings a welcome complement of symbolic history to the facts of French colonialism and the frontier French through early American nationhood. Delving within and also ranging far beyond Illinois, Watt's fresh insights into how Anglo-Americans before the Civil War perceived the French broadens understanding of the French as well as, of course, their American observers. Watts divides those who wrote about the French into their detractors and their proponents. George Bancroft, who was in the vanguard of American romantic historians and writers, "simply depicted the frontier French as somehow less than white, as part of the continent's prehistory, and so interesting only as a curiosity, as setting the stage, at best, for the corning purity, virtue, and power of the Anglo-Saxon empire." (p. 9) White cultural dominance and republicanism set the Anglo agenda; consequently, the French were taken for "lessers." Both French marriage and inbreeding with Native Americans and the French unwillingness to practice large scale land usage - either speculation for private profit or commercial farming - consigned the French to an inferior status. The French also practiced Roman Catholicism, which disqualified them as future players, too, because that faith, it was believed, demanded unquestioning obethence to papal authority. Anglo-Protestants believed republicanism depended on a nation of independent, rational thinkers. This broadly based presumption of values underlying behavior belonged to Anglos-Protestant rationale for self-assigned righteousness, manifest destiny, and the classification of all non- Anglos as subordinate. In fact, this tells us much about how Anglos viewed themselves in the early national period and, as a result, how they stereotyped other groups. Writers singled out the French again for comparison later in the early national period to raise doubt about the wisdom of the AngloAmerican cultural triumph. Watts argues that "the French were used by writers to ask their readers to imagine that the nation had options - imperial nation or peripheral commonwealth - and that their destiny, like that of the French, might be in peace and pleasure rather than in conquest and confrontation." (p. 12-13) These critics idealized the French as being "less materialistic, less racialized, more democratic, more exciting, and ultimately freer than the Anglo-American civilization." (p. 13) Anglo-Americans could fulfill their Revolutionary ideals without lusting for land in Mexico, expanding slavery westward or pursuing wealth through industrial corporations. General readers should take caution about some of Watt's prose. He occasionally expects readers to bear up under the burdened "culture studies" vocabulary that, over the last decade, crept into historical scholarship. The Anglo-American perspective on the French is a "narrative." "Whiteness" is a problem of the narrative. According to culture studies scholars, whiteness is a complex of ideas developed in the late-nineteenth century to distinguish and define, for political purposes, an Anglo-Saxon identity from other groups. Anglo-Saxons wielded this identity to explain their existing dominion or extension of it over other ethnic groups. …


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Knowing the excluded minors for a minor-closed matroid property provides a useful alternative characterization of that property. It has been shown in [R. Hall, J. Oxley, C. Semple, G. Whittle, On Matroids of Branch-Width Three , submitted 2001] that if $M$ is an excluded minor for matroids of branch-width $3$, then $ M$ has at most $14$ elements. We show that there are exactly $10$ such binary matroids $M$ (7 of which are regular), proving a conjecture formulated by Dharmatilake in 1994. We also construct numbers of such ternary and quaternary matroids $ M$, and provide a simple practical algorithm for finding a width-$3$ branch-decomposition of a matroid. The arguments in our paper are computer-assisted — we use a program $MACEK$ [P. Hliněný, The MACEK Program , http://www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/research/macek , 2002] for structural computations with represented matroids. Unfortunately, it seems to be infeasible to search through all matroids on at most $14$ elements.


We present a model of optimal intervention in a flight to quality episode. The reason for intervention stems from a collective bias in agents' expectations. Agents in the model make risk management decisions with incomplete knowledge. They understand their own shocks, but are uncertain of how correlated their shocks are with systemwide shocks, treating the latter uncertainty as Knightian. We show that when aggregate liquidity is low, an increase in uncertainty leads agents to a series of protective actions -- decreasing risk exposures, hoarding liquidity, locking-up capital -- that reflect a flight to quality. However, the conservative actions of agents leave the aggregate economy over-exposed to negative shocks. Each agent covers himself against his own worst-case scenario, but the scenario that the collective of agents are guarding against is impossible. A lender of last resort, even if less knowledgeable than private agents about individual shocks, does not suffer from this collective bias and finds that pledging intervention in extreme events is valuable. The intervention unlocks private capital markets.


In the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the G8 Summits and the World Bank, civil society organizations are often held up as the only legitimate institutional actors capable of representing and managing distributional inequities of a highly fractured information society. This paper locates the current role of civil society organizations in a longer history within the academic and policy fields of 'development' communications. While issues of access are clearly more central for Third World nations, this paper examines the social terrain behind the institutions of policy-making in the postcolonial contexts, specifically addressing debates between Southern and Northern perspectives in debates over the WSIS and the larger parameters of the Information Society. I argue that the dominant discourse on the digital divide—that between the North and South most generically—is rooted in assumptions about the neutrality of the category of civil society, devoid not just of history but of politics.


We consider the problem of recognizing objects in collections of art works, in view of automatically labeling, searching and organizing databases of art works. To avoid manually labelling objects, we introduce a framework for transferring a convolutional neural network (CNN), trained on available large collections of labelled natural images, to the context of drawings. We retrain both the top and the bottom layer of the network, responsible for the high-level classification output and the low-level features detection respectively, by transforming natural images into drawings. We apply this procedure to the drawings in the Jan Brueghel Wiki, and show the transferred CNN learns a discriminative metric on drawings and achieves good recognition accuracy. We also discuss why standard descriptor-based methods is problematic in the context of drawings.


This report includes the progress in development of Direct FuelCell/Turbine{reg_sign} (DFC/T{reg_sign}) power plants for generation of clean power at very high efficiencies. The DFC/T power system is based on an indirectly heated gas turbine to supplement fuel cell generated power. The DFC/T power generation concept extends the high efficiency of the fuel cell by utilizing the fuel cell's byproduct heat in a Brayton cycle. Features of the DFC/T system include: electrical efficiencies of up to 75% on natural gas, 60% on coal gas, minimal emissions, simplicity in design, direct reforming internal to the fuel cell, reduced carbon dioxide release to the environment, and potential cost competitiveness with existing combined cycle power plants. The operation of sub-MW hybrid Direct FuelCell/Turbine power plant test facility with a Capstone C60 microturbine was initiated in March 2003. The inclusion of the C60 microturbine extended the range of operation of the hybrid power plant to higher current densities (higher power) than achieved in previous tests using a 30kW microturbine. The design of multi-MW DFC/T hybrid systems, approaching 75% efficiency on natural gas, was initiated. A new concept was developed based on clusters of One-MW fuel cell modules as the building blocks. System analyses were performed,more » including systems for near-term deployment and power plants with long-term ultra high efficiency objectives. Preliminary assessment of the fuel cell cluster concept, including power plant layout for a 14MW power plant, was performed.« less


Objective Uterine leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is a relatively rare malignancy that is associated with a poor prognosis. The rarity of LMS has led to a lack of consensus regarding appropriate treatment. The goal of this study was to identify the role that chemotherapy and radiotherapy have played in the treatment of uterine LMS in the United States as well as the effectiveness of adjuvant treatment. Materials/Methods We used the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results)-Medicare database to gather information on uterine LMS patients older than the age of 66 years diagnosed between 1992 and 2009. Basic demographic and clinical characteristics were collected. A logistic regression model analysis was performed to determine predictors of treatment. Cox proportional hazards models were used to identify clinical parameters and treatment strategies associated with survival differences. Results Our final study group included 230 patients. We found that the rate of use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the treatment of patients with uterine LMS increased over the period investigated. However, we identified no significant survival advantage associated with either mode of therapy. The strongest predictor of survival was stage at diagnosis. The logistic regression model analysis revealed that age at diagnosis, treatment year, stage, and underlying health status were all independent predictors of chemotherapy. Age at diagnosis was also a predictor of radiation therapy. Conclusions The increasing rates of chemotherapy and radiotherapy use in this population seem to be unfounded given the lack of survival benefit. Further investigation into alternative treatment regimens is merited. The prognostic significance of stage at diagnosis indicates the importance of improving early detection of uterine LMS.


Terahertz (THz) technology has attracted great worldwide interest and novel high-intensity THz sources and plasmonics are two of the most active fields of recent research. Being situated between infrared light and microwave radiation, the absorption of THz rays in molecular and biomolecular systems is dominated by the excitation of intramolecular and intermolecular vibrations. This indicates that THz technology is an effective tool for sensing applications. However, the low sensitivity of free-space THz detection limits the sensing applications, which gives a great opportunity to metamaterials. Metamaterials are periodic artificial electromagnetic media structured with a size scale smaller than the wavelength of external stimuli. They present localized electric field enhancement and large values of quality factor (Q factor) and show high sensitivity to minor environment changes. In the present work, the mechanism of THz metamaterial sensing and dry sample and microfluidic sensing applications based on metamaterials are introduced. Moreover, new directions of THz metamaterial sensing advancement and introduction of two-dimensional materials and nanoparticles for future THz applications are summarized and discussed.


The main objective of this study is to develop a near-infrared (NIR) tunable external cavity laser (ECL) that is based on a semiconductor optical amplifier and two different wavelength selective elements. In order to achieve the wavelength selection, several filters have been tested in the ECL setups, including plasmonic filter, acoustooptic tunable filter (AOTF), gradient photonic crystal and Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity filter. The results show that the AOTF and FP filter have been applied successfully in the ECL system as wavelength selective elements to demonstrate a broadband wavelength tuning in the range between 830 nm and 870 nm. The tunable ECL realized with the variation of electrical radio frequency input of AOTF or incident angle of FP cavity filter from 15.5° to 30° in each system. By controlling the wavelength selective elements, continuous tuning of ECL over 30 nm can be achieved and 23 lasing peaks were measured and analyzed in the laser system with FP cavity filter. The characteristics of the AOTF-based and FP-based tunable ECL, including I-V curve, threshold, tuning range and output power, are measured and reported in this thesis.


This Article offers an explanation of the doctrine of directors' duties to creditors. Courts frequently say - but rarely hold - that corporate directors owe duties to or for the benefit of corporate creditors when the corporation is in distress. These cases are puzzling for at least two reasons. First, they link fiduciary duty to priority in right of payment, effectively treating creditors as if they were shareholders, at least for certain purposes. But this ignores the fact that priority is a complex and volatile concept. Moreover, contract and other rights at law usually protect creditors, even (especially) when a firm is distressed. It is thus not surprising that courts do not in fact want to treat directors as fiduciaries for creditors, except in extreme cases. But this leaves us with the second puzzle: If directors are rarely treated as fiduciaries for creditors, why have the Delaware courts bothered to say so much about this, especially in their recent opinions? This Article explores these two puzzles, and argues that these cases are best understood as examples of expressive judging, exhortations to good behavior not necessarily tethered to meaningful instrumental consequences. It identifies four expressive themes in these decisions on, among other things, director discretion, the boundaries of acceptable conduct towards creditors, the role of contract, and the educative function of courts. The Article concludes by noting several doctrinal gaps created by some of the recent case law, and suggests ways that the better expressive aspirations of the Delaware opinions can fill these gaps in fair and efficient ways.


A novel bioactive peptide named τ-AnmTx Ueq 12-1 (short name Ueq 12-1) was isolated and characterized from the sea anemone Urticina eques. Ueq 12-1 is unique among the variety of known sea anemone peptides in terms of its primary and spatial structure. It consists of 45 amino acids including 10 cysteine residues with an unusual distribution and represents a new group of sea anemone peptides. The 3D structure of Ueq 12-1, determined by NMR spectroscopy, represents a new disulfide-stabilized fold partly similar to the defensin-like fold. Ueq 12-1 showed the dual activity of both a moderate antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria and a potentiating activity on the transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1). Ueq 12-1 is a unique peptide potentiator of the TRPA1 receptor that produces analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects in vivo. The antinociceptive properties allow us to consider Ueq 12-1 as a potential analgesic drug lead with antibacterial properties.


Pig farming is one of the strongest polluters of water resources due to its intensive production techniques and slurry rejection. Several European countries have already introduced environmental regulations aiming at reducing the pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources, but not yet Hungary. This paper investigates how Hungarian pig farms would be affected if such regulations are to be enforced. We calculate farm technical efficiency separately for two types of pig production systems – namely farrowing only and farrow-to-finish farms (FAFI farms) and finishing only farms (FI farms) – using 2001 data on pig activity and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We then investigate whether environmental regulations would affect the farms' technical efficiency, with the help of a second-stage regression and various environmental pressure proxies. Results indicate that the pollution could be reduced with no impact on the output level, and that Hungarian pig farmers have incentives to reduce nitrogen pollution in order to increase their efficiency even in the absence of regulation.


Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this paper examines how households' home equity extraction during the previous decade affected their spending and saving behavior.The study makes use of recently released 2009 housing and wealth data as well as the extensive data on household expenditures and balance sheets that are available starting in 1999. The results show that during the height of the house-price boom (the 2003-2005 period) a one-dollar increase in equity extraction led to 14 cents higher household expenditures. Households also spent 21 cents of their extracted equity on home improvements and additions and saved roughly 19 cents of each dollar extracted through balance-sheet reshuffling. The spending, saving, and residential investment patterns are similar during the 2001-to-2003 and 2005-to-2007 periods. There is less evidence of households' extracting equity to fund expenditures prior to 2001, except for health care and transportation-related expenses. Overall, the results are consistent with households' extracting equity to fund necessary expenditures and desired investments.


Stevenson S., Akimov A., Hutson E. and Krystalogianni A. Concordance in global office market cycles, Regional Studies. A large proportion of international real estate investment is concentrated in the office markets of the world's largest cities. However, many of these global cities are also key financial services centres, highlighting the possibility of reduced economic diversification from an investor's perspective. This paper assesses the degree of synchronization in cycles across twenty of the world's largest office markets, finding evidence of significant concordance across a large number of markets. The results highlight the problems associated with commonalities in the underlying economic bases of the markets. The concentration of investment also raises the possibility of common flow of funds effects that may further reduce diversification opportunities.


This paper examines the situation of a subgroup of non-citizens found in virtually all contemporary states, what I call "precarious residents". Precarious residents can be defined as non-citizens living in the state that possess few social, political or economic rights, are highly vulnerable to deportation, and have little or no option for making secure their immigration status. The archetypal precarious resident is the undocumented (or unlawful) migrant. However, there are many other barely tolerated individuals who also fit the appellation, such as asylum seekers (including ones whose claims have been rejected), guest workers, and individuals with temporary protection from deportation. I begin this paper by exploring the nature of precarious residence, discussing its dimensions, causes and manifestations in different national contexts. I move then to consider the human development consequences of precarious residence before exploring the question of the responsibilities of states to protect the rights and, in some cases, recognize the membership claims of these non-citizens.


We discuss the feasibility of a weak charged current experiment using a low energy electron beam. A first goal is to measure the Q^2 dependence of the axial-vector form factor g_a(Q^2). It can be measured model-independently and as robustly as for electromagnetic form factors from typical electron scattering experiments, in contrast to the methods used so far to measure g_a(Q^2). If g_a(Q^2) follows a dipole form, the axial mass can be extracted with a better accuracy than the world data altogether. The most important detection equipment would be a segmented neutron detector with good momentum and angular resolution that is symmetric about the beam direction, and covers a moderate angular range. A high intensity beam (100 uA) is necessary. Beam polarization is highly desirable as it provides a clean measurement of the backgrounds. Beam energies between 70 and 110 MeV are ideal. This range would provide a Q^2 mapping of g_a between 0.01


The effects of the native α-conotoxin PnIA, its synthetic derivative [A10L]PnIA and alanine scan derivatives of [A10L]PnIA were investigated on chick wild type α7 and α7-L247T mutant nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) expressed in Xenopus oocytes. PnIA and [A10L]PnIA inhibited acetylcholine (ACh)-activated currents at wtα7 receptors with IC50 values of 349 and 168 nm, respectively. Rates of onset of inhibition were similar for PnIA and [A10L]PnIA; however, the rate of recovery was slower for [A10L]PnIA, indicating that the increased potency of [A10L]PnIA at α7 receptors is conveyed by its slower rate of dissociation from the receptors. All the alanine mutants of [A10L]PnIA inhibited ACh-activated currents at wtα7 receptors. Insertion of an alanine residue between position 5 and 13 and at position 15 significantly reduced the ability of [A10L]PnIA to inhibit ACh-evoked currents. PnIA inhibited the non-desensitizing ACh-activated currents at α7-L247T receptors with an IC50 194 nm. In contrast, [A10L]PnIA and the alanine mutants potentiated the ACh-activated current α7-L247T receptors and in addition [A10L]PnIA acted as an agonist. PnIA stabilized the receptor in a state that is non-conducting in both the wild type and mutant receptors, whereas [A10L]PnIA stabilized a state that is non-conducting in the wild type receptor and conducting in the α7-L247T mutant. These data indicate that the change of a single amino acid side-chain, at position 10, is sufficient to change the toxin specificity for receptor states in the α7-L247T mutant.


This article explores the expansion of the Russian state into financial markets after the 2008 global financial crisis. The main argument is that the Russian state has been unable to pursue its own developmental agenda in the sector despite increased regulation and state takeovers. While independent private market participants were pushed aside by state-controlled financial intermediaries, the state failed to follow its own policy strategy towards establishing an international financial centre in Moscow. Instead, the Russian financial market institutions were rendered into a vehicle for inter-bank lending under control of the Central Bank of Russia. Data from Russian stock market and corporate bond market trading highlights the trend. The study discusses the role played by informal power networks in redistribution of state-controlled resources and financial flows, and how this factor influenced the state regulation of financial markets in Russia.


Visual images from the two eyes are transmitted to the brain. Because the eyes are horizontally separated, there is a horizontal disparity between the two images. The amount of disparity between the images of a given point depends on the distance of that point from the viewer's point of fixation. A natural visual environment contains surfaces at many different depths. Therefore, the brain must process a spatial distribution of disparities. How are these disparities spatially put together? Brief (about 200 msec) static Cyclopean random-dot stereograms were used as stimuli for vergence and depth discrimination to answer this question. The results indicated a large averaging region for vergence, and a smaller pooling region for depth discrimination. Vergence responded to the mean disparity of two transparent planes. When a disparate target was present in a fixation plane surround, vergence improved as target size was increased, with a saturation at 3-6 degrees. Depth discrimination thresholds improved with target size, reaching a minimum at 1-3 degrees, but increased for larger targets. Depth discrimination showed a dependence on the extent of a disparity pedestal surrounding the target, consistent with vergence facilitation. Vergence might, therefore, implement a coarse-to-fine reduction in binocular matching noise. Interocular decorrelation can be considered as multiple chance matches at different disparities. The spatial pooling limits found for disparity were replicated when interocular decorrelation was discriminated. The disparity of the random dots also influenced the apparent horizontal. alignment of neighbouring monocular lines. This finding suggests that disparity averaging takes place at an early stage of visual processing. The following possible explanations were considered: 1) Disparities are detected in different spatial frequency channels (Marr and Poggio, 1979). 2) Second-order luminance patterns are matched between the two eyes using non-linear channels. 3) Secondary disparity filters process disparities extracted from linear filters.


Black carbon, light-absorbing organic carbon (of- ten called "brown carbon") and mineral dust are the ma- jor light-absorbing aerosols. Currently the sources and formation of brown carbon aerosol in particular are not well understood. In this study we estimated the amount of light-absorbing organic carbon and black carbon from AERONET measurements. We find that the columnar ab- sorbing organic carbon (brown carbon) levels in biomass burning regions of South America and Africa are relatively high (about 15-20 mg m 2 during biomass burning season), while the concentrations are significantly lower in urban ar- eas in US and Europe. However, we estimated significant ab- sorbing organic carbon amounts from the data of megacities of newly industrialized countries, particularly in India and China, showing also clear seasonality with peak values up to 30-35 mg m 2 during the coldest season, likely caused by the coal and biofuel burning used for heating. We also com- pared our retrievals with the modeled organic carbon by the global Oslo CTM for several sites. Model values are higher in biomass burning regions than AERONET-based retrievals, while the opposite is true in urban areas in India and China.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the reflections of a person with lived experience of a severe mental illness (SMI) and former peer support worker in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who has also worked for seven years in mental health research. It describes a tendency of resources and services to create ghettos of people with SMIs by failing to support the integration of people with SMIs into the community at large or in exploring options for meaningful, fulfilling occupation, reinforcing social exclusion and ghettoization.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper shows a reflective and narrative account of personal experiences and observations of the ghettoizing tendency in mental health services.

Findings
Mental healthcare professionals tend to support people with SMIs in engaging activities within resources for the mentally ill, and not in carrying out activities in the community at large. The range of activities offered is limited, an obstacle to finding meaningful, fulfilling occupation. Harmful psychological effects include self-stigma, low self-esteem and a sense of marginalization, generating a ghettoized mentality. The difficulties encountered in an effort to leave the mental health ghetto are touched on with examples of how to overcome them.

Practical implications
The need for professional support for social integration of people with SMIs is identified, which could ultimately favor social inclusion of people with SMIs.

Originality/value
It is written from the perspective of a user and provider of mental health services, who also has seven years' experience in mental health research.


The light emitted from an electron-irradiated self-supported foil (334±30 A) of evaporated carbon has been investigated experimentally. Normally incident, 1-μA electron beams having monochromatic energies of 297, 423, 632 keV and 1.10 MeV were used. These correspond to β2 values of 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9, respectively, where β = ν/c, and ν is the velocity of the incident electrons. The absolute photon intensity emitted in the 2200–5800-A spectral region was measured with a calibrated optical system. The results were analyzed with respect to wavelength of emitted radiation, forward angle of emission, θ (15° and 30°), and degree of polarization (parallel and perpendicular to the plane of the incident electrons and observed light). The transition-radiation contribution determined from the parallel-polarized component has been compared with the generalized theory of Ritchie and Eldridge, using the optical constants of graphite and glassy carbon. From this comparison and a best-fit calculation, the optical constants for the carbon film throughout the 2200–5800-A spectral region have been derived. The derived constants indicate that the carbon film has optical properties between those of graphite and glassy (amorphous) carbon. The results obtained stress the importance of measuring the optical constants of a given carbon film for any experiment in which they are needed.


This RFC discussed clock synchronization algorithms for the ARPA-
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. The recent interest within the Internet community in
determining accurate time from a set of mutually suspicious network
clocks has been prompted by several occasions in which errors were
found in usually reliable, accurate clock servers after thunderstorms
which disrupted their power supply. To these sources of error should
be added those due to malfunctioning hardware, defective software and
operator mistakes, as well as random errors in the mechanism used to
set and synchronize clocks. This report suggests a stochastic model
and algorithms for computing a good estimator from time-offset samples
measured between clocks connected via network links. Included in this
report are descriptions of certain experiments which give an
indication of the effectiveness of the algorithms.


An efficient algorithm for the All-Bidirectional-Edges Problem is presented. The All-Bidirectional-Edges Problem is to find an edge-labelling of an undirected network, G = (V,E), with a source and a sink, such that an edge [u,v] /spl epsi/ E is labelled (u,v) or (v,u) (or both) depending on the existence of a (simple) path from the source to sink that visits the vertices u and v, in the order u,v or v,u, respectively. The algorithm presented works by partitioning the graph into a set of bridges and analyzing them recursively. The time complexity of the algorithm is shown to be O(\E\ . \V\). The problem arises naturally in the context of the simulation of in MOS transistor network, in which a transistor may operate as a unilateral or a bilateral device, depending on the voltages at its source and drain nodes. For efficient simulation, it is required to detect the set of transistors that may operate as bilateral devices. Also, this algorithm can be used in order to detect all the sneak paths in a network of pass transistor.


Nowadays, organisations must cope with the pressure of cost reduction and efficiency in order to succeed in a highly competitive business environment. However, drivers to improve social interaction and employee's performance and as such to contribute to organisational goals and objectives make it necessary to be concerned with other performance criteria as well, such as effectiveness, flexibility, employee satisfaction, productivity and creativity. There is a growing need for performance management and performance measurement that not only covers all aspects of an organisation, but which can be applied to various situations in a changing internal and external environment. Performance measurement methods which include an integrated perspective of performance have become essential. In addition, it has been realised that corporate real estate can contribute to organisational performance (Nourse and Roulac, 1993, De Vries et al., 2008, Lindholm, 2008, Den Heijer, 2011, Jensen et al., 2012). For this reason, worldwide organisations started to implement new ways of working in a more open and flexible work environment. Although there are various objectives and drivers of workplace change, the common objectives are to reduce costs and to increase efficiency. The changing organisational and external contexts, such as the increasing demand for talented knowledge workers and changing work patterns, have led to the development of new offices that can promote social networks and interaction among employees. The new workplace does not only aim at achieving cost efficiency, but it should also support employee satisfaction and productivity. This PhD research focuses on both themes i.e. performance measurement of workplace change. The aim of this research is to provide a conceptual framework that visualises the impact of workplace change on employees' responses to the new work environment and to present guidelines on performance measurement of workplace change in different contexts. Two organisations in Thailand and one organisation in The Netherlands were selected to serve as case studies. The impact of culture was explored as a contextual background. Research methods Based on literature review an overview of performance measurement systems and measures has been developed. The list of corporate real estate performance measures has been classified in six categories according to Bradley (2002) and subsequently compared with the findings from the case studies. The six categories include: 1) stakeholder perception, 2) financial health, 3) organisational development, 4) productivity, 5) environmental responsibility and 6) cost efficiency. The impact of workplace change was examined using the work environment diagnosis instrument (WODI) questionnaire which evaluates employees' responses to the changed work environment in three areas: employee satisfaction, perceived productivity support and prioritised aspects (Maarleveld, et al., 2009). The Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI; Cameron and Quinn, 2006) was used to assess organisational culture. National culture was measured by using the Value Survey Module 94 (VSM94; Hofstede, 1997). Research findings The conceptual framework that came to the fore from the literature review showed to be useful for both theoretical understanding of performance measurement and practical applications. Proposed performance measures have been applied in all three case studies but in different ways. The three case studies showed that performance measurement of an organisation is multi-dimensional. It includes several performance criteria and performance measures beyond cost efficiency. All seven performance criteria mentioned by Sink and Tuttle (1989) have been applied in all three cases including effectiveness, efficiency, quality, productivity, quality of worklife, innovation and profitability. The four perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard (financial, customer, internal business process, learning & growth) are applied in all three cases as well, with different points of focus regarding their business types. The corporate real estate performance measures found in the case studies and classified in the six categories can be aligned with most of the areas of the added value of CREM in the literature and can also be viewed as value dimensions. In all three cases, the performance measures related to human resource management were focused on the occupiers having been provided with an office environment that enables employees to increase their productivity. The findings show that organisation and workplace change characteristics have an influence on the satisfaction of employees. The physical characteristics of workplace change that have influenced different degrees of employee satisfaction include location, building grade, architectural design, workplace concept and supporting facilities. The findings also show a negative impact of workplace design on perceived productivity support, due to the miscalculation of the users' needs and preferences during the implementation process. Furthermore staff characteristics, the work process and work patterns showed to have an effect on which work environment aspects employees perceive as being most important. Regarding the impact of culture, the findings show that the dominant organisational culture types obtained from the organisational culture survey have been influenced by the structure and staff characteristics of the case organisations. The data from the national culture surveys that were conducted in the case studies show large differences in comparison to the findings from the studies by Hofstede (1997). These differences can be explained by the organisational context. Conclusions The cross-case analysis led to several conclusions: • The relevance of corporate real estate performance measures depends on different stakeholders, and different real estate and managerial levels. • The study confirms that measuring employee satisfaction of the work environment can be used as a means to measure organisational performance. • The empirical findings confirm the relevance of the variables shown in the conceptual model of workplace change appraisal and the integrated conceptual model that connects organisational characteristics and characteristics of work processes to objective and subjective performance measurement indicators. • The findings show that information about organisational and national culture is vital for the interpretation of workplace characteristics and the appraisal of change. • The study shows that neither organisational nor national culture has absolute dominance in the employees' appraisals. • The findings proved that national culture data from Hofstede cannot be generalised to organisations; on organisational level huge discrepancies were found with employees' between scores on cultural dimensions and national culture indices. These conceptual frameworks on performance measurement and employees' appraisals of workplace change can be used as a reference to provide input for further improvement of performance measurement and performance management. Many variables such as staff characteristics, work process, cultures and workplace characteristics simultaneously impact the performance measurement of workplace change. The relevance to performance management is that the organisations should be aware of the possible relationships between variables in the integrated conceptual model which could have an impact on performance measurement. The role of real estate that exceeds an operational asset focusing cost efficiency to also include a strategic resource contributing to other criteria of an organisational performance has been shown in this study. A step-by-step plan for prioritisation of corporate real estate performance measures and KPIs has been introduced as a means to find a balance between the costs of measuring and the benefits of being able to manage corporate real estate efficiently and effectively and as such to contribute to achieving organisational objectives and to supporting the core business and organisational performance. Methodological reflections The empirical studies include a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative data from the case studies which were analysed inductively helped to understand workplace change phenomenon, to clarify the relationships between the variables in the conceptual framework of workplace change, and to answer the research questions formulated at the beginning of the thesis. So far, the quantitative data from questionnaire surveys were used to explore the relationships between employees' responses to workplace change and organisational and national culture in a qualitative way. The collected data can be used for further exploration of complex relationships by statistical analysis. Triangulation of data collected from different sources (documents, surveys, interviews) helps to validate the findings through cross verification, i.e. reduce weakness or intrinsic biases from the researcher's background knowledge. The assessment of both tangible (physical characteristics) and intangible components (perceived quality) of the office environment can help to validate the findings from the empirical research. This research study is an exploration of performance measurement concerning workplace change in different contexts. The conclusion of this study is based on the findings from two Thai cases and one case in the Netherlands. Although there are assumed cause-effect relationships between the variables in the conceptual models, more case studies are needed in order to collect comparable data that support the findings of this kind of research.


Significant amounts of carbon dioxide have been dissociated by a single flash of a xenon-filled quartz flash tube. For any one piece of quartz, the effectiveness of a discharge varied as expected with the various parameters. Considerable variation was found between any two pieces of quartz. The maximum output encountered was equivalent in the spectral region used to a blackbody of about 8000°K.


This paper applies a Markov switching model to the South African economy to provide an alternative classification of the business cycle. Principal components analysis (PCA) is applied to 114 of the 186 variables used in the dating of the business cycle by the South African Reserve Bank. PCA establishes the co-movement in the dataset to calculate the reference turning points over the period 1982 to 2009. The large dataset broadens the information set available to date the turning points. The number of factors are chosen using a modified Bai and Ng (2002) method. The Markov switching model is also applied to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as this is a commonly used variable to date the business cycle in the literature and provides a benchmark to the factor model. Our results indicate that the factor model accurately dates the South African business cycle and compares favourably to the SARB dating.


Cylindrical specimens may be tested advantageously by using grazing-incidence interferometry. A multiple positions test in combination with rotational averaging has recently been used to separate the surface deviations of the specimen from the interferometric aberrations. To reduce the measuring time and to check whether the results are reliable, a second procedure is now investigated, which uses the principle of the multiple positions test to determine quantities proportional to the difference quotients of the surface deviations. After numerical integration, the results can be compared with those obtained previously by rotational averaging. The measurement principle is described, and calibration results are presented.


Into the distance go the mounds of people's heads. I am growing smaller here--no one notices me any more, but in caressing books and children's games I will rise from the dead to say the sun is shining. --Osip Mandelshtam, 1937(1) IN 1946, a ruling of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union attacked the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova by stating, Such is Akhmatova with her petty, narrow personal life, trivial emotions and religious-mystical eroticism.... What has this poetry in common with the interests of our people and our state? Exactly nothing.(2) Excluded from the all-important Union of Soviet Writers, Akhmatova (1889-1966) was forced to live on a meager pension, finding some work translating. Authorities were under constant pains to intimidate her, if not into compliance at least into silence, through an intentionally conspicuous surveillance. As her friend Nadezhda Mandelshtam later described it: [T]hey stood there without the least pretense at disguise ... By their whole behavior they seemed to be saying: `You have nowhere to hide.(3) Finally-with her first husband, poet Nikolai Gumilev, having long since been put to death for "counter-revolutionary activities," and their son Lev Gumilev (a noted historian) and her third husband (art critic Nikolai Punin) imprisoned--Akhmatova acquiesced. After having published only a handful of poems in the previous twenty-five years, she ended her silence in 1952 with several poems in praise of Stalin, including a tribute to him on his birthday: Let the world remember this day forever, Let this hour be bequeathed to eternity. Where Stalin is, there is freedom, Peace, and grandeur of the earth.(14) Akhmatova was only one of many writers the Party attacked. At stake was the role of literature in Soviet society--whether writers should be servants of the political ideology of the State. The 1946 ruling gave a clear answer: "Any preaching of ideological emptiness, of an apolitical attitude, of `art for art's sake,' is foreign to Soviet literature, (and) harmful to the interests of the Soviet people and State."(5) This sentiment was not new; the Party had long been increasing its control over writers--especially during the Purges of the late 1930s--and this effort took on renewed energy during the beginning years of the Cold War. Taking a longer view, the role of the intelligentsia (intellectual class) in relation to the state was a central issue for writers in tsarist Russia. Debate over the question dates from the mid-nineteenth century, when literary critic Vissarion Belinsky propounded the view that writers--and other members of the intelligentsia--held a moral imperative to question authority and transform society. Of course, questions about the purpose and function (if any) of art do not arise only in totalitarian societies--although there the consequences that flow from them are likely to be more harsh. The United States acted to suppress dissent after both great wars of the twentieth century--and especially during the era of McCarthyism that followed World War II. Moreover, in our current debates over banned books in schools, rap lyrics in the music industry, and Hollywood "values," what is ultimately at stake if not how much freedom a society allows to the artist? For this reason, examining the role--and the control--of writers in Stalinist Russia may help to illuminate the issues that revolve around intellectual freedom in societies seemingly far removed in place or time. Literary Precedents in Tsarist Russia Far more than the literary canon of the West, Russian literature has traditionally been intertwined with politics, and often marked by a hostility toward authority and strong sympathy for the common people. A century before the Bolshevik Revolution, Russian intellectuals were already establishing themselves as activists, believing that "literature and art . …


Two new 1,7-disubstituted-1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane ligands, DO2P and DO2PME, and their complexes with Mg(2+), Ca(2+), Sr(2+), Mn(2+), Zn(2+) and Ln(3+) were prepared and characterized by pH potentiometry. The pH titration data showed that DO2P and DO2PME both form 1:1 M:L complexes with all divalent and trivalent metal ions. Protonated complexes did not appear to form with the bis(phosphonate ester) ligand, DO2PME, but were evident for all of the metal ion-DO2P complexes. The alkaline earth metal ion-DO2P complexes formed both ML and MHL complexes while the lanthanide ion (Ln(3+)), Zn(2+), and Mn(2+) complexes of DO2P formed ML, MHL, and MH(2)L species. Zn(2+) formed the most stable complex with both ligands. The stability (beta(101)) of the LnDO2PME(+) complexes increased by about 2 orders of magnitude along the lanthanide series (La(3+) to Lu(3+)) while the stability of the LnDO2P(-) complexes over this same series increased by over 3 orders of magnitude. The bis(phosphonate) ligand, DO2P, and some of its complexes formed with Ln(3+) ions were further examined by NMR spectroscopy. (1)H and (31)P spectra of DO2P collected as a function of pH provided evidence that the first two protonations on the ligand take place largely at the tertiary nitrogens. The similarity of the (31)P chemical shifts of EuDO2P(-) and EuDOTP(5)(-) indicate that DO2P forms an "in-cage" complex with Eu(3+) using all four macrocyclic ring nitrogens and the two phosphonate sidearms as ligands. (17)O NMR shifts of the water signal indicated that the DyDO2P(-) complex has two inner-sphere coordinated water molecules. In the presence of excess of DO2P, a 1:2 metal:ligand, LnDO2P(HDO2P)(4)(-), complex forms with the second ligand interacting only weakly with the coordination sites left vacant by the first DO2P. Both water proton relaxivity data for GdDO2P(-) and (31)P NMR spectra of EuDO2P(-) provide evidence for formation of an "out-of-cage" LnH(2)DO2P(+) complex at low pH values (<6.5) in which the two phosphonate groups of DO2P are only involved in bonding with the lanthanide cation.


Introduction Manual therapies have been advocated for the management of tendinopathy. Purpose of the study To systematically review the literature to determine the efficacy of the use manual therapies in the management of tendinopathy. Methods The review followed a 2 phase process. Phase 1 involved a systematic scoping search of the literature to determine which manual therapy techniques were reported to be efficacious and whether this new review was justified. The criteria to determine those studies eligible for inclusion were thus broad in nature and wide in scope Both non-experimental and experimental studies were eligible. CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PUBMED, AMED, CINAHL, Index of Chiropractic Literature, MANTIS, PEDro, SPORTDiscuss, ISI Web of Science, SCOPUS, HMIC, OpenSIGLE and ZETOC were searched. Keywords related to tendinopathy and manual therapy were used. A further search of the contents pages of key journals, electronic full text journals, conference abstracts and reference bibliographies was also undertaken. In phase 2 the specificity and sensitivity of the eligibility criteria was refined to identify those experimental studies that investigated the therapeutic efficacy of manual therapy specifically. Data derived from these studies was critically analysed. Methodological quality of the included studies was assessed using the PEDro scale for randomised controlled trials and the Modified Downs and Black Quality Index for non-randomised studies. Results No previous systematic review encapsulating this topic was identified. 22 non-experimental case studies reported the efficacious use of a wide variety of manual therapy techniques for the management of a variety of symptomatic tendons affecting both the upper and lower limb. These techniques can be categorised based on the method of application. "Direct" techniques are applied. directly the tendinopathic tissue. "Local" techniques are applied articular and/or soft tissues within the affected limb. "Spinal" techniques are applied to the motion segments of the spinal column. Following phase 1, 50 experimental studies were identified which used a wide variety of different direct, local and spinal techniques as part of mulitmodal interventions for the management of tendinopathy affecting both the upper and lower limb. Eleven of these studies were eligible for narrative analysis following phase 2. The internal validity of the conclusions derived from these 11 studies was limited by inadequacies with sample size calculation, randomisation, blinding, and of control of both attrition bias and baseline comparability to a varied extent. Nine investigated the use of manual therapy for the management of lateral epicondylalgia and 2 for patella tendinopathy. Analysis revealed tenuous evidence to support the efficacy of the use of "local" manual therapy applied to articular structures in the upper limb, or "spinal" techniques applied to the cervical spine, for the management of lateral epicondylalgia only. Conclusion Despite extensive anecdotal evidence for use in clinical practice, there is minimal experimental evidence to support the efficacy of the use of manual therapy for the management tendinopathy. The conclusion reflects the lack of high quality experimental evidence published investigating efficacy. Implications for clinical practice Predominately informed by case study findings it appears reasonable to trial manual therapy in concurrence with other physical therapies. Choice of technique should be informed by the nature of a clinicians skill set, the nature of the patient's presentation and whether the clinical environment allows for sufficient frequency and regularity of treatment. Further experimental research is required of sufficient methodological rigour to fully determine whether manual therapy techniques are efficacious to augment the physical management of tendinopathic conditions.


The focus of this paper is on the recognition of single object behavior from monocular image sequences. The general literature trend is to perform behavior recognition separately after an initial phase of feature/attribute extraction. We propose a framework where behavior recognition is performed jointly with attribute extraction, allowing the two tasks to mutually improve their results. To this end, we express the joint recognition / extraction problem in terms of a probabilistic temporal model, allowing its resolution via a variation of the Viterbi decoding algorithm, adapted to our model. Within the algorithm derivation, we translate probabilistic attribute extraction into a variational segmentation scheme. We demonstrate the viability of the proposed framework through a particular implementation for finger-spelling recognition. The obtained results illustrate the superiority of our collaborative model with respect to the traditional approach, where attribute extraction and behavior recognition are performed sequentially.


There are radically conflicting perspectives on indigenous peoples' right to self-determination in international law. On one hand, indigenous advocates regard self-determination as a (if not the) fundamental and non-negotiable element of the international law regime concerned with indigenous rights. On the other hand, many states, including some of the states most significantly confronted with indigenous issues, are categorically opposed to granting indigenous peoples a right to self-determination.In support of their position, indigenous peoples have asserted two convincing arguments. First, they argue that denying indigenous peoples the same international law right to self-determination enjoyed by other peoples constitutes another manifestation of the racism and cultural chauvinism that has characterized international law's historical disregard for indigenous peoples.Second, they argue that limiting the application of self-determination to the decolonization movement of the post-World War H years, and excluding its application to the present indigenous rights movement, requires the illogical and a historical claim that indigenous peoples in settler states were not the victims of European colonization.For their part, States rightfully counter that self-determination can lead, and in its practice often has led, to secession. They argue that this conflicts with the post-war international legal order's emphasis on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. States contend that, above all else, the United Nations Charter stands for these principles. States urge that this foundation was reiterated, in response to ever more frequent assertions of a right to self-determination, in the preamble of the General Assembly's 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations, which declared: "any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of a State or country or at its political independence is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter."Both sides can now claim a victory. One of the first acts of the newly created United Nations Human Rights Council was to approve the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and forward it to the General Assembly for consideration at the end of 2006.10 Article 3 of the UN Declaration provides: "Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination."By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. States, however, can point to the Proposed American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which makes no mention of self-determination.This stalemate is facilitated, in part, by the imprecise, inconclusive and ill-defined nature of the international law right to self-determination. One scholar referred to the field as a "conceptual morass." S. James Anaya's survey of self-determination in his keynote address at this symposium was impressive, especially considering the ambiguities plaguing the right of self-determination.Anaya outlined the diverse perspectives on self-determination (including his own distinct and, arguably, minority view ). But, international lawyers understand that no one quite knows what the right to self-determination means - or worse, everyone knows what the right to self-determination means to them. The positive sources of law referencing self-determination do not provide much precision. The literature is voluminous, complex and confounding: Does self-determination have an internal or external orientation? What is a "people"? Does self-determination have democratic content? Is self-determination Wilsonian or Marxist-Leninist? Was self-determination's application limited to the decolonization of "salt water" colonies and, thus, of no relevance to the colonial experience of settler states? Does self-determination promote or defeat feminist claims and other discourses about "difference" being carried out in international law? Does self-determination promote or erode statehood? Can one distinguish self-determination law and rhetoric? However the international law right to self-determination might be defined, it is clear that its potential secessionist implications stand in tension with states' claims to sovereignty and territorial integrity. Lori Graham has suggested that this tension will be "the defining issue in international law for the 21st century." With respect to indigenous peoples' claims to self-determination, Part II of this article argues for resolving this tension by striking a compromise to the advantage of states and against an indigenous right to self-determination that includes a right to secede. It will argue that self-determination in its external/secessionistm anifestation is undemocratic. After making this claim, Part III will argue instead for internal self-determination in the indigenous peoples context, proposing an adaptation of Habermas's discourse theory of democracy for application between collectives, like indigenous peoples and the states in which they reside, as the means to protect indigenous peoples' human rights and fundamental freedoms. Part IV will close by arguing that the UN Declaration is consistent with this approach to indigenous self-determination.


The destruction of Nahr al-Barid camp in Lebanon in 2007 was a disaster for the 35,000 people for whom it had become home. To understand what was lost, this article explores what the refugee camp is and what it does, materially and imaginatively, for its residents. Drawing on the words of ordinary Palestinians from Nahr al-Barid and Rashidiyya camps, it describes how the camps are social, cultural, and political refuges from marginalization in exile. While the camps draw meaning from a particular Palestinian time-space that emphasizes displacement and transience, they have also become meaningful places in themselves. Consequently, the loss of Nahr al-Barid and the displacement of its society have been understood as a repetition of the foundational experience of the modern Palestinian nation: the Nakba.


The image captioning is to describe an image with natural language as human, which has benefited from the advances in deep neural network and achieved substantial progress in performance. However, the perspective of human description to scene has not been fully considered in this task recently. Actually, the human description to scene is tightly related to the endogenous knowledge and the exogenous salient objects simultaneously, which implies that the content in the description is confined to the known salient objects. Inspired by this observation, this paper proposes a novel framework, which explicitly applies the known salient objects in image captioning. Under this framework, the known salient objects are served as the themes to guide the description generation. According to the property of the known salient object, a theme is composed of two components: its endogenous concept (what) and the exogenous spatial attention feature (where). Specifically, the prediction of each word is dominated by the concept and spatial attention feature of the corresponding theme in the process of caption prediction. Moreover, we introduce a novel learning method of Distinctive Learning (DL) to get more specificity of generated captions like human descriptions. It formulates two constraints in the theme learning process to encourage distinctiveness between different images. Particularly, reinforcement learning is introduced into the framework to address the exposure bias problem between the training and the testing modes. Extensive experiments on the COCO and Flickr30K datasets achieve superior results when compared with the state-of-the-art methods.


A compact flow system that includes two electrochemical transducers integrated in a miniaturized cell is reported. Each transducer shows an on-chip thin-film gold three-electrode configuration. The cell was machined on polymethyl methacrylate substrates, together with the required minifluidic elements for sample conditioning and analysis. These include several pumps and valves that enabled the system to work in an automatic fashion. Its performance was assessed by analyzing copper, catechol and parathion, using different chronoamperometric approaches. A rapid and reproducible response, ease of use, simple data interpretation and low maintenance make the system amenable to be implemented in a portable instrument for on-site environmental analysis.


Within the climate change literature, 'no regrets' options are responses to climate change that deliver net economic benefits, and hence represent a low-risk, attractive strategy for governments, firms or households. These measures are sometimes referred to as 'win-win' actions, since they deliver multiple benefits simultaneously, namely economic growth as well as climate change objectives. Yet this term is used differently in different contexts, notably in the literatures on adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. In the mitigation literature, no regrets options deliver net economic benefits as well as mitigation gains. Their defining characteristic is that their economic benefits outweigh the costs of implementation plus any costs to society, even in the absence of mitigation payments. In cases where mitigation gains achieved are compensated by the carbon market or public sector incentive schemes, these options would be still more advantageous. In the adaptation literature, no regrets options are those that generate net social or economic benefits irrespective of whether or not climate change occurs, as well as across a range of possible climate futures. They build resilience to future climate shocks while also delivering near-term benefits.


This paper reflects on the exhibition and book Art in the Age of Terrorism curated and co-edited by myself and Maurice Owen. It expands on the issues raised by the exhibition and book by examining aspects of moral and political philosophy that relate to terror in the form of Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life and Lyotard's The Differend. In Agamben we have the elaboration of the ex-National Socialist political theorist Carl Schmitt's thesis that dictatorship is implicitly interwoven into the fabric of democratic society via the deployment of "exceptions" to the rule of law. Agamben also offers the thesis that the concentration camp replaces Michel Foucault's Benthamesque panoptic prison as the leitmotif not only for totalitarian but also democratic society; a notion that became particularly pertinent in the context of Guantanamo. And when we turn to The Differend we encounter situations beyond understanding in our current ethical framework, situations of irreconcilable difference and non-communication that counter Habermas' concept of communicative reason. Such theoretical discussion is used to expand my interpretation of the works involved in the Art in the Age of Terrorism exhibition and key essays that were published in the book of the same title. The paper also discussed a work by Khaled Ramadan that was withdrawn from exhibition by the board of the Millais Gallery in Southampton. This 'missing work' was Khaled Ramadan's Someone Else's Everyday Reality, 2004, a three channel video the centrepiece of which is Ramadan's cut of a propaganda memorialisation video of the nineteen "martyrs" who perpetrated 9/11. It is argued that the silencing of this exhibit was unfortunate because showing it would have addressed precisely what Ramadan's title expresses: it would have provided some insight into the other and thereby transcend the political rhetoric that this enemy was "evil" and not-human.


Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro was one of the preeminent drummers from the middle of the 1970's through his untimely passing on August 5, 1992. He was a founding member of the Grammy Award winning band, Toto, and the list of albums on which his drumming appears includes six hundred ninety-three entries. His willingness to help others and commitment to excellence made a lasting impact on the drumming community and the music industry as a whole. The goal of this research was to complete an analysis of Porcaro's drumming style. In order to accomplish this goal, a model was developed that allowed for the analysis of drum set performance based on Robert Breithaupt's article entitled "Musical Considerations for Drumset Improvisation." This article identified nine strategies teachers can use with young students regarding drum set improvisation. Seven of these strategies were used to form a comparative analytical model of musical elements which created a summary of drumming style implemented on Jeff Porcaro for the purposes of this paper: Dynamics, Rate of Strokes, Accents, Rests and Rhythmic Figures, Unisons, Hand-to-Foot Distribution and Special Effects. Porcaro's peers and colleagues identified six songs as being representative of his drumming: Boz Scaggs's "Lowdown," "Lido Shuffle," "Gimme the Goods" and "Jojo," Steely Dan's "Gaucho," and Toto's "Rosanna." The analytical model applied to the choruses of these songs shows that Porcaro manipulated the different musical elements in a variety of way in order to build to a musical peak during the final chorus of each song. Most consistently, but not exclusively, this includes an increase in Dynamics, Rate of Strokes and Accents coupled with the manipulation of Rhythmic Figures and Hand-to-Foot Distribution resulting in an increase in musical energy as the songs progress. It is hoped that this model can be used to create a database of stylistic analyses to further the pedagogy of the instrument.


A development goal pursued by the Zimbabwean government even before the much-maligned fast track land reform programme (FTLRP) was expansion of agricultural production through agricultural mechanization. This goal has been pursued through the acquisition and use of tractors by arable crop farmers in communal and resettlement state land delineated during the period following the launch of the FTLRP. This research project investigated the combined impacts of mechanization and an unplanned land reform on agricultural productivity in the Bindura district of Zimbabwe. The existing land policy and the issue of technical efficiency in agricultural productivity are assumed to be the drivers of the programme. It is likely that these issues will be important considerations in determining the sustainability of the mechanization policy. A multistage sampling technique was used to randomly select 90 farmers in the study area and structured questionnaires were used to collect demographic, investment and production data which were subsequently fitted by means of the Stochastic Frontier Model. Results revealed that mechanization was an important factor in the performance of the farmers who participated in the programme. The results also suggest that availability of land and access to production resources are crucial to farm productivity. Despite these, overall production and productivity remain low and the hyperinflationary situation triggered by supply constraints are only beginning to slightly ease. As the national unity government grapples with the huge task to restore growth in the Zimbabwean economy, it is important that these issues are borne in mind.


In response to growing concerns among faculty regarding the lack of attention to the bilingual student population in our pre-service teacher education program, the authors engaged in a shared self-study of the process of revising and implementing a secondary English methods course with explicit attention to the special needs of bilingual/bicultural learners. The paper describes how the second author, an English educator, with support from the first author, a mentor/colleague in bilingual education, identified and negotiated tensions and dilemmas that arose in a process of curricular transformation toward culturally and linguistically responsive teacher education practice. The study highlights several points of disjuncture, or critical turning points, experienced by the English educator and the ways in which she navigated the contradictions that resulted at these points of disjuncture through conversation with her mentor. Our documentation and articulation of this process may assist content area teacher educators in negotiating new knowledge and creating strategies for managing the dilemmas in practice that arise in the design and implementation of revised course curricula aimed at supporting culturally and linguistically diverse learners.


AC loss can be a significant problem for any applications that utilize or produce an AC current or magnetic field, such as an electric machine. The authors investigate the electromagnetic properties of high temperature superconductors with a particular focus on the AC loss in superconducting coils made from YBCO coated conductors for use in an all-superconducting electric machine. This paper presents an improved 2D finite element model for the cross-section of such coils, based on the H formulation. The model is used to calculate the transport AC loss of a racetrack-shaped coil using constant and magnetic field-dependent critical current densities, and the inclusion and exclusion of a magnetic substrate, as found in RABiTS (rolling-assisted biaxially textured substrate) YBCO coated conductors. The coil model is based on the superconducting stator coils used in the University of Cambridge EPEC Superconductivity Group's all-superconducting permanent magnet synchronous motor design. To validate the modeling results, the transport AC loss of a stator coil is measured using an electrical method based on inductive compensation by means of a variable mutual inductance. Finally, the implications of the findings on the performance of the motor are discussed.


Over the last 35 years approximately forty truth commissions have investigated human rights violations and abuses in a wide range of countries and communities. Each of these forty commissions provides different lessons on how investigating and testifying about past abuse can lead to healing and change. I have participated in two of the more remarkable Truth and Reconciliation processes, the first as an observer, the other as an advisor. The former is perhaps the most widely known and discussed TRC process, the one which took place in South Africa from 1996 to 1998 that examined the entire apartheid era in that country. The other was the first TRC process in the United States that took place in Greensboro, North Carolina from 2004 to 2006. In this article, the analysis will include the effect such commissions have on the particular types of abuse and violations suffered by women and the impact on women's lives. Indeed, one common critique of some of these processes has come from feminist scholars who have noted that they have ignored or minimized particular abuses suffered by women and failed to adequately include women's issues and perspectives among their findings. The first part of this chapter will review those critiques including an analysis of how they played out in the South African process. The purpose is to examine why the impact on women has been limited in so many TRC processes because of such factors as what is included in their mandates and who they define as victims. In so doing it will be demonstrated that their failure to focus on women turned what was supposed to be gender neutral into a male-dominated process. Where relevant, comparisons will be made to processes in other countries also.The next section will extend the analysis of truth processes to the Greensboro Commission, often called the first US Truth Commission, to determine the impact of this process on the groups described above and discuss whether the TRC process resulted in reconciliation and the prevention of future human rights abuses. I will also analyze from a feminist perspective whether the truth process positively impacted the goals of greater social and economic justice in the community. Included will be a review of the TRC's formation, mandate and definition of victims, fact finding process and recommendations.The final section will look at whether and how truth commissions may be useful in other communities or more broadly in the U.S. where there have been violations of human rights. This section will also draw conclusions about the impact on various groups, including women, and whether such commissions can be an effective tool in the struggle to bring about greater social and economic justice in this country.


This thesis investigated oral administration of gemcitabine (2',2'-difluorodeoxycytidine, dFdC) and novel paclitaxel formulations and intravenous (i.v.) administration of the camptothecin prodrug MEN 4901/T-0128 in patients with advanced cancer. Oral drug administration is convenient for patients and facilitates the use of continuous dosing regimens, which might lead to an increased antitumor activity. Gemcitabine is transported into cells by human nucleoside transporters and is intracellularly phosphorylated to its active metabolite gemcitabine triphosphate (dFdCTP). A clinical study in patients with advanced solid tumors who received oral dFdC at low dose-levels demonstrated extensive first-pass metabolism of dFdC to its main metabolite 2',2'-difluorodeoxyuridine (dFdU). A sensitive LC-MS/MS method was developed to quantify dFdCTP in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients. The exposure to dFdC in plasma and to dFdCTP in PBMCs was low and did not significantly increase with dose. High levels of dFdUTP, the phosphorylated metabolite of dFdU, were obtained in PBMCs. The metabolite dFdU had a long terminal half-life (t1/2) of about 4 days. Our hypothesis was that dFdU accumulated in the liver, which was possibly associated with the hepatic toxicity observed in one patient. In vitro experiments demonstrated that dFdU is a good substrate for uptake by the concentrative nucleoside transporter type 1 (hCNT1), which is highly expressed in liver and kidney. This might contribute to (re)uptake of dFdU and to the long t1/2 of dFdU. Furthermore, we found that dFdU is phosphorylated to dFdUTP and incorporated into DNA and RNA, which positively correlated with the cytotoxicity of dFdU. In addition, the extent of DNA incorporation of dFdUTP and dFdCTP in human hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells were comparable at equitoxic concentrations of dFdC and dFdU, suggesting comparable intrinsic toxicity of these molecules. An in vivo study in wild-type mice confirmed accumulation of dFdUTP in the liver after multiple oral dosing of dFdC. Clinical studies with novel oral formulations of paclitaxel without Cremophor EL (CrEL) co-administered with cyclosporin A (CsA), an inhibitor of P-gp, demonstrated an increase in apparent bioavailability of paclitaxel up to a maximum of 60%. A self-microemulsifying oily formulation of paclitaxel demonstrated a desirable systemic exposure to paclitaxel after oral administration in combination with CsA. The systemic exposure to paclitaxel from a polymeric capsule formulation was increased about two-fold after co-administration with CsA. Interestingly, the novel paclitaxel analogue BMS-275183, which had a lower affinity for P-gp than paclitaxel, resulted in considerable antitumor activity in patients with non-small cell lung cancer after oral administration at a twice weekly schedule. The prodrug MEN 4901/T-0128, consisting of the new camptothecin analogue T-2513 bound to a carboxymethyldextran polymer, showed partial responses in patients with colorectal cancer and head and neck cancer after single i.v. administration once every 6 weeks. MEN 4901/T-0128 demonstrated a long t1/2 of about 4.5 days. The dose-level of 1800 mg/m2 was tolerated and resulted in promising clinical activity.


This article presents Semantic Spiral Timelines (SST) as an interactive visual tool aimed at the exploration and analysis of additional academic information stored in current e- learning platforms. Despite the development of contents specifically for these platforms, and in spite of the various features they provide, knowledge of the actual use made by individual participants is emerging as an unavoidable necessity, so as to ensure proper operation and effective use of e-learning platforms. SST supports the discovery of temporal patterns by incorporating an innovative highly interactive visual representation, which can be explored at various levels. This tool makes it possible to assess, at first glance, the use of the e-learning platform during the development of courses; one can also perceive how it is used by class participants. Then, through different interaction mechanisms, it is possible for students and professors to uncover specific details about courses, which would otherwise remain hidden.


The modern history of the satirical press in Iran narrates the rapid rise and fall of papers against the background of strict censorship interspersed with short spaces of comparative freedom. This essay focuses on a relatively unknown periodical, Majalleh-ye Estebdad (The Journal of Despotism), which was published in 1907-1908 in Tehran by Sheikh Mehdi of Qom (a.k.a. Sheikh al-Mamalek) who was also its writer and editor. Through a comprehensive survey of its various aspects against the backdrop of events and opposing factions, the essay examines the recurrent tension between overriding ideological tenets and the role of the satirist as a perceptive if allusive chronicler of complex and turbulent times.

In the context of the Iranian constitutional press, however, Majalleh-ye Estebdad represents a complexity: it is neither a true constitutionalist paper nor a true anti-constitutionalist one. It represents a quaint maneuvering between various standpoints, and that is perhaps why it has been forgotten and slipped into obscurity, as compare with periodicals such as Sour-e Esrafil or Nasim-e Shomal which have survived in public memory well beyond their time. Also, in spite of all potentialities of satire, the journal's satirical dimension soon dries up. The fact that the journal, for the most part, had a single writer may have had something to do with Sheikh al-Mamalek's unwillingness to bring others in, or perhaps with the possibility that others did not come forth; in either case, the character behind the journal seems to have been a decisive factor. Perhaps its single authorship, its recurrent dullness, and its author/editor's hesitation to take a side helped to eliminate the satirical dimension—and thus, in this case, satire fails.


Abstract Research into the effects of drug courts on recidivism has generally demonstrated positive results. These results have led to the expansion of the drug court model which focuses on causes or problems for specific populations, such as drunk drivers, mental health/dual diagnosis individuals, veterans, and others. While research has examined various adaptations to the drug court model, very few examinations have evaluated adaptations of the drug court model on female offenders. Characteristics of female offenders and their drug use have led some scholars to suggest that drug courts would be an appropriate intervention for this population. While past research has examined the role of gender in drug courts, this research occurs using samples from coed courts. The current study expands and adds to the literature on drug courts by evaluating a drug court designed just for female offenders. Female drug court participants are matched to a sample of probationers on multiple variables. Results indicate that a drug court for female offenders significantly lowers recidivism. Furthermore, the research examines and highlights the practical and methodological importance of measuring risk and examining treatment completion.


This book is a study of the production and use of iron and steel in China up to the second century B.C., and simultaneously a methodological study of the reconciliation of archaeological and written sources in Chinese cultural history. An introductory chapter describes and discusses the available sources and their use, gives a brief outline of early Chinese archaeology and history, and develops certain important themes, especially the interaction of North and South in early China. Further chapters consider the invention of iron in a barbarian culture of southeast China, its spread to the area of Chinese culture, and the development of a large-scale iron industry in the third century B.C. The technology of iron production in early China is considered in two chapters, on the microstructures of wrought and cast iron artifacts.


DNA damage triggers a phosphorylation-based signaling cascade known as the DNA damage response. p19INK4d, a member of the INK4 family of CDK4/6 inhibitors, has been reported to participate in the DNA damage response promoting DNA repair and cell survival. Here, we provide mechanistic insight into the activation mechanism of p19INK4d linked to the response to DNA damage. Results showed that p19INK4d becomes phosphorylated following UV radiation, β-amyloid peptide and cisplatin treatments. ATM-Chk2/ATR-Chk1 signaling pathways were found to be differentially involved in p19INK4d phosphorylation depending on the type of DNA damage. Two sequential phosphorylation events at serine 76 and threonine 141 were identified using p19INK4d single-point mutants in metabolic labeling assays with 32P-orthophosphate. CDK2 and PKA were found to participate in p19INK4d phosphorylation process and that they would mediate serine 76 and threonine 141 modifications respectively. Nuclear translocation of p19INK4d induced by DNA damage was shown to be dependent on serine 76 phosphorylation. Most importantly, both phosphorylation sites were found to be crucial for p19INK4d function in DNA repair and cell survival. In contrast, serine 76 and threonine 141 were dispensable for CDK4/6 inhibition highlighting the independence of p19INK4d functions, in agreement with our previous findings. These results constitute the first description of the activation mechanism of p19INK4d in response to genotoxic stress and demonstrate the functional relevance of this activation following DNA damage.


Traditional greenhouse production is to a great extent based on the use of fossil fuels, a use which can be regarded as unsustainable in the long run and an environmental threat. There is therefore a need to consider, develop and try out alternative sources of energy for greenhouse use. Likewise modern greenhouse production is based on systems which are not in accordance with a sustainable development. A great effort has been done, though, in the area of plant protection to implement biological methods. But there still a need to consider and develop organic production systems.


The complex needs of people with dementia can create challenges when designing care environments. A Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) approach to the design of dementia care environments was used to address this challenge, and support wellbeing and independence for system users. Four individual personas (Alison, Barry, Christine and David) and a couple persona (Chris and Sally) were developed to represent
the needs of people living with dementia. The aim was to facilitate the exchange of information and expertise between stakeholders and improve understanding of the characteristics of system users. An evidence-based approach involved extracting information from design, dementia, and clinical literature. This was followed by an iterative persona development
process and a validation exercise to review the concept, content and applications. This paper outlines the development process, describes each
persona and discusses current and potential applications.


Zebrafish are increasingly utilized to model cardiomyopathies and regeneration. Current methods evaluating cardiac function have known limitations, fail to reliably detect focal mechanics, and are not readily feasible in zebrafish. We developed a semiautomated, open-source method - displacement analysis of myocardial mechanical deformation (DIAMOND) - for quantitative assessment of 4D segmental cardiac function. We imaged transgenic embryonic zebrafish in vivo using a light-sheet fluorescence microscopy system with 4D cardiac motion synchronization. Our method permits the derivation of a transformation matrix to quantify the time-dependent 3D displacement of segmental myocardial mass centroids. Through treatment with doxorubicin, and by chemically and genetically manipulating the myocardial injury-activated Notch signaling pathway, we used DIAMOND to demonstrate that basal ventricular segments adjacent to the atrioventricular canal display the highest 3D displacement and are also the most susceptible to doxorubicin-induced injury. Thus, DIAMOND provides biomechanical insights into in vivo segmental cardiac function scalable to high-throughput research applications.