Concept drift due to hidden changes in context complicates learning in many real world domains including nancial prediction, medical diagnosis, and communication network performance. Machine learning systems addressing this problem generally use an incremental learning, on-line paradigm. An o-line, meta-learning approach to the identication of hidden context is presented. This approach uses an existing batch learner and the process of contextual clustering to identify stable hidden contexts, and the associated, context specic, locally stable concepts. The approach is broadly applicable to a range of domains and learning methods. We describe several evaluation domains and report current progress on these domains.


We describe MSR SPLAT, a toolkit for language analysis that allows easy access to the linguistic analysis tools produced by the NLP group at Microsoft Research. The tools include both traditional linguistic analysis tools such as part-of-speech taggers, constituency and dependency parsers, and more recent developments such as sentiment detection and linguistically valid morphology. As we expand the tools we develop for our own research, the set of tools available in MSR SPLAT will be extended. The toolkit is accessible as a web service, which can be used from a broad set of programming languages.


ABSTRACT Single-session therapy is being implemented in a number of mental health settings to increase the accessibility and efficiency of services, despite limited evidence supporting its utility. This study evaluated a new single-session therapy program offered to adults at an outpatient community mental health clinic in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. The purpose of the study was to determine if clients' satisfaction with the service and outcomes after attendance supported continued implementation of single-session therapy We hypothesized that after attending the session, clients would (1) be satisfied with the service, (2) experience a decrease in their symptom severity, (3) experience less impairment related to their symptoms, and (4) report improvements in their ability to manage their presenting problem. Participants (n = 109, 63% women, Mage = 38.95, SD = 13.96) completed measures related to their satisfaction with the service, symptom severity, impairment, and their ability to manage their presenting problem before the session, after the session, and at one-month follow-up. The majority of participants rated the session favourably, and experienced a decrease in their symptom severity and associated impairment after attending the session. Moreover, they reported improvements in their ability to manage their presenting problem in terms of the stress it has caused them, their understanding of the cause, their ability to cope, and their knowledge of supporting resources. The single-session therapy service also provided access to services sooner than traditional individual therapy within the clinic. The current findings support continued implementation of single-session therapy.


The functional role of Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signalling in colorectal cancer (CRC) is poorly defined, with contradictory results in cancer cell line models reflecting the inherent difficulties of assessing a signalling pathway that is context dependent and subject to genetic constraints. By assessing the transcriptional response of a diploid human colonic epithelial cell line to BMP ligand stimulation we generated a prognostic BMP signalling signature, which was applied to multiple CRC datasets to investigate BMP heterogeneity across CRC molecular subtypes. We linked BMP and Notch signalling pathway activity and function in human colonic epithelial cells, and normal and neoplastic tissue. BMP induced Notch through a γ-secretase independent interaction, regulated by the SMAD proteins. In homeostasis, BMP/Notch co-localisation was restricted to cells at the top of the intestinal crypt, with more widespread interaction in some human CRC samples. BMP signalling was downregulated in the majority of CRC, but was conserved specifically in mesenchymal subtype tumours, where it interacts with Notch to induce an EMT phenotype.

In intestinal homeostasis, BMP-Notch pathway crosstalk is restricted to differentiating cells through stringent pathway segregation. Conserved BMP activity and loss of signalling stringency in mesenchymal subtype tumours promotes synergistic BMP/Notch interaction, and this correlates with poor patient prognosis. BMP signalling heterogeneity across CRC subtypes and cell lines can account for previous experimental contradictions. Crosstalk between the BMP and Notch pathways will render mesenchymal subtype CRC insensitive to γ-secretase inhibition unless BMP activation is concomitantly addressed.


Subspace clustering is a useful technique for many computer vision applications in which the intrinsic dimension of high-dimensional data is smaller than the ambient dimension. Traditional subspace clustering methods often rely on the self-expressiveness property, which has proven effective for linear subspace clustering. However, they perform unsatisfactorily on real data with complex nonlinear subspaces. More recently, deep autoencoder based subspace clustering methods have achieved success owning to the more powerful representation extracted by the autoencoder network. Unfortunately, these methods only considering the reconstruction of original input data can hardly guarantee the latent representation for the data distributed in subspaces, which inevitably limits the performance in practice. In this paper, we propose a novel deep subspace clustering method based on a latent distribution-preserving autoencoder, which introduces a distribution consistency loss to guide the learning of distribution-preserving latent representation, and consequently enables strong capacity of characterizing the real-world data for subspace clustering. Experimental results on several public databases show that our method achieves significant improvement compared with the state-of-theart subspace clustering methods.


This work proposes a technique for constructing a statistical closure model for reduced-order models (ROMs) applied to stationary systems modeled as parameterized systems of algebraic equations. The proposed technique extends the reduced-order-model error surrogates (ROMES) method to closure modeling. The original ROMES method applied Gaussian-process regression to construct a statistical model that maps cheaply computable error indicators (e.g., residual norm, dual-weighted residuals) to a random variable for either (1) the norm of the state error or (2) the error in a scalar-valued quantity of interest. Rather than target these two types of errors, this work proposes to construct a statistical model for the state error itself; it achieves this by constructing statistical models for the generalized coordinates characterizing both the in-plane error (i.e., the error in the trial subspace) and a low-dimensional approximation of the out-of-plane error. The former can be considered a statistical closure model, as it quantifies the error in the ROM generalized coordinates. Because any quantity of interest can be computed as a functional of the state, the proposed approach enables any quantity-of-interest error to be statistically quantified a posteriori, as the state-error model can be propagated through the associated quantity-of-interest functional. Numerical experiments performed on both linear and nonlinear stationary systems illustrate the ability of the technique (1) to improve (expected) ROM prediction accuracy by an order of magnitude, (2) to statistically quantify the error in arbitrary quantities of interest, and (3) to realize a more cost-effective methodology for reducing the error than a ROM-only approach in the case of nonlinear systems.


The concepts of mind, soul, and consciousness are key to an understanding of ourselves
and how we interact with the universe around us. Ian Barbour names the mind/body problem
as one of the major subjects of long-term discussion among religion, philosophy, and
science, including cognitive psychology. However, his treatment of the traditional philosophical positions on this topic is wanting. What is most intriguing is that, after years of
discussion, newer approaches to the mind/body problem seem to have come full circle, sharing many commonalities with the much older approach of property dualism.


This article explores tensions between the imaginaries and material hindrances that accompany the development of digital infrastructures for narrative exchange and public engagement. Digital infrastructures allow civil society organizations to become narrators of their community lives, and to express solidarity and recognition. Often full development and implementation of such infrastructures result in drastic changes to an organization's mode of operation. Drawing from empirical material collected during an action research project with an organization of community reporters in the North of England, here we examine the visions of 'telling the story of the stories' that motivated such changes, the experiments in web analytics and content curation that in practice realized these visions and the socio-economic contexts that constrained them. We attend to the wider social imaginaries about the digital as they help us understand better how social actors construct the worlds they want to inhabit within information society through mundane everyday practices. Examining how perceptions of digital engagement translate into such concrete practices is necessary in order to gain insight into the ways in which material infrastructures, such as resources and technologies, intertwine with social and cultural expectations about how life should be with digital technologies.


A core-excited sulfur state with a lifetime almost one order of magnitude longer than in molecular 2p core-hole states is selectively produced by ultrafast dissociation of S 2p → σ* excited OCS. Clear evidence for this is provided by strong atomic peaks (20% of the total intensity) in x-ray fluorescence but very weak ones (2%) in the corresponding resonant Auger spectrum. Corroborating the assignment of the spectra, ab initio calculations explain the enhanced lifetime: the Auger decay of the produced 3D3 (2p53p5) sulfur state is strongly decreased as it contradicts a newly derived propensity rule of the L2,3MM Auger decay.


In recent years, financial difficulties led engineers to look for not only the efficiency of the function of a product but also the cost of its development. In order to reduce the time for the development, engineers in each disciplinary have to develop and improve their objectives collaboratively. Sometimes, they have to cooperate with those who have no knowledge at all for their own disciplinary. Collaborative designs have been studied to solve these kinds of the problems, but most of them need some sorts of negotiation between disciplines and assumed that the negotiation will be done successfully. However, in the most cases of real designs, manager of each disciplinary does not want to give up his or her own objectives to stress on the other objectives. In order to carry out these negotiation smoothly, we need some sort of evaluation criteria which will show efficiency of the product considering the designs made up by each division and if possible, considering the products of the competitive company. In this study, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to calculate the efficiency of the design and showed every decision maker the directions of the development of the design. We newly called these kinds of systems as supervisor systems and implemented these systems in computer networks that every decision makers can use conveniently. Through simple numerical examples, we showed the effectiveness of the proposed method.


In this paper, the Vorticity Confinement method (VC) is presented for the calculation of flow field around a bluff body. The VC method was originally proposed by Fan et al. (\"Computing blunt body flows on coarse grids using vorticity confinement", J. Fluids Engineering, 124(4):1–18, Dec 2002) for the computation of thin vortical regions in the high Reynolds number incompressible flows. Steinhoff et al. (Large Eddy Simulation: Computing Turbulent Flow Dynamics, Chapter 12: Turbulent Flow Simulations Using Vorticity Confinement: Cambridge University Press, 2006) claim that VC is capable of capturing most of the main features of high-Re turbulent flows without the massive mesh resolution needed for Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solutions or Large Eddy Simulation (LES). The aim of the method is to capture small-scale vortical structures efficiently. The presented study assesses the VC method (namely the first formulation, referred to as VC-1, which involves first derivatives of velocity), for external aerodynamics presented here on a well documented simplified car - Ahmed bluff body with different slant angles, namely 25° and 35°. These slant angles were chosen because the 35° slant angle supports the boundary layer separation and therefore stronger wake (also stronger oscillations of the wake), while at the 25° slant angle no separation takes part and the wake is much weaker and also more stable. The VC method was applied using different values for the diffusion parameter and confinement


Little empirical attention has been given to the academic stress experienced by Native American undergraduates. This study explored the relation of self-beliefs, ethnic identity, and cultural congruity with academic stress among 158 (65 males and 93 females) Native American university undergraduates. Participants completed instruments assessing self-esteem, academic self-efficacy (grade and task), ethnic identity (centrality, public regard, and private regard), cultural congruity, and academic stress. Hierarchical regressions revealed that self-beliefs (specifically task self-efficacy), ethnic identity (particularly public regard), and cultural congruity predicted academic stress, accounting for 23.7% of the variance. Each of these constructs was negatively related to academic stress. These findings are discussed in light of the literature, and ideas for college-based interventions are given.


Untouchability has always been a key problem of Indian anthropology; but like many other issues, it has been treated as an abstract concept that existed outside time. The first theoreticians of caste had no first-hand knowledge of Untouchables, and tended to base their theories on sacred Hindu texts that had little to do with contemporary life. They stressed the integration of Untouchables into Indian society. Later on, the first village studies concentrated on multi-caste settlements and approached the Untouchables' reality in the presence of high-caste villagers. They were again biased towards a harmonious view of the problem. Srinivas himself was honest enough to recognize that his knowledge of the Untouchables was on the whole unsatisfactory: "Though I knew several Muslims and Harijans well, I did not know these two sections of village society as intimately as I wanted to. I would have obtained a new angle on the village if I had spent more time in their areas". Those first ethnographers largely confirmed the views of the theoreticians of castes and Sanskritists, who emphasized the rather harmonious character of village society and the perfect integration of Untouchables into the social organization. Then came a new generation of scholars, who studied the Untouchables for themselves. In a famous study, Moffatt made an important – though largely unnoticed – point: he notices that these scholars were on the whole quite sympathetic to the Untouchables and wished to emphasize the distance between the latter and the rest of society. Psychologically, this is quite understandable. Researchers wish to show that their study has contributed something new, and, in this particular case, they set up what Moffatt calls "models of separation," in other words models that implied a great distance between Untouchables and the rest of society. There was thus a tendency to foreground the persistence of discrimination. This was particularly true of studies led by Westerners, since Indian anthropologists were much more preoccupied with social change and the way untouchability was – slowly but surely – disappearing. Unfortunately, the numerous studies entitled Social Change in India did not always match what one could expect from modern anthropological research, and they tended to be neglected in a debate that, in the West, remained largely dominated by structuralist considerations, caring little about social change. Yet, those studies made some important points: they assumed firstly that Indian society was changing, and secondly, in a very post-Independence fashion, that untouchability had to disappear sooner or later. As I said, the problem of those studies was that they often relied upon inadequate evidence, very often tables compiled from a simple, even a simplistic, questionnaire. That is perhaps one of the reasons that explain their lack of impact. Yet, their assumptions were right, as they were concerned with a changing reality. Having devoted a great deal of my time to the study of Untouchables, I now think it is time to stop considering things as if caste and untouchability were unchanging institutions. For instance, it seems pretty obvious to me that social realities are no longer what they were (or what they were supposed to have been): high castes have changed, Untouchables have changed, the society at large has changed and castes, in particular, have also changed. I would go further, and claim that, fifty years after Independence, Indian Untouchables have come a long way and made remarkable progress. True enough, the vast majority of them remain poor; but poverty is an economic, not a caste, condition. The problem of poverty in India cannot be reduced to caste and one finds poor people basically in all caste groups: according to the various estimates, between 30 and 60 per cent of the Indian population live under the so-called "poverty line," whereas Untouchables are only 15 per cent. In any case, the question of ritual pollution no longer plays a major role in maintaining them at the bottom of society. Finally they form less than ever a homogeneous social category: owing to the state's protective measures, but also to their own dynamism and courage, many among them have climbed the social ladder. The fact remains that caste tends to play a growing role in contemporary India. However, this situation is perhaps less the continuity of tradition than a recent outcome linked to the post-Independence situation. In modern India, it is not relative purity that lies at the basis of caste struggles. Castes now fight because they have to compete for limited economic and political resources. This is also true of Untouchables, who may become a major force within Indian politics.


The behaviour of highly non-linear cellulosic fibers and their composite is characterized. Micro-mechanisms occurring in these materials are identified. Mechanical properties of regenerated cellulose fibers and composites are obtained using simple tensile test. Material visco-plastic and visco-elastic properties are analyzed using creep tests. Two bio-based resins are used in this study – Tribest and EpoBioX. The glass and flax fiber composites are used as reference materials to compare with Cordenka fiber laminates.


The area of multi-robot systems and frameworks has become, in recent years, a hot research area in the field of robotics. This is attributed to the great advances made in robotic hardware, software, and the diversity of robotic systems. The need to integrate different heterogeneous robotic components and systems has led to the birth of robotic middleware. A robotic middleware is an intricate piece of software that masks the heterogeneity of underlying components and provides high-level interfaces that enable developers to make efficient use of the components. A large number of robotic middleware programs exist today. Each one comes with its own design methodologies and complexities. Up to this moment, however, there exists no unified standard for robotic middleware. Moreover, many of the middleware in use today deal with low-level and hardware aspects. This adds unnecessary complexity in research involving robotic behavior, inter-robot collaboration, and other high-level experiments which do not require prior knowledge of low-level details. In addition, the notion of structured lightweight data transfer between robots is not emphasized in existing work. This dissertation tackles the robotic middleware problem from a different perspective. The aim of this work is to develop a robust middleware that is able to handle multiple robots and clients within a laboratory environment. In the proposed middleware, a high-level representation of robots in an environment is introduced. Also, this work introduces the notion of structured and efficient data exchange as an important issue in robotic middleware research. The middleware has been designed and developed using rigorous methodologies and leading edge technologies. Moreover, the middleware's ability to integrate different types of robots in a seamless manner, as well as its ability to accommodate multiple robots and clients, has been tested and evaluated.


To the Editor Since the end of February 2020 Italy, first non- Asian Country, has reported an ever increasing number of COronaVIrus Disease 19 (COVID-19) patients, which has reached over 200,000 confirmed Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infected subjects and resulted in more than 34000 deaths (data updated to June 19th, 20201).Patients with asthma are potentially more severely affected by by SARS-CoV-2 infection 2 and it is well established that respiratory viral infections are associated with severe adverse outcomes in patients with asthma, including increased risk of asthma exacerbation episodes 3. Nonetheless, according to the epidemiological studies published so far, chronic pulmonary diseases are not amongst the most common clinical conditions in COVID-19 patients4About 5-10% of entire asthma population, are severe asthmatics5 and one would expect increased vulnerability to SARS-CoV-2 infection, but no data is so fare available ti confirm this hypothesis.We investigated the incidence of COVID-19, describing its clinical course, in the population of the Severe Asthma Network in Italy (SANI), one of the largest registry for severe asthma worldwide6, and in an additional Center (Azienda Ospedaliero Univeristaria di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy). All centers, have been contacted and inquired to report confirmed (i.e. patients with positive test result for the virus SARS-CoV-2 from analysis of nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab specimens) or highly suspect cases of COVID-19 (i.e. patients with symptoms, laboratory findings and lung imaging typical of COVID-19 but without access to nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab specimens because of clinical contingencies/emergency) among their cohorts of severe asthma. Demographic and clinical data of the entire cohort of severe asthmatics enrolled in the study and all reported cases of confirmed or suspect cases of COVID-19, have been obtained from the registry platform and collected from the additional Center. Additional data about COVID-19 symptoms, treatment and clinical course have been collected for all cases reported.Ethical issues and statistical analysis are reported in the online supplementary material.Twenty-six (1.73%) out of 1504 severe asthmatics had confirmed (11 out of 26) or highly suspect COVID-19 (15 out 26); eighteen (69.2%) were females and mean age was 56.2 ± 10 years. The geographical distribution of COVID-19 cases is presented in Figure 1.Nine (34.6%) infected patients experienced worsening of asthma during the COVID-19 symptomatic period; four of them needed a short course of oral corticosteroids for controlling asthma exacerbation symptoms.The most frequent COVID-19 symptoms reported were fever (100% of patients), malaise (84.6%), cough (80.8%), dyspnea (80.8%), headache (42.3%) and loss of smell (42.3%). Four patients (15.3%) have been hospitalized, one of which in intensive care unit; among hospitalized patients, two (7.7%) died for COVID-19 interstitial pneumonia. No deaths have been reported among the non-hospitalized patients.Severe asthmatics affected by COVID-19, had a significantly higher prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) compared to non-infected severe asthma patients (15.4% vs 3.8%, p=0.002; odds ratio: 4.7). No difference was found in other comorbidities (including rhinitis, chronic rhinosinusitis with or without nasal polyps, bronchiectasis, obesity, gastroesophageal reflux, arterial hypertension, cardiovascular diseases).Twenty-one patients with COVID-19 were on biological treatments: 15 (71%) were on anti-IL-5 or anti-IL5R agents (Mepolizumab n= 13; Benralizumab n=2 - counting for the 2.9% of all severe asthmatics treated with anti-IL5 in our study population) and 6 (29%) were on anti IgE (Omalizumab - 1.3% of all severe asthmatics treated with omalizumab in our study population).Table I summarizes demographic and clinical characteristics of the 26 COVID-19 patients.In conclusion, in our large cohort of severe asthmatics, COVID-19 was infrequent, not supporting the concept of asthma as a particularly susceptible condition to SARS-COV2 infection 2. This is in line with the first published large epidemiological data on COVID-19 patients, in which asthma is under-reported as comorbidity4. The COVID-19 related mortality rate in our cohort of patients was 7.7%, lower than the COVID-19 mortality rate in the general population (14.5% in Italy 1). These findings suggest that severe asthmatics are not at high risk of the SARS-CoV-2 infection and of severe forms of COVID-19. There are potentially different reasons for this. Self-containment is the first, because of the awareness of virus infections acting as a trigger for exacerbations, and therefore they could have acted with greater caution, scrupulously respecting social distancing, lockdown and hygiene rules of prevention, and being more careful in regularly taking asthma medications.Another possible explanation stands in the intrinsic features of type-2 inflammation, that characterizes a great proportion of severe asthmatics. Respiratory allergies and controlled allergen exposures are associated with significant reduction in angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) expression 7, the cellular receptor for SARS-CoV-2. Interestingly, ACE2 and Transmembrane Serine Protease 2 (TMPRSS2) (another protein mediating SARS-CoV-2 cell entry) have been found highly expressed in asthmatics with concomitant NIDDM8, the only comorbidity that was more frequent reported in our COVID-19 severe asthmatics.The third possible explanation refers to the possibility that inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) might prevent or mitigate the development of Coronaviruses infections. By definition, patients with severe asthma are treated with high doses of ICS 5 and this may have had a protective effect for SARS-CoV-2 infection.Noteworthy, among the patients of our case-series of severe asthmatics with COVID-19, the proportion of those treated anti-IL5 biologics was higher (71%) compared to the number of patients treated with anti-IgE (29%). Although the number of cases is too small to draw any conclusion, it is tempting to speculate that different biological treatments can have specific and different impact on antiviral immune response. In addition we may speculate of the consequence of blood eosinophils reduction: eosinopenia has been reported in 52-90% of COVID-19 patients worldwide and it has been suggested as a risk factor for more severe COVID-19 9.In conclusion, in our large cohort of severe asthmatics only a small minority experienced symptoms consistent with COVID-19, and these patients had peculiar clinical features including high prevalence of NIDDM as comorbidity. Further real-life registry-based studies are needed to confirm our findings and to extend the evidence that severe asthmatics are at low risk of developing COVID-19.


Nucleic acid probes are available for the most frequently seen mycobacterial species, Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, M. avium complex, M. kansasii, and M. gordonae. It has seemed as if there is an increase in nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) disease in the United States and other developed countries in recent years, but it has not been clear whether this is a true increase or just better detection. Early on, pulmonary NTM infections seemed to occur mainly in persons who had previous structural lung disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, tuberculosis, histoplasmosis, or other causes of bronchiectasis. A more recent cause of immune-suppressiontriggered NTM lung diseases (and NTM disease generally) has been the introduction of biologic agents, especially tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitor. The 2007 ATS/IDSA Statement includes a section in which the authors conclude that "more fundamental information is needed to improve understanding in essentially all areas of NTM disease". A combination of clinical, radiologic, and bacteriologic features has been suggested for diagnosis of true pulmonary NTM disease. Evaluation should include, beside appropriate history and physical, chest imaging using high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT), unless there is obvious cavitation by chest X ray. If possible, NTM should be identified at the species level. Patients suspected of having NTM disease should be monitored closely until the diagnosis is made or excluded.


Abstract The effect of particle aspect ratio and surface geometry on granular flows is assessed by performing numerical simulations of rod-like particles in simple shear flows using the discrete element method (DEM). The effect of particle surface geometry is explored by adopting two types of particles: glued-spheres particles and true cylindrical particles. The particle aspect ratio varies from one to six. Compared to frictionless spherical particles, smaller stresses are obtained for the glued-spheres and cylindrical particle systems in dilute and moderately dense flows due to the loss of translational energy, which is partially converted to rotational energy, for the non-spherical particles. For dilute granular flows of non-spherical particles, stresses are primarily affected by the particle aspect ratio rather than the surface geometry. As the particle aspect ratio increases, the effective particle projected area in the plane perpendicular to the flow direction increases, so that the probability of the occurrence of the particle collisions increases, leading to a reduction in particle velocity fluctuation and therefore a decrease in the stresses. Hence, a simple modification is made to the kinetic theory for granular flows to describe the stress tensors for dilute flows of non-spherical particles by incorporating a normalized effective particle projected area to account for the effect of particle collision probability. For dense granular flows, the stresses depend on both the particle aspect ratio and the surface geometry. Sharp stress increases at high solid volume fractions are observed for the glued-spheres particles with large aspect ratios due to the bumpy surfaces, which impede the flow. However, smaller stresses are obtained for the true cylindrical particles with large aspect ratios at high solid volume fractions. This trend is attributed to the combined effects of the smooth particle surfaces and the particle alignments such that the major/long axes of particles are aligned in the flow direction. In addition, the apparent friction coefficient, defined as the ratio of shear to normal stresses, is found to decrease as the particle aspect ratio increases and/or the particle surface becomes smoother at high solid volume fractions.


Abstract. Current photochemical models developed to simulate the atmospheric degradation of aromatic hydrocarbons tend to underestimate OH radical concentrations. In order to analyse OH budgets, we performed experiments with benzene, toluene, p-xylene and 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene in the atmosphere simulation chamber SAPHIR. Experiments were conducted under low-NO conditions (typically 0.1–0.2 ppb) and high-NO conditions (typically 7–8 ppb), and starting concentrations of 6–250 ppb of aromatics, dependent on OH rate constants. For the OH budget analysis a steady-state approach was applied in which OH production and destruction rates (POH and DOH) have to be equal. The POH were determined from measurements of HO2, NO, HONO, and O3 concentrations, considering OH formation by photolysis and recycling from HO2. The DOH were calculated from measurements of the OH concentrations and total OH reactivities. The OH budgets were determined from DOH/POH ratios. The accuracy and reproducibility of the approach were assessed in several experiments using CO as a reference compound where an average ratio DOH/POH = 1.13 ± 0.19 was obtained. In experiments with aromatics, these ratios ranged within 1.1–1.6 under low-NO conditions and 0.9–1.2 under high-NO conditions. The results indicate that OH budgets during photo-oxidation experiments with aromatics are balanced within experimental accuracies. Inclusion of a further, recently proposed OH production via HO2 + RO2 reactions led to improvements under low-NO conditions but the differences were small and insignificant within the experimental errors.


(1) We develop a mathematically rigorous approach to modelling the effects of age structure, in which the life-history of a species is divided into age classes of arbitrary duration and attention is focused on the sub-populations of the various classes. (2) By assuming that all individuals in a particular age class have the same birth and death rates (which may be time- and density-dependent), we reduce the normal integro-differential equations describing an age-structured population with overlapping generations to a set of coupled ordinary delay-differential equations which are readily integrated numerically. (3) We illustrate the use of the formalism in the construction and analysis of two models of laboratory insect populations: a detailed model of Nicholson's blowflies and a `strategic' model of larval competition intended to refine the design of experiments in progress on the dynamics of the Indian meal-moth Plodia interpunctella (Hubner). (4) The model of Nicholson's blowflies is dynamically identical to a model previously derived heuristically. We have fitted the parameters using a more comprehensive range of data, and have illustrated explicitly the passage of large, quasi-cyclic fluctuations through the age structure. (5) We use the larval competition model to distinguish the effects of `uniform competition' (all larvae competing) and `cohort competition' (larvae of a given age competing). The former can produce quasi-cycles of a type characteristic of delayed regulation, while the latter causes quasi-cycles consisting of `bursts' of population propagating through the age structure. (6) We also use the larval competition model to demonstrate that apparently minor changes in the description of adult survival can induce dramatic alterations in model behaviour. This supports our emphasis on rigour in the formulation of the model, so as to distinguish genuinely interesting dynamics from mathematical artifacts.


INTRODUCTION It goes without saying that the banking industry has changed over the last decade. There have been several seminal events to cause the changes, notably the easing of Depression era regulations and as a result the ever-increasing penetration of the large "mega-banks" into smaller and smaller markets. Additionally, and likely a result of the increased competition caused by the aforementioned events, banks have been forced to dramatically increase their product offerings. It is now common for the smallest of banks to offer such products as home equity lines of credit, certificates of deposit with the interest rate tied to the performance of an equity index, and even interest-only home mortgages. The increased competition from the mega-banks has also forced the small bank to manage itself in ways that they did not need to in the past. For example, it is not uncommon to see smaller banks using more sophisticated derivative securities as a vital tool in Asset/Liability management. Clearly, the use of these complex financial tools introduces additional accounting and regulatory risks to the small bank. It is our goal in this paper to determine how this subset of banks has evolved since 1995 in their use of derivative securities. A second question that we will attempt to answer is whether or not derivative use affects the performance of the banks in our sample, and whether the results are driven by the largest banks. The firms we examine are U.S. commercial banks with total assets between $100 million and $1 billion, which we will refer to as community banks. We choose these firms because they are small enough so that derivatives should be a relatively new tool for them as compared to the larger national banks. Yet, they are large enough that they should have enough interest rate risk on their balance sheet to warrant hedging with derivatives. Also, as pointed out by Carter and Sinkey (1998) this subset of banks should be using derivatives for hedging purposes rather than for dealer activity. The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 reviews the existing literature. Section 3 describes the data used in our study and our methodology. Section 4 presents the results and Section 5 concludes. RELATED LITERATURE There are several studies that have examined the effect of derivative use on the firm. Smith and Stulz (1985) were the first to discuss how hedging with derivatives can be used to offset interest-rate risk and decrease the probability of insolvency. Carter and Sinkey (2000) use year-end data from 1996 and find approximately 5% of community banks use derivatives. They examine the user versus nonuser banks and find usage related to riskier capital structure, larger maturity mismatches between assets and liabilities, greater net-loan charge offs, and lower net interest margins. An additional set of researchers are studying swap positions of U.S. commercial banks. Gorton and Rosen (1995) find that interest rate risk from swap positions has had very little effect on the systematic risk of the banking industry as a whole. Boukrami (2003) finds larger banks with better asset quality and higher capitalization use swaps more intensely. One study which focuses exclusively on community banks is Deyoung, Hunter, and Udell's (2004) examinion of the past, present, and future of community banks. They show that although regulatory and technological changes have created increased competition for community banks, it has also left well-managed community banks with a potential exploitable strategic position in the industry. Carter and Sinkey's (1998) evaluation of derivative use by community banks from 1990-1993 shows that cost-related incentives motivate interest-rate derivative use. Specifically, they show that community banks use derivatives to control interest-rate risk, with swaps being used in conjunction with credit-risk minimization mechanisms. We will build on the existing literature in two ways. …


We report the first observation of a 27 day period component in daily maximum temperature recorded at widely spaced locations in Australia. The 27 day component, extracted by band pass filtering, is correlated with the variation of daily solar radio flux during years close to solar minimum. We demonstrate that the correlation is related to the emergence of regions of solar activity on the Sun separated, temporally, from the emergence of other active regions. In this situation, which occurs only near solar minimum, the observed 27 day variation of temperature can be in phase or out of phase with the 27 day variation of solar activity. During solar maximum correlation of temperature and solar activity is much less defined. The amplitude of the 27 day temperature response to solar activity is large, at times as high as 6 degrees C, and much larger than the well documented temperature response to the 11 year cycle of solar activity. We demonstrate that the 27 day temperature response is localised to the Australian continent and increases towards the centre of the continent. Several aspects of the 27 day temperature response are consistent with a 27 day period solar input to the Earth continents generating large scale planetary waves.


Students often fail to write effective synthesis essays that compare multiple sources across common intersecting categories. Instead, they compose flawed essays that focus primarily on one source and then add a few ideas from other sources (patchwriting); report ideas from all sources in a disjointed fashion (tag-all writing); or draw from one source after another without comparison (separate-representation writing). Effective synthesis writing depends on three strategies: selecting important information from each source, arranging the selected information in a graphic organizer for easy comparison, and connecting information from the various sources in a comparative way. The authors report on an established teaching and learning system called SOAR (Select, Organize, Associate, and Regulate) and its newly investigated impact on synthesis writing in the two studies that they conducted. In the first study, students provided with SOAR supplements (a graphic organizer, association prompts, and a regulation checklist) composed essays that contained more information, better synthesis organization, and more intertextual relationships than did essays from students who were not using SOAR supplements. In the second study, SOAR-trained students composed better organized synthesis essays than students who used their own preferred strategies. Across studies, students found SOAR helpful for synthesis writing and reported that they would be likely to use SOAR for future writing assignments. The authors conclude with an example of how to teach students to use SOAR when they write.


This article explores the relationship between readers' embodied experiences in the world and the creative act of encountering fiction. In particular, it looks at three examples of Sherlock Holmes-inspired literary tourism. Their authors each use walking as a means of encountering the literary spaces of Arthur Conan Doyle's texts and of deliberately adding to them, expanding the space of Holmes's world beyond the page. By introducing the concept of 'expansionary literary geography', this article suggests that forms of embodied, worldly engagement with literature - whether derided as 'literary fanship' or celebrated as literary tourism - can also be forms of reading, acts of creative encounters with fiction, in their own right. Its argument proceeds through close readings of three Sherlockian texts - Arthur Axelrad's On the Scent (1984), David Hammer's A Dangerous Game (1997), and Richard Warner's Guide Book and Instructions for the Ascent of Holmes Peak (1985). It is demonstrated that through the power of walking to combine embodied experience of the actual world with acts of memory and imagination, the three authors' travels work to inscribe the Sherlock Holmes texts into the world. In this way, their walking and its representation become a form of both reading and writing, a physical experience of the unfolding of narrative in time and space, and a contribution to the imaginative expansion of Holmes's world.


The paper is about the analysis on the impact of presuppositions underlying the implementation/operation and production of meanings of the so-called "Therapeutic Home Services", emphasizing present discussions on the subject. It points out how such a "arrangement" has been adjusted within different societies which have joined the anti-asylum movement, inspired on Basaglia's work within the Italian psychiatric system. While socially and historically "localizing" the arrangement, they are associated to the usual clashes of opposed realities. The analysis highlights an immanent relationship between culture (values/feelings which prevail among social ways of living) and two antagonistic forms of conceiving life: autopoiese, expansive self-creation or surviving, subject to generic and transcendental laws, which involve external prescriptions and evaluation on the "pertinence" of the living being. Such ontological/epistemological presuppositions emerge as fundamental to the present discussion on insanity, which lacks a more direct and firmer approach in discourses/actions which support the implementation and operation of "therapeutic" homes for those who have been inpatients for an excessive period of time.


Waste anesthetic gas scavenging technology has not changed appreciably in the past 30 years. Open reservoir systems entrain high volumes of room air and dilute waste gases before emission into the atmosphere. This process requires a large vacuum pump, which is both costly to install and, although efficient, operates continuously and at near-full capacity. In an era of increasing energy costs and environmental awareness, carbon footprint reduction is a priority and a more efficient system of safely scavenging waste anesthetic gases is desirable. We tested a low-flow scavenger interface to evaluate the potential for cost and energy savings. The use of this interface in a suite of 4 operating rooms reduced scavenging flow from a constant 37 L/min to a value equal to the fresh gas flow (usually 2 L/min) for each anesthesia machine. Using the ventilator increased this flow by approximately 6 L/min because of the exhaust of ventilator drive gas into the scavenging circuit. Daytime workload of the central vacuum pump decreased from 92% to 12% (expressed as duty cycle). The new system produces energy savings and may increase vacuum pump lifespan.


In " The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey," published by the University Press of Kentucky in 1962, Rupert Vance suggested a decennial review of the region's progress. No systematic study comparable to that made at the beginning of the decade is available to answer the question of how far Appalachia has come since then, but David S. Walls and John B. Stephenson have assembled a broad range of firsthand reports which together convey the story of Appalachia in the sixties. These observations of journalists, field workers, local residents, and social scientists have been gathered from a variety of sources ranging from national magazines to county weeklies.Focusing mainly on the coalfields of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, and north-central Tennessee, the editors first present selections that reflect the "rediscovery" of the region as a problem area in the early sixties and describe the federal programs designed to rehabilitate it and their results. Other sections focus on the politics of the coal industry, the extent and impact of the continued migration from the region, and the persistence of human suffering and environmental devastation. A final section moves into the 1970s with proposals for the future. Although they conclude that there is little ground for claiming success in solving the region's problems, the editors find signs of hope in the scattered movements toward grass-roots organization described by some of the contributors, and in the new tendency to define solutions in terms of reconstruction rather than amelioration.


The theory of language change has in recent years increased its explanatory repertoire by pointing out the role of language contact in determining which paths of development are entered and followed under specified conditions. In particular, language shifting – as unmonitored second language learning – is recognized as a powerful mechanism for introducing new verbal categories into language systems as well as leading to the loss of verbal categories from language systems. In this paper I will relate several of the most important structural changes and categorial differences in the verb systems of Proto-Germanic, Old English and Old High German to the different contact histories of these languages, among them: (1) the reduction of the Proto-Indo-European TAM system (TAM for tense, aspect, mood) to half its size in Proto-Germanic, (2) the existence of a double copular paradigm in Old English (and again in Irish English) but not in German; (3) a number of properties of English but not of German attributed to Celtic influence by Filppula, Klemola, and Paulasto (2008), such as the loss of the affected possessor construction and the rise of the verbal noun in -ung/-ing and the progressive based on it.


Large cluster systems with thousands of nodes have become a cost-effective alternative to traditional supercomputers. In these systems cluster nodes are interconnected using high-degree switches. Regular direct network topologies including tori (k-ary n-cubes) and meshes are among adapted choices for interconnecting these high-degree switches. We propose a general fault-tolerant routing scheme applicable for regular direct interconnection networks satisfying some interconnection conditions. The scheme is based on the availability of efficiently identifiable disjoint routes between network nodes. The proposed scheme is first presented in general terms for any interconnection topology satisfying the presented connectivity conditions. The scheme is then illustrated on two examples of interconnection topologies namely the binary hypercube and the k-ary n-cube.


A successful mathematical career involves doing good mathematics, to be sure, but also requires a wide range of skills that are not normally taught in graduate school. The purpose of this book is to provide guidance to the professional mathematician in how to develop and survive in the profession. There is information on how to begin a research program, how to apply for a grant, how to get tenure, how to teach, and how to get along with one's colleagues. After tenure, there is information on how to direct a Ph.D. student, how to serve on committees, and how to serve in various posts in the math department. There is extensive information on how to serve as Chairman. There is also material on trouble areas: sexual harassment, legal matters, disputes with colleagues, dealing with the dean, and so forth.One of the themes of the book is how to have a fulfilling professional life. In order to achieve this goal, Krantz discusses keeping a vigorous scholarly program going and finding new challenges, as well as dealing with the everyday tasks of research, teaching, and administration. In short, this is a survival manual for the professional mathematician - both in academics and in industry and government agencies. It is a sequel to the author's ""A Mathematician's Survival Guide"".


Growing up in the Bronx, New York, our neighborhoods served as the fulcrum for the world we knew. Like many in my neighborhood, we were immigrants. My family had come to New York from the West Indies, for higher education, to make a better life and to contribute to a growing, energetic society. In many ways, the ultimate goal was to have a transformative effect upon our family tree. Many children, my sisters and I included, grew up in homes where we welcomed our parents' siblings and their families – our aunts, uncles and cousins – to live with us for a transitional period as they adjusted to life in "the States." My aunt and uncle in Brooklyn had done the same for us, several years earlier. This pattern served to cement the bonds of family, ease the transition to a new country, and unbeknownst to me, plant the first seeds in my mind of what it meant to be my brother's keeper. It was also a primer on what it means to be an entrepreneur and how it fuels upward mobility.Unlike my children, who today are driven by car or ride school buses to elementary, middle and high school, virtually all school kids in New York's five boroughs walked to their elementary schools. I attended P.S. 78 (officially named Anne Hutchinson Elementary School), which sat on Needham Avenue in the Bronx in the Eastchester District. The journey to school generally encompassed the Boston Road neighborhood flanked by Gun Hill Road to the south and Eastchester Road to the north. It was a middle class neighborhood with an assortment of multi-family homes, apartments and townhomes. Our journey would take us past a host of corner stores and family businesses including Pete's West Indian Bakery, which sat on the west side of Boston Road, just south of Eastchester, where we could satisfy our hunger with a beef patty and cocoa bread. If we had a taste for New York's most enduring staple food, we would visit Tony's or Sal's Pizzeria where the often imitated, but never duplicated New York-style Pizza would be devoured for 50 cents a slice. For that same 50 cents, we could purchase the latest record, a "45" of course, at the RecordRama, which sat on the east side of Boston Road between Fenton and Corsa Avenues. An album could be purchased for $3.99 or $4.99 at that same neighborhood record store. My first album purchase was the 1976 Earth, Wind & Fire album entitled "Spirit." For a few bucks, we could get a haircut at one of several barbershops on Boston Road. If you needed clothing items, any number of stores between Gun Hill and Eastchester could fit the bill. Not to mention my Mom's friend Marilyn who essentially ran her own mobile clothing store. I'm convinced that Marilyn would have had a nationwide, or potentially global enterprise if the Internet had existed at that time. It never occurred to me during my elementary and middle school years, but we were surrounded by entrepreneurs. All of those establishments were family businesses or sole proprietorships, created by entrepreneurs, many of whom were immigrants or first generation U.S. citizens who were pursuing the American dream. The area was quite diverse, with West Indians, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Jews, multi-generational African-Americans, and just about every other ethnic group owning a piece of the neighborhood and serving to educate us in the ultimate melting pot. It was New York, it was the 1970's, and it was the very best place to get a 360-degree view of small business in its most fertile ground, a multicultural, middle class neighborhood.Growing up in a neighborhood where I was surrounded by entrepreneurs, it is no surprise that business has always excited me. I had my first job at the age of thirteen, when I took over my friend Steven Mayfield's paper route and began delivering the New York Daily News and New York Times throughout my neighborhood. It was a great training ground for developing a strong and consistent work ethic – papers had to be delivered by 6:00 a.m. daily and 7:00 a.m. on Sundays – rain, snow, or shine. I even had my first experience as "management" when I hired a friend to make deliveries on my behalf on Saturdays. I was soon loaning money to my sister and other family members whenever they were in need. I didn't understand it when I was thirteen, but entrepreneurship has always been the fuel that ignites financial growth and creates generational wealth. In this chapter, I will first look at how this fuel has historically been a powerful accelerant when combined with media, intellectual property, and entertainment. I will then give examples of how artists, specifically in the African American community, have used it to ignite the fires of social justice, and close by revisiting how these tools and energies can be directed to promote communal economic empowerment, i.e., how I can be my brother's keeper.


Methods for constructing joint confidence bands for impulse response functions which are commonly used in vector autoregressive analysis are reviewed. While considering separate intervals for each horizon individually still seems to be the most common approach, a substantial number of methods have been proposed for making joint inferences about the complete impulse response paths up to a given horizon. A structured presentation of these methods is provided. Furthermore, existing evidence on the small-sample performance of the methods is gathered. The collected information can help practitioners to decide on a suitable confidence band for a structural VAR analysis.


We review the relevance and use of stable isotopes for the study of plant community succession. Stable isotope measurements provide information on the origin of resources acquired by plants, the processes governing resource uptake and transformation, and the physiological and environmental conditions of plant growth. When combined with measurements of the stable isotope ratio values of soil microbial biomass, soil organic matter and plant litter, isotope measurements of plants can indicate effects of successional changes on ecosystem processes. However, their application to questions of plant succession and ecosystem change is limited by the degree to which the underlying assumptions are met in each study, and complementary measures may be required, depending upon the question of interest. First, we discuss the changes that occur in the stable isotope composition of plants and ecosystems with ontogeny and species replacements, as well as their potential evolutionary significance. Second, we discuss the imprints of plant competition and facilitation on leaf and wood tissue, as well as how stable isotopes can provide novel insights on the mechanisms underlying plant interactions. Finally, we discuss the capacity for stable isotope measurements to serve as a proxy record for past disturbances such as fire, logging and cyclones.


We used electron spin resonance (ESR) to analyze several kinds of single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) synthesized by different methods. We observed that ESR is a sensitive probe that can be used to observe major differences between samples of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), in relation to their proportion of magnetic catalysts, impurities or defects. We analyzed the ESR spectra of CNTs in the usual way, by three overlapping lines. We then, implemented a function to fit the spectra, which gave us the intensity, line width (ΔHPP), and resonance line position (g factor) of each component line. The asymmetric line, which is assigned to the conduction electrons, could be used as a fingerprint of CNT purity. However, this asymmetric line is not always observed, since the three ESR lines often overlap, particularly when there is a large amount of paramagnetic ions. We studied the ESR spectra for different samples and estimated their purity by comparing the resulting parameters with data obtained by Raman spectroscopy on the same samples.


Aromatic hydroxylation of 5-phenyl-5-ethylhydantoin (PEH) has been investigated in humans. Single oral doses of S-PEH (247 mumol) were given to seven extensive and seven poor hydroxylators of mephenytoin. Urinary recovery of PEH and 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-5-ethylhydantoin (4-OH-PEH) indicated that all extensive metabolizer subjects excreted appreciable quantities of 4-OH-PEH, whereas all poor metabolizer subjects had only trace amounts of 4-OH-PEH in their urine. Four extensive metabolizer subjects received dual radiolabeled (S-[14C]PEH, R-[3H]PEH) pseudoracemic (494 mumol R-PEH, 494 mumol S-PEH) PEH and had serial urine and blood samples collected over 16 days. The urinary excretion rates of S-PEH and S-4-OH-PEH had half-lives of approximately 4.5 days whereas those of R-PEH and R-4-OH-PEH were approximately 10 days. The initial S/R ratio of 4-OH-PEH in urine was 14:1 whereas that of PEH was 1:1. Stereoselective hydroxylation in these four subjects was confirmed by the negligible recovery of 4-OH-PEH after oral administration of R-PEH (494 mumol). After racemic administration, the sum of S-and R-PEH plasma concentrations declined biexponentially with half-lives of the alpha- and beta-phases being consistent with the total plasma concentration reflecting the sum of the different rates of elimination of the two enantiomers. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the same drug metabolizing enzymes are involved in the aromatic hydroxylation of S-mephenytoin and S-PEH.


The competitiveness of tourism destinations is a relevant issue for tourism studies, moreso, is a key element on the daily basis of tourism destinations. In this sense, the management of tourism destinations is essential to maintain competitive advantages. In this article tourism destination is considered as a relational network, where interaction and cooperation is needed among tourist agents, to achieve major levels of competitive advantage and a more effective destination management system. In addition, the perceptions of tourists are obtained from two main sources. The first one is the social construction of a tourism destination previous to the visit and the second one is obtained from the interaction between tourists and tourism destination agents during the visit. In this sense, the management of tourism destination to emit a homogenous and collective image is a factor that can reduce the gap if dissatisfaction from the previous and real tourist perception. The discussion is centered on the relationship within a destination, between the supply network and the targeted demand, considering these two approaches jointly, to benefit destination management. The main result is a conceptual model that shows how tourism agents and tourists in the tourism destination interact to improve the destination competitiveness


This essay documents a practice-based investigation of the space between training and performance processes. The interplay between structure and improvisation within a reiterative cycle of exercises and tasks provided the base for an exploration of a central aspect in the actor's work underlined by the term 'dynamic aliveness'. This ongoing investigation was initiated in 2003 under the name of Tekhnē Sessions. Tekhnē's investigation of dynamic aliveness emerged from three different yet related contexts: the technical training of Jerzy Grotowski, the performance vision of Ingemar Lindh, and the aesthetic of the sublime of Jean-François Lyotard. An overview of the context and of the informing technical principles that led to the design of the Tekhnē structure paves the way for a description of its informing principles, format, and applications. The agency of structure, the dynamics of improvisation, and the presence of observers, are identified as conditions of possibility for dynamic aliveness.


Spinal stability describes the ability of the neuromuscular system to maintain equilibrium in the presence of kinematic and control variability, and may play an important role in the etiology of low-back disorders (LBDs). The primary mechanism for the neuromuscular control of spinal stability is the recruitment and control of active paraspinal muscle stiffness (i.e., trunk stiffness). The two major components of active muscle stiffness include the immediate stiffness contribution provided by the intrinsic stiffness of actively contracted muscles, and the delayed stiffness contribution provided by the reflex response. The combined behavior of these two components of active muscle stiffness is often referred to as "effective stiffness". In order to understand the neuromuscular control of spinal stability, stochastic system identification methods were utilized and nonparametric impulse response functions (IRFs) calculated in three separate studies in an effort to: 1) Quantify the effective dynamics (stiffness, damping, mass) of the trunk Nonparametric IRFs were implemented to estimate the dynamics of the trunk during active voluntary trunk extension exertions. IRFs were determined from the movement following pseudo-random stochastic force disturbances applied to the trunk. Results demonstrated a significant increase in effective stiffness and damping with voluntary exertion forces. 2) Quantify the reflex dynamics of the trunk Nonparametric IRFs were computed from the muscle electromyographic (EMG) reflex response following a similar pseudo-random force disturbance protocol. Reflexes were observed with a mean response delay of 67 msec. Reflex gain was estimated from the peak of the IRF and increased significantly with exertion effort. 3) Separate the intrinsic and reflexive components of the effective dynamics and determine the relative role of each in the control of spinal stability. Both intrinsic muscle and reflexive components of activation contribute to the effective trunk stiffness. To evaluate the relative role of these components, a nonlinear parallelcascade system identification procedure was used to separate the intrinsic and reflexive dynamics. Results revealed that the intrinsic dynamics of the trunk alone can be insufficient to counteract the destabilizing effects of gravity. This illustrates the extreme importance of reflexive feedback in the maintenance of spinal stability and warrants the inclusion of reflexes in any comprehensive trunk model.


Twenty-eight children (mean age 8 years) with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and cerebral tumor were studied from 1975 to 1992 (mean follow-up 8.1 years) considering the biological behaviour of the tumor and the patient's quality of life, in order to identify retrospectively the best management. All, except one, tumors were benign gliomas, 76% of the optic nerve/chiasm (NCO), just 10% infratentorial. Sixteen children (57%) did not receive any treatment, 2 radiotherapy (RT) only and 4 symptomatic treatment only; in 6 patients the tumor resection was performed. 92% of the 25 survivors had sufficient autonomy in daily life at last follow-up. Considering the risk of cerebral tumors in patients with NF1, we conclude that cerebral magnetic resonance should be performed also in the asymptomatic ones. If neuroradiological findings are characteristic of benign glioma, histologic confirmation seems unnecessary. Surgical resection is recommended only in tumors confined to a single optic nerve, with severe or progressive symptoms. In chiasmatic tumors we suggest partial resection or symptomatic treatment only with close clinical and radiological observation. RT is only recommended if there is unequivocal evidence of tumor progression. Chemotherapy can delay the use of RT in very young children. Cerebral tumors different from NCO gliomas seem to have a similar natural history in patients with or without NF1 and therefore the management should be the same for both groups.


In order to reinforce the operation stability and obstacle capability of a spherical robot, this paper presents a spherical robot with high-speed rotating flywheel, the mechanical structure of which is mainly composed of a spherical shell, a double pendulum on both sides and two high-speed flywheels. The robot has three excitation modes: level running, self-stability operating, and obstacle surmounting. The dynamic characteristics of the pendulum, flywheel, and brake of the robot are discussed through the establishment of kinematic and dynamic model of the spherical robot and the influence of parameters like weight, flywheel speed. and flywheel position on its dynamic characteristics and robot performance is optimized and analyzed in detail. The research results indicate that the two flywheels located in the center of the sphere apart can bring maximum stability gain to the sphere. Finally, the simulation and experiment of the stability gain brought by the high-speed flywheel to the sphere verify that the operation stability of the sphere is effectively improved after using the flywheel, and the robot that stops the flywheel through a brake fixed on the pendulum has better obstacle surmounting performance.


Central nervous system adverse effects are commonly reported with pregabalin (PGB). On the other hand, movement disorders (MDs) associated with this drug were rarely described. However, their occurrence could significantly affect the quality of life of PGB users. This literature review aims to evaluate the clinical epidemiological profile, pathological mechanisms, and management of PGB-associated MDs. Relevant reports in six databases were identified and assessed by two reviewers without language restriction. A total of 46 reports containing 305 cases from 17 countries were assessed. The MDs encountered were as follows: 184 individuals with ataxia, 61 with tremors, 39 with myoclonus, 8 with parkinsonism, 1 with restless legs syndrome, 1 with dystonia, 1 with dyskinesia, and 1 with akathisia. The mean age was 62 years (range: 23–94). The male sex was slightly predominant with 54.34%. The mean PGB dose when the MD occurred was 238 mg, and neuropathic pain was the most common indication of PGB. The time from PGB start to MD was < 1 month at 75%. The time from PGB withdrawal to recovery was < 1 week at 77%. All the individuals where the follow-up was reported had a full recovery. The most common management was PGB withdrawal. In the literature, the majority of the cases did not report information about timeline events, neurological examination details, or electrodiagnostic studies. The best management for all MDs is probably PGB withdrawal. If the patient is on dialysis program, perhaps an increased number of sessions will decrease recovery time. Furthermore, the addition of a benzodiazepine could accelerate recovery.


Individual happiness is a fundamental societal metric. Normally measured through self-report, happiness has often been indirectly characterized and overshadowed by more readily quantifiable economic indicators such as gross domestic product. Here, we examine expressions made on the online, global microblog and social networking service Twitter, uncovering and explaining temporal variations in happiness and information levels over timescales ranging from hours to years. Our data set comprises over 46 billion words contained in nearly 4.6 billion expressions posted over a 33 month span by over 63 million unique users. In measuring happiness, we construct a tunable, real-time, remote-sensing, and non-invasive, text-based hedonometer. In building our metric, made available with this paper, we conducted a survey to obtain happiness evaluations of over 10,000 individual words, representing a tenfold size improvement over similar existing word sets. Rather than being ad hoc, our word list is chosen solely by frequency of usage, and we show how a highly robust and tunable metric can be constructed and defended.


Background:Unilateral tumors or masses of the adrenal gland are common. They are categorized as either functional (hormone-secreting) or silent and as either benign or malignant. Adrenocortical tumors are rare in childhood, with an incidence of 0.3-0.5 cases per one million child-years. Almost half of childhood tumors are adrenocortical carcinomas (ACC). Most ACCs are sporadic, but specialy in children, some occur as a component of hereditary cancer syndromes. The most common presenting symptom occurring in 50-80% in children with ACC is virilization; overall, survival is poor for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC). The prognosis in children who have adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) appears to be better than that of adults, at least for earlystage disease. Residual or metastatic disease carries a poor prognosis. Complete resection is required for cure. Case presentation: The patient is a 8 years old girl presented progressive virilizing symptoms including deepening of the voice, clitoromegaly , growth acceleration, acne and premature pubic and axillary hair development before 8 years old. Conclusion: The clinical, biochemical, histological features along with differential diagnosis are discussed. This case is presented because of its rarity.This case study report a rare case and also to highlight the importance of differentiating ACC from an adenoma particularly in pediatric patients.


In order to experimentally study the conditions leading to ice formation on aircraft surfaces, an aircraft was equipped with small auxiliary surfaces and aerodynamic shapes similar to struts, wires, Pitot heads, etc. This airplane was flown at an altitude where a temperature of 32 F was encountered, at such times as cloud formations could be found at the coincident altitude. Here it was discovered that ice formed rapidly in regard to quantity,character, shape, and rapidity of formation. An examination of this data, which confirms observations of pilots, indicates that the weight of ice collected can very possibly be sufficient to force the airplane to rapidly lose altitude on account of the increased loads. However, it is more evident that the malformation of the aerodynamic shapes may so increase the drag and reduce the lift so as to produce a loss of altitude even greater in consequence, the combination of the two working in the same direction having a double effect. Other adverse consequences are noted. The recommendation for the guidance of those who must encounter these conditions appears to lie entirely along the lines of avoidance.


The merchant cash advance is an emerging lending product designed to address the need to maintain cash flows and is essentially the business equivalent of a "payday" loan. A lump-sum advance is made by the merchant cash advance service provider to a business (the merchant) in exchange for an agreed upon percentage of future credit and/or debit card receivables. This article investigates the taxation consequences of merchant cash advance transactions in South Africa, in an attempt to provide guidance which is currently lacking. Although it is posited that a merchant cash advance is a form of debt factoring, the income tax treatment of the initial advance and the resulting discount reflect that of a loan. Through the investigation it was determined that merchants will be able to deduct the discount and processing fees from income. The merchant cash advance service provider will include such discount and processing fee in 'gross income'. The initial advance and any resulting discount are held to be a 'financial service' and therefore an exempt supply for VAT purposes, with the processing fee constituting a taxable supply.


Fossil fuel use has led to environmental concerns creating a need for renewable energy sources. The purpose of this study is to analyze metrological data collected at the Freeman Ranch Center to determine if there is the potential for wind energy to supplement solar energy, creating more consistent and reliable energy for the residents of the Texas Hill Country. Hybrid renewable energy systems are an effective way to overcome some of the challenges associates with specific renewable energy sources. A simulation calculator was used to simulate weather conditions of the study area along with potential output of a hybrid wind and solar renewable energy system. A hybrid wind and solar energy system has the ability to significantly contribute to the electricity needs but marginally contribute to the total energy needs of the Texas Hill Country residents. When factoring in cost of the renewable energy theologies it becomes clear that wind energy is not an economically desirable option. The added benefit of supplementing solar energy with wind energy is not significant enough to justify the added cost of wind power at this time for the study area.


In light of recent scandals involving companies such as Enron and Arthur Andersen, the need to impose criminal penalties on corporations has been on the rise. More and more often, however, federal prosecutors have utilized deferred and non-prosecution agreements in lieu of indicting and criminally prosecuting business entities. Despite the advantages that such agreements create for both prosecutors and companies, Professor Richard Epstein has vigorously attacked this practice in his recent article, The Deferred Prosecution Racket, contending that deferred and non-prosecution agreements do not serve the public interest because they do not help to restore shareholder confidence in the firm and undermine the principle of separation of powers. Epstein's arguments are ill-founded, however, as deferred and non-prosecution agreements rebuild shareholder and public confidence in corporations while allowing companies to avoid certain death by indictment. Moreover, it is only by imposing or by threatening to impose criminal liability on business entities, rather than by solely charging individuals, that the government can effectively stop and prevent corporate crime. Advocating for the continuing usefulness and utility of deferred and non-prosecution agreements and against Epstein's approach of wholly eliminating corporate criminal liability, this Article discusses the concept of corporate criminality, provides an overview of the definition and function of deferred and non-prosecution agreements, and contends that such agreements are the best, if not the only, means of preventing and addressing criminal conduct arising in the corporate context.


I. THE TRUE COMPROMISE Standing before the United States Senate on October 26, 1990, Senator John McCain asked the approval of his colleagues to consider H.R. 5237, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1) (NAGPRA). "The passage of legislation marks the end of a long process for many Indian tribes and museums. The subject of repatriation," stressed McCain, "is charged with high emotions in both the Native American community and the museum community. I believe this bill represents a true compromise." (2) H.R. 5237 had originally been introduced by McCain's fellow Arizonan, Representative Morris Udall. With McCain's urging, the Senate passed the bill by a voice vote. The House of Representatives passed the amended version by unanimous consent the next day. Congress was not acting unilaterally in supporting NAGPRA. A May 11, 1990 letter to House and Senate members urging passage of repatriation legislation was signed by representatives of the American Baptist Churches, American Ethical Union, Church of the Bretheren, Church Women United, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Episcopal Church, Jesuit Social Ministries, Mennonite Central Committee, Presbyterian Church, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church. (3) An October 12, 1990 letter from the American Association of Museums also indicated its support of H.R. 5237. (4) An October 17, 1990 letter to members of Congress further broadened support for H.R. 5237 to include representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Central Conference of American Rabbis, National Council of Jewish Women, and Union of American Hebrew Congregations. (5) A November 2, 1990 letter urging President George Bush to sign the bill into law further added and diversified parties to this compromise. (6) The letter was signed by the heads of the Society for American Archaeology, American Anthropological Association, American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Archaeological Institute of America, Association on American Indian Affairs, Native American Rights Fund, National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, National Congress of American Indians, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Preservation Action, Society for Historical Archaeology, and Society of Professional Archaeologists. The long process of which McCain spoke began in 1986, as Congress sought to reconcile four major areas of federal law. As civil rights legislation, Congress wished to acknowledge that throughout U.S. history, Native American human remains and funerary objects suffered from disparate treatment as compared with the human remains and funerary objects of other groups. (7) Congress also wanted to recognize that the loss of sacred objects by Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to unscrupulous collectors negatively impacted Native American religious practices. (8) In making this Indian law, Congress founded its efforts on an explicit Constitutional recognition of tribal sovereignty and the government-to-government relationship between the United States and Indian tribes. (9) Regarding property law, Congress wanted to clarify the unique status of the dead as well as highlight the failure of American law to adequately recognize traditional concepts of communal property in use by some Indian tribes. (10) Lastly, in trams of administrative law, Congress would direct the Department of the Interior to implement Congress' mandate, including the promulgation of regulations to ensure due process, awarding of grants, and assessment of civil penalties. (11) In all, 26 separate bills were proposed or introduced, and two public laws were enacted over a four-year period as a compromise on these multiple issues was negotiated. (12) NAGPRA reconciled these various concerns by establishing three sets of provisions. …


Background Although roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco often elicits negative connotations of a lower class product, uptake and use by young adult smokers has grown because RYO is more cost-effective than tailor-made (TM) cigarettes. We explored the practices and beliefs young adults develop to distance themselves from unattractive stereotypes of RYO smokers. Methods We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with New Zealand young adult RYO users aged between 18 and 30 years, and used thematic analysis to interpret the transcripts. Results We identified three themes: establishing the superiority of RYO tobacco; creating and enacting usage rituals, and ritual disruption. Participants regarded RYO tobacco as more natural and better-tasting; they used it to control their tobacco use and facilitate interactions with others. Many described rolling rituals where they used specific artefacts and microbehaviours to construct cigarettes they saw as personal and artisanal. Several, though not all, disliked unattractively coloured papers as these disrupted the value their rituals created. Conclusions Young adults imbue RYO tobacco with positive attributes, many of which centre on rolling rituals or draw on widely held misperceptions of RYO tobacco as less harmful. Excise tax increases could counter perceptions of RYO as more cost-effective while mandating that dissuasively coloured paper could disrupt reduced-harm connotations. However, evidence that erroneous harm beliefs are widespread and entrenched may justify restricting or eliminating the key artefact—the product itself.


Policy briefs written by academics—the kind typically published in Education Finance and Policy—should be a crucial source of information for policy makers. Yet too frequently these briefs fail to garner the consideration they deserve. Their authors are too focused on the potential objections of their fellow academics, who are concerned with rigor and internal validity, instead of the objections of policy makers, who are concerned with generalizability, understandability, and utility. And researchers too often believe that simply publishing a brief is sufficient to communicate its results. By focusing briefs on topics on the policy agenda, helping policy makers see their constituents in the results, writing clearly, studying implementation and not just outcomes, weighing evidence and drawing conclusions, and reaching out to policy makers beyond publication, researchers have the greatest potential to see their work influence public policy.


Jack, standing among the war graves, sees a face he recognizes. Suddenly, it's 1914 again and he's a young lad back in the trenches. Visions of killing and misery come to him with horrible clarity. But then Jack remembers too the incredible moment when the guns fell silent for a short time, and fighting gave way to football on the frozen ground of No-Man's-Land. This amazing story, based on true facts from the First World War, will transport readers back to the war fields of France and show that even in times of conflict and extreme sadness, there is always hope.


The paper develops a simple simulation model of international bank lending to test the extent to which targeting of fixed shares in the stock of total bank claims on a borrower can make lending flows unstable. The model is based on three distinct types of lending strategies: potentially volatile lending by one group of banks with limited long-term commitment to international lending; the targeting of a given share of the total lending market; and lending based on an assessment of the borrower's creditworthiness. ; The results of the model's simulations suggest that lending flows can become quite unstable if more than one-half of international bank lending is predicated on the maintenance of market share. The model also indicates an ambiguous role for market information in preserving stability. To the extent that improved public information about the lending activities of banks causes more banks to target market share, such information can result in market instability. However, under a rational expectation version of the model, if the increased information about bank lending behavior is used by some banks to improve their forecasts of the reactions of other banks it can serve to stabilize the system.


The question of whether perceptual illusions influence eye movements is critical for the long-standing debate regarding the separation between action and perception. To test the role of auditory context on a visual illusion and on eye movements, we took advantage of the fact that the presence of an auditory cue can successfully modulate illusory motion perception of an otherwise static flickering object (sound-induced visual motion effect). We found that illusory motion perception modulated by an auditory context consistently affected saccadic eye movements. Specifically, the landing positions of saccades performed towards flickering static bars in the periphery were biased in the direction of illusory motion. Moreover, the magnitude of this bias was strongly correlated with the effect size of the perceptual illusion. These results show that both an audio-visual and a purely visual illusion can significantly affect visuo-motor behavior. Our findings are consistent with arguments for a tight link between perception and action in localization tasks.


We present a game-theoretical analysis of Commission appointment in the European Union. In the model, the European Parliament and the member states look ahead and consider the outcomes that result from the appointment of alternative Commissions. In contrast to earlier work, we assume the European Parliament and the member states have incomplete information on the consequences of policies, whereas the Commission acquires private information. We find that the increased use of codecision gives the Council an incentive to appoint a Commission that is closer to the European Parliament, because the European Parliament then trusts the Commission more and the Commission is more informative as a result. Thus, we shed new light on the Spitzenkandidaten Coup that preceded the appointment of the Juncker Commission.


A method for the preparation of an entirely new type of nanoporous material, hypercrosslinked polyaniline, with permanent porous structure and specific surface areas exceeding 630 m2 g−1 has been developed. The hypercrosslinking reaction was carried out with commercial polyaniline and diiodoalkanes or paraformaldehyde using both conventional and microwave assisted processes. Polyaniline swollen in an organic solvent was hypercrosslinked to form a rigid, mesh-like structure with permanent porosity and a high surface area. The resulting materials were characterized using infrared spectroscopy and elemental analysis. Porous properties were determined by means of scanning electron microscopy as well as nitrogen and hydrogen adsorption. Short crosslinks such as those formed using paraformaldehyde and diiodomethane led to materials with the highest surface areas. Surface area also increased with the concentration of polyaniline in solution used during preparation. The hydrogen storage capacities of these materials were also tested and a capacity of 2.2 wt% at 77 K and 3.0 MPa was found for the best adsorbent. Hypercrosslinked polyanilines exhibit a remarkably high affinity for hydrogen, which results in enthalpies of adsorption as high as 9.3 kJ mol−1 (exothermic), in sharp contrast with hypercrosslinked polystyrenes and metal–organic frameworks for which significantly lower enthalpies of adsorption, typically in the range of 4–7 kJ mol−1, are measured.


Visualization of data from any stage of genetic and genomic research is one of the most useful approaches for detecting potential errors, ensuring accuracy and reproducibility, and presentation of the resulting data. Currently software such as Circos, ClicO FS, and RCircos, among others, provide tools for plotting a variety of genetic data types in a concise manner for data exploration and presentation. However, each of the programs have one or more disadvantages that limit their usability in data exploration or construction of publication quality figures, such as inflexibility in formatting and configuration, reduced image quality, lack of potential for automation, or requirements of high-level computational expertise. Therefore, we developed the R package SOFIA, which leverages the capabilities of Circos by manipulating data, preparing configuration files, and running the Perl-native Circos directly from the R environment with minimal user intervention. The advantages of integrating both R and Circos into SOFIA are numerous. R is a very powerful, mid-level programming language widely used among the genetic and genomic research community, while Circos has proven to be a novel software for arranging genomic data to create aesthetical publication quality circular figures. Producing Circos figures in R with SOFIA is simple, requires minimal coding experience, even for complex figures that incorporate high-dimensional genetic information, and allows simultaneous analysis and visual exploration of genomic and genetic data in a single programming environment.


Conventional procedures for determining deformations during triaxial tests are based on measurements made externally to the cell. This practice is inadequate, particularly if the small strain stiffness of the soil is being investigated, because errors are introduced which limit the accuracy and resolution of the measurements. The errors can only be eliminated if axial strains are determined internally, within the cell, and locally over the central one third of the specimen. Likewise, the radial dimensions should be monitored at specimen midheight. The last ten years has seen the introduction of a diverse range of small-strain measuring devices. This has been largely in response to recognition of the importance of achieving strain measurement accuracy of at least 10−3% for small-strain stiffness evaluation. This paper summarizes the types of instrumentation currently available and their modes of operation, benefits, capabilities, and limitations. Typical results comparing external and internal strain measurements are presented. A system for classifying internal-strain measuring devices is presented. It is anticipated that test results based on small strain determinations will be a more frequent requirement in the future. Accordingly, the paper is intended to assist prospective users in becoming familiar with the various techniques that have been used and presents information that should enable selection of appropriate equipment for particular applications. Given that improvements in existing systems are warranted, it is hoped that the paper will also provide stimulus for further research and development.


Three-dimensional textural observations of inclusion and porosity patterns in a 23carat carbonado diamond using high-resolution X-ray computed tomography reveal new information bearing on the nature and origin of this enigmatic material. A prominent patinaed surface is texturally linked to a banding and grading of inclusions and pore space beneath, extending several millimeters into the specimen. In situ observation demonstrates that almost all inclusions are polymineralic and show replacement textures, corroborating previous work indicating that the pore network is fully three-dimensionally (3-D) connected, and that virtually all macroinclusions are secondary. Large metal inclusions are only found immediately adjacent to the margin of the specimen, and are thus also likely to be secondary or even tertiary. However, we also report pseudomorphs after a phase forming pristinely euhedral rhombic dodecahedra, individually and in clusters from 0.3 to 1 mm in diameter; although we could fi nd no evidence of this phase persisting, it nevertheless represents the fi rst "true" macro-inclusion reported in carbonado, which almost certainly formed syngenetically with the diamond material. The pore system is essentially trimodal, consisting of single and clustered pseudomorphs, oblate pores 0.1‐0.3 mm in length with a clear preferred orientation, and 20 µm to <1 µm pores that form the connected network. Our observations support recent work suggesting that carbonado crystallized from a carbon-supersaturated fl uid and suggest that the second stage may correspond with the creation of the pore alignment fabric. We further postulate that, although the present-day macroinclusions are certainly secondary, the bulk material that comprises them may not be, and may instead be broken-down remains of the original included phase(s). While further verifi cation is needed, a model built around this hypothesis may provide the simplest explanation to many of the unusual features of carbonado.


The paper describes the methodology proposed in the PERPETUATE Project (funded by the Seventh Framework Programme – Theme ENV.2009.3.2.1.1). The methodology proposed in PERPETUATE uses a displacement-based approach for the vulnerability evaluation and design of interventions. The use of safety verification in terms of displacement, rather than strength, orients to new strengthening techniques and helps in the comprehension of interaction between structural elements and unmovable artistic assets. The procedure is based on the following fundamental steps: definition of performance limit states, specific for the cultural heritage assets (considering both structural and artistic assets); evaluation of seismic hazard and soil-foundation interactions; construction knowledge (non-destructive testing, material parameters, structural identification); development of structural models for the seismic analysis of masonry structures and artistic assets and design of interventions; application and validation of the methodology to case studies. Two main scales are considered: the seismic risk assessment at territorial scale and at the scale of single historic building or artistic assets. The final aim of the project is to develop European Guidelines for evaluation and mitigation of seismic risk to cultural heritage assets.


The thesis analyses spatial dependence in dyadic data by the means of three applications.
These have in common that they concern bilateral international relations or flows between
two countries with a particular focus on the relationship between developing and developed
countries. While the first chapter provides a general introduction to spatial dependence with
a focus on dyadic datasets, the second chapter looks at double taxation treaties (DTTs) and
analyses whether strategic interaction among capital importing countries can explain the
widespread conclusion of double taxation treaties between an industrialised and a
developing country. This is important since upon entering such a treaty, the net-capital
importer can lose a significant amount of tax revenues from foreign direct investment
(FDI), while the net-capital exporter is better off. The analysis reveals that a country is
more likely to enter a DTT if competitor countries for FDI also negotiated such a DTT,
providing evidence for the hypothesis that the group of net-capital importers finds itself in a
situation which can be described as a prisoners' dilemma: individually they would be better
off if they refused to negotiate a treaty, but collectively they have an incentive to sign such
a tax treaty. The third chapter is on official development assistance and deals with the
question whether a specific donor tends to dedicate a larger share of its aid budget to a
certain recipient if other donors give money to the same beneficiary. A considerable degree
of spatial dependence is found in the form that donors tend to allocate their money to the
same recipients. Donors particularly follow the example of the most important aid donors.
This behaviour has negative implications for aid effectiveness, contributes to harmful aid
volatility and leads to aid darlings and orphans. However, there is no evidence that donors
strategically interact with each other in order to pursue their military strategic and
economic goals. Spatial dependence in asylum migration is the third application, discussed
in the fourth chapter. It is well documented in the literature that personal networks of
migrants reduce the risk of migration and facilitate transition to the host country. So far it
has always been assumed that these personal networks only exist for fellow countrymen.
The empirical analysis, however, shows that the positive effects also operate across borders
and that also migrants from other geographically close source countries make asylum
migration from a given source country more likely. Furthermore, it is shown that a more
restrictive asylum policy in one destination country provides a negative externality for
other destinations. This is because asylum seekers are deflected by a tighter asylum regime
and encouraged to lodge their application in more liberal target countries.


Colloquial Finnish displays a pattern of first conjunct agreement (FCA) that is strikingly similar to patterns attested in other languages. I consider the possibility that existing analyses of FCA proposed for other languages may account for the Finnish data. Ultimately, I conclude that none of the previous analyses considered here are able to adequately explain Finnish FCA. A new analysis of FCA is proposed in order to account for the Finnish data that relies on a bidirectional version of the operation Agree. Thus, the Finnish FCA data both expand our understanding of how FCA is manifested cross-linguistically and provide new evidence bearing on recent debates about the directionality and timing of agreement.