Human beings are not simple to understand. Even if they were, most of us now live in a complex world that has allowed us to become detached from the natural patterns and drivers that have shaped humans and human consciousness over millennia of evolution. To try and understand how and why people behave the way they do in modern society requires us not just to understand the human side of the equation, but also to understand a great deal about the social context in which this behaviour occurs. The purpose of this paper is to set out a number of different perspectives that can be used to understand and interpret behaviour. It sets these
out within a framework that demonstrates how each approach can contribute something valuable towards developing a broad view of behaviour. Within this paper the term 'behaviour'
is used to refer simply to 'what people do' in the broadest terms.

WARNING! The intention behind this paper is to act as a simple introduction to a range of theories that come from very distinct academic backgrounds, and to present them in a way that encourage policies to be developed that take them all into account. As a consequence, some of the more nuanced aspects of the theories are inevitably simplified. Therefore the reader is strongly encouraged to read the additional recommended literature to get a fuller understanding of each perspective.


The parasitic larvae of Philornis downsi Dodge & Aitken (Diptera: Muscidae) were first discovered in Darwin's finch nests on the Galápagos Islands in 1997. Larvae of P. downsi consume the blood and tissue of developing birds, causing high in-nest mortality in their Galápagos hosts. The fly has been spreading across the archipelago and is considered the biggest threat to the survival of Galápagos land birds. Here, we review (1) Philornis systematics and taxonomy, (2) discuss shifts in feeding habits across Philornis species comparing basal to more recently evolved groups, (3) report on differences in the ontogeny of wild and captive P. downsi larvae, (4) describe what is known about adult P. downsi behaviour, and (5) discuss changes in P. downsi behaviour since its discovery on the Galápagos Islands. From 1997 to 2010, P. downsi larvae have been rarely detected in Darwin's finch nests with eggs. Since 2012, P. downsi larvae have regularly been found in the nests of incubating Darwin's finches. Exploring P. downsi ontogeny and behaviour in the larger context of taxonomic relationships provides clues about the breadth of behavioural flexibility that may facilitate successful colonisation.


Many reports have cited coexpression of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) and its receptors by tumor cells or cells supporting tumor growth, suggesting both autocrine and paracrine mechanisms for PDGF-mediated tumor growth. We found that a small organic molecule, N-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl] 5-methylisoxazole-4-carboxamide (SU101, leflunomide), inhibited PDGF-mediated signaling events, including receptor tyrosine phosphorylation, DNA synthesis, cell cycle progression, and cell proliferation. SU101 inhibited PDGF-stimulated tyrosine phosphorylation of PDGF receptor (PDGFR) beta in C6 (rat glioma) and NIH3T3 cells engineered to overexpress human PDGFRbeta (3T3-PDGFRbeta). SU101 blocked both PDGF- and epidermal growth factor (EGF)-stimulated DNA synthesis. Previously, this compound was shown to inhibit pyrimidine biosynthesis by interfering with the enzymatic activity of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase. In the current study, EGF-stimulated DNA synthesis was restored by the addition of saturating quantities of uridine, whereas PDGF-induced DNA synthesis was not, suggesting that the compound demonstrated some selectivity for the PDGFR pathway that was independent of pyrimidine biosynthesis. Selectivity was further demonstrated by the ability of the compound to block the entry of PDGF-stimulated cells into the S phase of the cell cycle, without affecting cell cycle progression of EGF-stimulated cells. In cell growth assays, SU101 selectively inhibited the growth of PDGFRbeta-expressing cell lines more efficiently than it inhibited the growth of PDGFRbeta-negative cell lines. SU101 inhibited the s.c., i.p., and intracerebral growth of a panel of cell lines including cells from glioma, ovarian, and prostate origin. In contrast, SU101 failed to inhibit the in vitro or s.c. growth of A431 and KB tumor cells, both of which express EGF receptor but not PDGFRbeta. SU101 also inhibited the growth of D1B and L1210 (murine leukemia) cells in syngeneic immunocompetent mice, without causing adverse effects on the immune response of the animals. In an i.p. model of tumor growth in syngeneic immunocompetent mice, SU101 prevented tumor growth and induced long-term survivors in animals implanted with 7TD1 (murine B-cell hybridoma) tumor cells. Because PDGFRbeta was detected on most of the tumor cell lines in which in vivo growth was inhibited by SU101, these data suggest that SU101 is an effective inhibitor of PDGF-driven tumor growth in vivo.


The structural, vibrational, electronic, and dynamic properties of amorphous and liquid AsxSe1-x (0.10 <x < 0.45) are studied by First Principles Molecular Dynamics. Within the above range of compositions, thresholds, and anomalies are found in the behavior of reciprocal and real space properties that can be correlated to the experimental location of the Boolchand intermediate phase in these glassy networks, observed at 0.27 <x < 0.37. These findings are associated with diffusion anomalies for the parent liquid phase, thereby linking structural and dynamical atomic-scale fingerprints for the onset of rigidity within the network, while also providing a much more complex picture than the one derived from mean-field approaches of stiffness transitions.


Background Returning home after the hospital is a primary aim for healthcare; however, additional postacute care (PAC) services are sometimes necessary for returning stroke patients to their pre‐event status. Recent trends in hospital discharge disposition specifying PAC use have not been examined across age groups or health insurance types. Methods and Results We examined trends in discharge to inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs), skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), home with home health (HH), and home without services for 849 780 patients ≥18 years of age with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke at 1687 hospitals participating in Get With The Guidelines—Stroke. Multivariable analysis was used to identify factors associated with discharge to any PAC (IRF, SNF, or HH) versus discharge home without services. From 2003 to 2011, there was a 2.1% increase (unadjusted P=0.001) in PAC use after a stroke hospitalization. Change was greatest in SNF use, an 8.3% decrease over the period. IRF and HH increased 6.9% and 3.6%, respectively. The 2 strongest clinical predictors of PAC use after acute care were patients not ambulating on the second day of their hospital stay (ambulation odds ratio [OR], 3.03; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.86 to 3.23) and those who failed a dysphagia screen or had an order restricting oral intake (OR, 2.48; 95% CI, 2.37 to 2.59). Conclusions Four in 10 stroke patients are discharged home without services. Although little has changed overall in PAC use since 2003, further research is needed to explain the shift in service use by type and its effect on outcomes.


Author(s): Parson, Edward A. | Abstract: One of the fundamental critiques against twentieth century experiments in central economic planning, and the main reason for their failures, was the inability of humandirected planning systems to manage the data gathering, analysis, computation, and control necessary to direct the vast complexity of production, allocation, and exchange decisions that make up a modern economy. Rapid recent advances in AI, data, and related technological capabilities have re-opened that old question, and provoked vigorous speculation about the feasibility, benefits, and threats of an AI-directed economy. This paper presents a thought experiment about how this might work, based on assuming a powerful AI agent (whimsically named "Max") with no binding computational or algorithmic limits on its (his) ability to do the task. The paper's novel contribution is to make this hitherto under-specified question more concrete and specific. It reasons concretely through how such a system might work under explicit assumptions about contextual conditions; what benefits it might offer relative to present market and mixed-market arrangements; what novel requirements or constraints it would present; what threats and challenges it would pose, and how it inflects long-standing understandings of foundational questions about state, society, and human liberty.As with smaller-scale regulatory interventions, the concrete implementation of comprehensive central planning can be abstracted as intervening via controlling either quantities or prices. The paper argues that quantity-based approaches would be fundamentally impaired by problems of principal-agent relations and incentives, which hobbled historical planning systems and would persist under arbitrary computational advances. Price-based approaches, as proposed by Oskar Lange, do not necessarily suffer from the same disabilities. More promising than either, however, would be a variant in which Max manages a comprehensive system of price modifications added to emergent market outcomes, equivalent to a comprehensive economy-wide system of Pigovian taxes and subsidies. Such a system, "Pigovian Max," could in principle realize the information efficiency benefits and liberty interests of decentralized market outcomes, while also comprehensively correcting externalities and controlling inefficient concentration of market power and associated rent-seeking behavior. It could also, under certain additional assumptions, offer the prospect of taxation without deadweight loss, by taking all taxes from inframarginal rents.Having outlined the basic approach and these potential benefits, the paper discusses several challenges and potential risks presented by such a system. These include Max's need for data and the potential costs of providing it; the granularity or aggregation of Max's determinations; the problem of maintaining variety and innovation in an economy directed by Max; the implications of Max for the welfare of human workers, the meaning and extent of property rights, and associated liberty interests; the definition of social welfare that determines Max's objective function, its compatibility with democratic control, and the resultant stability of the boundary between the state and the economy; and finally, the relationship of Max to AI-enabled trends already underway, with implications for the feasibility of Max being developed and adopted, and the associated risks. In view of the depth and difficulty of these questions, the discussion of each is necessarily preliminary and speculative.


Abstract Zincalstibite, a new mineral occurring within the cavities of marble of the Apuan Alps, Tuscany, Italy, has chemical formula Zn2AlSb(OH)12, space group P3̄, a = 5.321(1), c = 9.786(2) Å. It is associated with sub-millimeter tufts of white crystals of mimetite and sub-millimetric stalactite aggregates of opal and an amorphous copper-silicate phase (possibly crisocolla). The crystals are trigonal prismatic, with forms {110}, {001}, elongated [001], generally less than 10 × 10 × 40 ÷ 50 μm, with few larger crystals. They are colorless, transparent, with vitreous luster, white streak and {001} cleavage. The stronger reflections are [(hkl), d (Å), Irel]: (002), 4.904, 100; (100), 4.620, 35; (101), 4.179, 57; (103, 110), 2.669, 31; (112, 112̄), 2.343, 88; (114, 114̄), 1.805, 57. Zincalstibite is structurally related to cualstibite, as evidenced by the structural determinations and refinements we present for both the minerals. They are built up by layers of isolated Sb(OH)6 octahedra alternating along c with trioctahedral layers, which contain Zn and Al cations and Cu and Al cations in zincalstibite and cualstibite, respectively. In cualstibite the ordering of Al and Cu within these trioctahedral layers results in a supercell, with acual = 9.150(2) Å ≈ √3 azinc. The name of zincalstibite is related to its chemical composition and points to its relationships with cualstibite. Both the mineral and its name were approved by the IMA Commission for New Minerals and Mineral Names (IMA 1998-033).


We discuss the benefits and limitations of optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) techniques based on the optical generation of a periodic train of sinc pulses for wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission at high baud rates. It is shown how the modulated OTDM spectrum bandwidth is related to the optical comb parameters and the pulse shaping of the modulating waveforms in the electrical domain. Such dependence may result in broadening of the modulated spectra, which can degrade the performance of Nyquist-WDM systems due to interchannel crosstalk penalties. However, it is shown and experimentally demonstrated that the same technique of optical pulse train generation can be allied with digital pulse shaping to improve the confinement of the modulated spectrum toward the Nyquist limit independently of the number of OTDM tributaries used. To investigate the benefits of the proposed approach, we demonstrate the first WDM Nyquist-OTDM signal generation based on the periodic train of sinc pulses and electrical spectrum shaping. Straight line transmission of five 112.5-Gbd Nyquist-OTDM dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) channels is demonstrated over a dispersion uncompensated link up to 640 km, with full-field coherent detection at the receiver. It is shown that such a design strategy effectively improves the spectral confinement of the modulated OTDM signal, providing a minimum intercarrier crosstalk penalty of 1.5 dB in baud-rate-spaced Nyquist-WDM systems.


This paper focuses on the extent to which the market regulatory environment in the mobile telecommunication industry in Kenya has posed great challenges to new entrants and small operators and frustrated their efforts to counter the continued market leadership and dominance by Safaricom. Debates on ICT regulation in Sub Saharan Africa and the rest of the developing countries were confined to technology and tele-density issues without looking at the social, political, institutional, legal and economic factors that shape industry specific issues. Globally, the telecommunications industry has been viewed as a public utility and public ownership or strong government controls went with that. The argument this paper is premised on is that post liberalization of the telecommunications sector in Kenya, state monopoly of the Kenya Posts and Telecommunication Corporation shifted from government to the private sector oligopoly (Kerretts, 2005:50, Mureithi, 2008, Manica and Vescovi: 2011:23). There was a shift from structuralism (active role of the state in driving economic development) to neo-liberalism (freeing market forces from government control, reducing taxes, divesting state-owned enterprises, deregulation of telecommunication, weakening of the state's redistributive functions) (Nwankwo, 2000:147). Despite privatization and introduction of competition, most incumbents are still able to continue dominating the markets and enjoying significant advantages. The market share amongst the four operators in the telecommunications industry in Kenya is skewed in favour of one operator. The paper presents an argument on macro-economic, political, legal, social, cultural, economic, institutional and policy issues (Isik, Arditi, Dilem and Birgonul, 2010:119) at the end of the seven year old oligopoly, market liberalisation, market distortions and competitive environment that favour established market players compared to new entrants. The paper is also highlighting the relevance of a classical theory such as Porter's Five Forces competitive theory and macro environmental forces in explaining regulatory challenges faced by new market entrants in the telecommunications industry in Kenya and other emerging markets.


We propose ADOM – an accelerated method for smooth and strongly convex decentralized optimization over time-varying networks. ADOM uses a dual oracle, i.e., we assume access to the gradient of the Fenchel conjugate of the individual loss functions. Up to a constant factor, which depends on the network structure only, its communication complexity is the same as that of accelerated Nesterov gradient method (Nesterov, 2003). To the best of our knowledge, only the algorithm of Rogozin et al. (2019) has a convergence rate with similar properties. However, their algorithm converges under the very restrictive assumption that the number of network changes can not be greater than a tiny percentage of the number of iterations. This assumption is hard to satisfy in practice, as the network topology changes usually can not be controlled. In contrast, ADOM merely requires the network to stay connected throughout time.


This action research observes a second year Japanese class at a university where foreign language courses are elective for undergraduate students. In this study, using the six strategies to teach Japanese speech acts that Ishihara and Cohen (2006) suggested, I conducted three classes and analyzed my teaching practice with a critical friend. These strategies assist learners toward the development of their understanding ofthe following Japanese speech acts and also keep the learners to use them in a manner appropriate to the context: (1) invitation and refusal; (2) compliments; and (3) asking for a permission. The aim of this research is not only to improve my instruction in relation to second language (L2) pragmatic development, but also to raise further questions and to develop future research. The findings are analyzed and the data derived from my journals, artifacts, students' work, observation sheets, interviews with my critical friend, and pretests and posttests are coded and presented. The analysis shows that (1) after my critical friend encouraged my study and my students gave me some positive comments after each lesson, I gained confidence in teaching the suggested speech acts; (2) teaching involved explaining concepts and strategies, creating the visual material (a video) showing the strategies, and explaining the relationship between the strategy and grammatical forms and samples of misusing the forms; (3) students' background and learning styles influenced lessons; and (4) pretest and posttests showed that the students* level of their L2 appropriate pragmatics dramatically improved after each instruction. However, after careful observation, it was noted that some factors prevented students from producing the correct output even though they understood the speech act


Background Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia (MW) is an uncommon lymphoproliferative disorder of the B cells, associated with overproduction of the monoclonal component Immunoglobulin M (IgM). Purpose To analyse the treatment and outcome of patients with MW. Materials and Methods Observational, retrospective and descriptive study of all patients diagnosed with MW from 2001 to the present day. A cytostatic dispensing programme (OncoGest) and the electronic history (Selene) were used to gather the following data: gender, age, year of diagnosis, previous treatments, treatment regime, adverse reactions. The treatment response was rated according to symptom let-up and decrease in the serum IgM. Results 8 MW patients were included, their average age was 72 years old (rank: 51–82), of which 50% were male. The symptoms with which patients presented before commencing treatment included: asthenia (100%), anorexia, peripheral neuropathy (37.5%), anaemia (25%), hyperviscosity syndrome (62.5%); 40% of patients required a session of plasmapheresis. Various treatment regimens were used: Two of the patients commenced treatment with fludarabine, one started with cladribine and two with chlorambucil. Patients with fludarabine had a good response and in the other three cases the response was quite low; as a result, treatment was changed to weekly rituximab until the symptoms stopped and the IgM decreased. Three of the patients started treatment with weekly rituximab with a good response in two of the cases and one had a low response so the treatment was changed to rituximab with cladribine. All patients except one who is currently receiving rituximab and cladribine have had relapses after the first treatment. They were treated with weekly rituximab until the symptoms stopped, except in two of the cases, who currently continue with maintenance rituximab every two and three months respectively. As regards tolerance and adverse reactions, neutropenia appeared in just one patient treated with chlorambucil, the treatments were well tolerated by the remaining patients. Conclusions Various drugs are used for the treatment of MW: chlorambucil, fludarabine, cladribine and rituximab, alone or in combination. The treatment regimen the most commonly used, especially if weekly rituximab, especially for those patients that have had relapses with other treatments. Weekly rituximab is a treatment with a good response rate and is well tolerated. No conflict of interest.


This paper presents a general decision theoretic model of interactions between users and cognitive assistive technologies for various tasks of importance to the elderly population. The model is a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) whose goal is to work in conjunction with a user towards the completion of a given activity or task. This requires the model to monitor and assist the user, to maintain indicators of overall user health, and to adapt to changes. The key strengths of the POMDP model are that it is able to deal with uncertainty, it is easy to specify, it can be applied to different tasks with little modification, and it is able to learn and adapt to changing tasks and situations. This paper describes the model, gives a general learning method which enables the model to be learned from partially labeled data, and shows how the model can be applied within our research program on technologies for wellness. In particular, we show how the model is used in three tasks: assisted handwashing, health and safety monitoring, and wheelchair mobility. The paper gives an overview of ongoing work into each of these areas, and discusses future directions.


Before the success story of leukaemia treatment started in the 1950s, many patients succumbed to the disease because of severe haemorrhage. A bleeding tendency is one of the hallmarks of haematological malignancies such as leukaemia, since together with anaemia and an increased susceptibility to infection it completes the picture of bone marrow failure. Almost half of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia present with bleeding. 1 It can also become evident when the bone marrow is infiltrated by a non-haematological malignancy, e.g. neuroblastoma. Thus, easy bruising is one of the St Siluan early warning signs of childhood cancer, compiled by the South African Children's Cancer Study Group (SACCSG). An increased risk of bleeding during the cancer treatment period is almost always present, due to the bone marrow suppressive effect of chemotherapy. Fortunately, death due to bleeding is rare these days.


Abstract This paper traces the development of a universal violence prevention initiative from its early roots in the dynamics of child abuse developmental psychopathology. My research has been devoted to preventing violence in relationships, including physical and sexual abuse of children, children who witness domestic violence, woman abuse, and dating violence in adolescence. A central theme throughout this work has been to integrate psychological knowledge about healthy, non-violent relationships with knowledge of risk factors for abuse and violence. As laws and public sentiment have challenged the generations-old status quo of family privacy and personal rights, psychology has risen to this challenge by studying aspects of abuse and violence in the lab, in analog situations, in the home, and in the clinic. This paper reflects how knowledge about the causes and consequences of violence in relationships is leading to promising educational and prevention initiatives such as the Fourth R, a universal schoolbased initiative aimed at early adolescence to reduce relationship violence and related risk behaviours. The foundation for this paper began 25 years ago, when Peter Jaffe and I met for the first time over lunch. I had recently arrived in Canada from the U.S. and was struggling to develop effective interventions for child abusive parents with the local Children's Aid Society. Peter was facing similar challenges in working with the police and court system's response to youth and families in crisis. Child abuse and domestic violence were recurring themes in both of our research and clinical efforts, and quickly became the focus of our luncheon discussion. Peter was preparing an assessment for the juvenile court about a 15-year-old boy charged with attempted murder of his stepfather. The prosecutor had made application to the court to have the charges heard in adult court because the case involved a premeditated act with a firearm. A psychological assessment for the court had been ordered to determine whether the young man belonged in the juvenile or adult system. What appeared at first to be a violent act involving a premeditated ambush of his stepfather when he arrived home from work, upon closer examination was in fact the culmination of 15 years of domestic violence and child abuse. The local police department had responded to domestic violence calls at this home for many years, but the violence continued. With a growing sense of hopelessness and helplessness, the boy decided to take matters into his own hands and use the very weapon his stepfather had often used to threaten his mother. In our view, the offence before the court was more a reflection of the community's failure to address the reality of the violence experienced in this family than it was of the adolescent's character or psychological make-up. At the time this view was radical and sometimes misconstrued as condoning youth violence. However, the psychological assessment revealed the impact on this boy of growing up in a family war zone in which his mother suffered severe physical and emotional abuse on a frequent basis. To adapt to his family circumstances, this boy's survival and coping strategies had become increasingly desperate and ineffective. For the past three years, he had shown behaviour problems in school, signs of depression and anger, poor school attendance, declining achievement, and involvement in drugs and alcohol. Rather than these problems being viewed as warning signs of possible violence in the home or other major family stressors, they were taken at face value as signs of an antisocial adolescent. There was a sense of outrage among some community members that an adolescent was capable of such an offence, and they wanted the court to impose the most severe sentence possible. The assessment, in contrast, clearly showed a normal adolescent who had faced many years of tyranny, and ultimately had acted in self-defense of his mother, his sister, and himself. …


In order to secure future energy needs, exploration for hydrocarbon reservoirs occurs increasingly in Arctic and Deep Water Environments. These two drilling environments establish temperature-pressure conditions that are favorable to gas hydrates. Gas hydrates are crystalline complexes of water molecules, which trap gas molecules of suitable size inside their lattice structure. If they are created inside the well system, they may block the BOP or lines, which leads to well control risks. When gas hydrates exist naturally inside formations, drilling activities may lead to their dissociation, which can result in borehole stability problems, serious well gasification or subsequent well integrity problems on production. To mitigate these drilling risks a Process-Knowledge Management System (PKMS) has been developed. This PKMS allows the capture, verification, and intelligent use of explicit and tacit knowledge, and is constructed to allow exploitation of the knowledge from multiple field experts, company best practice policies, and latest technological findings. To incorporate and use the knowledge sources with embedded uncertainties, type-2 fuzzy set theory is applied. The PKMS is realized through individual reasoning blocks that set up a coherent reasoning lattice. The benefits of this approach are: An easy adaptation and upgrading of the system's knowledge, and Sensitivity for selection of particular reasoning blocks, depending on the current drilling scenario and conditions, is sustained. For the process of drilling within gas hydrate prone environments, the PKMS is actuated with multiple numerical simulations and gas hydrate related considerations. This paper discusses briefly the basic structure of the developed PKMS, as well as the numerical models used to describe the transient temperature field, the pressure profile and the gas hydrate kinetics applied.


This paper focuses on measuring the degrees of market integration (or segmentation) providing a tool for country selection in international portfolio diversification. It develops methodology measuring effective systemic risk as a proxy of market integration (or segmentation) and therefore allows for appropriate country selection in the better-performing stock markets of the world. The empirical evidence is used to clarify the conclusions about internationally integrated versus segmented markets. Some markets appear more integrated than one might have expected based on information of investment restrictions. Other markets appear segmented despite the fact that foreign investors have relatively free access to their capital markets. This is because these markets were less responsible to the world trend than others. Thus, still international diversification allows investors to reduce the risk and increase the expected return, shifting the efficient frontier to the left.


Detection of previously unknown attacks and malicious messages is a challenging problem faced by modern network intrusion detection systems. Anomaly-based solutions, despite being able to detect unknown attacks, have not been used often in practice due to their high false positive rate, and because they provide little actionable information to the security officer in case of an alert. In this paper we focus on intrusion detection in industrial control systems networks and we propose an innovative, practical and semantics-aware framework for anomaly detection. The network communication model and alerts generated by our framework are userunderstandable, making them much easier to manage. At the same time the framework exhibits an excellent tradeoff between detection rate and false positive rate, which we show by comparing it with two existing payload-based anomaly detection methods on several ICS datasets.


This book analyzes the legal regime of the exploitation of the mineral resources in the Antarctic. Therefore, it elaborates on the development of the Antarctic Treaty and the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). The author examines the history and influence of the Convention for the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities (CRAMRA), which purpose it is to prohibit unregulated mineral resource activities in Antarctica, and its provisions are extremely strict with the aim of environmental protection. Through analyzing and comparing the CRAMRA and the 1991 Environmental Protocol, the book concludes that it is not beyond credulity to imagine that a new round of discussion on Antarctic mineral exploration will be held in the near future.


The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence held its 1997 Fall Symposia Series on 7 to 9 November in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This article contains summaries of the six symposia that were conducted: (1) Communicative Action in Humans and Machines, (2) Context in Knowledge Representation and Natural Language, (3) Intelligent Tutoring System Authoring Tools, (4) Model-Directed Autonomous Systems, (5) Reasoning with Diagrammatic Representations II, and (6) Socially Intelligent Agents.


Information Transfer security labels convey information used by protocol entities to determine how to handle data communicated between open systems. Information on a security label can be used to control access, specify protective measures, and determine handling restrictions required by a communications security policy. This standard defines a security label syntax for information exchanged over data networks and provides encodings of that syntax for use at the Application and Network Layers. The syntactic constructs defined in this standard are intended to be used along with semantics provided by the authority establishing the security policy for the protection of the information exchanged. A separate NIST document, referenced in an informative appendix, defines a Computer Security Objects Register (CSOR) that serves as repository for label semantics.


ENGL 110C. English Composition. 3 Credits. The principal objective of the course is to prepare students to be effective writers of the kinds of compositions they will be called on to produce during their college careers. By the end of the course, students should be more mature in their understanding and use of language, should develop efficient writing processes, and should know and demonstrate the qualities of effective composition in a given rhetorical situation. Prerequisites: A passing grade on the Writing Sample Placement Test.


A symmetric group action on the maximal chains in a finite, ranked poset is local if the adjacent transpositions act in such a way that $(i,i+1)$ sends each maximal chain either to itself or to one differing only at rank $i$. We prove that when $S_n$ acts locally on a lattice, each orbit considered as a subposet is a product of chains. We also show that all posets with local actions induced by labellings known as $R^* S$-labellings have symmetric chain decompositions and provide $R^* S$-labellings for the type B and D noncrossing partition lattices, answering a question of Stanley.


The 'War on Terror' poses great challenges to democracies. The need for appropriate counter-terrorism measures prompts greater discretion to the executive in enacting adequate measures. This thesis demonstrates that since September 11th 2001, the US and the UK have both modified and enacted further national security measures and anti-terrorism legislation accordingly. The thesis critically explores and examines the legality and constitutional legitimacy of the means that the US and UK have used, giving equal normative weight to national security and civil liberty imperatives.

The focus is not merely between how this legislation strikes a balance between national security and civil liberties; it is also on the ways in which judicial intervention serves as a check to both executive and administrative measures. Thus, it is always necessary to conduct a balancing act between the rights of citizens to live in peace and security of persons and property, against the rights of individuals who may seek to threaten this.

The core argument is that the history of both countries indicate that adhering to a human rights standard as far as possible, even in times of war, has both military and political benefits. Nevertheless, it is not claimed that all rights must be protected at all times. Instead, it seeks to establish a legal standard that recognises the need to protect human rights whilst also protecting security

The thesis then turns to an examination of the judicial determinations in times of conflict between national security and civil liberties. The conclusion is that protecting national security interests is at the heart of all nations, however both the executive and the judiciary as upholders of the rule of law, should ensure the action taken is both adequate and necessary in the sense of proportionate (no more but also no less than what is called for). Thus, it calls for greater judicial oversight and accountability of executive action by using, as far as possible, the ordinary rules of criminal justice to deal with suspected terrorists. Furthermore, it is argued that to follow such a long term approach would provide an adequate platform for other countries in the struggle against terrorism. The thesis also identifies many lessons that can be learnt from the approach of the two countries.


With the progression of multivariate statistics, the creation of population specific equations is on the rise. Multivariate analysis generally revolves around metric methods or geometric morphometrics, not on morphoscopic features. A total of eight samples were analysed spanning from prehistoric American to modern day South African and ranged between pygmy populations from the Andaman Islands to medieval British populations. With a sample size of more than 1100 individuals, each os coxa was scored using eight morphoscopic features most commonly used by physical anthropologists and osteoarchaeologists. Trait frequencies were compiled and compared between each of the eight samples. Then, the samples were placed into two groups: a known age and sex group (Christ Church Spitalfields, South African White, South African Black, and South African Coloured), and an unknown archaeological group (Poulton, St. Owens, Chumash, and Andaman). When comparing trait frequencies, slight differences between the samples could be seen. Ordinal Logistic Regressions (OLR) were applied onto each of the four samples from the known age and sex group to create population specific sexing equations (cross-validated). Results from these four equations ranged from 90.24% (South African Black population specific equation) to 96.38% (Christ Church, Spitalfields population specific equation). Population specifity was tested by applying all of the equations onto each sample in this group. In an attempt to reduce this, two new equations were created by combining samples together resulting in a South African specific equation (92.54% accuracy) and a "Summary Sex" equation (92.98% accuracy). After applying each of the six new OLR equations onto the four archaeological samples, high percentage accuracies (ranging from 92.59% to 100.00%) were found when comparing them to the previous records. The only sample that did not produce as high of an accuracy was the Chumash sample with 82.35%. In the attempt to analyse fragmented remains, three avenues were taken. Firstly, all missing values were replaced by the median score. Secondly, the original six OLR equations were 'sectioned' to make three smaller sets of equations. Lastly, to mirror the sectioned equations, three new sets of OLR equations were generated. This study shows that when using morphoscopic traits for sex estimation, applying multivariate techniques can be used to obtain a high accuracy even when dealing with fragmented samples.


High-performance embedded processors are frequently designed as arrays of small, in-order scalar cores, even when their workloads exhibit high degrees of data-level parallelism (DLP). We show that these multiple instruction, multiple data (MIMD) systems can be made more efficient by instead directly exploiting DLP using a modern vector architecture. In our study, we compare arrays of scalar cores to vector machines of comparable silicon area and power consumption. Since vectors provide greater performance across the board - in some cases even with better programmability - we believe that embedded system designers should increasingly pursue vector architectures for machines at this scale.


Policies focusing on enforcing property code violations and the improvement of vacant properties are argued to be more efficacious than demolition policies to fight urban blight. This study applies parcel level data to a multi-year hybrid modeling structure. A fine-grained analysis is conducted on the dynamic patterns of abandonment and demolition for a unique period of four years before and after the City of Buffalo's stepped-up demolition efforts. Results showed that proximity to vacant and abandoned properties, sustained over the years, had the greatest impact on the possibility of a property being abandoned. The second greatest positive impact on property abandonment was small lot front size. Results also showed that neighborhood vacancy density had the greatest negative impact on surrounding housing sales prices over the years. There was no significant impact of demolition on housing sales prices. These findings suggested that the City should aim to have more incentive programs that are tailored to control the number of vacant properties, rather than focusing primarily on demolition-oriented programs.


Large-area subwavelength dielectric hexagonal lattices of cylindrical pillars on quartz substrates that provide high optical transmittance at all angles of incidence under different polarizations of light, and are fabricated using low-cost patterning techniques, are demonstrated and analyzed. Transmittance >85% for angles of incidence in excess of 70° is demonstrated at visible and near-infrared wavelengths, and the structures employed are shown to be superior at visible wavelengths to tapered "moth eye" surfaces for practically achievable dimensions. Detailed analytical calculations and numerical simulations elucidating the impact of feature size, height, periodicity, and refractive index are presented.


In the presence of hepatic microsomes, styrene produced a type I difference spectrum, which demonstrates that styrene binds to the catalytic site of ferricytochrome P-450. A comparison of the binding parameters for the interaction of styrene with noninduced, phenobarbital-induced, and 3-methylcholanthrene-induced microsomes indicated that styrene is predominantly bound by cytochrome P-450 and not by cytochrome P-448. Inhalation exposure to a mixture of acetone (1,000 ppm, 6 h/d) and styrene (300 ppm, 6 h/d) for 5 d caused a distinct decrease in hepatic free nonprotein sulfhydryl groups. This decrease could be observed both with and without phenobarbital treatment. Acetone inhalation alone also enhanced ethoxycoumarin O-deethylase activity in rats without pretreatments. Acetone inhalation also increased the cytochrome P-450 content of liver microsomes, but it had no effect on NADPH cytochrome c reductase or epoxide hydratase activity. Combined exposure to styrene and acetone enhanced NADPH cytochrome c reductase activity in nonphenobarbital-treated rats, but no effect was seen in the phenobarbital-treated animals. Phenobarbital treatment of animals can greatly modify the biotransformation and toxicity of styrene, phenobarbital inducible P-450 hemoprotein playing a predominant role in its metabolism. Simultaneous inhalation exposure to acetone also interacts with the metabolism of styrene.


The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the earth's surface and encompasses many thousands of islands, the home to numerous human societies and cultures. Among these indigenous Oceanic cultures are the intrepid Polynesian double-hulled canoe navigators, the atoll dwellers of Micronesia, the statue carvers of remote Easter Island, and the famed traders of Melanesia. Recent archaeological excavations, combined with allied research in historical linguistics, biological anthropology, and comparative ethnography, have begun to reveal much new information about the long-term history of these Pacific Island societies and cultures. "On the Road of the Winds" synthesizes the grand sweep of human history in the Pacific Islands, beginning with the movement of early people out from Asia more than 40,000 years ago, and tracing the development of myriad indigenous cultures up to the time of European contact in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Questions that scholars have posed and puzzled over for two centuries or more are illuminated here: Where did the Pacific Islanders come from? How did they discover and settle the thousands of islands? Why did they build great monuments like Nan Madol on Pohnpei Island in Micronesia or the famous Easter Island statues? This book provides an up-to-date synthesis of archaeological and historical anthropological knowledge of these fascinating indigenous cultures. In particular, Kirch focuses on human ecology and island adaptations, the complexities of island trading and exchange systems, voyaging technology and skills, and the development of intensive economic systems linked to the growth of large populations. He also draws on his own original field research conducted on many islands, ranging from the Solomons to Hawai'i, as he takes us on an intellectual voyage into the Oceanic past.


From high-tech terrorism at home to political instability abroad, the United States cannot afford to be lax about its security in today's world. In this book, former National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake, examines six very real scenarios - each one a threat to America's safety - and lays out what steps can be taken to prevent them. Is the United States prepared to counter sophisticated cyberterrorists? How do they prevent peacekeeping operations from spiralling out of control and turning into wars? With years of experience on the front lines of American foreign policy, Lake predicts the regions that will likely be tomorrow's Balkans (Indonesia, Colombia and the Caspian Sea) and analyzes America's level of preparedness in the event of biological or chemical terrorism (which is, in fact, surprisingly low). Not just another foreign policy book, the author aims to reveal the threats that Americans may face tomorrow and show what can be done to avoid them today.


Agriculture on Bonaire does not support the demand for food on the island, and therefore the people are dependent on expensive food importation. Recently, any Bonairean people abandon their kunukus to take jobs in the urban area in tourism or off-island in the oil industry. Traditionally, a kunuku was used as an agricultural plot for food production for the household. A kunuku would usually have a cactus fence used to contain grazing goats or chickens, or to produce household amounts of sorghum maize, and keep animals out. In order to help restore nature to Bonaire and include it in the daily lives of people, restoration and use of cactus fences on kunukus are being considered as nature inclusive measure. In order to get a better understanding of the current use of kunukus and presence of cactus fences on the island, satellite information and field observations were collected about the state of kunukus and the use of cactus fences. Results show that kunukus are rapidly being abandoned. The predictive accuracy from satellite imagery of active kunukus was high (92.5%). Furthermore, only 4% of the active kunukus have a well-maintained cactus fence. Implications of these findings are discussed with focus on nature inclusiveness and the use of the kunuku as a means to restore a cultural pride, self-sufficiency, local economic diversification and a healthier food culture on Bonaire. Abstract Agriculture on Bonaire does not support the demand for food on the island, and therefore the people are dependent on expensive food importation. Recently, any Bonairean people abandon their kunukus to take jobs in the urban area in tourism or off-island in the oil industry. Traditionally, a kunuku was used as an agricultural plot for food production for the household. A kunuku would usually have a cactus fence used to contain grazing goats or chickens, or to produce household amounts of sorghum maize, and keep animals out. In order to help restore nature to Bonaire and include it in the daily lives of people, restoration and use of cactus fences on kunukus are being considered as nature inclusive measure. In order to get a better understanding of the current use of kunukus and presence of cactus fences on the island, satellite information and field observations were collected about the state of kunukus and the use of cactus fences. Results show that kunukus are rapidly being abandoned. The predictive accuracy from satellite imagery of active kunukus was high (92.5%). Furthermore, only 4% of the active kunukus have a well-maintained cactus fence. Implications of these findings are discussed with focus on nature inclusiveness and the use of the kunuku as a means to restore a cultural pride, self-sufficiency, local economic diversification and a healthier food culture on Bonaire.


The present study was undertaken to know the average family size, education, land use pattern, cropping intensity, cropping pattern, availability of capital assets and investment in fixed capital assets of beneficiary and non-beneficiary farmers. It was also concerned with per hectare input utilized by the beneficiary and non-beneficiary farmers. It also analyzes economics of major crop production and to analyze resource use efficiency of major crops of farm ponds beneficiary and non-beneficiary farmers.


Due to the growing interest in applying tail-biting convolutional coding techniques in real-time communication systems, fast decoding of tail-biting convolutional codes has become an important research direction. In this paper, a new maximum-likelihood decoder for tail-biting convolutional codes is proposed. It is named bidirectional priority-first search algorithm (BiPFSA) because priority-first search algorithm has been used both in forward and backward directions during decoding. Simulations involving the antipodal transmission of (2, 1, 6) and (2, 1, 12) tail-biting convolutional codes over additive white Gaussian noise channels shows that BiPFSA not only has the least average decoding complexity among the state-of-the-art decoding algorithms for tail-biting convolutional codes but can also provide a highly stable decoding complexity with respect to growing information length and code constraint length. More strikingly, at high SNR, its average decoding complexity can even approach the ideal benchmark complexity, obtained under a perfect noise-free scenario by any sequential-type decoding. This demonstrates the superiority of BiPFSA in terms of decoding efficiency.


As the 2006-2012 Arctic hype has settled and we are now heading towards the second decade of the 21st century, a sober approach to Arctic security is needed. Traditional military security may never disappear from the Barents, a region that includes a border between Russia and NATO. However, environmental and societal security could keep traditional security aspects in the background, as contemporary critical security aspects are becoming more important for the prosperity of the region. By deepening and widening the security agenda, it is easier to identify who is threatened, whose security we are concerned about and who would be responsible to provide security in the Barents Region. So, in what ways could critical security studies contribute towards a holistic approach to the Barents Region, concerning the environment and local population? Redefining the security of the Barents is imperative in order to pursue solutions for actual security problems instead of hunting ghosts from the past. Environmental and societal security are inherently connected in the Barents Region and a thorough analysis of their interdependence is essential. Chain reactions that could be triggered through a potential damage to the environment could have severe impacts on population that depends heavily on traditional ways of living like fishing, gathering and herding. Moreover, environmental concerns exist within geopolitical agendas as environmental disasters could lead to turmoil and migration. Nevertheless, international and bilateral cooperation in the area, concerning environmental protection and human prosperity, is favouring the endeavours for a better future of the Barents Region.


The STEM College-Going Expectancy Scale (STEM CGES) was developed and validated in two studies conducted during 2010 and 2011. The STEM CGES is a self-report instrument measuring college-going expectancy, specifically for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains. In Study 1, 95 students in an urban high school completed an 11-item online questionnaire to measure college-going expectancy in STEM domains. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) retained 6 out of the 11 items for inclusion. In Study 2, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) used data collected from 658 students in 31 urban, suburban, and rural high schools. The results provide strong evidence that the STEM CGES is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring college-going expectancy for STEM domains.


The straw that broke the camel's back came from a most unexpected source. It was the sudden removal of all access to safe drinking water in an acute medical unit in one of the largest hospitals in the country. This action left a 58 bedded unit with over 100 members of staff without access to a vital ingredient of health and wellbeing. In a system which has come through unpredictable, unreliable and inadequate access to personal protection equipment throughout the various surges of the COVID-19 pandemic, this was something that all the mandatory training in resilience should have given strength to pull through. But sadly, it seemed to be the final straw.
So, I was going to suggest a different strategy, one that included arranging rotations with international partners and of inducting colleagues from allied health professions to share responsibilities of patient care much more than they are able to do at present. Both of these moves will require an open mind, a long-range vision from our leaders and flexibility from our regulators. We need sustainable models where junior doctors and nurses come on planned rotations from countries such as the Commonwealth where education and training are aligned but return to their countries enriched with their experience. The BAPIO Training Academy has similar schemes in place and all the Medical Royal colleges are keen to populate their medical training initiatives with international partner institutions. There needs to be a recognition and celebration of the diversity of the workforce and the contribution of migrants. An acceptance by the people of how the war was won and the country was rebuilt by the blood, sweat and tears of migrants working shoulder to shoulder with their UK peers. This change in mindset has to come from the top. Many had hoped that the first UK Prime Minister of colour may bring that change in mindset. Unfortunately, this is not what appears as Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP moving swiftly from the diversity of Diwali celebrations in Downing Street to pushing the boats back rhetoric. A change is needed. We, in the health service need to be the change (in mindset of equality, diversity and inclusion) that we wish to see. The final straw must not break the camel's back.


Background Osteophyte formation is a common phenomenon in arthritis. Bone formation by endochondral ossification is considered a key pathophysiological process in the formation of osteophytes. Objective To examine the hypothesis that inhibition of smoothened (Smo), a key component of the hedgehog pathway inhibits osteophyte formation as the hedgehog pathway mediates endochondral ossification. Methods Arthritis was induced in 8-week-old C57/BL6 mice by serum transfer (K/BxN model). Mice were then treated by daily administration of either vehicle or LDE223, a specific small molecule inhibitor for Smo, over 2 weeks starting at the onset of disease. Clinical course of arthritis, histological and molecular changes of bone in the affected joints as well as systemic bone changes were assessed. Results Serum transfer-induced arthritis led to severe osteophyte formation within 2 weeks of onset. Blockade of Smo inhibited hedgehog signalling in vivo and also significantly inhibited osteophyte formation, whereas the clinical and histopathological signs of arthritis were not affected. Also, systemic bone mass did not change. Smo inhibitor particularly blocked the formation of hypertrophic chondrocytes and collagen type X expression. Conclusions The data indicate that blockade of hedgehog signalling by targeting Smo specifically inhibits osteophyte formation in arthritis without affecting inflammation and without eliciting bone destruction at the local and systemic level. Blockade of Smo may thus be considered as a strategy to specifically influence the periosteal bone response in arthritis associated with bone apposition.


"Preventing Youth Violence in a Multicultural Society" highlights the importance of creating culturally compatible interventions to stop violence among the youngest members of diverse populations. The chapters explore how ethnicity and culture can increase or decrease risk for violence among youth depending on contextual factors such as a disadvantaged upbringing, exposure to trauma, and acculturation status. Authors focus on the interaction between environmental conditions and the individual risk factors that foster youth violence. They begin by examining risk factors common to all groups of youth, such as feeling alienated from mainstream culture and searching for self-identity, and then focus on risk, resilience, and distinguishing factors among particular racial and ethnic groups, including Latino, African American, Asian American, Pacific Islander, American Indian, and White youth. The authors recommend interventions tailored to each group as well as advice on how to incorporate cultural competence into more general youth violence prevention programs. The social-ecological approach taken in this volume emphasizes the learned nature of aggression and violence, and many of the recommended interventions involve changing the context in which violence is taught, therefore truly encouraging long-term violence prevention. This practical, empirically supported book serves as an important resource to all mental health practitioners working in the field of youth violence.


Many data hiding algorithms have been proposed for the latest video codec H.264/AVC, most of them are based on the 4×4 luma DCT coefficients. However, for this kind of algorithms, the drift distortion is the main reason which limits the embedding capacity. Few methods have been proposed to compensate or eliminate the error propagation. Though, they are either non-blind, only detectable or need prior knowledge of the encoded blocks and thus cannot be used for real time broadcasting. In this paper we show that it is possible to reduce considerably the error propagation for real time applications. The proposed algorithm exploits the method of watermarking paired-coefficients in each block in order to bring the error to the middle of the block matrix. We evaluate the distortion caused by each paired-coefficient in order to give a watermarking priority to the pairs which introduce the minimum error. The proposed scheme offers a very good compromise between the video distortion, the increase in bitrate and the embedding capacity.


This paper reviews the distribution of seabird species with the WCPFC Area. From a review of the distributions of 99 species of albatross and petrel, 16 species of albatross and 60 species of petrel occur within the area of the WCPFC, and are potentially vulnerable to fisheries bycatch. These include species with IUCN classification of Critically Endangered (n = 1), Endangered (n = 7), Vulnerable (n =26) and Near Threatened (n = 7). The remaining 30 species are classified by the IUCN as Least Concern. This paper, having identified key risks, is intended to assist with the development of advice on mitigation of seabird mortality in fisheries in the WCPFC Convention Area. Recommendations on future approaches to mitigating risk are made.


The study evaluated the potential impacts of refuge requirements for Bt cotton in India on world cotton markets. The objective was accomplished by estimating regional cotton yield functions in the Indian fiber model, and connecting it with rest of the world fiber model. Results revealed that the refuge requirements have potential to impact world cotton markets; magnitudes of impacts are smaller, however. The world cotton trade would be lower, and the cotton prices would be higher under higher refuge requirements, and vice versa. As the refuge requirements for an insecticidal Bt technology depend on its replacement rate, the time spent in R&D and regulation of the technology has implications for Bt crops refuge requirements and world commodity markets.

 Key words: Bt cotton, India, refuge requirements, world cotton markets, world fiber model.


OBJECTIVE--To determine the changes of flow in the hepatic artery and portal vein of patients undergoing tricuspid valve repair together with mitral valve replacement. DESIGN--Non-randomised parallel group study. SETTING--Tertiary referral centre. PATIENTS--18 patients with mitral valve disease with or without tricuspid regurgitation (age range 46-73; six men) and six patients with coronary artery disease and normal left ventricular function (women age range 39-78; four men). INTERVENTIONS--Mitral valve replacement with or without modified De Vega repair of the tricuspid valve or coronary artery bypass surgery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Flow in the hepatic artery and portal vein as measured by duplex Doppler flowmetry before and two to four weeks after operation. RESULTS--Preoperative hepatic artery flow was less in patients with mitral valve disease than in patients with coronary artery disease (162.7(13.1) ml.min-1 v 242.5(6.6) ml.min-1, p < 0.05). Portal vein perfusion was significantly reduced only in patients with associated tricuspid regurgitation compared with (844(83) ml.min-1 v 1422(64) ml.min-1 p < 0.05). Hepatic perfusion was unaltered after operation in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery (p > 0.05). Flow in the hepatic artery and portal vein was improved only in patients undergoing mitral valve replacement with associated tricuspid valve repair (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION--Abnormalities of hepatic perfusion can be measured non-invasively in all patients with mitral valve disease but especially in those with associated tricuspid regurgitation needing valve repair. These abnormalities improved two to four weeks after mitral valve surgery and tricuspid valve repair, suggesting that measurement of portal flow might be a useful means of assessing the severity of tricuspid regurgitation.


One of the major applications of neutron diffraction in mineral sciences has been in the study of order-disorder processes and phase transitions. Neutron scattering methods provide unique insights into the origins and mechanisms of these processes, and have enabled mineralogists to develop new models of phase transformation behavior. The time-temperature dependence of processes such as phase transformations, exsolution, cation ordering and disordering in minerals has considerable potential geophysical, geochemical and petrological importance. Let's take atomic ordering as an example. Order-disorder transformations and similar structural phase transitions are typically some of the most efficient ways a mineral can adapt to changing temperature or chemical composition. Disorder of distinct species across different crystallographic sites at high temperature provides significant entropic stabilization of mineral phases relative to low-temperature ordered structures. Positional or orientational disordering can have similar drastic effects. For example, the calcite-aragonite phase boundary shows a significant curvature at high temperature due to disorder of CO3 groups within the calcite structure, associated with an orientation order-disorder phase transition (Redfern et al. 1989). This leads to an increased stability of calcite with respect to aragonite over that predicted by a simple Clausius-Clapeyron extrapolation of the low pressure-temperature thermochemical data. Understanding of the structural characteristics of the phase transition in calcite developed in tandem with studies of the analogous transition in nitratine, NaNO3, but it was not until Dove and Powell (1989) carried out high-temperature neutron diffraction experiments on powdered calcite that there was direct experimental evidence linking the thermodynamic and structural nature of the transition in CaCO3. The key to the success of their study was the fact that neutrons penetrate the entire volume of samples held at extreme conditions (in this case very close to the melting temperature and under a confining CO2 pressure).

Cation ordering …


Research examining the relationship between IT-business strategic alignment (hereafter referred to as alignment) and firm performance (hereafter referred to as performance) has produced apparently conflicting findings (i.e., an alignment paradox). To examine the alignment paradox, we conducted a meta-analysis that probed the interrelationships between alignment, performance, and context constructs. We found the alignment dimensions (intellectual, operational, and cross-domain) demonstrate unique relationships with the different performance types (financial performance, productivity, and customer benefit) and with many of the other constructs in alignment's nomological network. All mean corrected correlations between dimensions of alignment and dependent variables were positive and most of the credibility interval values in these analyses were also positive. Overall, the evidence gathered from the extant literature suggests there is not much of an alignment paradox. This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the relationships between alignment and performance outcomes and offering insight into sources of inconsistencies in alignment research. By doing so, this paper lays a foundation for more consistent treatment of alignment in future IT research.


The Internet is a conglomeration of autonomous systems, for which the administrative authority and the routing policies of different organizations are defined. The flow of traffic in the Internet is controlled by routers which forward traffic to each other to reach the destination. The growth of the Internet has led to the use of dynamic routing protocols which let routers find out in which direction a specific destination can be found. Routing is divided into two main levels, the internal routing inside an autonomous system, and the external routing between the autonomous systems. In this thesis we produce and implement ways to analyze the performance of two popular routing protocols, one for internal routing and one for external. The protocols are the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the Intermediate System to Intermediate System protocol (IS-IS). We present analyses which will help finding network problems or configuration errors, and perhaps also to find problems in the protocols themselves. The result is several programs which perform analyses on routing traffic logs, and store the results in a database. A web interface is then used to access the results and present them to the user. We have, among other things, been able to use our system to find out how common black-hole events are in BGP routing, and how they can be detected. We also see the huge effects that configuration errors in BGP can have on a global scale.


Abstract Many inconsistent findings are reported on the correlation between circulating betatrophin and insulin resistance in the different population. The aim of this analysis was to explore the correlation between the level of betatrophin and insulin resistance in the general population. The databases of PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library (inception to October 26, 2016) were searched without language restrictions for publications that reported studies on associations between betatrophin and insulin resistance in adults. Subgroup analyses were performed to investigate potential sources of heterogeneity. The pooled effect size was calculated using a random-effects model. Twenty-five studies were included in this meta-analysis. Meta-analysis showed that betatrophin was positively and significantly correlated with insulin resistance (r=0.16, 95% CI: 0.08–0.25). When all participants were divided into DM, GDM, and Non-DM groups, this association was also significant in T2DM, GDM, and Non-DM participants (T2DM: r=0.09, 95% CI: 0.01–0.17; I 2=45.1%; GDM: r=0.39, 95% CI: 0.24–0.55; I 2=0.0%; non-DM: r=0.15, 95% CI: 0.04–0.26; I 2=89.3%), and it was obvious that heterogeneity existed in Non-DM group (I 2=89.3%, p<0.001). Subgroup analysis revealed that gender, serum sample and ELISA kits for full-length betatrophin had significant influence on the association between betatrophin and insulin resistance. In conclusion, the level of circulating betatrophin is positively associated with insulin resistance in the general population, especially in T2DM and GDM patients. Gender, serum sample, and ELISA kits for full-length betatrophin may affect this association. More large-scale studies are needed to determine whether improving insulin resistance concomitantly declines betatrophin levels in different diseases.


This paper examines the potential of craft to facilitate cultures of quality and social transformation in the interests of sustainability. This approach is theoretically grounded in the work of Tony Fry. It draws particularly on his concepts of sustain-ability and Sustainment to construct an argument for what is both valuable about craft as a practice of material fabrication, and what broader social goals craft practitioners might set themselves in recognition of this value. The transformative potential of craft is explored through David Harvey's dialectical theory of social transformation. This exploration of the potential of craft is also coupled with a recognition of current constraints within contemporary craft practices. In particular, the role of craft within practices of symbolic production and exchange is critiqued through the work of Jean Baudrillard and Pierre Bourdieu. Through these thinkers we observe how crafted artifacts are denied their sustaining potential, and how craft practitioners themselves may become absorbed in facilitating the negation of craft as Sustainment. By way of conclusion it is proposed that in order to realise both the sustaining and transformative potential of craft, practitioners must develop a capacity for ongoing critical reflection that informs vocational commitment to change through craft practice. In this capacity, it is a call for practitioners to both recognise and engage with the political agency of craft as a way of fabricating new, and more sustainable modes of (human)being.


Improved hemodynamics and blood flow have been reported in patients with IABPs who experience cardiopulmonary arrest and require CPR. The following research questions, however, remain unanswered: Is there a more effective method of using IABP to prevent cardiac arrest and the need for CPR? Is the timing of balloon inflation and deflation the same for patients undergoing CPR as it is for patients who do not require CPR? Would earlier or later inflation or deflation further enhance cerebral or systemic blood flow? What are the most effective ways for healthcare staff to maintain competency skills in CPR in patients with IABPs?


The learning is a conventional topic in th Education's world. This research paper deals with this topic. There's some question of proposing some parameters which favour the individual and possibly organizational learning at the university with the new technologies (expert systems' technique). Our question is built on an educational experience, happened at our business school, with students who learn management, during three years. The paper presents the feedback of this experience. It is composed of four parts. The first part deals with the context of the educational experience : the legacy and the objectives. The second part is the making use of the experience : the educational methodology, used media and the planning. The third part gives the results of the experience on either side of students and teacher. The fourth and last part suggests a making in view of such educational experience.


We introduce a family of unsupervised algorithms, numerical taxonomy clustering, to simultaneously cluster data, and to learn a taxonomy that encodes the relationship between the clusters. The algorithms work by maximizing the dependence between the taxonomy and the original data. The resulting taxonomy is a more informative visualization of complex data than simple clustering; in addition, taking into account the relations between different clusters is shown to substantially improve the quality of the clustering, when compared with state-of-the-art algorithms in the literature (both spectral clustering and a previous dependence maximization approach). We demonstrate our algorithm on image and text data.


Background: Evaluation and treatment of febrile neonates varied widely among the different centers. The prevalence of serious bacterial infection (SBI) is high in neonates; thus, most experts would support the approach of a full sepsis evaluation and hospitalization. We aimed to evaluate the clinical and laboratory characteristics of febrile neonate less than 28 days of age and describe the incidence of SBI in febrile neonates.
Methods: This prospective observational cohort study was include neonates with a rectal temperature of ≥ 38°C who admitted to NICU between 2011 and 2015. Demographic information, physical examination findings, laboratory test results, and final diagnosis were recorded and compared to identifA±edas serious bacterial infection (SBI) or no-SBI. For determination of SBI; CRP and WBC cut-off values were calculated by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.
Results: 328 infants were included the study. The overall rate of SBI was 38.4%. The common final diagnosis were found unknown reason (43.6%), urinary tract infection (15.5%), dehydration (14%), and bacteremia (5.8%). The most common bacterial growth in culture Escherichia coli in 19 cases and Methicillin-Resistant Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci in 16 cases detected. A significant cut-off value could not be determined for CRP (AUC: 0.664) 95% CI: 0.604-0.723 and WBC (AUC: 0.535) 95% CI: 0.472-0.597.
Conclusion: Gram positive pathogens were more common in febrile neonates than older febrile infants. A reliable cutoff value for CRP and WBC for detection SBI in neonatal period could not be determined.


In the spring of 2015, the author was asked to organize and direct a comprehensive inventory of the large and distinguished collection of prints at the Boston Public Library. Working with the staff of the BPL and a corps of graduate students, the team located, described, and prepared for digitization a diverse collection of prints, posters, chromolithographs, drawings, and ephemera, once regarded as among the best collections in the United States. The collection was understaffed, neglected, and adrift in a great public library that struggled to balance its commitment to public service with its status as a major national research library. This article describes the project and the next steps for the collection.


We address the problem of registering and discovering sensors, sensor services and other related resources in the Semantic Sensor Web. We show how to develop a semantic registry for the storage and manipulation of metadata describing such resources using an implementation of the data model stRDF and the query language stSPARQL. stRDF extends RDF with the ability to represent spatial and temporal metadata using linear constraints. stSPARQL extends SPARQL for querying stRDF metadata. Together they provide a natural modeling framework for the problem at hand, since spatial and temporal metadata figure prominently in the description of sensors and related resources or services. We present Strabon, a storage and query evaluation module for stRDF/stSPARQL for the architecture of the EU FP7 project SemsorGrid4Env and we show how to use Strabon to implement a semantic registry.


SUMMARY A conversion process for the imitation of human dual-arm motion by a humanoid robot is presented. The conversion process consists of an imitation algorithm and an algorithm for generating human-like motion of the humanoid. The desired motions in Cartesian and joint spaces, obtained from the imitation algorithm, are used to generate the human-like motion of the humanoid. The proposed conversion process improves existing techniques and is developed with the aim to enable imitating of human motion with a humanoid robot, to perform a task with and/or without contact between hands and equipment. A comparative analysis shows that our algorithm, which takes into account the situation of marker frames and the position of joint frames, ensures more precise imitation than previously proposed methods. The results of our conversion algorithm are tested on the robot ROMEO through a complex "open/close drawer" task.


We propose a new system for predicting the splice form of Caenorhabditis elegans genes. As a first step we generate a clean set of genes from available exressed sequence tags (EST) and complete complementary (cDNA) sequences. From all such genes we then generate potential acceptor and donor sites as they would be required by any gene finder. This leads to a clean set of true and decoy splice sites. In a second step we use support vector machines (SVMs) with appropriately designed kernels to learn to distinguish between true and decoy sites. Using the newly generated data and the novel kernels we could considerably improve our previous results on the same task. In the last step we design and test a new splice finder system that combines the SVM predictions with additional statistical information about splicing. Using this system we are able to predict the exon-intron structure of a given gene with known translation initiation and stop codon site. The system has been tested successfully on a newly generated set of genes and compared with GenScan. We found that our system predicts the correct splice form for more than 92% of these genes, whereas GenScan only achieves 77.5% accuracy.


Purpose A recent Institute of Medicine report concluded that lesbian and gay individuals face discrimination from health care providers and called for research on provider attitudes. Medical school is a critical juncture for improving future providers' treatment of sexual minorities. This study examined both explicit bias and implicit bias against lesbian women and gay men among first-year medical students, focusing on two predictors of such bias, contact and empathy. Method This study included the 4,441 heterosexual first-year medical students who participated in the baseline survey of the Medical Student Cognitive Habits and Growth Evaluation Study, which employed a stratified random sample of 49 U.S. medical schools in fall 2010. The researchers measured explicit attitudes toward gay and lesbian people using feeling thermometer self-assessments, implicit attitudes using the Implicit Association Test, amount and favorability of contact using self-report items, and empathy using subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Results Nearly half (45.79%; 956/2,088) of respondents with complete data on both bias measures expressed at least some explicit bias, and most (81.51%; 1,702/2,088) exhibited at least some implicit bias against gay and lesbian individuals. Both amount and favorability of contact predicted positive implicit and explicit attitudes. Both cognitive and emotional empathy predicted positive explicit attitudes, but not implicit attitudes. Conclusions The prevalence of negative attitudes presents an important challenge for medical education, highlighting the need for more research on possible causes of bias. Findings on contact and empathy point to possible curriculum-based interventions aimed at ensuring high-quality care for sexual minorities.


The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is connected to the plasma membrane (PM) through the plant-specific NETWORKED protein, NET3C, and phylogenetically conserved vesicle-associated membrane protein-associated proteins (VAPs). Ten VAP homologues (VAP27-1 to 27-10) can be identified in the Arabidopsis genome and can be divided into three clades. Representative members from each clade were tagged with fluorescent protein and expressed in Nicotiana benthamiana. Proteins from clades I and III localized to the ER as well as to ER/PM contact sites (EPCSs), whereas proteins from clade II were found only at the PM. Some of the VAP27-labelled EPCSs localized to plasmodesmata, and we show that the mobility of VAP27 at EPCSs is influenced by the cell wall. EPCSs closely associate with the cytoskeleton, but their structure is unaffected when the cytoskeleton is removed. VAP27-labelled EPCSs are found in most cell types in Arabidopsis, with the exception of cells in early trichome development. Arabidopsis plants expressing VAP27-GFP fusions exhibit pleiotropic phenotypes, including defects in root hair morphogenesis. A similar effect is also observed in plants expressing VAP27 RNAi. Taken together, these data indicate that VAP27 proteins used at EPCSs are essential for normal ER-cytoskeleton interaction and for plant development.


1 Introduction (1) Empirical studies in political science focus mainly on institutions, regimes, or the individual decisions of rational actors (Wilshusen 2009: 138). The objective of such studies is to provide simplified assumptions which can explain and predict political decisions on a meso or macro level. The problem, however, is that structure-centered approaches often ignore ambiguities, ambivalences, and contradictions which are inherent in every structure; moreover, the rational-choice perspective concentrates on decisions without any reference to the decision-context, such as structure or power relations. In order to study complex decision-making processes involving different actors and diverse contextual factors it is necessary to work with a micro-analytical perspective. Micro-analyses of political decision-making processes are rare. One reason for this is the lack of a long-lasting research tradition and consequently accompanying concepts and definitions. Furthermore, the examination of decision-making processes presents challenges in questions of methodology, for the reason that the concrete procedure of micro-analysis requires time, access to participants, and skills in methods of qualitative research. Nevertheless, micro-analyses do have a great potential for political science research. In this paper I highlight micro-politics as a concept developed in organization research. The vast majority of political decision-making processes take place in political organizations such as parliaments, political parties, or ministerial bureaucracies. In political science debates there is, indeed, no common understanding of micro-politics (Nullmeier et al. 2003). Therefore, there is a need for clarification of the basic ideas of micro-politics as a concept in organization research and its significant potential for micro-analyses. The objective of this paper is, however, to stress a common heuristic framework for micro-analyses in political science on the basis of micro-political concepts and to propose analytical instruments for empirical studies. Accordingly, the next part of the paper discusses the roots of micro-politics and different understandings of the concept (2). Through this process it is possible to highlight the commonalities in specific micro-political approaches, reducing these to two key terms: knowledge and practice (3). After that I carve out the methodological implications and the explorative character of micro-political studies (4). Indeed, qualitative methods are the only plausible way to examine knowledge and practice within organizations. At the end, sample applications are presented to highlight the different research areas which are suitable for micro-political studies in political science (5). 2 Micro-analysis and micro-politics Political science and especially policy studies focus on political processes, among other things, in order to understand specific policies or institutional pathways of decision-making (Blum and Schubert 2011). The majority of empirical studies concentrate on macro- as well as meso-phenomena. A micro-analytical perspective does not challenge this focus but tries to answer macro- and meso-questions using discoveries on the micro-level. The prefix "micro" implies a focus on the smallest unit of action between specific actors. Hence, the objects of research are primarily actors and their behavior, but not from a psychological perspective which tries to explain behavior with individual skills or personality traits. Micro-analyses instead examine daily routines, self-evident behavior patterns, and informal processes (Schone 2010: 15). As Patzelt emphasizes, micro-analysis explores the construction, reproduction, modification, and transformation of political policies, processes and structures in concrete situations (Patzelt 2000). Micro-analyses facilitate understanding the inner workings of politics and the decision-making process which leads to specific policies (Nullmeier et al. …


The physics of angular momentum transport from galactic scales (∼10–100 pc) to much smaller radii is one of the outstanding problems in our understanding of the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes (BHs). Seemingly unrelated observations have discovered that there is a lopsided stellar disc of unknown origin orbiting the BH in M31, and possibly many other systems. We show that these nominally independent puzzles are in fact closely related. Multiscale simulations of gas inflow from galactic to BH scales show that when sufficient gas is driven towards a BH, gravitational instabilities form a lopsided, eccentric disc that propagates inwards from larger radii. The lopsided stellar disc exerts a strong torque on the remaining gas, driving inflows that fuel the growth of the BH and produce quasar-level luminosities. The same disc can produce significant obscuration along many sightlines and thus may be the putative 'torus' invoked to explain obscured active galactic nuclei and the cosmic X-ray background. The stellar relic of this disc is long lived and retains the eccentric pattern. Simulations that yield quasar-level accretion rates produce relic stellar discs with kinematics, eccentric patterns, precession rates and surface density profiles in reasonable agreement with observations of M31. The observed properties of nuclear stellar discs can thus be used to constrain the formation history of supermassive BHs.


We studied small mammal assemblages recovered from owl pellets collected at 11 locations throughout the Argentina's Pampean Region. We identified 21 species, including two marsupials, one bat, and 18 rodents. From the analysis of this dataset, we could distinguish three main groups of small mammals that currently inhabit the Pampean Region: 1) a group of taxa related to Pampean agroecosystems ( Calomys spp., Akodon azarae , and Oligoryzomys flavescens ); 2) a group of Brazilian species ( Cavia aperea , Oxymycterus rufus , Necromys lasiurus , Necromys obscurus , Holochilus brasiliensis , and Monodelphis dimidiata ); and 3) a group including species from Patagonia, Espinal and Monte phytogeographic provinces ( Microcavia australis , Oligoryzomys longicaudatus , Eligmodontia typus , Graomys griseoflavus , and Akodon molinae ). In addition, we documented the first record of a species of the large-bodied group of Calomys in Buenos Aires province, expanding its distribution ca. 420 km southward.


From your perspective, what is the place of social justice education (and politics) in the art classroom? Are these topics a distraction from the disciplinary content of visual arts education, as you understand it? From your perspective, what is the disciplinary content of art education?


Over the past few years, the role of immunotherapy in colorectal cancer (CRC) has expanded, specifically in subsets of CRC with microsatellite instability (MSI) for which newer agents, such as programmed death-1 (PD-1) inhibitors, are efficacious. While other immunotherapeutic agents are more immature in development, they have the potential to enhance the efficacy of PD-1 inhibitors and play a role in the treatment algorithm for all subsets of CRC patients. In this review, we will discuss immunotherapeutic agents in development in patients with CRC. We will review the later phase studies that elucidate the role of immunotherapy in CRC and provide hope for changing the treatment paradigm for CRC in the future.


Abstract. Strong X-flares and solar energetic particle (SEP) fluxes are considered as sources of topside ionospheric disturbances observed by the ROCSAT-1/IPEI instrument during the Bastille Day event on 14 July 2000 and the Halloween event on 28 October–4 November 2003. It was found that within a prestorm period in the dayside ionosphere at altitudes of ~600 km the ion density increased up to ~80% in response to flare-associated enhancements of the solar X-ray emission. Ionospheric response to the SEP events was revealed both at sunlit and nightside hemispheres, where the ion density increased up to ~40% and 100%, respectively. We did not find any prominent response of the ion temperature to the X-ray and SEP enhancements. The largest X-ray and SEP impacts were found for the X17 solar flare on 28 October 2003, which was characterized by the most intense fluxes of solar EUV (Tsurutani et al., 2005) and relativistic solar particles (Veselovsky et al., 2004). Solar events on 14 July 2000 and 29 October 2003 demonstrate weaker impacts with respect to their X-ray and SEP intensities. The weakest ionospheric response is observed for the limb X28 solar flare on 4 November 2003. The topside ionosphere response to the extreme solar events is interpreted in terms of the short-duration impact of the solar electromagnetic radiation and the long-lasting impact of the SEP.


Different ventilation strategies have been suggested in the past in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Airway pressure monitoring alone is inadequate to assure optimal ventilatory support in ARDS patients. The assessment of transpulmonary pressure (PTP) can help clinicians to tailor mechanical ventilation to the individual patient needs. Transpulmonary pressure monitoring, defined as airway pressure (Paw) minus intrathoracic pressure (ITP), provides essential information about chest wall mechanics and its effects on the respiratory system and lung mechanics. The positioning of an esophageal catheter is required to measure the esophageal pressure (Peso), which is clinically used as a surrogate for ITP or pleural pressure (Ppl), and calculates the transpulmonary pressure. The benefits of such a ventilation approach are avoiding excessive lung stress and individualizing the positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) setting. The aim is to prevent over-distention of alveoli and the cyclic recruitment/derecruitment or shear stress of lung parenchyma, mechanisms associated with ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). Knowledge of the real lung distending pressure, i.e. the transpulmonary pressure, has shown to be useful in both controlled and assisted mechanical ventilation. In the latter ventilator modes, Peso measurement allows one to assess a patient's respiratory effort, patient-ventilator asynchrony, intrinsic PEEP and the calculation of work of breathing. Conditions that have an impact on Peso, such as abdominal hypertension, will also be discussed briefly.


Three alternative Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) scenarios and a targeted Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) scenario were analyzed using the Basic Linked System (BLS) of applied general equilibrium models to project their likely economic impacts on the agriculture sector of the United States. The programs are proposed as means of reducing carbon emissions from agriculture. The CRP scenarios each reflect different assumptions about the size of future programs and alternative uses of CRP land. Specifically, two alternative proposals--a 40 million acre CRP and a 50 million acre CRP--are compared with a baseline scenario consisting of a 17.5 million acre CRP, considered a likely outcome after current contracts expire. The results of the model give the economic impacts of the two larger CRP proposals relative to the 17.5 million acre baseline over the period 1996-2030. A 5 million acre WRP targeted to bottomland capable of supporting hardwood tree growth is run in conjunction with the baseline CRP and the results are compared with those obtained under the baseline alone. Among the impacts presented are changes in U.S. agricultural production, consumption, acres, yields, producer and consumer prices, government program costs, and net farm income for crop and livestock production. Impacts on producers, consumers, and government expenditures are presented in the summary table. Overall, the results are as one would expect. In the CRP scenarios, acreage planted and production of major crops is lower under the larger programs and producer prices are concomitantly higher. Feed grains are most significantly affected, causing feed prices to be higher under the larger CRP scenarios. Livestock production is generally lower under the larger programs, reflecting higher feed costs. Per capita consumption of most commodities changes only slightly, although consumption of grain products and most meat fall by 1 to 2.5 percent after the programs have been fully implemented. Producer net returns increase for crop producers, but are significantly lower for livestock producers. Government price support payments to crop producers fall by more than the cost of the programs. The programs lower overall net farm income and make consumers generally worse off with slightly lower consumption and higher retail prices. Similar but less dramatic results are obtained when the WRP scenario is added to the CRP baseline. The decline in overall economic welfare due to these programs will have to be balanced against the benefits of carbon emission reductions from them.


Americans (individualists) and Japanese (collectivists) were asked to rate their conflict experiences in terms of goal orientation, goal attainment, tactics, and outcome satisfaction. Individualists preferred assertive tactics, whereas collectivists preferred avoidance tactics. The results regarding goal orientation showed that individualists were strongly oriented toward achieving justice, but collectivists were more motivated by a concern for relationships with others. The finding that attainment of a justice goal did not strongly satisfy the Americans suggests that justice is an instrumental value and not a terminal value in conflict situations.


When operating in stochastic, partially observable, multiagent settings, it is crucial to accurately predict the actions of other agents. In my thesis work, I propose methodologies for learning the policy of external agents from their observed behavior, in the form of finite state controllers. To perform this task, I adopt Bayesian learning algorithms based on nonparametric prior distributions, that provide the flexibility required to infer models of unknown complexity. These methods are to be embedded in decision making frameworks for autonomous planning in partially observable multiagent systems.


This paper relies on the economics of transaction costs to assess the likely effect on investor welfare of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) prohibition on an innovative business practice known as directed brokerage. Its key insight is that the quality of a broker's execution of portfolio trades is difficult for a mutual fund adviser to assess until it is too late - that is, execution quality is an experience good. In the meantime, low-quality brokerage can substantially reduce investor returns. To have the incentive to provide high-quality execution, a broker must expect to receive a stream of premium portfolio commissions in excess of his execution costs, much along the lines of a Klein-Leffler quality-assuring price premium. Competition between brokers for premium commissions leads them to post a performance bond with advisers equal to the present value of the expected premium stream. With directed brokerage, the bond takes the form of up-front broker effort devoted to marketing the fund's retail shares. Once having posted the bond, any broker that provides low-quality execution will eventually be terminated by the adviser and lose the premium stream that provides a normal return on the up-front bond. Low-quality brokerage is thus screened out. Contrary to its intended effect, the SEC's prohibition on directed brokerage likely reduces investor welfare by failing to recognize the problems inherent in transacting experience goods.