Verticillium wilt, caused by Verticillium nonalfalfae and V. dahliae, is a devastating disease in hops that can cause considerable economic crop losses. The perennial use of hops combined with the long persistence of the pathogen in soil make it difficult to suppress the disease with conventional measures. Biological control agents (BCA) are the basis of an environmentally friendly plant protection strategy that uses plant promotion and antagonistic effects of microorganisms. We evaluated the effect of four selected beneficial bacterial strains, Burkholderia terricola ZR2-12, Pseudomonas poae RE*1-1-14, Serratia plymuthica 3Re4-18, and Stenotrophomonas rhizophila DSM14405T for their use in hops. All strains were shown to be both rhizosphere and endorhiza competent, and their abundances ranged from log10 3.0 to log10 6.2 CFU g−1 root fresh weight in the endorhiza and from log10 2.9 to log10 4.7 CFU g−1 root fresh weight in the rhizosphere with B. terricola ZR2-12 showing the highest overall cell densities. Microscopic visualization of DsRed-labeled transformants with confocal laser scanning microscopy showed different colonization patterns and confirmed the rhizosphere competence. Growth promoting effects on seedlings treated with bacteria were found for S. plymuthica 3Re4-18 and S. rhizophila DSM14405T. Competent colonization and plant growth promoting effects are the most important prerequisites towards efficient biocontrol.


The dissemination and the reach of scientific knowledge have increased at a blistering pace. In this context, e-print servers have played a central role by providing scientists with a rapid and open mechanism for disseminating research without having to wait for the (lengthy) peer-review process. While helping the scientific community in several ways, e-print servers also provide scientific communicators and the general public with access to a wealth of knowledge without having to pay hefty subscription fees. Arguably, e-print servers' value has never been so evident, for better or worse, as during the COVID-19 pandemic. This motivates us to study how e-print servers are positioned within the greater Web, and how they are "used" on Web communities. Using data from Reddit (2005–2021) and 4chan's Politically Incorrect board (2016–2021), we uncover a surprisingly diverse set of communities discussing e-print papers. We find that real-world events and distinct factors influence the e-prints people are talking about. For instance, there was a sudden increase in the discussion of e-prints, corresponding to a surge in COVID-19 related research, in the first phase of the pandemic. We find a substantial difference in the conversation around e-prints and their actual content; in fact, e-prints are often being exploited to further conspiracy theories and/or extremist ideology. Overall, our work further highlights the need to quickly and effectively validate non peer-reviewed e-prints that get substantial press/social media coverage, as well as mitigate wrongful interpretations of scientific outputs.


In this paper, inequalities of integer hull polyhedrons are used in mixed integer linear programming (MILP) to model the behavior of combinational subsys- tems, introducing a new solution for the satisfiability (SAT) problem at register transfer level (RTL). Since in these models the vertexes are located at integer positions, they can be used with linear programming (LP) to solve SAT problems. Unfortunately, when combining together several models to make up a compound RTL description, internal vertexes may appear forcing to declare one or more vari- ables as integer. However, the use of these models inside an RTL SAT problem reduces the number of branches needed to solve the whole integer problem. Results show a CPU solution time reduction greater than one order of magni- tude, growing with the size of the problem.


The nonlinear behavior of the deterministic equations that describe the optical feedback system is investigated. An analytic expression for the amplitude of the self-pulsations that occur when the relaxation oscillations (RO's) become undamped is derived and compared with numerical results. For small amplitudes a square-root law, which is typical for Hopf bifurcations, is found. For increased feedback levels a second Hopf bifurcation occurs, and a frequency related to the second type of RO predicted by the small-signal analysis of part I [ J. Opt. Soc. Am. B10, 130 ( 1993)] emerges. Frequency-locked and quasi-periodic solutions arise. The occurrence of a third frequency is a precursor of chaotic motion. The transition to chaos is determined by a switching between two unstable attractors.


Proportional hospital accession ratios for equine ocular/adnexal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were determined for 14 colleges of veterinary medicine participating in the Veterinary Medical Data Program between January 1978 and December 1986. Comparison of the ratios with their respective geographical, physical data has shown an increased prevalence of SCC with an increase in longitude, altitude, or mean annual solar radiation. In contrast, prevalence of SCC increased with a decrease in latitude. Between January 1978 and December 1988, 147 horses with ocular/adnexal SCC were admitted to the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Diagnosis was confirmed by histologic examination of appropriate tissue specimens. Medical records provided information regarding month and year of admission and diagnosis, age at diagnosis, breed, gender, and hair color. Comparison with a randomly selected hospital control population revealed an increased prevalence of ocular/adnexal SCC with an increase in age (P less than 0.001). Compared with Quarter Horses, draft breeds (Belgian, Clydesdale, and Shire) and Appaloosas had a significantly (P less than 0.001) greater prevalence of ocular/adnexal SCC. Sexually intact males and females were significantly (P less than 0.001) less likely (5 and 2 times, respectively) to have ocular/adnexal SCC when compared with castrated males. The prevalence of ocular/adnexal SCC was significantly greater for all hair colors when compared with bay, brown, or black (P less than 0.01).


A composite of polytriphenylamine (PTPAn) and multiwalled carbon nanotube (CNT) was prepared and tested as a cathode material in the Li-ion battery. To research the crucial role and effect of CNT in the above composite electrode, a comparing cathode of PTPAn mechanically mixed with super-p carbon was prepared and tested in the similar Li-ion batteries. The results indicate that due to good resiliency and loosing structure of the composite, PTPAn/CNT composite cathode exhibits lower charge transfer resistance (Rct), higher discharge capacity and cycle stability than those of PTPAn+super-p electrode.


Context. We present a new primary transit observation of the hot-jupiter HD 189733b, obtained at 3.6 μm with the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) onboard the Spitzer Space Telescope. Previous measurements at 3.6 microns suffered from strong systematics, and conclusions could hardly be obtained with confidence on the water detection by comparison of the 3.6 and 5.8 microns observations. Aims. We aim at constraining the atmospheric structure and composition of the planet and improving previously derived parameters. Methods. We use a high-S/N Spitzer photometric transit light curve to improve the precision of the near infrared radius of the planet at 3.6 μm. The observation has been performed using high-cadence time series integrated in the subarray mode. We are able to derive accurate system parameters, including planet-to-star radius ratio, impact parameter, scale of the system, and central time of the transit from the fits of the transit light curve. We compare the results with transmission spectroscopic models and with results from previous observations at the same wavelength. Results. We obtained the following system parameters of Rp/R = 0.15566+0.00011 −0.00024, b = 0.661 +0.0053 −0.0050, and a/R = 8.925 +0.0490 −0.0523 at 3.6 μm. These measurements are three times more accurate than previous studies at this wavelength because they benefit from greater observational efficiency and less statistic and systematic errors. Nonetheless, we find that the radius ratio has to be corrected for stellar activity and present a method to do so using ground-based long-duration photometric follow-up in the V-band. The resulting planet-to-star radius ratio corrected for the stellar variability agrees with our previous measurement obtained in the same bandpass. We also discuss that water vapour could not be detected by a comparison of the planetary radius measured at 3.6 and 5.8 μm, because the radius measured at 3.6 μm is affected by absorption by other species, possibly Rayleigh scattering by haze.


Recent research provides evidence for the presence of emergent semantics in collaborative tagging systems. While several methods have been proposed, little is known about the factors that influence the evolution of semantic structures in these systems. A natural hypothesis is that the quality of the emergent semantics depends on the pragmatics of tagging: Users with certain usage patterns might contribute more to the resulting semantics than others. In this work, we propose several measures which enable a pragmatic differentiation of taggers by their degree of contribution to emerging semantic structures. We distinguish between categorizers, who typically use a small set of tags as a replacement for hierarchical classification schemes, and describers, who are annotating resources with a wealth of freely associated, descriptive keywords. To study our hypothesis, we apply semantic similarity measures to 64 different partitions of a real-world and large-scale folksonomy containing different ratios of categorizers and describers. Our results not only show that "verbose" taggers are most useful for the emergence of tag semantics, but also that a subset containing only 40% of the most 'verbose' taggers can produce results that match and even outperform the semantic precision obtained from the whole dataset. Moreover, the results suggest that there exists a causal link between the pragmatics of tagging and resulting emergent semantics. This work is relevant for designers and analysts of tagging systems interested (i) in fostering the semantic development of their platforms, (ii) in identifying users introducing "semantic noise", and (iii) in learning ontologies.


In the United States, marijuana is one of the drugs most abused by adolescents, with females representing a growing number of users. In previous studies, treatment of adolescent female rats with morphine significantly altered brain reward systems in future offspring. As both cannabinoid and opioid systems develop during adolescence, it was hypothesized that early exposure to cannabinoids would induce similar transgenerational effects. In the current study, female rats were treated with the cannabinoid receptor (CB1/CB2) agonist WIN 55,212-2 or its vehicle for three consecutive days during adolescent development (30 days of age), and were subsequently mated in adulthood (60 days of age). The adolescent and adult male offspring of these WIN 55,212-2 (WIN-F1)or vehicle (VEH-F1)-treated females were tested for their response to morphine using the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Both adolescent and adult WIN-F1offspring exhibited greater sensitivity to morphine CPP than their VEH-F1 counterparts. Collectively, the findings provide additional evidence of transgenerational effects of adolescent drug use.


The Basel III Accord imposes minimum liquidity standards on bank balance sheets that are already constrained by minimum capital standards. It is not clear whether or how banks' behaviors will change in this new joint-constraint regime. To gain some insight, we study the balance sheet liquidity behavior of U.S. banking companies in response to negative equity capital shocks prior to the implementation of Basel III. Our 1998-2012 data indicate that banks treated regulatory capital and balance sheet liquidity (e.g., net stable funding ratios, core deposits-to-loans, liquid assets-to-assets) as substitutes rather than complements. This main finding is limited to so-called 'community banks' with assets less than $1 billion; equity capital and liquidity were neither substitutes nor complements at larger banks. In the course of rebuilding their capital ratios, shocked community banks substituted away from loans and loan commitments and reduced their dividend payouts, actions that resulted in greater balance sheet liquidity. Thus, in the state of nature that has traditionally most concerned bank regulators (i.e., stress to bank equity capital), community banks increase their liquidity buffers. Given that these lenders do not pose systemic risk, and that they have historically exceeded the Basel III liquidity minimums by wide margins, our findings suggest that imposing minimum liquidity thresholds on small banks will likely yield little prudential benefit.


Author(s): Bennett, Mia | Advisor(s): Agnew, John A; Smith, Laurence C | Abstract: At the end of the nineteenth century, the seeming unavailability of "free" land elicited declarations of the closure of the frontier. But in the twenty-first century, it seems like more frontiers are opening than ever before. The Arctic is a prime example of this trend. With climate change melting away the Arctic ice cap, multinational corporations, national governments, and indigenous corporations all see opportunities for development. Even as the polar seas and the lands around them are rapidly and unpredictably changing, plans are underway to build new infrastructure like ports along Russia's northern coast and a highway to the Arctic Ocean in Canada. More than geophysical factors, however, are motivating this infrastructure push. Political, economic, and technological drivers are leading developmental interests to seek to shorten the distance between global markets by bridging the supposed "infrastructure gaps" that exist in not only the Arctic, but also places like Central Asia, Siberia, and beyond. Using a mix of qualitative methods and remote sensing, this dissertation analyzes the scalar politics of infrastructure development in two contemporary frontiers: the Arctic and Russian Far East. This research first aims to explain how contemporary frontiers are conjured as spaces in need of development and globally articulated infrastructure by focusing on the Arctic as a regional example (Ch. 1) and the Canadian Arctic as a national example (Ch. 2). I then use two case studies to illustrate how transportation infrastructure projects are spearheaded both from within and outside frontier spaces, drawing on the cases of the indigenous Inuvialuit people and their role in lobbying for and building Canada's first highway to the Arctic Ocean (Ch. 3) and the Singaporean government's foray into Arctic development initiatives (Ch. 4). Expanding beyond traditional methods in political geography, I review advances made in using multitemporal night light imagery to study socioeconomic dynamics (Ch. 5) and apply techniques from this field to study regional development in Russia and China (Ch. 6), two countries that experienced vastly different development trajectories following the collapse of communism. Coming full circle, I consider how post-Soviet Russia, suffering from a major infrastructural deficit that is illustrated both by fieldwork and remote sensing, may be a lucrative yet precarious investment site for China's Belt and Road Initiative (Ch. 7). A central conclusion of this research is that the development of frontiers is politically and economically conditioned, locally negotiated, and cyclical rather than linear.


Abstract. Human immediate response is contextualized into different time compartments reflecting the tsunami early warning chain. Based on the different time compartments the available response time and evacuation time is quantified. The latter incorporates accessibility of safe areas determined by a hazard assessment, as well as environmental and demographic impacts on evacuation speed properties assessed using a Cost Distance Weighting GIS approach. Approximately 4.35 million Indonesians live in tsunami endangered areas on the southern coasts of Sumatra, Java and Bali and have between 20 and 150 min to reach a tsunami-safe area. Most endangered areas feature longer estimated-evacuation times and hence the population possesses a weak immediate response capability leaving them more vulnerable to being directly impacted by a tsunami. At a sub-national scale these hotspots were identified and include: the Mentawai islands off the Sumatra coast, various sub-districts on Sumatra and west and east Java. Based on the presented approach a temporal dynamic estimation of casualties and displacements as a function of available response time is obtained for the entire coastal area. As an example, a worst case tsunami scenario for Kuta (Bali) results in casualties of 25 000 with an optimal response time (direct evacuation when receiving a tsunami warning) and 120 000 for minimal response time (no evacuation). The estimated casualties correspond well to observed/reported values and overall model uncertainty is low with a standard error of 5%. The results obtained allow for prioritization of intervention measures such as early warning chain, evacuation and contingency planning, awareness and preparedness strategies down to a sub-district level and can be used in tsunami early warning decision support.


Neighborhood democracy was introduced into urban China in the early 1990s as a way to manage the social conflicts associated with the housing reform. Based on a case study of Dragon Villas, Beijing, this paper explores the causes, processes, and consequences of neighborhood democracy at the microlevel from a longitudinal perspective. Three insights are particularly noteworthy. First, the decrease in rental revenue and occupancy rate and the arrival of Chinese owner-occupiers contributed to the emergence of neighborhood democracy in Dragon Villas. Second, the establishment of a homeowner association, far from ending in the conclusion of neighborhood democratization, was only a first step. Furthermore, conflicts between the developer and the homeowners, and among homeowners, played a crucial role in lengthening the process of neighborhood democratization. Third, democratic self-governance resulted in improved governance, a more diverse built form that articulates individuation through consumption, and changes that reflect the importance of privacy and exclusivity.


Governance and civil society subjects, which acquired more importance in new ordinary settlement and which takes participation as mutual point, are mentioned in this study. The group which is taken as base in scope of evaluation is "Governance and Civil Society Commission" which is one of 16 specialization commission created by Trakya Development Agency in scope of 2014-2023 Region Plans. The commission's working progress and used methods were analyzed step by step in this study. The members in the commission are consistent of 30 individuals who served in public and civil society establishments in Edirne, Tekirdag and Kirklareli provinces which are named as Trakya Region. Besides, a moderator and a reporter worked actively during the meeting. The members made totally 4 meetings under the presidency of moderator with 2 weeks intervals on 6 circle tables as groups of 5 people in each. The region's vision, SWOT analysis, targets, strategies, activities and actions were determined under the title of governance and civil society as the result of meetings which were made on a democratic base


We report that DNA molecules can be intercalated and macroscopically oriented in the aqueous interstitia of a lyotropic lamellar liquid crystal. Using UV-vis linear dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy we show that double-stranded oligonucleotides (25 base pairs) in the water–octanoate–decanol system remain base-paired in the B conformation and are confined in two dimensions, with the helix axis preferentially parallel to the lipid bilayer surfaces but free to rotate within this plane. The degree of helix confinement and the corresponding 2-D orientation can be improved by decreasing the thickness of the water interstitia via the fraction of water in the ternary mixture. Not surprisingly, the corresponding single-stranded oligonucleotides are not aligned, with their persistence length being short in comparison to the lamellar interstitium thickness. We propose this as a model system for studying interactions of DNA–ligand complexes near a lipid bilayer membrane which we demonstrate by using dye probes that are either covalently attached to one end of the oligonucleotide or reversibly bound by intercalation between the base pairs. Three cationic dyes, all strongly bound by intercalation to DNA when free in solution, are found to not bind to DNA but to prefer the membrane surface. The covalently attached Cy5 also binds to the bilayer while Cy3 tends to end-stack to the oligonucleotide duplex. The orientation of Cy5 parallel to the membrane indicates that electrostatic surface binding predominates over insertion into the hydrophobic interior of the membrane. Anionic and zwitterionic dyes (FAM and ROX) are found to remain randomly oriented in the water between the lipid bilayer surfaces.


In this paper we describe a frequency domain data transmission method to be used for digital data transmission over analog telephone lines which exploits recently derived reduced computational complexity algorithms, such as the Winograd Fourier Transform, to achieve a significantly lower computational rate than comparable time domain QAM modems implemented digitally using signal processing techniques. In addition to the lower computational rate, the proposed method also allows for better channel bandwidth utilization by allowing optimal signal power allocation based on the channel's signal to noise versus frequency characteristics. Experimental results on this method are presented, indicating that it may be possible to send over 10,000 BPS over an unconditioned telephone line while maintaining a 10-5BER.


The extracellular matrix (ECM) provides a natural network of intricate nanofibres that supports cells and presents a multidimensional map that guides cellular behaviour. Three dimensional nanofibre constructs offer the ability to mimic the topographical environment of the ECM. Here we synthesise nanostructured constructs using catalytic chemical vapour deposition (CCVD) techniques to grow multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on quartz substrates by injecting a ferrocene and toluene solution into a reaction furnace. Nanotube diameters were varied to assess the effects on cellular responses. Human osteoblastic cells (SaOs-2) were cultured on the MWCNT constructs and compared to a control based on flat highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surfaces to investigate cellular attachment, cell metabolic activity, and construct cytocompatibility. Scanning electron microscopy and immunofluorescent staining for actin and vinculin proteins were used to investigate osteoblastic cell attachment and morphology, whilst cell metabolic activity and construct cytocompatibility were assessed for up to 7 days using standard 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-tetrazolium bromide and lactate dehydrogenase assays, respectively. The study demonstrates that cells attach and survive on the MWCNT constructs, with higher metabolic activity on the MWCNT constructs compared to control surfaces and metabolic activity negatively correlating with nanotube diameter. The SaOs-2 cells maintained a spherical morphology on the MWCNT constructs and displayed a disorganised actin cytoskeleton compared with the well-spread SaOs-2 cells cultured on the control surfaces. The MWCNT constructs provide a simple, yet effective, model system with which to develop a better understanding of cell responses to nanofibrous geometries relevant to tissue engineering.


In recent years there has been a growing interest in the use of partnering in
construction. Since partnering is seen as changing behaviours and
attitudes, cultural transformation cannot be forgotten in the process. Much
of the literature tends to presume that cultural alignment is a prerequisite
for partnering. Furthermore, the existing research fails to adequately
address the complex relationship between individual or group behaviour
and organisational culture which, nevertheless, lies at the heart of many
prescriptions for improving collaboration within the industry.
 This paper initially reviews the major cultural and behavioural challenges
and their root causes in construction partnering projects. Many
commentators place considerable emphasis upon the importance of
changing attitudes and cultural transformation to address various
challenges in construction partnering. As the first step, this paper proposes
a cultural web to understand organisational culture and to identify a
substantial range of the elements which must be managed if a strategic and
cultural change is to be successful.


Legal positivists maintain that the legality of a rule is fundamentally determined by social facts. Yet for much of legal history, ordinary officials used legal terminology in ways that seem inconsistent with positivism. Judges regularly cited, analyzed, and predicated their decisions on the 'laws of justice' which they claimed had universal legal import. This practice, though well-documented by historians, has received surprisingly little philosophical attention; I argue that it invites explanation from positivists. After taxonomizing the positivist's explanatory options, I suggest that the most viable option appeals to conceptual change: classical Romans, early modern Europeans, founding-era Americans were not using 'law' (or 'lex' or 'jus') to refer to the subject matter of contemporary legal philosophy. But the strategy is costly. It renders positivism's truth surprisingly parochial. And it supplies new reasons for doubting positivist accounts of contemporary practices, including the treatment of moral principles in modern adjudication.


Transcriptional enhancers enable exquisite spatiotemporal control of gene expression in metazoans. Enrichment of mono-methylation of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4me1) is a major chromatin signature that distinguishes enhancers from gene promoters. Lysine Specific Demethylase 1 (LSD1, aka KDM1A), an enzyme specific for demethylating H3K4me2/me1, has been shown to "decommission" stem cell enhancers during the differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC). However, the roles of LSD1 in undifferentiated mESC remain obscure. Here, we show that LSD1 occupies a large fraction of enhancers (63%) that are primed with binding of transcription factors (TFs) and H3K4me1 in mESC. In contrast, LSD1 is largely absent at latent enhancers, which are not yet primed by TF binding. Unexpectedly, LSD1 levels at enhancers exhibited a clear positive correlation with its substrate, H3K4me2 and enhancer activity. These enhancers gain additional H3K4 methylation upon the loss of LSD1 in mESC. The aberrant increase in H3K4me at enhancers was accompanied with increases in enhancer H3K27 acetylation and expression of enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) and their target genes. In post-mitotic neurons, loss of LSD1 resulted in premature activation of enhancers and genes that are normally induced after neuronal activation. These results demonstrate that LSD1 is a versatile suppressor of primed enhancers, and is involved in homeostasis of enhancer activity.


The brain vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT2) pumps monoamine neurotransmitters and Parkinsonism-inducing dopamine neurotoxins such as 1-methyl-4-phenyl-phenypyridinium (MPP+) from neuronal cytoplasm into synaptic vesicles, from which amphetamines cause their release. Amphetamines and MPP+ each also act at nonvesicular sites, providing current uncertainties about the contributions of vesicular actions to their in vivo effects. To assess vesicular contributions to amphetamine-induced locomotion, amphetamine-induced reward, and sequestration and resistance to dopaminergic neurotoxins, we have constructed transgenic VMAT2 knockout mice. Heterozygous VMAT2 knockouts are viable into adult life and display VMAT2 levels one-half that of wild-type values, accompanied by smaller changes in monoaminergic markers, heart rate, and blood pressure. Weight gain, fertility, habituation, passive avoidance, and locomotor activities are similar to wild-type littermates. In these heterozygotes, amphetamine produces enhanced locomotion but diminished behavioral reward, as measured by conditioned place preference. Administration of the MPP+ precursor N-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine to heterozygotes produces more than twice the dopamine cell losses found in wild-type mice. These mice provide novel information about the contributions of synaptic vesicular actions of monoaminergic drugs and neurotoxins and suggest that intact synaptic vesicle function may contribute more to amphetamine-conditioned reward than to amphetamine-induced locomotion.


Infants who are born with HIV/AIDS is still a public health concern in developing countries, especially in Sub Saharan Africa. In Namibia, it is estimated that the prevalence rate of HIV pregnant women is around 17.2%, makes it to be among the countries with the highest prevalence rates among HIV women in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Some improvement regarding Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission has been made, however, frequent stock out of Nevirapine syrup continues to slow down, government efforts to foster the emergence of an HIV-free generation of Namibians. Given the nature of current conditions, justification exists for a study to determine the factors associated with stock out of Nevirapine (NVP) syrup.Mixed method was employed. In which descriptive approach was employed to acquire data from a period of five years retrospectively (2012-2016) and informants from different levels of supply chain in Oshana region. Initial, order receiving is not a predictor of NVP syrup. Lack of pharmaceutical knowledge is the biggest challenge which leads to sporadic stock out of NVP syrup. Pharmaceutical knowledge of ordering NVP syrup is needed to prevent stock out of NVP syrup. It is a recommendation of this study that training is needed for staffs who are involved in ordering of pharmaceutical items.


Today's information systems engineering involves large number of stakeholders, wide geographical distribution and wide range of tools. Success in system engi-neering depends on effective human communication. Early understanding and modelling of the problem domain is a key to manage large scale systems and pro-jects. This requires stakeholders to reach a certain level of shared interpretation of the domain referred throughout the developmentWe propose a method for semantics driven change impact assessment. In our method, first a collaborative problem analysis is conducted. The problem analysis results in an agreed and committed common understanding of the prob-lem domain, expressed in a conceptual domain model. The constructed concep-tual domain-specific model is then actively used as a communication medium, e.g., to abstract development objects from representation format in order to expli-cate their semantics. Stakeholders browse the domain model and interactively as-sociate to product fragments by selecting concept clusters that best describe the contents (intended meaning) of the product fragments.Associations of the development objects with concepts from domain model, as well as the domain model itself constitute the basis for change impact assess-ment throughout the development. Every revision of a development object in-vokes change impact notifications that are either confirmed or rejected. Accumu-lated statistics are used to refine associations via the domain model to the direct dependency links among development objects.The method has been implemented in a prototype system CO2SY and has been evaluated in an experiment, where a set of test users has been provided with a problem domain description including a domain model and a set of develop-ment objects. The experiment was based on two real world cases. Users were asked to perform tasks using the prototype and two comparative tools. The method and prototype have been evaluated with respect to actual performance and users perceptions. The result shows actual effectiveness, perceived ease of use and usefulness comparing to other tools used in the experiment, as well as intention of the subjects to use the method in future.A discussion of future research directions and possible revisions of the method concludes the thesis.


This report presents the findings of an in-depth literature review on protective relaying. The project focuses on protection system practices which are relevant to transmission-level applications. Various implementations of differential, phase distance and ground distance relays were investigated and ultimately modeled in the Matlab Simulink environment. A further model for a saturable iron-core current transformer was also investigated and developed. These models were tested to ensure compliance with expected results.

The developed relay and current transformer models are used to complete a detailed protection design for a sample power system. A small 230kV bulk-power transmission system is presented and modeled in the Simulink environment. A fault study is completed and current transformers are specified in accordance with IEEE standards. Bus and line protections are selected from the various implementations discussed in the report. The settings for all protection relays are developed in detail based on system analysis and the expert guidelines obtained from a wide literature review. The resulting protection design was tested in a systematic fashion and demonstrated to be effective.


Improved methods for evaluation and quantification of the three-dimensional (3D) architecture of bone are needed in order to more fully understand the role of trabecular architecture in bone strength. Computed tomography (microCT) is capable of examining bone at resolutions below 30 microm (isotropic), with collection of a three-dimensional data set which can then be subjected to image analysis. In this paper, we discuss automated methods for important steps in this analysis, including methods for (1) segmenting the image into bone and background; (2) defining the volume of interest for determination of structural parameters; and (3) segmenting the bone into trabecular and cortical components. Evaluation of bone structure using these techniques provides new information about the 3D architecture of bone tissue, and may be useful for evaluation of structural changes in bone caused by aging, disease, or drug treatment.


A novel switching-frequency control method for regulated one-switch boost rectifiers operating at the boundary of discontinuous and continuous conduction modes is presented in this paper. To obtain a source current with the least amount of low-order harmonics, the duty cycle within a switching period is proportional to the ratio of the instantaneous value of the source voltage to the output voltage. According to the voltage gain analysis, the output voltage can be regulated by adjusting the switching frequency. Small-signal modeling is performed to facilitate the design process. The proposed control scheme features advantages such as higher input power factor and higher regulated output voltage compared to the traditional discontinuous conduction control with a fixed switching frequency and a constant duty cycle. Any well-developed commercial pulsewidth-modulation control integrated circuit can be adopted with only a minor modification. Experimental results show good conformation with the theoretical analysis


ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of a survey of human resource (HR) activity in 78 micro enterprises (firms with 10 or fewer employees). The findings indicate that micro enterprises practice a wide variety of HR activities in-house with little outsourcing. Limited organizational support is provided in terms of HR personnel and formal HR practices. HR practitioners in this study have had significant experience, but limited formal HR education. Respondents have average perceptions of their ability to perform HR functions, and prefer short seminars and webbased instruction to gain additional HR expertise. INTRODUCTION Nowhere has the economic impact of entrepreneurial activity been realized more than in the creation of new jobs (Deshpande & Golhar, 1994; Heneman, 2000; Homsby & Kuratko, 1990; Katz, Aldrich, Welbourne, & Williams, 2000; Reynolds, Hay, & Camp, 1999). In the United States, it is estimated that small business accounts for 51% of the private gross domestic product and that the majority of America's employers are by far small businesses (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2001). Indeed, the most recent data demonstrates that over 99% of the country's employers are small businesses, and that they employ more than half of the private workforce (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2002). Small companies created 76.5% of net new jobs from 1990 to 1995 and 75.8% of net new jobs from 1996 to 1997 (case, 2001). Furthermore, micro enterprises (defined for this study as firms with 10 or fewer employees) comprise 78.8% of all employing firms and engage 16.8% of the workforce (Headd, 2000). Small business is considered a vital stimulus for growth and development, providing millions of jobs, a variety of goods and services, and a general increase in national prosperity and competitiveness (Zahra, 1999). Growing employment in small business has led to the recognition of the importance of human resources (HR) management by both practitioners and academicians. Audretsch and Thurik (2000) note that the trend toward smaller firms, coupled with the importance of the "knowledge based" economy, has highlighted the need for effective HR practices to attract and retain quality employees. Deshpande and Golhar (1994) suggest that inadequate and inefficient HR management often results in lower productivity and higher dissatisfaction, as well as increased turnover among employees. The personnel selected ultimately determine the heights to which the company can climb or the depths to which it can plunge (Scarborough & Zimmer, 2000). Hornsby and Kuratko (1990) recommend that the practice of effective HR management needs to be developed and improved if small business expects to expand and grow. In addition, research indicates that managers of small firms have ranked HR management as the second most critical management activity, superseded in importance only by general management activities (Hornsby & Kuratko, 1990). Further, Deshpande and Golhar (1994) reported that small firms identified selection and retention of a quality workforce as their most important HR management issue. Research concerning small business has shown that a variety of differences exist between small businesses and larger firms regarding the sophistication, perspectives, and expectations of HR management practices. For example, research generally indicates that HR practices in small businesses are less sophisticated than those of sizable firms (de Kok, Uhlaner & Thurik, 2002; Deshpande & Golhar, 1994; Gibb, 1997; Heneman, 2000; Hornsby & Kuratko, 1990; Katz et al., 2000). Hornsby and Kuratko (1990) discovered that it is not unusual for the owner of a small business to manage its HR functions personally since the owner usually has limited resources. Typically, traditional HR activities in more significant enterprises focus on matching the knowledge, skills, and ability of the person to the job requirements, while small businesses are more concerned with finding employees they believe are a match with the founder's vision and have organizational fit (Heneman, 2000). …


Grand Valley State University's Sustainable Agriculture Project – often abbreviated to the SAP – grows a wide variety of produce while teaching students about environmental and social issues surrounding food. However, the GVSU student body is generally unaware of the SAP's purpose or existence. In addition, the food being grown at the SAP does not always end up in the hands of students, while at the same time many students have difficulties affording healthy foods. We sought to find a solution to all of these problems. Through multiple brainstorming processes and consultations with various stakeholders, we were able to create the structure for a workshare program, which would allow students to work at the SAP in exchange for food each week. We finalized an official workshare application and multiple advertising materials. While we are faced with some limitations for this work, such as the implementation of the workshare program being dependent on the SAP team, our hope and mission is that our material is strong and thorough so that this workshare may create a positive change for years to come. Future work to be considered includes posting the advertising materials and adapting the program as it continues to grow.


Rational drug design requires a deep understanding of protein interactions, both in terms of the structural mechanisms that regulate binding of individual molecules and the broader, pathway- and cell-level effects of disrupting protein interaction networks. This thesis presents work that stems from these ideas, discussing contributions to a number of current challenges in the field of drug discovery. First, we describe how structural flexibility is leveraged by 'selectively promiscuous' protein interfaces – enabling them to bind specifically to several distinctly shaped ligands. Taking PD-1 as a case study, we demonstrate using molecular dynamics simulations how the flexible receptor interface recognizes conserved 'trigger' motifs on its cognate ligands' interfaces. Trigger interactions, which we show are also exploited by a recent blockbuster PD-1 inhibitor, drive the initial steps of an induced-fit binding pathway that then 'splits' into distinct, ligand-specific bound states. Second, we present a hybrid genomic and structural pipeline for genome-scale identification of protein targets for bioactive compounds. We train a random forest classifier to predict compound-target interactions from compound treatment and gene knockdown gene expression signatures in multiple cell types. Refining genomic predictions with a structure-based screen, we achieve top-10/top-100 target prediction accuracies of 26%/41%, respectively, on a validation set of 152 FDA-approved drugs, and validate previously unknown small molecule modulators of HRAS, KRAS, CHIP, and PDK1. Third, we present a strategy that combines transcriptomic and structural analyses with single-cell microscopy to predict small molecule inhibitors of TNF-induced NF-kB signaling and elucidate the network response. Validating two novel pathway inhibitors that disrupt the protein network upstream of IKK and NF-kB, our findings suggest that a network-centric drug discovery approach is a promising strategy to evaluate the impact of pharmacologic intervention in signaling. Last, we introduce DrugQuery (DQ), a structure-based public web server for small molecule target prediction. DQ docks user-submitted small molecules against a target library of 7957 predicted binding sites on 1245 human proteins. The server achieved a top-decile target prediction accuracy of 68% on a validation set of 95 FDA-approved drugs and 86% on a validation set of 102 FXR-binding compounds from the 2017 D3R Grand Challenge 2.


A planar antenna RF plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition apparatus was built for carbon nanostructure syntheses. When operated in inductive and capacitive plasma discharging modes, two carbon nanostructures, carbon nanotube (CNT) and carbon nanosheet (CNS), were synthesized, respectively. A nanosphere lithography method was developed and used to prepare catalyst patterns for CNT growth. Using capacitively coupled C2H2/NH3 plasma, randomly oriented CNT were synthesized on Ni dot patterned Si substrates. Aligned CNT arrays were grown on SiC>2 coated Si substrates, using both C2H2/NH3 and CH4/H2 capacitive plasmas. When operated in inductive coupling mode, CNS were successfully deposited on a variety of substrates without any catalyst. Carbon nanosheets are a novel twodimensional structure, have smooth surface morphologies and atomically thin edges, and are free-standing roughly vertical to substrate surfaces. CNS have a defective graphitic crystalline structure, and contain only C and H elements. Typical CNS growth parameters are 680 °C substrate temperature, 40% CH4 in H2 , 900 W RF power, and 100 mTorr total gas pressure. Morphology, growth rate, and structure of CNS change with the variations in the growth parameters. Increasing substrate temperature yields a less smooth morphology, a faster growth rate, and more defects in CNS; increasing CH4 concentration causes a faster growth rate and more defects in CNS, but only slightly changes the morphology; increasing RF power results in a more smooth morphology, a faster growth rate, and less defects in CNS; and decreasing total gas pressure induces a less smooth morphology, a faster growth rate, and more defects in CNS. In CNS growth mechanism, a base layer forms underneath the vertical sheets; the growth of CNS is through growth species surface diffusion; the electric field near substrate surfaces promotes and keeps the vertical orientation of the CNS, and the atomic hydrogen etching keeps the CNS atomically thin. Carbon nanosheets have large surface areas, and can stabilize metal thin films into particles 3-5 nm in diameters. For field emission testing, typical CNS have tum-on fields of 5-10 V/pm, a maximum emission current of 28 mA, an emission current density of 2 mA/mm2, and a life-time of 200 hours.


Antimicrobial peptides constitute one of the most promising alternatives to antibiotics since they could be used to treat bacterial infections, especially those caused by multidrug-resistant pathogens. Many antimicrobial peptides, with various activity spectra and mechanisms of actions, have been described. This review focuses on their use against ESKAPE bacteria, especially in biofilm treatments, their synergistic activity, and their application as prophylactic agents. Limitations and challenges restricting therapeutic applications are highlighted, and solutions for each challenge are evaluated to analyze whether antimicrobial peptides could replace antibiotics in the near future.


Recently, we reported significantly improved spatial resolution in scanning spreading resistance microscopy (SSRM) by measuring in a vacuum. In this paper, we demonstrate the 1-nm spatial resolution of SSRM in carrier profiling by comparing with the 3-D device simulation. The simulation results show that the accuracy of ultrashallow-junction delineation depends on the effective radius of the probe. The precisely measured junction depth corresponds to an effective probe radius of 0.5 nm. We attribute the high resolution to the elimination of parasitic resistances of the whole measuring circuit. Application to failure analysis of n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors clarified the impact of halo-carrier profiles on Vth-roll-off characteristics.


The first record of the little sleeper shark, Somniosus rostratus (Risso, 1827), from the Tunisian coast, is presented in this note. It was an adult female measuring 990 mm total length and weighing 4500 g. The capture occurred off Ras Jebel located in north-eastern Tunisia at a depth of 120 m. The specimen is herein described including morphological measurements, color, and dental formula. Due to a lack of records, the real status of the species in the Mediterranean Sea remains questionable. Somniosus rostratus is rarely caught in this sea because it lives in deep bottoms poorly exploited by commercial vessels. However, recent captures of specimens and occurrence of nursery grounds suggest that a viable population of S. rostratus is probably established in this sea.


Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection remains a global health problem affecting many lives especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The push by the global community towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support has enabled millions of individuals to start on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource-limited settings. However, there is concern that widespread antiretroviral use could lead to widespread drug resistance. Suboptimal adherence leading to incomplete viral suppression is the primary predictor of HIV drug resistance. Concerns have been raised about the ability of patients in resource-limited settings to maintain the high level of adherence required to produce adequate viral suppression and hence prevent the emergence of resistant strains of HIV. The cost of antiretroviral medications is the most frequently cited barrier to adherence in resource-limited settings. Even with the recent substantial reductions in drug prices, many patients cannot afford to sustain their therapy over time. Generic antiretroviral medications (ARVs) today form the backbone of first-line regimens in developing countries. However, there are limited data on the bioavailability and bioequivalence of generic ARVs with branded pharmaceutical equivalents. While substantial effort has been put into increasing access to ART in resource-limited settings, less attention has been paid to the responsibilities of governments and international agencies to address the threat of substandard and counterfeit ARVs. The prevalence of counterfeit ARVs in resource-limited settings is not known. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is a commonly used instrument to measure depressive symptoms in HIV-infected populations in SSA but it has never be validated in these populationsThis dissertation is an attempt to address some of the critical issues associated with administration of ART in resource-limited settings. I explored the issues of adherence to HIV medications and ARV drug quality using data collected from patients participating in three prospective cohort studies and one cross sectional study conducted in two different HIV-infected populations in Uganda between September 2002 and December 2006. Specifically, I assessed i) the effect of source of payment for ARVs (no cost vs. self-pay) on adherence; ii) the impact on adherence of treating all HIV-infected members in a household; iii) the psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) when used in an HIV-infected population, and iv) the bioequivalence of a fixed dose combination generic drug (Triomune®) with the brand name pharmaceutical equivalents (Zerit®/Epivir®/Viramune®). Patients receiving no cost ART had 3.8 percentage points higher adherence than those patients paying for their treatment. Excellent adherence was observed when all household members infected with HIV were treated, however adherence declined over time. Depression was associated with poor adherence. The BDI had good psychometric properties with Cronbach's alpha of 0.79 and the expected a posteriori reliability coefficient (EAP) of 0.86. Comparing generic and brandname ARVs, we found that the generic formulation was not statistically bioequivalent to the brand formulations during steady state, although exposures were comparable. Fifty percent of the total variability in maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) and the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) was due to between-subject variability. These results suggest that removing a financial barrier to treatment with ART by providing no cost HIV treatment may significantly improve adherence to ART. Our results also indicate that providing free ART to all eligible members in a household is associated with excellent adherence in both parents and children. Adherence to ART among new parents declines over time, even when patients receive treatment at no cost. Depression should be addressed as a potential adherence barrier. These findings support the use of the BDI-II in assessing depressive symptoms for HIV-infected patients in sub-Saharan Africa, especially women. Finally, these findings provide support for the use of Triomune in resource-limited settings, although identification of the sources of between-subject variability in AUC and Cmax in these populations is critical.


Temporal lobe epilepsy is a neuropsychiatric condition that can present with many psychiatric symptoms. Patients suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy may experience many cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems between episodes leading to a need for specificialized treatment. Psychiatric symptoms were seen in temporal lobe epileptic seizures more than other types of seizures. However, there are very limited data in the literature about manic stage symptoms in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. In this report, we present a case with temporal lobe epilepsy and review of literature on the topic. The patient has been receieving treatment for 35 years and suffering from manic episodes that occurs after epileptic seizures forlast 10 years.


High stranding frequency of porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, along the Dutch coast since 2006 has led to increased interest in the ecology of porpoises in the North Sea. Stranded porpoises were collected along the Dutch coast (2006–2008) and their diet was assessed through stomach content and stable isotope analysis (d13C and d15N) of porpoise muscle and prey. Stable isotope analysis (SIAR) was used to estimate the contribution of prey species to the porpoises' diet. This was compared to prey composition from stomach contents, to analyze differences between long- and short-term diet. According to stomach contents, 90.5% of the diet consisted of gobies, whiting, lesser sandeel, herring, cod, and sprat. Stable isotope analysis revealed that 70-83% of the diet consisted of poor cod, mackerel, greater sandeel, lesser sandeel, sprat, and gobies, highlighting a higher importance of pelagic, schooling species in the porpoises' diet compared to stomach contents. This could be due to prey distribution as well as differences in behavior of porpoises and prey between the coastal zone and offshore waters. This study supports the need for multi-method approaches. Future ecological and fishery impact assessment studies and management decisions for porpoise conservation should acknowledge this difference between the long- and short-term diet. High stranding frequency of porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, along the Dutch coast since 2006 has led to increased interest in the ecology of porpoises in the North Sea. Stranded porpoises were collected along the Dutch coast (2006–2008) and their diet was assessed through stomach content and stable isotope analysis (d13C and d15N) of porpoise muscle and prey. Stable isotope analysis (SIAR) was used to estimate the contribution of prey species to the porpoises' diet. This was compared to prey composition from stomach contents, to analyze differences between long- and short-term diet. According to stomach contents, 90.5% of the diet consisted of gobies, whiting, lesser sandeel, herring, cod, and sprat. Stable isotope analysis revealed that 70-83% of the diet consisted of poor cod, mackerel, greater sandeel, lesser sandeel, sprat, and gobies, highlighting a higher importance of pelagic, schooling species in the porpoises' diet compared to stomach contents. This could be due to prey distribution as well as differences in behavior of porpoises and prey between the coastal zone and offshore waters. This study supports the need for multi-method approaches. Future ecological and fishery impact assessment studies and management decisions for porpoise conservation should acknowledge this difference between the long- and short-term diet.


Theart of three-dimensional (3D) cell culture is to place cells in an environmentthat facilitates their differentiation into physiologically relevant tissues.The mammary gland was the original model for the development of 3D cellculture. With simple microphysiological systems for this model relying on thepresence of extracellular matrix (ECM) components, we initially showed thatnormal differentiation, illustrated by the formation of a basoapical polarityaxis and cell quiescence, relied on a specific organization of the cellnucleus, including the epigenome, itself under the control of the ECMmicroenvironment. To further explore microenvironment-nucleus interaction, werecently developed two organ-on-a-chip systems. The disease-on-a-chip was used tostudy mechanical influence by creating a model of ductal environment made ofcarved hemichannels. It revealed that the curvature of hemichannels directsnuclear morphometry to such an extent that tumors growing inside this geometry(as they do in vivo ) display distinct sensitivity to anticancer drugs.These findings shed light on previous observation that the expression ofproteins involved in anticancer drug response correlate with nuclearmorphometry and highlight the importance of choosing the appropriate 3D cellculture system for in vitro preclinical screening of drugs. Thegradient-on-a-chip was used to create, via microfluidics, a range ofextracellular concentrations of soluble components within the same culturechamber. With this system, it became apparent that oxidizing molecules presentin the ECM of cancers and suspected to contribute to progression and resistanceto treatment, have an influence on nuclear morphometric features recognized asa sign of aggressiveness; however, oxidizer concentration-mediated phenotypicswitch depends on ECM stiffness. These findings suggest that tissueheterogeneity characterizing cancers is directed by competitive and synergisticinfluences among extracellular factors controlling cell phenotype via an impacton the cell nucleus.


Author(s) of this paper may load this reprint on their own web site provided that this cover page is retained. Republication of this article or its storage in electronic databases or the like is not permitted without prior permission in writing from the IUCr. A method for improving crystallographic phases is presented that is based on the preferential occurrence of certain local patterns of electron density in macromolecular electron-density maps. The method focuses on the relationship between the value of electron density at a point in the map and the pattern of density surrounding this point. Patterns of density that can be superimposed by rotation about the central point are considered equivalent. Standard templates are created from experimental or model electron-density maps by clustering and averaging local patterns of electron density. The clustering is based on correlation coef®cients after rotation to maximize the correlation. Experimental or model maps are also used to create histograms relating the value of electron density at the central point to the correlation coef®cient of the density surrounding this point with each member of the set of standard patterns. These histograms are then used to estimate the electron density at each point in a new experimental electron-density map using the pattern of electron density at points surrounding that point and the correlation coef®cient of this density to each of the set of standard templates, again after rotation to maximize the correlation. The method is strengthened by excluding any information from the point in question from both the templates and the local pattern of density in the calculation. A function based on the origin of the Patterson function is used to remove information about the electron density at the point in question from nearby electron density. This allows an estimation of the electron density at each point in a map, using only information from other points in the process. The resulting estimates of electron density are shown to have errors that are nearly independent of the errors in the original map using model data and templates calculated at a resolution of 2.6 A Ê. Owing to this independence of errors, information from the new map can be combined in a simple fashion with information from the original map to create an improved map. An iterative phase-improvement process using this approach and other applications of the image-reconstruction method are described and applied to experimental data at resolutions ranging …


The paper studies the modulational instability (MI), both theoretically and numerically, of the helicoidal spin-orbit coupled Bose-Bose mixture. An expression of the MI growth rate is found through the linear stability analysis of continuous wave, followed by a comprehensive parametric study of the MI regions, emphasizing the effects of the spin-orbit coupling, the helicoidal gauge potential, and interatomic interactions. Direct numerical simulations concur with the analytical predictions. Under suitable balance between nonlinear and dispersive effects, trains of solitonlike objects are obtained, and their behaviors are very sensitive to parameter variations. Attention is particularly paid to the impact of the left- and right-handed helicoidal spin-orbit couplings on the appearance of matter waves that have the form soliton molecules in the Bose-Bose mixture. Additionally, for qualitative support of the obtained structures, the formation of a bright solitons train is also reported numerically using two neighboring solitons subjected to a fixed phase difference. Their behavior under the action of the helicoidal spin-orbit coupling is also debated, especially when left- and right-handed helicoidal couplings are interchanged.


In the recently published Peristat study, in which perinatal mortality in the countries of the European Union is compared, the figures for The Netherlands are higher than in the other countries. These figures are based partly on civil registration data. In the countries where these civil registration data were compared with clinical records, i.e. The Netherlands, Northern Ireland and Greece, a considerable underregistration was demonstrated. In The Netherlands, prenatal screening for congenital anomalies is less prevalent than in some other European countries and paediatricians are more reluctant to resuscitate seriously immature infants. This may have some influence on perinatal mortality figures, but a more fundamental question is: are the figures from various countries, based on national civil registration and a large number of divergent clinical registration systems, comparable? This question has not been answered satisfactorily.


The purpose of this paper is to describe the changing needs of patients in long-term care facilities and their families. The argument will be made that the characteristics of residents have changed significantly with the implementation of prospective payment for hospital care of Medicare patients. In addition to the traditional nursing home resident, staff will be expected to respond to the needs of patients who are both more acutely ill and responsive to aggressive rehabilitative efforts as well as to patients who are more critically ill and near death. The implications of these changes for the social work staff of long-term care facilities will be discussed.


Local smoothing testing that is based on multivariate nonparametric regression estimation is one of the main model checking methodologies in the literature. However, relevant tests suffer from the typical curse of dimensionality resulting in slow convergence rates to their limits under the null hypotheses and less deviation from the null under alternatives. This problem leads tests to not well maintain the significance level and to be less sensitive to alternatives. In this paper, a dimension-reduction model-adaptive test is proposed for generalized linear models. The test behaves like a local smoothing test as if the model were univariate, and can be consistent against any global alternatives and can detect local alternatives distinct from the null at a fast rate that existing local smoothing tests can achieve only when the model is univariate. Simulations are carried out to examine the performance of our methodology. A real data analysis is conducted for illustration. The method can readily be extended to global smoothing methodology and other testing problems.


The realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI)'s impact on our lives is far reaching – with AI systems proliferating high-stakes domains such as healthcare, finance, mobility, law, etc., these systems must be able to explain their decision to diverse end-users comprehensibly. Yet the discourse of Explainable AI (XAI) has been predominantly focused on algorithm-centered approaches, suffering from gaps in meeting user needs and exacerbating issues of algorithmic opacity. To address these issues, researchers have called for human-centered approaches to XAI. There is a need to chart the domain and shape the discourse of XAI with reflective discussions from diverse stakeholders. The goal of this workshop is to examine how human-centered perspectives in XAI can be operationalized at the conceptual, methodological, and technical levels. Encouraging holistic (historical, sociological, and technical) approaches, we put an emphasis on "operationalizing", aiming to produce actionable frameworks, transferable evaluation methods, concrete design guidelines, and articulate a coordinated research agenda for XAI.


We propose a scalar upper bound on the capacity region of the isotropic fading vector broadcast channel in terms of the capacity region of a scalar fading broadcast channel. The scalar upper bound is applicable to the broad class of isotropic fading broadcast channels regardless of the distribution of the users' channel magnitudes, the distribution of the additive noise experienced by each user, or the amount of channel knowledge available at the receiver. Using this upper bound, we prove the optimality of the Alamouti scheme in a broadcast setting, extend the recent results on the capacity of nondegraded, fading scalar broadcast channels to nondegraded fading vector broadcast channels, and determine the capacity region of a fading vector Gaussian broadcast channel with channel magnitude feedback. We also provide an example of a Rayleigh-fading broadcast channel with no channel state information available to the receiver (CSIR), where the bound on the capacity region obtained by a naive application of the scalar upper bound is provably loose, because it fails to account for the additional loss in degrees of freedom due to lack of channel knowledge at the receiver. A tighter upper bound is obtained by separately accounting for the loss in degrees of freedom due to lack of CSIR before applying the scalar upper bound.


A recent outbreak of Rift Valley fever in East Africa has led to an export ban by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries on livestock products from Ethiopia. An evaluation of the costs of the ban on Ethiopia's main exporting region (Somali) and their distribution among different types of households, producers and traders is conducted using a standard Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. Investment strategies to regain access to the Gulf market and reduce the probability of future bans are also evaluated. Results show that Somali Region's GDP is reduced by 25% as a consequence of the ban. In addition, poor and better off producers experience total losses in value added of around 50% of their respective levels in a normal year. The evaluation of an animal health programme in the Somali Region to minimise the impact of future bans shows that its implementation is feasible and justifies further analysis focusing in the main factors driving the results. However, results of the analysis of different alternatives to charge producers for the equivalent amount of the cost of the programme show that distortions introduced by taxes and increased transaction costs affect the viability of the programme. Among these alternatives, increasing taxes on livestock sales offers the best prospect as the way to implement the health certification plan in the Somali Region given that it has pro-poor redistribution effects. (Resume d'auteur)


Long a taboo subject in Soviet historiography, the Stalinist policy toward Jews is thoroughly examined in this revealing study by one of Russia's leading historians. Sifting through thousands of recently declassified documents in the formerly secret archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the KGB, Gennadi Kostyrchenko uncovers irrefutable evidence of Stalin's intentionally anti-Semitic policy. The documents describe the suppression of all free manifestations of Jewish life, forced assimilation, and the purging of Jews from most official positions. Soviet Jews fought valiantly against fascism in World War II, yet they discovered after the war that an even greater threat confronted them at home from their national leader. Kostyrchenko documents the systematic elimination of Jews from journalism, the arts, humanities, and industry. He concludes by examining hitherto secret records of the infamous "doctors' plot" launched by Stalin just prior to his death. Out of the Red Shadows is a devastating expose of state-sponsored anti-Semitism comparable in its virulence to the Nazi reign of terror.


With increasing survival after esophagectomy for cancer, a growing number of individuals living with the functional results of a surgically altered anatomy calls for attention to the effects of delayed gastric conduit emptying (DGCE) on health-related quality of life and nutritional impairment. We here give an overview of the currently available literature on DGCE, in terms of epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnostics, prevention and treatment. Attention is given to controversies in the current literature and obstacles related to general applicability of study results, as well as knowledge gaps that may be the focus for future research initiatives. Finally, we propose that measures are taken to reach international expert agreement regarding diagnostic criteria and a symptom grading tool for DGCE, and that functional radiological methods are established for the diagnosis and severity grading of DGCE.


It was shown recently that semi-blind methods can be effective for separation, estimation, and classification of sources in wireless systems. These methods overcome difficulties of training algorithms (reduction of data information throughput) and blind ones (impossibility to classify separated source and multi-modal optimization due to nonlinearities). In this paper, we present a semi-blind spatial-temporal beamforming receiver that uses the recently proposed semi-blind constant modulus algorithm with channel identification (SBCMACI) to perform joint channel equalization, multipath energy combination and spatial interference cancellation for asynchronous direct sequence wide band code division multiple access (DS-WCDMA) systems. The simulation results show a significant performance improvement and reduction of required training symbols when compared against a receiver employing a training-based spatial-temporal recursive least squares (RLS) beamformer.


It is with deep gratitude and a profound sense of humility that I have been allowed to serve as president of the Western Surgical Association this 77th year of its existence. It is an honor that I will cherish for the rest of my life; and now, with your kind indulgence, I would like to review with you one of the more difficult problems the medical profession is facing today. In the years around 1906 there was considerable debate among members of the Los Angeles County Medical Association centered upon the raising of the annual dues of that association from $4 to $5. The increase of $1 was thought to be partially justified because one half of the $1 increase was to be ear-marked for defense of the members of the association involved in malpractice claims. In 1969, search for adequate defenses against steadily increasing claims, both in numbers and


This Article chronicles the history, structure, and contours of our "campaign finance nationalism." I use this term to describe a system in which the funding of campaigns at the federal, state, and local levels is national in scope, despite the fact that voting is not. It is a system in which everyone is free to donate to a candidate across state lines, although only a resident of the candidate's district can vote for him.

Part I contrasts our campaign finance nationalism with our voting rights federalism. The law views voting and campaigning as distinct activities, and each is governed by its own body of law. For the most part, voting is governed by state law. Since state law regulates voting differently in each state, the law of voting is emblematic of America's voting rights federalism. The law of campaigning, by contrast, is national in scope. A major portion of it involves the doctrine of free speech. Since the First Amendment applies equally to all citizens, our campaign finance system largely ignores the federalism of voting. The only participation limits that our campaign finance system sets are based on national citizenship, as "foreign nationals" are precluded from making contributions or expenditures to influence any federal, state, or local election.

In Part II, I chronicle the history of our campaign finance nationalism. Concern with the influence that foreigners had over U.S. policymaking led Congress to enact the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) in 1938. This law prohibited the agents of foreign principals from making contributions to political candidates. However, FARA's statutory scheme contained loopholes. In 1974, when Congress was debating its amendments to the Foreign Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), it adopted Senator Lloyd Bentsen's proposal to ban foreign nationals from influencing U.S. electoral campaigns directly. After Citizens United was decided, this prohibition on foreign nationals was challenged in Bluman v. FEC, but the Bluman court upheld the ban on the grounds that foreigners are not members of the American political community.

As Part III explains, our campaign finance nationalism has several consequences. One is that it prevents individual states from restricting nonresident campaign contributions. Over the years, several states have tried to place limits on nonresident contributions, only to have their efforts be struck down. A second consequence is that the system readily encourages political candidates to seek campaign contributions from all across the country. As a result, candidates develop two distinct groups of people to whom they owe allegiance: voters and donors. I marshal evidence to show how, over time, members of Congress have become increasingly dependent on nonresident donors. Many academic authors, including Richard Briffault, Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Anthony Johnstone, Todd Pettys, and John Paul Stevens, have undertaken efforts to understand the effects of nonresident contributions and the justifications for them.

Part IV examines the difficulties of regulating our campaign finance nationalism. The provisions of the law prohibiting foreign spending in American elections have many loopholes, and policing them also turns out to be very hard to do in practice. If Russia's aggressive actions during the 2016 election taught us anything, it is that our campaign finance system is vulnerable. I conclude by examining various efforts now being undertaken in Congress to prevent foreign influence from infiltrating American electoral campaigns.


Firms must often decide how to target households that did not respond to past promotions. For example, when prospecting for new customers, households that purchase are no longer eligible, and so the remaining households are an increasingly pure pool of non-responders. Past response data reflects the behavior of households that responded, and these households generally differ from the rest in unobservable ways. We show that despite this, the decisions of the past responders in a group can help firms target the remaining non-responders. In particular, the timing of past responses can help to reveal whether a geographic region is (a) exhausted of future responders, or (b) the future responders just require additional exposures. We use this insight to develop three different timing measures. The measures are calculated and validated using a sequence of mailings in a large-scale field experiment. The measures perform well, even when some regions have only a handful of past responses to calibrate them. They confirm that the decisions of past responders can help firms target non-responders.


The relative importance of genetic, environmental, and maternal effects as determinants of geographical variation in vertebrate life-histories has not often been explored. We examined the role of genetic and maternal effects as determinants of population divergence in survival and three important larval life-history traits (growth rate, age, and size at metamorphosis) using reciprocal crosses between two latitudinally separated populations of the common frog (Rana temporaria Linnaeus). Genetic effects were important in all three traits as indicated by the significant effect of male origin, but there was also evidence for nonadditive genetic contributions on metamorphic size and growth rate. Likewise, maternal effect contributions to population divergence were large, partially environment dependent, and apparently acting primarily through egg size in two of three traits. These results suggest that both genetic and maternal effects are important determinants of geographical variation in amphibian life-histories, and that much of the differentiation resulting from maternal effects is mediated through variation in egg size.


Investigations over three vintages indicated that White Riesling juice processed without SO 2 and clarified by ultrafiltration (UF) tended to develop sediments upon storage. This study investigates the possible effect of oxidation (processing with or without sulfur dioxide) and pre-UF treatment of juices with enzymes and fining agents on juice flux, color (browning), composition, and stability. White Riesling juice was ultrafiltered with a Romicon Lab-5 pilot-scale hollow-fiber unit, operated in a batch mode, with membrane of nominal molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) of 10 000 daltons. Grapes were processed with and without SO 2 , and the effects of treatment of settled press juice with Rohapect VR Super (VRS, mainly pectinase and protease) and of fining with bentonite, gelatin, and silica sol before UF were investigated. Juice parameters evaluated included total protein, pectin, phenol, color (A 420 nm ), and stability to heat/cold testing. Pre-UF treatment with enzymes and fining increased flux. Sediments were found to contain large amounts of proteins and phenolics and trace amounts of pectin and neutral polysaccharides. Sediment formation and instability to heat testing of UF permeates processed without SO 2 were prevented with pre-fining. Up to 99% of protein, 90% of pectin, 84% of color, and low variable phenolics were retained by the 10 000-dalton-MWCO membrane. However, pre-UF enzyme treatment can increase protein and pectin in permeates. During UF, there is a significant increase in the soluble protein and water-soluble pectin passing through the membrane with increasing volume concentration ratio (VCR, process time). It is concluded that it is not only the amount but the nature/state of compounds such as proteins, phenolics, and pectins and their interaction that results in instability.


A CMOS first-generation current conveyor (CCI) is described. The circuit configuration is based on two balanced cross-coupled current mirrors which perform the current conveyance from one input node to the output, providing low offset voltage at the input terminals and wide bandwidth. Experimental results from samples implemented in an n-well CMOS technology multi-project chip are shown.


The heart of a Lackey claim is that when a death row inmate is kept waiting too long for his execution, this delay can amount to cruel and unusual punishment — either because they delay is itself cruel and unusual, or because the execution on top of the delay is. All Lackey claims brought by death row inmates have failed, but not for want of trying. The usual complaint against Lackey claims is that those who, by their own appeals, delay their execution date cannot turn around and use that delay as an argument against their death sentences. I agree with other scholars that this argument is incorrect. However, even if it is true that prisoner choice cannot make an otherwise unconstitutional sentence constitutional, Lackey claims can — and should — fail if the courts adopt a certain theory of retribution, what I call "intrinsic desert retribution". Examining that type of retribution, distinguishing it from other retributive theories, and showing how intrinsic desert retribution can refute most Lackey claims, is one of this article's major contributions. In doing so, it breaks with most of the scholarly literature, which tends to be sympathetic to Lackey claims. But the fact that Lackey claims may survive given a certain theory of retribution does not make that theory something the state may permissibly pursue. And this is the second major contribution of the article: to make the case that retribution may in fact not be a permissible state purpose. In short, Lackey claims do not fail because they are too strong — they fail because they are not strong enough. The Supreme Court has traditionally held that the state may permissibly put someone to death because of retribution. But the Court has also said, in other contexts, that the state may not pursue certain aims. The state cannot promote religion, for one; nor can it adopt policies based solely on "animus" against a certain class of persons. My article suggests that when the state adopts retribution as a goal in capital punishment, and pursues that goal even after years of delay, then retribution starts to look more and more like something that, while it may be morally right, cannot be a goal the state can legitimately pursue.


In recent years, the development of positioning technologies and the prevalence of GPS-equipped devices have generated vast amount of data with location and time information. Uber, one of the most known transportation network companies, records about 15 million trips every day over 600 cities worldwide. A Uber car drives a passenger from a departure to a destination location. During a trip, the embedded GPS of the car reports its geo-location in time, and the sequence of these locations forms a trajectory. Foursquare, a location technology company that provides an application for personalized recommendations of places on mobile devices, reports 8 million check-ins on a daily basis from its users. Many challenges arise with the rapid expansion of spatial and spatio-temporal data in volume and velocity, but the main target that remains is their efficient management and access.

The amount of such data exceeds the storage and processing capabilities of a single machine, thus distributed database systems are adopted. Namely, NoSQL databases provide a promising solution for handling massive data, offering high performance, availability and scalability. Many NoSQL databases do not support directly spatial or spatio-temporal indexing, but several studies propose techniques and methods for supporting this type of data. Targeting to provide a unified way to access big data stored in NoSQL databases, we present an API that makes the procedure of data accessing simple, hiding implementation details. The API can stitch together with analytics tasks, as it offers many primitives and operators for expressing data access operations. In addition to the offered functionality, the API is extended to spatial and spatio-temporal data access. Moreover, we conduct extensive experiments on MongoDB database with real and synthetic mobility dataset, so as to study its performance in terms of efficiency and scalability for spatial and spatio-temporal data.


ABSTRACT Bioenergy plays a significant role in the expansion of sustainable energy transitions based on renewable energies, and thus in achieving climate targets through decarbonization of global production and consumption patterns. This article deals with the question of whether and which bioenergy potentials exist and the barriers and preconditions relevant for utilization from a regional perspective based on stakeholder interviews in North Hesse, Germany. Insights were gained into the objectives that regional stakeholders associate with energy recovery from residual and waste materials and the role of ecological modernization in this context. Under current conditions, regional stakeholders assess the potential of biomass residues for energy use as low owing to legal barriers to the use of biomass residues and waste for energy, a high degree of fragmentation, and locally specific design of the uses of these resources. These regional stakeholder assessments contradict the expansion targets and potential calculations of government agencies and research centers. Furthermore, regional stakeholders do not link the expansion of residue- and waste-based bioenergy with ecological modernization objectives (i.e. linking ecological objectives with increases in innovation, growth, and employment), but are mainly driven by the search for cost-savings, improved efficiency, and more sustainable use of biomass residues.


In the paper we examine the vacuum conditions inside the beam pipe at the Large Hadron Collider. A hypothetical degradation of the ultra-high vacuum by air particles is modelled. By considering the mean free path, we calculate the maximum pressure that would allow the accelerated protons to complete one lap of the accelerator without being scattered by gas particles. This threshold pressure is found to be 0.246 mbar.


More than five years have passed since the Integrated Support Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nuclear Security (ISCN) was established under the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in December 2010 and started its activities, in response to the commitment of Japan at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington D.C.. The ISCN has been vigorously involved in capacity building assistance on nuclear nonproliferation (safeguards) and nuclear security, mainly in the Asian region. It has provided 105 training courses to 2901 participants in total as of August 2016. The ISCN plays a major role in strengthening nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear security in the region, and this can be considered one of the great results of the Nuclear Security Summit process. The ISCN has cooperated with the US Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) to establish a base of instructors, particularly for the Center's flagship two-week courses, the Regional Training Course on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Facilities (RTC on PP) and the Regional Training Course on State Systems of Accounting for and Control of Nuclear Material (RTC on SSAC). Furthermore, the ISCN has provided training courses for experts in Japan, making the best use of the Center's knowledge and experience of organizing international courses. The ISCN has also started joint synchronized training with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC JRC) on nuclear safeguards. This paper describes the good practices at the ISCN through its five years of activities, focusing on its progress in nuclear safeguards and nuclear security training.


Carbon and carbon nitride films (CNx, 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.26) were deposited by filtered pulsed cathodic arc and were investigated using transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A "fullerene-like" (FL) structure of ordered graphitic planes, similar to that of magnetron sputtered FL-CNx films, was observed in films deposited at 175 °C and above, with N2 pressures of 0 and 0.5 mTorr. Higher substrate temperatures and significant nitrogen incorporation are required to produce similar FL structure by sputtering, which may, at least in part, be explained by the high ion charge states and ion energies characteristic of arc deposition. A gradual transition from majority sp3-hybridized films to sp2 films was observed with increasing substrate temperature. High elastic recovery, an attractive characteristic mechanical property of FL-CNx films, is evident in arc-deposited films both with and without nitrogen content, and both with and without FL structure.Carbon and carbon nitride films (CNx, 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.26) were deposited by filtered pulsed cathodic arc and were investigated using transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A "fullerene-like" (FL) structure of ordered graphitic planes, similar to that of magnetron sputtered FL-CNx films, was observed in films deposited at 175 °C and above, with N2 pressures of 0 and 0.5 mTorr. Higher substrate temperatures and significant nitrogen incorporation are required to produce similar FL structure by sputtering, which may, at least in part, be explained by the high ion charge states and ion energies characteristic of arc deposition. A gradual transition from majority sp3-hybridized films to sp2 films was observed with increasing substrate temperature. High elastic recovery, an attractive characteristic mechanical property of FL-CNx films, is evident in arc-deposited films both with and without nitrogen content, and both with and without FL structure.


Background— The PREDIMED (Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea) randomized primary prevention trial showed that a Mediterranean diet enriched with either extravirgin olive oil or mixed nuts reduces the incidence of stroke, myocardial infarction, and cardiovascular mortality. We assessed the effect of these diets on the incidence of atrial fibrillation in the PREDIMED trial. Methods and Results— Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 diets: Mediterranean diet supplemented with extravirgin olive oil, Mediterranean diet supplemented with mixed nuts, or advice to follow a low-fat diet (control group). Incident atrial fibrillation was adjudicated during follow-up by an events committee blinded to dietary group allocation. Among 6705 participants without prevalent atrial fibrillation at randomization, we observed 72 new cases of atrial fibrillation in the Mediterranean diet with extravirgin olive oil group, 82 in the Mediterranean diet with mixed nuts group, and 92 in the control group after median follow-up of 4.7 years. The Mediterranean diet with extravirgin olive oil significantly reduced the risk of atrial fibrillation (hazard ratio, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.45–0.85 compared with the control group). No effect was found for the Mediterranean diet with nuts (hazard ratio, 0.89; 95% confidence interval, 0.65–1.20). Conclusions— In the absence of proven interventions for the primary prevention of atrial fibrillation, this post hoc analysis of the PREDIMED trial suggests that extravirgin olive oil in the context of a Mediterranean dietary pattern may reduce the risk of atrial fibrillation. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://www.controlled-trials.com. Unique identifier: ISRCTN35739639.


Islamic Trade Finance (ITF) instruments were introduced into the Islamic banking system in Malaysia since the early 1990s when there was a need for Islamic instruments in commerce especially in international trade.Most of the financial products are based on conventional instruments such as Bank Guarantee (BG), Letter of Credit (LC), Accepted Bill (AB), Shipping Guarantee (SG), Export Credit Refinancing (ECR) and others. In order to be accepted in Islamic Finance, some amendments will have to be made so that it will be 'sharia compliant' by applyin gmuamalat contracts to those products. Muamalat contracts that are widely used in Islamic Trade Finance products are murabahah, bay' al-dayn, kafalah and wakalah.This article analyses the views of previous and contemporary Islamic scholars and those with authority in Islamic financial jurisprudence in the use of kafalah contracts. This article also analyses the issues that arise in the application of kafalah in Islamic Trade Finance products namely Shipping Guarantee-i (SG-i) and Bank Guarantee-i (BG-i).


This paper aims at highlighting spatial aspects of the littoralisation process. Behind the general trend of people and activities concentration on the coast, littoralisation dynamics are spatially differentiated and coastal overload fuels new evolutions. As disaggregated data on urbanisation are not always available to make a retrospective analysis, this paper proposes to show how an image analysis method, named Mathematical Morphology, can contribute to determine spatial differentiations with the use of aggregated data. Through the analysis of home-building contrasts at a municipal level, Mathematical Morphology provides a regionalisation of the study area, the French Riviera, and its spatial reshapings during the second half of the twentieth century.


In this paper, we apply different methods to examine the possibility that a small group of 24 asteroids dynamically linked to a main-belt comet P/2006 VW139, recently discovered by the Pan-STARRS1 survey telescope, shares a common physical origin. By applying the hierarchical clustering and backward integration methods, we find strong evidence that 11 of these asteroids form a sub-group which likely originated in a recent collision event, and that this group includes P/2006 VW139. The objects not found to be part of the 11-member sub-group, which we designate as the P/2006 VW139 family, were either found to be dynamically unstable or are likely interlopers which should be expected due to the close proximity of the Themis family. As we demonstrated, statistical significance of the P/2006 VW139 family is >99 per cent. We determine the age of the family to be 7.5 ± 0.3 Myr, and estimate the diameter of the parent body to be ∼11 km. Results show that the family is produced by an impact which can be best characterized as a transition from the catastrophic to the cratering regime. The dynamical environment of this family is studied as well, including the identification of the most influential mean motion and secular resonances in the region. Our findings now make P/2006 VW139 the second main-belt comet to be dynamically associated with a young asteroid family, a fact with important implications for the origin and activation mechanism of such objects.


Intelligent software agents have been developed for many purposes these days. Software agents have been developed in many types of applications such as Internet search engines etc. This article is all about implementing the intelligent software agent in a data warehouse implementation. The first purpose of this software agent is to screen data in order to avoid data duplication in the data warehouse. The second objective of this research is to personalize the user requirements of data marts in data warehouse environment. The software agent consists of two basic modules. The first module is the information screening module. This module is implemented as an addition to the data staging process, before the data is loaded into the data warehouse. It functions as a pre-loading step, where the data to be loaded into the data warehouse has been cleaned, extracted and transformed. This module uses an enhanced Fuzzy String Matching to check the existence of data in the data warehouse. The second module involved is the personalization module. This is a module where the agent will study the history queries sent by users to the system. The queries may represent user requirements to find any pattern of time of the queries being sent to the system. The technique used by the agent to study users' queries is grouping the queries which are similar to each other. The largest group of queries is considered as the most needed query. However, this agent may be enhanced to produce a more robust intelligent agent.


This paper addresses the conceptual and methodological issues related to women's empowerment, the trends in women's empowerment over the last 20 years in key areas such as education, health, economic and political participation, and finally the best practices of state and non-state actors in empowering women. Following a brief critique of human development, it begins with a discussion of the growing conceptual consensus around empowerment, i.e., empowerment being control over resources, women's agency, a process and outcomes, to the methodological issues involved in its measurement, specifically focusing on the Gender Empowerment Measure and arguing that minimally the measure needs to move away from its urban, elite, and formal employment bias. The trends in women's empowerment over the past 20 years show that while there have been gains in primary and secondary education, in political representation at the national level, and in waged labor, and a decline in fertility and maternal mortality, violence against women and HIV/AIDS continue to be endemic and these trends vary across regions and within countries urban and rural poor, ethnic minorities, and older and disabled women fare worse on all indicators with the current economic crisis reversing many gains. Furthermore, a decrease in measures of gender gap do not translate into gender equality and positive trends are often accompanied by negative trends resulting from unintended consequences of development. Finally, it highlights some government best practices such as quotas, cash transfer programs, gender budgeting, and community based micro enterprises, some movement practices, i.e., local women run community based programs to combat violence and HIV/AIDS and transnational exchanges, unions campaigns such as Decent Work for Women and corporate practices such as gender equality seals and corporate social responsibility.