bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Predictions in economic-financial news
Authors: Palmieri Rudi , Miecznikowski Johanna
Published: April 2016

Compared to other domains of media discourse, economic-financial news contain a considerable amount of speech acts regarding future events, in particular predictions. This can be explained by their specific institutional context, financial markets, where investors constantly seek to single out gain opportunities and to correctly assess their risk. One of the crucial factors making economic-financial predictions worthy of being considered in investment decisions is argumentation, in particular the extent to which the predicted proposition follows from a plausible and acceptable reasoning. Starting from a corpus of 50 articles of the Italian economic-financial press, we consider the inferential dimension of prediction-oriented arguments, focusing on thelocus, i.e. the ontological relation on which the connection between the argument(s) and the predictive conclusion rests. All predictions found in the corpus were manually annotated with the softwareUAM Corpus Tool. For each of them we identified the source, which could be either the journalist him/herself or a third party, typically financial analysts or corporate actors. We distinguished mere predictive opinions from predictive standpoints, i.e. predictions for which the journalist advances one or more supportive arguments (either confirmatory of refutatory). For the latter category, we identified the locus referring to an adaptation of the taxonomy outlined by Rigotti (2009). The findings highlight in particular the following three interesting aspects: (1) in predictions, journalists reinforce their stance by plausible justifications, but weaken it at the same time by marking it as uncertain and/or by using reported speech or evidential means to reduce their responsibility for the predictive speech act; (2) the justification of a predictive standpoint, by the journalist or by third parties, is mostly based on loci of causality, in particular on thelocus from efficient cause, thelocus from final causeand complex forms of causality where the involvement of rational agents is implied but defocused; (3) moreover, journalists refer to the predictive opinions of experts or corporate insiders to activate thelocus from authority,either by explicit argumentation or implicitly, by reporting speech from reliable sources. Our study suggests that the role of predictions in financial news is not so much that of giving any straightforward advice to investors, but rather that of providing chunks of sound argumentative reasoning, including both supportive evidence and rebuttals or refutatory moves, that the investor-reader might apply and combine in the highly uncertain context of financial markets. Overall, our findings shed light on how financial journalists fulfil the function of information intermediaries in finance.
The rise of choice as an absolute ‘good’
Authors: Evans Matthew , Jeffries Lesley
Published: April 2016

In this article we report on a corpus-based study of the lexical item ‘choice’. ‘Choice’ was previously found to be a keyword inJeffries and Walker’s (2012) study of political discourse from the New Labour years, occurring more frequently in newspaper articles during that period (1998–2007) than in those dating from the years in which John Major was Prime Minister (1990–1997). The current project investigates the use of ‘choice’ in British general election manifestos between 1900 and 2010. We first of all carry out a quantitative study of the use of ‘choice’ by the three main UK political parties across this time period, before undertaking a qualitative study of the use of the word in context. Our approach is informed by work in lexical meaning and critical stylistics, and demonstrates how ‘choice’ has taken on new semantic meanings in a political context.
The Confucius Institute Initiative in Reconstruction of China’s National Identity
Authors: Liu Guo-Qiang
Published: April 2016

This article examines China’s Confucius Institute program, a significant language policy/planning initiative. I adopt a political perspective in looking into the birth of this language policy initiative, focusing on its role in reconstructing China’s national identity in the context of its rise and its international relations. I explore the background against which the Confucius Institute initiative was formed, and analyse how this initiative was received in the West and how China responded to it. I argue that China is undergoing a reconstruction of its national identity and the Confucius Institute initiative is a major part of this effort. I suggest that such a reconstruction of national identity is an interactive process with an outcome resulting from China’s negotiation with the international community, involving China stating a new position, listening to international responses, clarifying and elaborating upon its position until its new position is accepted by the international community.
Teacher cognition of pronunciation teaching amongst English language teachers in Uruguay
Authors: Couper Graeme
Published: April 2016

This article reports on the concerns and issues which 28 experienced and well-qualified teachers expressed during individual semi-structured interviews with the researcher. It describes and discusses the participants’ views, pulling together themes representative of a wide range of perspectives on pronunciation teaching. Themes include: teacher anxiety about pronunciation and pronunciation teaching; external factors affecting pronunciation teaching such as curriculum and exam pressures, textbooks, and training received; approaches to teaching and error correction; activities and techniques; and issues related to literacy bias, listen-and-repeat, use of phonemic symbols and pronunciation goals and models. These findings, taken in conjunction with studies of teacher cognition in other contexts, serve to inform all those with an interest in English language teaching, whether they be researchers, teachers or teacher educators, curriculum designers or textbook writers.
Describing the Diet of Juvenile White Sturgeon in the Upper Columbia River Canada with Lethal and Nonlethal Methods
Authors: Crossman James A. , Jay Kathleen J. , Hildebrand Larry R.
Published: April 2016

We describe the overall composition and prey selectivity in the diet of hatchery-reared juvenile White Sturgeon Acipenser transmontanus in the upper Columbia River, Canada. The efficacy of two sampling methods, nonlethal gastric lavage and lethal sampling to remove stomach contents, were evaluated across different ages, size-classes, and river sections. Gastric lavage samples were collected from 108 fish angled in October 2012 and 2013. In 2012 only, a subsample of 48 individuals were euthanized following gastric lavage, and stomach contents were collected. To describe food availability, 45 benthic grabs were collected from areas of juvenile capture. Identifiable prey taxa were recovered from 60.3% of lavage and 98% of lethal stomachs sampled. While the diet of juvenile White Sturgeon was composed of 16 diverse prey taxa, most were selected less than their availability in the river. Prey diversity in lethal samples was influenced by river section, not by fish size or age; fish in deeper, slower water consumed the highest number of prey taxa (mean = 4.6). Further, there was no significant overlap in diets among river sections, the dominant prey taxa selected differing among river sections and years. Prey in the lethal samples included 56% of the 25 total prey taxa identified, lethal included 60%, and the bottom grabs included 76%. Gastric lavage was 69% efficient at describing lethal samples. A minimum of 100 lavage samples were required to describe the diet to a level comparable to lethal sampling. Where lethal sampling is not an option, our results indicate gastric lavage, if conducted on appropriate numbers of fish, is effective at describing sturgeon diets and provides data that can be used to study the feeding ecology of threatened or endangered species.

Received August 24, 2015; accepted November 24, 2015 Published online March 31, 2016
Effectiveness of Continuous versus Point Electrofishing for Fish Assemblage Assessment in Shallow, Turbid Aquatic Habitats
Authors: Trumbo Bradly A. , Kaller Michael D. , Harlan A. Raynie , Pasco Tiffany , Kelso William E. , Rutherford D. Allen
Published: April 2016

We evaluated the relative effectiveness of continuous versus point electrofishing methods for describing fish assemblage metrics in the lower Atchafalaya River Floodway system, Louisiana. Continuous data were collected by boat electrofishing opposing shores of a 100-m reach for a total of 480 s. Point data were collected in an adjacent 100-m reach by boat electrofishing for 60 s at four points (240 s total) at 25-m intervals on alternating shorelines. We tested for significant differences between the methods with a linear model for species richness and CPUE (fish/min) and a generalized linear model for species diversity. We also compared the length frequencies of Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides between methods. We found no difference in diversity between methods but significantly higher species richness (mean = 1.46 species) and significantly lower CPUE (mean = −24.63 fish/min) for continuous electrofishing. We found no difference in Largemouth Bass length frequency between methods, but point electrofishing captured more individuals between 300 and 400 mm. Our results indicate that point electrofishing may be an efficient, effective technique for capturing target species and larger individuals that may otherwise avoid capture. When coupled with continuous electrofishing, point electrofishing may bolster assemblage and population size structure data, particularly in shallow, turbid environments.

Received July 9, 2014; accepted December 8, 2015 Published online March 31, 2016
Textile Production in Iron Age Thrace
Authors: Dimova Bela
Published: April 2016

This article investigates the production of textiles in Thrace during the first millennium BC. It presents a functional analysis of textile-production tools from three towns in Thrace: Koprivlen, Adzhiiska Vodenitsa near Vetren, and Seuthopolis, and from Kastanas in Macedonia. The analysis shows that over the course of the Iron Age, textile production became more diversified and intensive. This process unfolded parallel to the emergence of opulent elite burials and urban communities. By examining a wider range of archaeological, iconographic, and textual data, the article contributes to our understanding of how the demand for textiles, and their consumption in different socially meaningful ways, connects to changes in production.
Survival and Physiological Responses of Juvenile Red Drum Exposed to Hypersalinity and Elevated Temperatures
Authors: Molina Erica M , Gatlin Delbert M , Tomasso Joseph R
Published: April 2016

Fingerling Red Drum Sciaenops ocellatus were held in water recirculating systems for 4–5 weeks under selected combinations of temperature and salinity: 30°C and 35‰ (reference environment), 34°C and 45‰, or 34°C and 55‰. At the end of the culture period, condition factor, hematocrit, plasma osmolality, plasma lactate concentration, plasma glucose concentration, and liver glycogen content were determined. Responses of fish in the warm, hypersaline treatments did not differ significantly from fish in the reference treatment. Based on the results of this study, juvenile Red Drum can tolerate warm, hypersaline conditions for several weeks with no apparent detrimental effects if slowly acclimated to environmental temperature and salinity as long as food is not limiting and other water quality characteristics are acceptable.
Potential Impact of Mediterranean Aquaculture on the Wild Predatory Bluefish
Authors: Miralles L. , Mrugala A. , Sanchez-Jerez P. , Juanes F. , Garcia-Vazquez E.
Published: April 2016

Aquaculture impacts on wild populations of fish have been considered principally due to farm escapes. The Bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix, which exhibits two distinct genetic units in the Mediterranean Sea, is a voracious predator and is attracted to aquaculture cages to prey on farmed fish, particularly Gilthead Seabream Sparus aurata and European Sea Bass Dicentrarchus labrax. We compared the genetic diversity of adult Bluefish caught inside one aquaculture farm located in Spanish waters of the western Mediterranean Sea with reference individuals of East and West Mediterranean stocks from the open sea. Bluefish were genetically assigned to their putative origin using seven microsatellite loci and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I as molecular markers. As expected, most of the individuals caught from inside the fish farm cages were assigned to the local genetic population. However, between 7.14% and 11.9% of individuals were assigned to the distant and different genetic unit inhabiting Turkish waters, the East Mediterranean stock. The genetic membership of those individuals revealed some degree of interbreeding between the East and West Mediterranean Bluefish stocks. All results suggest that aquaculture acts as an attractor for Bluefish and could affect genetic diversity as well as phylogeography of this fish and maybe other similar species that aggregate around marine fish farms.

Received July 11, 2015; accepted November 23, 2015
Helium concentration measurement in tungsten fuzz-like nanostructures by means of thermal desorption spectroscopy
Authors: Gasparyan Yu. , Efimov V. , Bystrov K.
Published: April 2016

The concentration of helium in tungsten fuzz-like nanostructures has been measured by means of thermal desorption spectroscopy. Fuzz was formed on the W surface under intensive plasma irradiation at 1500 K. The helium content was measured first in the as-irradiated sample, and then in a similar sample with the fuzz mechanically scraped from the sample surface. The difference gave the He content in the fuzz, which was estimated to be He/ W  =  (13  ±  4)%.
Equilibrium drives of the low and high field side n  =  2 plasma response and impact on global confinement
Authors: Paz-Soldan C. , Logan N.C. , Haskey S.R. , Nazikian R. , Strait E.J. , Chen X. , Ferraro N.M. , King J.D. , Lyons B.C. , Park J.-K.
Published: April 2016

The nature of the multi-modal n  =  2 plasma response and its impact on global confinement is studied as a function of the axisymmetric equilibrium pressure, edge safety factor, collisionality, and L-versus H-mode conditions. Varying the relative phase (

Δ

ϕ

U
L

) between upper and lower in-vessel coils demonstrates that different n  =  2 poloidal spectra preferentially excite different plasma responses. These different plasma response modes are preferentially detected on the tokamak high-field side (HFS) or low-field side (LFS) midplanes, have different radial extents, couple differently to the resonant surfaces, and have variable impacts on edge stability and global confinement. In all equilibrium conditions studied, the observed confinement degradation shares the same

Δ

ϕ

U
L

dependence as the coupling to the resonant surfaces given by both ideal (IPEC) and resistive (MARS-F) MHD computation. Varying the edge safety factor shifts the equilibrium field-line pitch and thus the

Δ

ϕ

U
L

dependence of both the global confinement and the n  =  2 magnetic response. As edge safety factor is varied, modeling finds that the HFS response (but not the LFS response), the resonant surface coupling, and the edge displacements near the X-point all share the same

Δ

ϕ

U
L

dependence. The LFS response magnitude is strongly sensitive to the core pressure and is insensitive to the collisionality and edge safety factor. This indicates that the LFS measurements are primarily sensitive to a pressure-driven kink-ballooning mode that couples to the core plasma. MHD modeling accurately reproduces these (and indeed all) LFS experimental trends and supports this interpretation. In contrast to the LFS, the HFS magnetic response and correlated global confinement impact is unchanged with plasma pressure, but is strongly reduced in high collisionality conditions in both H- and L-mode. This experimentally suggests the bootstrap current drives the HFS response through the kink-peeling mode drive, though surprisingly weak or no dependence on the bootstrap current is seen in modeling. Instead, modeling is revealed to be very sensitive to the details of the edge current profile and equilibrium truncation. Holding truncation fixed, most HFS experimental trends are not captured, thus demonstrating a stark contrast between the robustness of the HFS experimental results and the sensitivity of its computation.
Ion internal transport barrier in neutral beam heated plasmas on HL-2A
Authors: Yu D.L. , Wei Y.L. , Liu L. , Dong J.Q. , Ida K. , Itoh K. , Sun A.P. , Cao J.Y. , Shi Z.B. , Wang Z.X. , Xiao Y. , Yuan B.S. , Du H.R. , He X.X. , Chen W.J. , Ma Q. , Itoh S.-I. , Zhao K.J. , Zhou Y. , Wang J. , Ji X.Q. , Zhong W.L. , Li Y.G. , Gao J.M. , Deng W. , Liu Yi , Xu Y. , Yan L.W. , Yang Q.W. , Ding X.T. , Duan X.R. , Liu Yong
Published: April 2016

Ion internal transport barriers (iITBs) are first observed in neutral beam injection (NBI) heated plasmas at the HL-2A tokamak. The position of the barrier foot, in the stationary state, coincides with the q  =  1 surface within its uncertainty of measurement. iITBs can develop more easily at the beginning of NBI heating. Also, iITBs are unstable for the sawtooth plasma. Simulations reveal that the thermal diffusivity of ions (χ
i) inside the barrier can be as low as the neoclassical level. It is observed that the flow shear in the stationary iITB state reaches the level required for suppressing the ion temperature gradient mode instability, which indicates the important role of flow shear in sustaining the iITB.
Kinetic transport simulation of energetic particles
Authors: Sheng He , Waltz R.E.
Published: April 2016

A kinetic transport code (EPtran) is developed for the transport of the energetic particles (EPs). The EPtran code evolves the EP distribution function in radius, energy, and pitch angle phase space (r, E, λ) to steady state with classical slowing down, pitch angle scattering, as well as radial and energy transport of the injected EPs (neutral beam injection (NBI) or fusion alpha). The EPtran code is illustrated by treating the transport of NBI fast ions from high-n ITG/TEM micro-turbulence and EP driven unstable low-n Alfvén eigenmodes (AEs) in a well-studied DIII-D NBI heated discharge with significant AE central core loss. The kinetic transport code results for this discharge are compared with previous study using a simple EP density moment transport code ALPHA (R.E. Waltz and E.M. Bass 2014 Nucl. Fusion
54 104006). The dominant EP-AE transport is treated with a local stiff critical EP density (or equivalent pressure) gradient radial transport model modified to include energy-dependence and the nonlocal effects EP drift orbits. All previous EP transport models assume that the EP velocity space distribution function is not significantly distorted from the classical ‘no transport’ slowing down distribution. Important transport distortions away from the slowing down EP spectrum are illustrated by a focus on the coefficient of convection: EP energy flux divided by the product of EP average energy and EP particle flux.
Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. II: gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions
Authors: Caprini Chiara , Hindmarsh Mark , Huber Stephan , Konstandin Thomas , Kozaczuk Jonathan , Nardini Germano , No Jose Miguel , Petiteau Antoine , Schwaller Pedro , Servant Géraldine , Weir David J.
Published: April 2016

We investigate the potential for the eLISA space-based interferometer to detect the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by strong first-order cosmological phase transitions. We discuss the resulting contributions from bubble collisions, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, and sound waves to the stochastic background, and estimate the total corresponding signal predicted in gravitational waves. The projected sensitivity of eLISA to cosmological phase transitions is computed in a model-independent way for various detector designs and configurations. By applying these results to several specific models, we demonstrate that eLISA is able to probe many well-motivated scenarios beyond the Standard Model of particle physics predicting strong first-order cosmological phase transitions in the early Universe.
class and class struggle
Authors: Morley Neville
Published: April 2016

Class is a highly contested term that is deployed in different ways in both modern social analysis and ancient history. It can denote a group within a social hierarchy—the “Roman upper class,” for example—in which case it is serviceable but descriptive rather than analytical. The more technical Marxist definition, identifying class as an objective condition determined by a relationship with the economic organisation of society and inevitably entailing “class conflict” between groups with opposed interests, makes grander claims about its capacity to explain historical developments but raises many more questions about whether it is appropriate for the interpretation of Greek or Roman society.
Ezekiel
Authors: Gambetti Sandra
Published: April 2016

Ezekiel was a tragic poet who probably lived in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 2nd century bce. His tragedy Exagoge dramatizes the story of Moses, known from the biblical tradition. The Exagoge presents significant elaborations with respect to the biblical texts, which allow it to broaden its context to both political events of Ezekiel’s lifetime and the merging Egyptian and Judaean mythological stories.
law in Greece
Authors: Harris Edward M.
Published: April 2016

There were hundreds of Greek city-states during the Classical period, and this number increased considerably during the Hellenistic period with new foundations. Each of these communities had its own set of laws, but there were broad similarities in the substantive principles of Greek laws in areas such as marriage and inheritance, the ownership of land, homicide law, and the status of manumitted slaves. On the other hand, legal procedures often varied significantly from one community to the next. Constitutional governments in Classical and Hellenistic Greece shared several common measures to ensure the rule of law: division of functions, the use of boards of magistrates, the accountability of officials, and the use of entrenchment clauses to protect the stability of the law.
race
Authors: McCoskey Denise Eileen
Published: April 2016

Contrary to the assumptions of previous eras, since the late 20th century, race has been widely regarded as a form of identity based in social construction rather than biology. The concept of race has experienced a corresponding return to classical studies, although this approach gives it significant overlap with terminology like ethnicity and cultural identity. The ancient Greeks and Romans did not consider human biology or skin color the source of racial identity, although the belief that human variation was determined by the environment or climate persisted throughout antiquity. Ancient ethnographic writing provides insight into ancient racial thought and stereotypes in both the Greek and Roman periods. Race in the Greek world centered in large part around the emergence of the category of Greek alongside that of barbarian, but there were other important racial frameworks in operation, including a form of racialized citizenship in Athens. Modes for expressing racial identity changed in the aftermath of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, a figure whose own racial identity has been the subject of debate. In the Roman period, Roman citizenship became a major factor in determining one’s identity, but racial thought nonetheless persisted. Ideas about race were closely correlated with the Roman practice of empire, and representations of diverse racial groups are especially prominent in conquest narratives. Hellenistic and Roman Egypt provide an opportunity for looking at race in everyday life in antiquity, while Greek and Roman attitudes towards Jews suggest that they were perceived as a distinct group. Reception studies play a critical role in analyzing the continuing connections between race and classics.
Uruk, Hellenistic
Authors: Baker Heather D.
Published: April 2016

The site of Uruk (modern Warka; Greek Ὀρχόη, biblical Erech) lies some 110 miles (177 km) southeast of Babylon. A city already in the 4th millennium bce, Uruk had been continuously occupied since prehistory and remained an important center for the survival of cuneiform culture well into the Hellenistic era. At that time, the city was physically dominated by its two major temple precincts, that of the sky god Anu and that of the goddesses Ishtar and Nanaya. In contrast to Babylon with its Greek theatre, the long-running German excavations at Uruk have yielded no evidence of Greek-style buildings; rather, the temples and other structures were built in traditional Babylonian style. Members of the priesthood dominated the urban community, playing a prominent role in civic affairs as well as in the transmission of Babylonian scholarship. They continued to write their legal and administrative documents in Akkadian using the cuneiform script, although Aramaic had likely replaced Akkadian by now as the predominant spoken language. Traces of a Greek presence in Uruk include administrative bullae bearing inscriptions of Seleucid tax offices, as well as Greek personal names and occasional Greek words occurring in cuneiform tablets.
armies, Roman, late empire
Authors: Lee A. D.
Published: April 2016

The armed forces of the late empire remained of central importance in a world whose geopolitical certainties and assumptions had been severely shaken by the upheavals of the 3rd century. Those upheavals and the changed international landscape which emerged prompted significant reconfigurations of the empire’s armies and their command, as well as an expansion in their size, with far-reaching consequences for governmental infrastructure and economic resources.

The most fundamental organizational change was the separating out of a strategic reserve of elite troops from those forces based in the frontier provinces, with a greater emphasis on mobile cavalry units. During the 4th century, that reserve evolved into a number of regional armies, some of which then fragmented under the impact of further upheavals in the late 4th and 5th centuries, especially in the western half of the empire. However, the armies of the eastern half generally proved more resilient and provided the basis for a period of renewed expansion in the 6th century. Although the armies of the late empire suffered significant defeats and setbacks, they also achieved some notable successes, and the military history of the period should not be characterized solely as one of inexorable and inevitable decline.
Augustus, Roman emperor, 63 BCE–14 CE
Authors: Cooley Alison
Published: April 2016

Augustus is often labelled as “first emperor of Rome” and “founder of the Principate”. Both descriptions hide a more complex and fluid political transformation that affected all areas of Roman society during the period when Augustus was princeps.

Augustus did not owe his success entirely to his name, but his inheritance of Julius Caesar’s wealth and support from the plebs of Rome and the army were key props in his rise to power. He made himself central to the state, and people felt that Augustus was uniquely placed to ensure that the gods remained on Rome’s side. His account of his achievements in his Res Gestae demonstrates that he continued to accumulate fabulous wealth, which he then lavishly spent upon the city of Rome. He did encounter some opposition which tends to be underplayed in the sources, partly because he showed remarkable resilience in recovering from setbacks and partly because none of the incidents seriously undermined him in the long term.

Augustus owed a great deal to his family and friends, who were instrumental in achieving what could be described as world conquest; his influence beyond the boundaries of the empire was also extended via the support of “friendly kings” such as Herod of Judaea and Juba of Mauretania. Undoubtedly Augustus himself was responsible for his own success, but he was helped hugely by the enthusiasm with which key messages of his rule were embraced by all levels of a society relieved to be free at last from civil wars. He oversaw the remarkable unification of the Italian peninsula, integrating the municipal aristocracy into his ruling elite at Rome, as well as the emergence of new social groups and cultural practices that promoted a sense of shared Roman political identities in the empire more generally.

Key to his success was his control of the army and his continuing relationship with legionary veterans. He experienced repeated crises within his family which led to his eventually being succeeded by Tiberius.
The Collective Farm‐household Model: Policy and Welfare Simulations
Authors: Matteazzi Eleonora , Menon Martina , Perali Federico
Published: April 2016

This study develops a household enterprise model extended to encompass recent advances in collective theory. We use a simulation model in which production and consumption‐leisure choices are represented along with the rule governing intra‐household resource allocation, to analyze the income and wage responses of each family member. The household is treated as an equilibrium model whose accounts are based on a collective household accounting matrix, with the social dimension being the wife/husband classes. The simulation analysis illustrates the policy relevance of the collective approach to household behavior for inferring the impact of economic policies on individual behavior and welfare. We also propose insightful comparisons with the unitary model to make the behavioral and welfare policy relevance of the collective approach evident.
Sex Offender Policies and Legislation
Authors: Socia Kelly  M. , Maroun Rimonda R.
Published: April 2016

Various policies and legislation have been implemented that apply to individuals convicted of sexual offenses. While on probation or parole supervision, sex offenders can be subject to many of the same restrictions that non-sex offenders are. However, there are other requirements that can apply specifically to sex offenders, either while under post-release supervision or afterward. These requirements can take a variety of forms, including formally registering as a sex offender with local law enforcement and periodically updating registration data, residence restrictions on where they can (and cannot) live, and being subject to electronic monitoring. Further, some sex offenders may be civilly committed in secure mental health facilities after their criminal sentence ends. While most offenses involving criminal sexual conduct fall under the jurisdiction of state law, certain sexual offenses are found in Title 18 of the US Code and may involve federal punishment and supervision.
Social Indicators
Authors: Land Kenneth C.
Published: April 2016

How are we doing with respect not only to our economic level of living but, more generally, the quality of our lives, our well-being? Improving, staying about the same, or deteriorating? Compared to our past? Compared to other countries/societies? And, if improving, are the improvements shared throughout the society or only among some of us? These are the kinds of questions that have motivated research and development on social indicators, quality of life metrics, and well-being research over the past fifty years. This research has resulted in a substantial number of conceptual and empirical contributions to the measurement of social conditions, in general, and of quality of life/well-being, in particular.
Jack Kerouac
Authors: Theado Matt
Published: April 2016

Jack Kerouac (b. 1922–d. 1969) was a novelist and poet whose bestselling novel On the Road is considered an American classic. Born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac to working-class French-Canadian parents in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mill town that suffered economic difficulties even before the Great Depression, he spoke French as his first language. A standout athlete in high school, Kerouac enrolled in Columbia University in 1940 on a football scholarship. He left Columbia during his sophomore year and served for two years in the Merchant Marine and six months in the Navy before being discharged on medical grounds by reason of “indifferent character.” In the mid- to late 1940s he met Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, John Clellon Holmes, and other key figures in what became known as the Beat Generation, a phrase Kerouac coined. While he worked on his first published novel, The Town and the City (1950), he traveled extensively across the United States; these travels provided the material for his second and best-known novel, On the Road (1957), the novel that made him famous but also notorious as a countercultural figure, leading to belittlement of his literary skills. He had written six novels before the publication of On the Road made him a celebrity, and these books were brought out quickly after its success. Kerouac drew from experiences in his own adventurous life and from the exploits of his friends; thus, like Jack London, he became as famous for his romantic adventures as for his literary output. Kerouac planned his work—novels, poems, and nonfiction books—as a loosely arranged series that contributed to his life’s story that he called the Duluoz Legend. Their congested publication plus Kerouac’s claim that he composed them quickly, without revision, led Truman Capote to quip that his novels were not writing; they were typewriting. In addition, social observers attacked Kerouac for encouraging an ethic of recklessness and nihilism among young people. Kerouac’s life spiraled into a tragic drunken spree, and he died at age forty-seven of complications resulting from alcoholism. As the years passed, Kerouac has been recognized as an innovative literary artist who developed new styles of expression in prose and poetry, and his development of a “spontaneous prose” style is placed alongside other artistic achievements in the 1950s, such as Jackson Pollack’s “action painting” and Charlie Parker’s bebop jazz. Kerouac remains a popular writer outside the curriculum even as On the Road is regularly assigned in the classroom.
Overqualification
Authors: Erdogan Berrin , Mansfield Layla
Published: April 2016

Overqualification is a situation in which a person’s education, experience, and skills exceed job requirements. As a result, an overqualified person has a level of skills and/or qualifications not needed to obtain or perform their job. Overqualification is regarded as a subcategory of underemployment, which refers to subpar (or deficient) employment. However, the two terms are not synonymous, because underemployment includes other forms of undesirable employment such as being employed part-time on an involuntary basis, or being underpaid compared to one’s prior job. This review will focus primarily on overqualification and not the other forms of underemployment. This article reviews the literature on overqualification, highlights work that has shaped the field over time, and summarizes the literature by way of suggesting and emphasizing work on its antecedents, mediators, consequences, and moderators.
Nanoscopic compartmentalization of membrane protein motion at the axon initial segment
Authors: Albrecht David , Winterflood Christian M. , Tschager Thomas , Ewers Helge
Published: April 2016

The axon initial segment (AIS) is enriched in specific adaptor, cytoskeletal and transmembrane molecules. During AIS establishment, a membrane diffusion barrier is formed between the axon and the somatodendritic domain. Recently, an axonal periodic pattern of actin, spectrin and ankyrin forming 190 nm distanced, ring-like structures has been discovered. However, whether this structure is related to the diffusion barrier function is unclear.

Here, we performed single particle tracking timecourse experiments on hippocampal neurons during AIS development. We analyzed the mobility of lipid-anchored molecules by high-speed single particle tracking and correlated positions of membrane molecules with the nanoscopic organization of the AIS cytoskeleton.

We observe a strong reduction in mobility early in AIS development. Membrane protein motion in the AIS plasma membrane is confined to a repetitive pattern of ~190 nm spaced segments along the AIS axis as early as DIV4 and this pattern alternates with actin rings. Our data provide a new model for the mechanism of the AIS diffusion barrier.
Multiplex shRNA Screening of Germ Cell Development byin vivoTransfection of Mouse Testis
Authors: Ho Nicholas R. Y. , Usmani Abul R. , Yin Yan , Ma Liang , Conrad Donald F.
Published: April 2016

Spermatozoa are one of the few mammalian cells types that cannot be fully derivedin vitro, severely limiting the application of modern genomic techniques to study germ cell biology. The current gold standard approach of characterizing single gene knockout mice is slow as generation of each mutant line can take 6-9 months. Here, we describe anin vivoapproach to rapid functional screening of germline genes based on a new non-surgical, non-viralin vivotransfection method to deliver nucleic acids into testicular germ cells. By coupling multiplex transfection of short hairpin RNA constructs with pooled amplicon sequencing as a readout, we were able to screen many genes for spermatogenesis function in a quick and inexpensive experiment. We transfected nine mouse testes with a pilot pool of RNAi against well-characterized genes to show that this system is highly reproducible and accurate. With a false negative rate of 18% and a false positive rate of 12%, this method has similar performance as other RNAi screens in the well-describedDrosophilamodel system. In a separate experiment, we screened 26 uncharacterized genes computationally predicted to be essential for spermatogenesis and found numerous candidates for follow up studies. Further, by characterizing the effect of both libraries on neuronal N2a cells, we show that our screening results from testis are tissue-specific. Our calculations indicate that the current implementation of this approach could be used to screen thousands of protein-coding genes simultaneously in a single mouse testis. The experimental protocols and analysis scripts provided will enable other groups to use this procedure to study diverse aspects of germ cell biology ranging from epigenetics to cell physiology. This approach also has great promise as an applied tool for validating diagnoses made from medical genome sequencing, or designing synthetic biological sequences that act as potent and highly specific male contraceptives.
Epigenetic regulation of miR-218 and its host gene, SLIT2 in breast cancer
Authors: Babu Ganesh , Nambi Arivudai
Published: April 2016

Numerous studies have shown that microRNAs are deregulated in various types of cancer. Although miR-218 aberrant expression has been documented in various cancers, the epigenetic regulation of miR-218 is unclear in breast cancer. Our results demonstrate that treatment of breast cancer cells with demethylating agent, 5-azacytidine, resulted in increased expression of miR-218 and its host gene slit-2, suggesting that they are epigenetically regulated in breast cancer. The ectopic expression of miR-218 sensitize breast cancer cell to doxorubicin treatment. The results suggest that miR-218 is epigenetically regulated along with its host gene and function as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer. miR-218 and SLIT2 may have potential therapeutic value in combination with demethylating drug in breast cancer patients.
Inferring local movement of pathogen vectors among hosts
Authors: Fu Z , Epstein B , Kelley J. L. , Zheng Q. , Bergland A. O. , Castillo Carrillo C. I. , Jensen A. S. , Snyder W. E.
Published: April 2016

Herbivores often move among spatially interspersed host plants, tracking high-quality resources through space and time. This dispersal is of particular interest for vectors of plant pathogens. Existing molecular tools to track such movement have yielded important insights, but often provide insufficient genetic resolution to infer spread at finer spatiotemporal scales. Here, we explore the use ofNextera-tagmentedreductively-amplifiedDNA (NextRAD) sequencing to infer movement of a highly-mobile winged insect, the potato psyllid (Bactericera cockerelli), among host plants. The psyllid vectors the pathogen that causes zebra chip disease in potato (Solanum tuberosum), but understanding and managing the spread of this pathogen is limited by uncertainty about the insect’s host plant(s) outside of the growing season. We identified 8,443 polymorphic loci among psyllids separated spatiotemporally on potato or in patches of bittersweet nightshade (S.dulcumara), a weedy plant proposed to be the source of potato-colonizing psyllids. A subset of the psyllids on potato exhibited close genetic similarity to insects on nightshade, consistent with regular movement between these two host plants. However, a second subset of potato-collected psyllids was genetically distinct from those collected on bittersweet nightshade; this suggests that a currently unrecognized host-plant species could be contributing to psyllid populations in potato. Oftentimes, dispersal of vectors of plant or animal pathogens must be tracked at a relatively fine scale in order to understand, predict, and manage disease spread. We demonstrate that emerging sequencing technologies that detect SNPs across a vector’s entire genome can be used to infer such localized movement.
An extension of thestudyforrestdataset for vision research
Authors: Sengupta Ayan , Kaule Falko R. , Guntupalli J. Swaroop , Hoffmann Michael B. , Häusler Christian , Stadler Jörg , Hanke Michael
Published: April 2016

Thestudyforrest(http://studyforrest.org) dataset is likely the largest neuroimag-ing dataset on natural language and story processing publicly available today. In this article, along with a companion publication, we present an update of this dataset that extends its scope to vision and multi-sensory research. 15 participants of the original cohort volunteered for a series of additional studies: a clinical examination of visual function, a standard retinotopic mapping procedure, and a localization of higher visual areas — such as the fusiform face area. The combination of this update, the previous data releases for the dataset, and the companion publication, which includes neuroimaging and eye tracking data from natural stimulation with a motion picture, form an extremely versatile and comprehensive resource for brain imaging research — with almost six hours of functional neuroimaging data across five different stimulation paradigms for each participant. Furthermore, we describe employed paradigms and present results that document the quality of the data for the purpose of characterising major properties of participants’ visual processing stream.
In Silicomethod for identification of MHC class I-like molecules in whole genomes
Authors: Reinink Peter , van Rhijn Ildiko
Published: April 2016

Mining of genomic data is a valuable tool for the discovery of orthologous genes of close or distant relatives of humans and mice. Here we describe a standardized search method for the MHC class I-like molecules CD1 and MR1 and apply it to 18 mammalian genomes.
An African-specific polymorphism in the TP53 gene impairs p53 tumor suppressor function in a mouse model
Authors: Jennis Matthew , Kung Che-Pei , Basu Subhasree , Budina-Kolomets Anna , Leu Julia I-Ju , Khaku Sakina , Scott Jeremy P. , Cai Kathy Q. , Campbell Michelle R. , Porter Devin K. , Wang Xuting , Bell Douglas A. , Li Xiaoxian , Garlick David S. , Liu Qin , Hollstein Monica , George Donna L. , Murphy Maureen E.
Published: April 2016

A nonsynonymous single-nucleotide polymorphism at codon 47 in TP53 exists in African-descent populations (P47S, rs1800371; referred to here as S47). Here we report that, in human cell lines and a mouse model, the S47 variant exhibits a modest decrease in apoptosis in response to most genotoxic stresses compared with wild-type p53 but exhibits a significant defect in cell death induced by cisplatin. We show that, compared with wild-type p53, S47 has nearly indistinguishable transcriptional function but shows impaired ability to transactivate a subset of p53 target genes, including two involved in metabolism: Gls2 (glutaminase 2) and Sco2. We also show that human and mouse cells expressing the S47 variant are markedly resistant to cell death by agents that induce ferroptosis (iron-mediated nonapoptotic cell death). We show that mice expressing S47 in homozygous or heterozygous form are susceptible to spontaneous cancers of diverse histological types. Our data suggest that the S47 variant may contribute to increased cancer risk in individuals of African descent, and our findings highlight the need to assess the contribution of this variant to cancer risk in these populations. These data also confirm the potential relevance of metabolism and ferroptosis to tumor suppression by p53.
Targeted resequencing identifies PTCH1 as a major contributor to ocular developmental anomalies and extends the SOX2 regulatory network
Authors: Chassaing Nicolas , Davis Erica E. , McKnight Kelly L. , Niederriter Adrienne R. , Causse Alexandre , David Véronique , Desmaison Annaïck , Lamarre Sophie , Vincent-Delorme Catherine , Pasquier Laurent , Coubes Christine , Lacombe Didier , Rossi Massimiliano , Dufier Jean-Louis , Dollfus Helene , Kaplan Josseline , Katsanis Nicholas , Etchevers Heather C. , Faguer Stanislas , Calvas Patrick
Published: April 2016

Ocular developmental anomalies (ODA) such as anophthalmia/microphthalmia (AM) or anterior segment dysgenesis (ASD) have an estimated combined prevalence of 3.7 in 10,000 births. Mutations in SOX2 are the most frequent contributors to severe ODA, yet account for a minority of the genetic drivers. To identify novel ODA loci, we conducted targeted high-throughput sequencing of 407 candidate genes in an initial cohort of 22 sporadic ODA patients. Patched 1 (PTCH1), an inhibitor of sonic hedgehog (SHH) signaling, harbored an enrichment of rare heterozygous variants in comparison to either controls, or to the other candidate genes (four missense and one frameshift); targeted resequencing of PTCH1 in a second cohort of 48 ODA patients identified two additional rare nonsynonymous changes. Using multiple transient models and a CRISPR/Cas9-generated mutant, we show physiologically relevant phenotypes altering SHH signaling and eye development upon abrogation of ptch1 in zebrafish for which in vivo complementation assays using these models showed that all six patient missense mutations affect SHH signaling. Finally, through transcriptomic and ChIP analyses, we show that SOX2 binds to an intronic domain of the PTCH1 locus to regulate PTCH1 expression, findings that were validated both in vitro and in vivo. Together, these results demonstrate that PTCH1 mutations contribute to as much as 10% of ODA, identify the SHH signaling pathway as a novel effector of SOX2 activity during human ocular development, and indicate that ODA is likely the result of overactive SHH signaling in humans harboring mutations in either PTCH1 or SOX2.
Transformation of Schizosaccharomyces pombe: Lithium Acetate/ Dimethyl Sulfoxide Procedure
Authors: Murray Johanne M. , Watson Adam T. , Carr Antony M.
Published: April 2016

Transformation of Schizosaccharomyces pombe with DNA requires the conditioning of cells to promote DNA uptake followed by cell growth under conditions that select and maintain the plasmid or integration event. The three main methodologies are electroporation, treatment with lithium cations, and transformation of protoplasts. The lithium acetate method described here is widely used because it is simple and reliable.