bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
L'huissier de justice et l'exécution des jugements par voie de contrainte. Une reconstruction empirique de la pyramide d'exécution en Flandre
Authors: Van Loon Francis , Delrue Stephane
Published: February 2015

The Bailiff and the Compulsory Enforcement of Rulings in Civil Matters : An Empirical Reconstruction of the « Pyramid of Enforcement » in Flanders.

The compulsory enforcement of civil rulings follows a distinct number of successive steps stipulated by the Judicial Code and is meant to increase the pressure on the debtor. For this study, 23 bailiffs provided us with 276 cases of compulsory enforcement. The resulting « pyramid of enforcement » offers a quantitative assessment of the flow and fall-out of cases throughout the process of compulsory enforcement. Furthermore, the configurations of the parties involved reveal different modes of enforcement.
De l'oralité et de la lettre de la loi
Authors: Howes David
Published: February 2015

Orality and the Letter of the Law.

This essay extends P. Bourdieu's discussion of « the force of form » by interrogating the force which resides in the medium of legal discourse. Significant changes in the norms of legal discourse can be discerned when a legal tradition undergoes the transition from being oral to being written, as shown in the first case study presented here, which concerns the codification of the private law of Quebec. The second case study examines the battle over the recognition of aboriginal rights in Canada and the U.S., and demonstrates how significant injustices may occur when an attempt is made to translate the legal institutions and interests of an oral society into written terms. It is no exaggeration to say that the « letter of the law » kills.
Voies de recherche pour la protection judiciaire de la jeunesse
Authors: Loiseau Martine
Published: February 2015

Un séminaire a été organisé en 1992-93 afin de recueillir, de la part des praticiens, des chercheurs et des décideurs administratifs, des éléments de réflexion permettant d'identifier et de problématiser les questions pertinentes quant à la justice des mineurs. Cet article présente le dispositif adopté dans ses dispositions intellectuelles, méthodologiques et pratiques. Sans entrer dans l'exposé des résultats obtenus — qui a fait l'objet d'un rapport remis à la Mission de recherche Droit et Justice en novembre 1994 —, il souligne les effets latéraux d'une telle démarche quant à la difficile structuration d'un milieu caractérisé par la diversité et le nombre de ses composantes.
Juge dominant ou juge démuni ? La redéfinition du rôle du juge en matière de divorce
Authors: Cardia-Vonèche Laura , Liziard Sylvie , Bastard Benoit
Published: February 2015

Dominant or Diminished ? Redefining the Judge's Role in Divorce Proceedings.

This article presents some thoughts on the role judges play in French divorce proceedings. It is based on an analysis of hearings held by family court judges in different courts in the Paris area. Through focusing on the mariner in which communication occurs during hearings, the analysis has lead to a distinction among courtroom situations. When the parties have reached agreement before the hearing, communication during the procedure is highly structured. The judge directs the entire process, taking the role of giving a solemn character to the decisions made by the divorcing couple. On the other hand, if issues are raised at the hearing, the style of communication changes in tone. All the participants use language borrowed from everyday usage. The interventions of the judge in these latter situations are in keeping with the task of searching for an agreement.
« Looking to the Future » : vers une nouvelle délimitation des interventions professionnelles dans le domaine du divorce au Royaume-Uni
Authors: Maclean Mavis
Published: February 2015

« Looking to the Future » : Towards a New Approach to Professional Intervention in Divorce in the United Kingdom.

« Looking to the Future » is a Green Paper presented to Parliament to reform divorce proceedings. It aims at turning divorce away from the courts towards mediation. This article presents the economic and political contexts of this proposal and examines its likely consequences. The different professional interventions happening in a divorce today are pictured, as well as their modifications, when this legislation cornes to be enforced. It is argued that with enough rules to regulate mediation and appropriate training for mediators, family justice might not lose out, but this would probably be no less expensive than courts and solicitors, while they are already expert in the field.
Une relation « dans l'intérêt de l'enfant » ? Le juge de la famille et les lieux d'accueil pour l'exercice du droit de visite
Authors: Sayn Isabelle
Published: February 2015

A Relationship in the Best Interest of the Child ? Family Court Judges and the Use of Meeting Places for the Exercise of Visiting Rights ; Family Contact Centres.

To improve the understanding of the relations elaborated between judges and family contact centres, 18 family court judges have been interviewed. An analysis of these interviews reveals a two-fold paradox : In the first place, although the judges are very anxious to obtain information and have the authority to demand that family contact centres supply them with this information, in general they content themselves with obtaining less information than the amount desired. They thus respect the arguments of confidentiality put forward by the family contact centres. In the second place, even though the judges attach great authority to their decisions, they do not dispose of the legal means to compel the family contact centres to respect them. Nevertheless, they manage to achieve this without too much difficulty. The conclusion is that the collaboration between the judges and the family contact centres strengthens the authority of the judicial decision with the purpose of maintaining the Personal relationships of the child with both its parents.
Avocats et divorce aux États-Unis : la transformation des pratiques professionnelles
Authors: Mather Lynn , Maiman Richard J. , McEwen Craig A.
Published: February 2015

Changes in Divorce Law and Legal Practice in the United States.

Social and legal changes in the United States since the 1960' s have affected the practice of divorce law in a variety of ways. This article analyzes these developments by drawing on interview data and court records from the states of Maine and New Hampshire. Prominent among the changes examined are the increased incidence of divorce among middle and lower income couples ; the rapid rise in the number of women attorneys, a trend particularly notable among divorce specialists ; new rules governing child custody and division of marital property ; an increased use of mediation in divorce cases. The analysis shows, for example, how the roles and work of divorce lawyers have become differentiated according to the class of clientele and degree of legal specialization, how some women lawyers have brought a new style of feminist advocacy to divorce, and how legal changes and the introduction of mediation have reduced adversarial legal conflict in divorce.
Les mariages civils en Europe : histoires, contextes, chiffres
Authors: Dittgen Alfred
Published: February 2015

En Europe, le mariage civil est, selon les cas, obligatoire ou optionnel. Le mariage civil obligatoire a été instauré par la Révolution française et a gagné une grande partie des pays de ce continent. Son adoption s'est faite généralement lors de périodes de lutte contre l'Église. Elle a aussi été motivée par la possibilité d'instauration du divorce dans les pays à tradition catholique. Le mariage civil optionnel, instauré d'abord en Angleterre, s'est diffusé dans les pays qui ont gardé des relations officielles avec leurs Églises. Les pays catholiques du Sud, après avoir adopté le mariage civil obligatoire, en sont venus au mariage civil optionnel à la suite de concordats. Ces évolutions divergentes ne sont pas sans influence sur les chiffres des mariages civils et religieux des différents pays.
Droit et usages des nouvelles technologies : les enjeux d'une réglementation de la vidéosurveillance
Authors: Ocqueteau Frédéric , Heilmann Éric
Published: February 2015

Law and Practice of New Technologies : Issues in Regulation of Close Circuit Television (CCTV).

Social relations are increasingly determined by information and communication techniques. A better understanding of this expanding field of research may be obtained by showing how regulations tend to alter the techniques themselves. The aim of this article is twofold : firstly, to describe the present context in which Prefects legalise and control CCTV techniques i.e. by revealing political assumptions underlying the law and observing the various simplifications of the problem within secondary norms necessary for its practical implementation ; secondly, to oppose these assumptions and real practices (stated and latent) in CCTV, using examples drawn from field research. This latter approach suggests that organisations equipped with CCTV are increasingly led to emphasise security aspects in order to improve the professional ability of policemen regarding urban insecurity, although this is not necessarily the principal role of these techniques.
Un diplôme, pour quoi faire ? Coûts et bénéfices des examens comme instruments de fermeture des groupes professionnels : l'exemple des commissaires-priseurs
Authors: Quemin Alain
Published: February 2015

A Diploma : To What End ? Costs and Benefits of Academic Examinations in Restricting Access to Professions : The Case of French « Auctioneers » (commissaires-priseurs).

The restriction of access to professions through educational requirements and competitive examinations — a classic subject in the sociology of professions — has mainly been analysed in terms of the benefit derived from protecting their market share. However, the case of French « auctioneers » (commissaires-priseurs) shows that there also exists a cost, as family reproduction becomes problematic. The evolution of the professional qualifications analyzed in this article for French « auctioneers » was characterized by the persistence of anachronistic criteria (recruitment based exclusively on wealth), by empty attempts at reforms which left auctioneers free to elect their membership and, very recently, by a considerable though sometimes questioned lise in academic training requirements.
Critical Legal Studies et la pratique juridique : la conception de la culture juridique et de la pratique du droit comme interventions culturelles
Authors: Gabel Peter
Published: February 2015

D'après cet article, qui s'inscrit dans la ligne du courant des Critical Legal Studies qui s'est développé aux États-Unis, le droit devrait être appréhendé comme une activité culturelle créatrice de sens et les implications de cette perspective pour une pratique juridique soucieuse de changement social y sont explorées. L'auteur attaque la rationalité analytique, trop technicienne, qui caractérise le raisonnement juridique et montre comment cette conception « objective » de la culture juridique est venue à bout, par le passé, de mouvements sociaux, lorsque ceux-ci, inévitablement, ont pénétré l'arène juridique. Il plaide en faveur d'une approche de la pratique du droit de l'intérêt public qui soit aussi sensible que cognitive, symbolique qu'analytique, passionnée que rationnelle. Il donne des exemples d'une telle stratégie.
Juger l'histoire
Authors: Le Crom Jean-Pierre
Published: February 2015

Judging History.

From the defense of descendents to the defense of contemporaries caught up in the dramatic events of the 20th century and those tortured under modem totalitarian governments, history has become a subject of law. This evolution came about as a result of a widening of the interpretation of the concept of fault and by the creation of many new incriminations designed to suppress attacks on memory's duty after the Second World War's atrocities. If "professional" historians have long been exempt from responsibility, except in cases of crirninal intent or the obvious lack of a rigorous methodology, non professionals have, on the contrary, not escaped prosecution. This discrimination now seems to be questioned, social necessity, of which the judge is guardian, overriding the freedom of expression of the historian. Memory is perhaps the winner, but what about history ?
L'office du juge et l'histoire
Authors: Edelman Bernard
Published: February 2015

Le juge ne peut se prononcer sur l'histoire, sous peine de cautionner une « histoire officielle ». Il est tenu à un devoir de neutralité qui constitue son « office ». Tout au plus peut-il juger la méthode qu'un historien utilise. Dès lors, le jugement sur l'histoire se résout à la seule question de savoir ce qu'est une « bonne » méthode. C'est, diront les tribunaux, la méthode du débat contradictoire, ce qui exclut tout aussi bien l'ignorance, le raisonnement purement spéculatif et, pis encore, le doute absolu, qui rejette toute thèse adverse dans le néant des mythes. Les juges conçoivent la méthode historique sur le modèle du débat démocratique, dont le débat judiciaire est la meilleure expression.
Justice, histoire et mémoire. De Nuremberg à Jérusalem
Authors: Wieviorka Annette
Published: February 2015

Le nazisme présente la singularité d'être le seul régime au monde à s'être abîmé en provoquant une vaste série de procès. Ces procès intéressent l'historien à plusieurs titres. Ils sont d'abord en eux-mêmes des événements. Ils ont fourni ensuite une masse de documents qui ont servi à l'écriture de l'histoire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Ils ont enfin ouvert une ère nouvelle : celle où, dans une large fraction de l'opinion publique, s'est établi un lien indissoluble entre justice, mémoire et histoire.
Le traitement en temps réel : la Justice confrontée à l'urgence comme moyen habituel de résolution de la crise sociale
Authors: Brunet Bernard
Published: February 2015

Le droit positif français connaît depuis 1975 des procédures d'urgence permettant d'accélérer la prise de décision judiciaire à la suite d'une infraction à la loi pénale. L'analyse de l'auteur est que les procédures d'urgence, par leur emploi généralisé, leur modélisation, leur intégration à différents dispositifs d'action publique, participent complètement, aujourd'hui, à une fonction de régulation sociale et associent intimement l'institution judiciaire à cette fonction. Ce constat amène l'auteur à s'interroger sur les conséquences qui en résultent au niveau de la loi, des individus et des magistrats.
Quelques réflexions sur l'« affrontement économie-écologie » et son influence sur le droit
Authors: Romi Raphaël
Published: February 2015

S'il est certain que « la référence au développement durable ne suffit pas pour déduire un ensemble de prescriptions précises permettant de fonder les différentes politiques de l'environnement », elle est à même de fonder des comportements juridiques et d'orienter des demandes sociales de droit. En la matière, le consensualisme n'est que de façade. Le fait que le droit international ait intégré la notion interdit qu'on fasse sur le plan national l'économie d'un débat, même si celui-ci ne répond qu'en creux aux débats internationaux et européens. L'économie des politiques publiques n'a pourtant pas retenu parmi ses paradigmes la notion de développement « soutenable ». C'est d'ailleurs un peu normal pour une discipline qui considère souvent le droit en tant que « ressource économique » et développe de la notion de réglementation une conception a-juridique et tout à fait floue faute de définition rigoureuse.
L'écriture en procès : les récits d'un meurtre devant un tribunal sharʻî
Authors: Messick Brinkley
Published: February 2015

The Trial of Writing : Murder Narratives in a Shariʻa Court.

A murder judgement from a shariʻa court in mid-twentieth-century Yemen is the point of departure for an analysis intended to advance an "archival anthropology". This ethnographic and historical project centers on a close reading of the judgement in question using methods inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin. Attention is given to how the judgement is composed of fragments of other texts, both oral and written. This work also is meant to complement inquiries into the "source" texts of Islamic legal practice and to shed light specifically on the handling of homicide cases, which are little studied in Islamic settings.
Justice et injustice du tanfîl : la part du légal et du conventionnel dans la construction sociale du sens ordinaire du juste
Authors: Nachi Mohamed
Published: February 2015

Dans cet article, nous proposons, d'un point de vue socio-anthropologique, une approche comparative du sens ordinaire de la justice à travers l'analyse d'un cas paradigmatique de partage selon le mode du tanfîl. Nous commençons par examiner les deux significations principales, religieuse et coutumière, de cette institution ainsi que les différentes modalités de sa mise en œuvre. Puis, à partir d'une analyse détaillée des formes de justification et des jugements déployés par des Tunisiens et des Français à propos de ce cas de partage, nous montrons comment les positions, aussi bien des uns que des autres, oscillent entre deux conceptions de la justice : d'après la première, il y a une adéquation entre le légal et le juste tandis que, selon la seconde, il y a au contraire inadéquation entre les deux. Dans le premier cas, on fait systématiquement recours à la loi comme référentiel de justification au détriment des normes conventionnelles, dans le second, c'est l'inverse qui se produit. Enfin, nous verrons, à travers l'exigence de compromis, qu'en définitive le sens de la justice se situe entre les deux.
La reconstruction séculière du droit islamique : la Haute Cour constitutionnelle égyptienne et la « bataille du voile » dans les écoles publiques
Authors: Bälz Kilian
Published: February 2015

À première vue, l'article 2 de la Constitution égyptienne, qui fait des principes de la sharîʻa la source principale de la législation, peut sembler paradoxal : d'une part, le droit positif égyptien, c'est-à-dire un corpus juridique voté par le législateur égyptien selon une procédure définie ; de l'autre, la sharîʻa, c'est-à-dire un corpus iuris consistant dans les écrits juridiques des juristes musulmans (fuqahâ') se référant à l'islam pour légitimer leur travail. Dans cet article, l'analyse du raisonnement juridique suivi par la Haute Cour constitutionnelle égyptienne, dans son arrêt portant sur le voile, sert de support à un questionnement théorique qui, s'inspirant des travaux de Teubner, cherche à apporter une réponse à ce paradoxe. Cette décision constitue l'illustration parfaite du combat pour la défense de l'autonomie de l'ordre juridique séculier, la Cour veillant à asseoir son pouvoir d'interprétation du droit islamique : tout en reconnaissant formellement l'autorité des règles de ce droit, elle se réserve en fait l'exclusivité de sa « substantialisation ».
La voie britannique vers une constitution européenne
Authors: Émili Pietro
Published: February 2015

Britain Steeps Towards a European Constitution.

A process of constitutional change is under way in Great Britain which could have unexpected precedents for constitutional development in the European Union. This article shows how current constitutional expectations at the national level are a reaction to the centralist local government policies of the conservative governments preceding Tony Blair. There is a widespread impression among experts and citizens that the non-written constitution of the UK is under attack which has led to calls for the incorporation of a bill of rights in national law. Lobbying by citizens' organisations and local authorities in this constitutional process has given rise to a view of society based on participatory democracy. This social vision is the same as that being developed in a supranational context. Even in the EU there is a constirutional process under way.
De la régulation internalisée à la régulation externalisée dans le domaine des télécommunications
Authors: Vedel Thierry
Published: February 2015

From Internalized to Externalized Regulation : The Case of French Telecommunications.

Over the last two centuries, the French telecommunications' sector has been developing according to various regulatory patterns : private firm, public service company, monopolistic administration. While the administrative form has been dominant, unique forms of regulation - based on private subsidiaries, ad hoc territorial structures, a tight control of manufacturers and specific financing procedures - took place and allowed the operator to adjust to a changing environment. The privatization and liberalization of French telecommunications is leading to the externalization of these modes of regulation.
The Family Assembly and the Justice of the Peace in 19th Century Flanders
Authors: Deryckere Ira
Published: February 2015

Le conseil de famille et le juge de paix en Flandre au XIXe siècle.

Cet article rend compte des résultats d'une étude historique et sociologique plus large sur le fonctionnement du conseil de famille - organe principal de la tutelle d'après le Code civil, présidé par le juge de paix - en Flandre au XIXe siècle. Les règles de la tutelle visaient principalement à protéger l'avoir des personnes concernées et de leurs familles. Si, à première vue, il semble que la protection de ces biens ne présentait pas de problème majeur, une analyse plus approfondie montre qu'une partie des prescriptions concernant la protection des biens et de la personne n'était pas appliquée, compromettant ainsi l'efficacité du dispositif de tutelle.
Entre sous-intégration et sur-intégration : la citoyenneté inexistante dans les pays de la modernité périphérique
Authors: Neves Marcelo
Published: February 2015

L'article aborde le problème de l'inexistence de citoyenneté dans le contexte des relations de sous-intégration et de sur-intégration qui caractérisent les systèmes sociaux, tout particulièrement le système juridico-politique, dans les pays de la modernité périphérique. Après avoir défini le concept de citoyenneté et en avoir analysé les usages politico-symboliques (notamment au travers des déclarations constitutionnelles), l'auteur questionne les formes concrètes d'exercice de ces droits au Brésil. Selon lui, la déjuridification du processus de concrétisation constitutionnelle, en lien avec le manque d'autonomie et d'identité du champ juridique, serait à l'origine d'une sous-citoyenneté aussi bien que d'une sur-citoyenneté.
An Averaging Technique for the P300 Spatial Distribution
Authors: Matteucci M. , Mainardi L. , Tahirovic A.
Published: February 2015

Introduction: This article is part of the Focus Theme of Methods of Information in Medicine on “Biosignal Interpretation: Advanced Methods for Neural Signals and Images”.

Objectives: The main objectives of the paper regard the analysis of amplitude spatial distribution of the P300 evoked potential over a scalp of a particular subject and finding an averaged spatial distribution template for that subject. This template, which may differ for two different subjects, can help in getting a more accurate P300 detection for all BCIs that inherently use spatial filtering to detect P300 signal. Finally, the proposed averaging technique for a particular subject obtains an averaged spatial distribution template through only several epochs, which makes the proposed averaging technique fast and possible to use without applying any prior training data as in case of data enhancement technique.

Methods: The method used in the proposed framework for the averaging of spatial distribution of P300 evoked potentials is based on the statistical properties of independent components (ICs). These components are obtained by using independent component analysis (ICA) from different target epochs.

Results: This paper gives a novel averaging technique for the spatial distribution of P300 evoked potentials, which is based on the P300 signals obtained from different target epochs using the ICA algorithm. Such a technique provides a more reliable P300 spatial distribution for a subject of interest, which can be used either for an improved spatial selection of ICs, or more accurate P300 detection and extraction. In addition, the experiments demonstrate that the values of spatial intensity computed by the proposed technique for P300 signal converge after only several target epochs for each electrode allocation. Such a speed of convergence allows the proposed algorithm to easily adapt to a subject of interest without any additional artificial data preparation prior the algorithm execution such in case of data enhancement technique.

Conclusion: The proposed technique averages the P300 spatial distribution for a particular subject over all electrode allocations. First, the technique combines P300-like components obtained by the ICA run within a target epoch in order to obtainan averaged P300 spatial distribution. Second, the technique averages spatial distributions of P300 signals obtained from different target epochs in order to get the final averaged template. Such an template can be useful for any BCI technique where spatial selection is used to detect evoked potentials.
Daily Life Activity Routine Discovery in Hemiparetic Rehabilitation Patients Using Topic Models
Authors: Derungs A. , Schuster-Amft C. , Amft O. , Tröster G. , Seiter J.
Published: February 2015

Background: Monitoring natural behavior and activity routines of hemiparetic rehabilitation patients across the day can provide valuable progress information for therapists and patients and contribute to an optimized rehabilitation process. In particular, continuous patient monitoring could add type, frequency and duration of daily life activity routines and hence complement standard clinical scores that are assessed for particular tasks only. Machine learning methods have been applied to infer activity routines from sensor data. However, supervised methods require activity annotations to build recognition models and thus require extensive patient supervision. Discovery methods, including topic models could provide patient routine information and deal with variability in activity and movement performance across patients. Topic models have been used to discover characteristic activity routine patterns of healthy individuals using activity primitives recognized from supervised sensor data. Yet, the applicability of topic models for hemiparetic rehabilitation patients and techniques to derive activity primitives without supervision needs to be addressed.

Objectives: We investigate, 1) whether a topic model-based activity routine discovery framework can infer activity routines of rehabilitation patients from wearable motion sensor data. 2) We compare the performance of our topic model-based activity routine discovery using rule-based and clustering-based activity vocabulary.

Methods: We analyze the activity routine discovery in a dataset recorded with 11 hemiparetic rehabilitation patients during up to ten full recording days per individual in an ambulatory daycare rehabilitation center using wearable motion sensors attached to both wrists and the non-affected thigh. We introduce and compare rule-based and clustering-based activity vocabulary to process statistical and frequency acceleration features to activity words. Activity words were used for activity routine pattern discovery using topic models based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Discovered activity routine patterns were then mapped to six categorized activity routines.

Results: Using the rule-based approach, activity routines could be discovered with an average accuracy of 76% across all patients. The rule-based approach outperformed clustering by 10% and showed less confusions for predicted activity routines.

Conclusion: Topic models are suitable to discover daily life activity routines in hemiparetic rehabilitation patients without trained classifiers and activity annotations. Activity routines show characteristic patterns regarding activity primitives including body and extremity postures and movement. A patient-independent rule set can be derived. Including expert knowledge supports successful activity routine discovery over completely data-driven clustering.
Copper-catalyzed cascade reactions of α,β-unsaturated esters with keto esters
Authors: Li Zhengning , Wang Chongnian , Li Zengchang
Published: February 2015

A copper-catalyzed cascade reaction of α,β-unsaturated esters with keto esters is reported. It features a copper-catalyzed reductive aldolization followed by a lactonization. This method provides a facile approach to prepare γ-carboxymethyl-γ-lactones and δ-carboxymethyl-δ-lactones under mild reaction conditions.
Coordination of MicroRNAs, PhasiRNAs, and NB‐LRR Genes in Response to a Plant Pathogen: Insights from Analyses of a Set of Soybean Rps Gene Near‐Isogenic Lines
Authors: Zhao Meixia , Cai Chunmei , Zhai Jixian , Lin Feng , Li Linghong , Shreve Jacob , Thimmapuram Jyothi , Hughes Teresa J. , Meyers Blake C. , Ma Jianxin
Published: February 2015

Disease‐related genes, particularly the nucleotide binding site (NB)–leucine‐rich repeat (LRR) class of R plant genes can be triggered by microRNAs (miRNAs) to generate phased small interfering RNAs (phasiRNAs), which could reduce the transcript levels of their targets. However, how global changes in NB‐LRR transcript levels coordinate with changes in miRNA and phasiRNA levels in defense responses remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated changes in the relative abundance of small RNAs (sRNAs), with a focus on miRNAs and phasiRNAs and their potential targets in response to the pathogen Phytophthora sojae in the susceptible soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] ‘Williams’ and nine resistant near‐isogenic lines (NILs), each carrying a unique resistance to P. sojae (Rps) gene. In total, 369 distinct miRNAs, including 78 new ones, were identified in the 10 soybean lines. The majority of miRNAs were downregulated by the pathogen. Of the 525 NB‐LRR genes found in the soybean reference genome, 257 were predicted to be the targets of eight abundant miRNA families and 126 (dubbed phasi‐NB‐LRRs or pNLs) were predicted to have produced phasiRNAs. Upregulation of 15 phasi‐NB‐LRRs was associated with downregulation of their corresponding phasiRNAs in the NILs; these phasiRNAs were predicted to regulate 75 additional NB‐LRRs in trans. In addition, we identified putative 24‐nucleotide (nt) phasiRNAs from transposons, possibly representing a novel general epigenetic mechanism for regulation of transposon activity under biotic stresses. Together, these observations suggest that miRNAs and phasiRNAs play an important role in response to plant pathogens through complex, multiple layers of post‐transcriptional regulation.
Phytic Acid and Inorganic Phosphate Composition in Soybean Lines with Independent IPK1 Mutations
Authors: Vincent Jennifer A. , Stacey Minviluz , Stacey Gary , Bilyeu Kristin D.
Published: February 2015

Soybean seeds contain a large amount of P, which is stored as phytic acid (PA). Phytic acid is indigestible by nonruminant livestock and considered an antinutritional factor in soybean meal. Several low PA soybean lines have been discovered, but many of these lines have either minor reductions in PA or inadequate germination and emergence. The reduced PA phenotype of soybean line Gm‐lpa‐ZC‐2 was previously shown to be the result of a mutation in a gene encoding an inositol pentakisphosphate 2‐kinase on chromosome 14 (14IPK1). While the 14IPK1 mutation was shown to have no impact on germination and emergence, the reduction in PA was modest (up to 50%). Our objective was to determine the effect on seed P partitioning for a novel mutation of an independent IPK1 gene on chromosome six (06IPK1) on its own and in combination with mutant alleles of the 14IPK1. We developed soybean populations and conducted genotype and phenotype association analyses based on the genotype of the 06IPK1 and 14IPK1 genes and the seed P partitioning profile. The lines with both mutant IPK1 genes had very low PA levels, moderate accumulation of inorganic phosphate (Pi), and accumulation of high amounts of P in lower inositols. The developed lines did not have significant reductions in germination or field emergence. In addition, characterization of the lower inositols produced in the mutant lines suggests that IPK1 is a polyphosphate kinase and provides some insight into the PA biosynthesis pathway in soybean seeds.
El miedo como arma de dominación: admiración, pavor y victoria en la imagen del rey guerrero en el helenismo inicial
Authors: Molina Marín Antonio Ignacio
Published: February 2015

El rey fue la figura más importante de todo el período helenístico. Fue un guerrero invencible, un gobernante sabio, dios, general y curador. Todos estos aspectos sobre la monarquía helenística son bien conocidos, sin embargo hay una cuestión que no ha sido estudiada por los investigadores, es decir, la capacidad de los reyes helenísticos para hacer huir a sus enemigos conmoviéndolos por el miedo con su mera presencia. En este artículo analizamos historias relacionadas con Pérdicas, Olimpíade, Pirro y Alejandro Magno. Nuestra opinión es que todas estas historias están basadas en el mismo modelo, la lucha entre Aquiles y los troyanos en la Ilíada (XVIII 203-23). La égida es estudiada como la justificación mítica de la invencibilidad y terribilidad de los reyes. Además, contemplamos la posibilidad de que este fenómeno estuviese asociado con los reyes de Macedonia antes de Alejandro.
La colección de armas de Íñigo López de Mendoza, V duque del Infantado
Authors: González Ramos Roberto
Published: February 2015

Don Íñigo López de Mendoza, V duque del Infantado, fue uno de los coleccionistas de armas más importantes de la Europa del Siglo XVI. Este artículo se centra en el estudio de su armería analizando su contenido y explicándolo para entender los mecanismos y las razones de su creación, así como de su uso y adecuación a lo que hoy entendemos como coleccionismo moderno.
Image Quality Assessment and Outliers Filtering in an Image-Based Animal Supervision System
Authors: Khoramshahi Ehsan , Hietaoja Juha , Valros Anna , Yun Jinhyeon , Pastell Matti
Published: February 2015

This paper presents a probabilistic framework for the image quality assessment (QA), and filtering of outliers, in an image-based animal supervision system (asup). The proposed framework recognizes asup's imperfect frames in two stages. The first stage deals with the similarity analysis of the same-class distributions. The objective of this stage is to maximize the separability measures by defining a set of similarity indicators (SI) under the condition that the number of permissible values for them is restricted to be relatively low. The second stage, namely faulty frame recognition (FFR), deals with asup's QA training and real-time quality assessment (RTQS). In RTQS, decisions are made based on a real-time quality assessment mechanism such that the majority of the defected frames are removed from the consecutive sub routines that calculate the movements. The underlying approach consists of a set of SI indexes employed in a simple Bayesian inference model. The results confirm that a significant amount of defected frames can be efficiently classified by this approach. The performance of the proposed technique is demonstrated by the classification on a cross-validation set of mixed high and low quality frames. The classification shows a true positive rate of 88.6% while the false negative rate is only about 2.5%.
Application of Data Envelopment Analysis and Key Characteristics of Greek Agro-Firms
Authors: Lemonakis Christos
Published: February 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate key characteristics for the competitiveness in Greek agro-firms during the time period 2004 to 2011, based on firm level financial data. The study attempts to determine the firms' efficiency as well as the impact of exporting activity in agro-firms competitiveness, and more specifically in fisheries, farms with livestock and farms with fruits, vegetables and cereals. Although many empirical studies have been conducted relative to manufacturing firms' financial characteristics, limited research exists on agro-food firms. The use of DEA method seems to be a very useful tool for efficiency assessment and identification of best practices in firms' management for both managers and the Government as well in order to facilitate the growth of the agricultural sector.
Hello Stranger!
Authors: Tait Sophie E. , Jeske Debora
Published: February 2015

The current study examined the role of personality attributes and online profile characteristics as predictors of self-disclosure. The authors were specifically interested to learn how personality and profile attractiveness influenced the quantity and type of information individuals would be willing to share about themselves with a potential dating partner who they have never met before. The results of the online survey with 149 female participants revealed that the propensity to trust and extraversion were significant positive predictors of self-reported tendency to self-disclose potentially sensitive and identifying information, while greater profile attractiveness further increased the amount of information they were willing to share. These findings suggest that information disclosure is in part driven by personality and context, which has potential implications for how careful individuals are about revealing potentially sensitive information to strangers.
Cross-Sectional Evaluation of Distance Education Students' Learning Styles and Critical Thinking Dispositions in Turkey
Authors: Yüksel İsmail , Türkses Ercüment
Published: February 2015

This study aims to examine distance education students' learning styles and critical thinking dispositions. This cross sectional survey was conducted on 114 Turkish distance education students from various departments in a state university. The data of the study were collected through Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Style Scale (GRSLSS) and California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI). Cronbach Alpha coefficiencies of the scales were .76 for GRSLSS and .79 for CCTDI. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations), t-test and one-way analysis of variance tests were used. The results indicated that the dependent learning style was the most preferred style and the avoidant learning style was the least preferred style. The further analysis regarding learning style indicated that female students perceived themselves more dependent than male students. The results also indicated that students in teacher training programs scored higher in independent and avoidant sub-scales, while students in arts and sciences programs scored higher in dependent, collaborative, competitive and participant sub-scales. The results manifested that students' critical thinking dispositions were at a low level, and they mostly had analyticity and open-mindedness dispositions. Female students were found to have more critical thinking dispositions than male students.
Effects of the Digital Game-Development Approach on Elementary School Students' Learning Motivation, Problem Solving, and Learning Achievement
Authors: Chu Hui-Chun , Hung Chun-Ming
Published: February 2015

In this study, the game-based development approach is proposed for improving the learning motivation, problem solving skills, and learning achievement of students. An experiment was conducted on a learning activity of an elementary school science course to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. A total of 59 sixth graders from two classes of the elementary school participated in the experiment. One class of 30 students was selected as the experimental group, and the other class of 29 students was the control group. From the experimental results, it was found that the proposed game development-based learning approach could effectively promote the students' problem-solving skills. However, the students' learning achievement and motivations were quite different from our expectations. A discussion of the experimental group interview data is provided and suggestions made.
The MORPG-based Learning System for Multiple Courses
Authors: Liu Kuo-Yu
Published: February 2015

This study aimed at developing a Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game-based (MORPG) Learning system which enabled instructors to construct a game scenario and manage sharable and reusable learning content for multiple courses. It used the curriculum of “Introduction to Computer Science” as a study case to assess students' learning effectiveness on the subject of “computer network”. The sample was 56 freshman students, who were randomly assigned to two groups, one of which used the game-based learning and the other one the Web-based video lectures. Furthermore, this study also conducted the System Usability Scale (SUS) to measure satisfaction, usability and learnability of the developed management system for instructors. Five instructors were invited to participate in the practical use and evaluation. The results showed that game-based learning could be exploited as effective learning environments and game design system was usable and learnable for instructors to create learning games.
Toward a Feature-Driven Understanding of Students' Emotions during Interactions with Agent-Based Learning Environments
Authors: Harley Jason M. , Azevedo Roger
Published: February 2015

This selective review synthesizes and draws recommendations from the fields of affective computing, intelligent tutoring systems, and psychology to describe and discuss the emotions that learners report experiencing while interacting with agent-based learning environments (ABLEs). Theoretically driven explanations are provided that describe the relative effectiveness and ineffectiveness of different ABLE features to foster adaptive emotions (e.g., engagement, curiosity) vs. non-adaptive emotions (e.g., frustration, boredom) in six different environments. This review provides an analytical lens to evaluate and improve upon research with ABLEs by identifying specific system features and their relationship with learners' appraisals and emotions.
Dream Lucidity
Authors: Bommarito Concetta , Dunlap Kathryn
Published: February 2015

In this paper, the authors examine digital environments as a learning spaces and site of extended cognition by demonstrating the presence of active learning in both video games and their linked online collaborative communities. The authors use Shaun Gallagher's theory of extended mind to posit the notion that the shared cognitive space created in the game between creator and player can be extend to include many others through the digital communities of those players though gaming literacy. The authors conducted a think-aloud protocol with participants playing Yume Nikki, a minimalist Japanese indie game, then reading materials on hikikomori, a condition the creator is believed to have. They conclude from their results that active and creative learning of human communities should not be undervalued when designing virtual environments even when the environment is single-player.
From User's Goal to Semantic Web Services Discovery
Authors: el Bouhissi Houda , Malki Mimoun , Cherif Mohamed Amine Sidi Ali
Published: February 2015

The growing number of the Web Services available on the Web without explicit associated semantic descriptions raises a new and challenging research problem: How to discover efficiently the relevant Web Services that fulfill the user expectations. However, many services that are relevant to a specific user service request may not be considered during the service discovery process. In this paper, the authors address the issue of the Web Service discovery given nonexplicit service description semantics that match a specific service request. Their approach is based on a captured user goal from an HTML form and the traceability and involves semantic-based service categorization, semantic discovery and selection of the best Web Service. Furthermore, the authors' proposal employs ontology matching algorithms to match a specific goal to an existing Web Service. An experimental test of the proposed framework related to the Medical Analysis domain is reported, showing the impact of the proposal in decreasing the time and the effort of the discovery process as a whole.
Towards Improving the Lexicon-Based Approach for Arabic Sentiment Analysis
Authors: Abdulla Nawaf A. , Ahmed Nizar A. , Shehab Mohammed A. , Al-Ayyoub Mahmoud , Al-Kabi Mohammed N. , Al-rifai Saleh
Published: February 2015

The emergence of the Web 2.0 technology generated a massive amount of raw data by enabling Internet users to post their opinions on the web. Processing this raw data to extract useful information can be a very challenging task. An example of important information that can be automatically extracted from the users' posts is their opinions on different issues. This problem of Sentiment Analysis (SA) has been studied well on the English language and two main approaches have been devised: corpus-based and lexicon-based. This work focuses on the later approach due to its various challenges and high potential. The discussions in this paper take the reader through the detailed steps of building the main two components of the lexicon-based SA approach: the lexicon and the SA tool. The experiments show that significant efforts are still needed to reach a satisfactory level of accuracy for the lexicon-based Arabic SA. Nonetheless, they do provide an interesting guide for the researchers in their on-going efforts to improve lexicon-based SA.
Non-Cognitive Factor Relationships to Hybrid Doctoral Student Self-Efficacy
Authors: Egbert Jessica Dalby , Gomez Frank , Li Wenling , Pennington Sandra L.
Published: February 2015

Statistical analysis of data gathered from 139 healthcare doctoral students revealed three key findings regarding non-cognitive factor relationships to hybrid doctoral student self-efficacy between online (web-based) and on-campus course components. First, student experiences significantly differed between online and on-campus course components for task value and faculty and peer support. For these factors, on-campus experiences were perceived significantly more positively than online experiences. Secondly, both online and on-campus experiences with task value, faculty and peer support, and boredom and frustration were correlated with self-efficacy: when students experienced high levels of either task value or faculty and peer support, self-efficacy increased; however, when students experienced high levels of boredom and frustration, self-efficacy decreased. Finally, only online task value positively predicted self-efficacy. These findings demonstrated the significant impact of non-cognitive factors on student success and carry implications for successful hybrid teaching and learning. Social cognitive theory provided the framework for the quantitative, non-experimental design.