This research examines the efforts of the Public Private Comparator (PPC) at the decentralized level in the Netherlands. The PPC is a financial-economic assessment tool that can be used before a tender to determine whether there is a surplus value for a specific project (real estate or infrastructure) in the form of a Public Private Partnership based on a DBFM(O)-contract compared to a traditional form of contract. At state level, this assessment tool has been successfully implemented for a few years now whereas at the decentralized level there is still little experience with this tool and there are mainly pitfalls. Recently the Ministry of Finance launched a pilot for local authorities to examine the need for knowledge and experience regarding DBFM(O)-contracts, after an advice of the Commission on Private Financing of Infrastructure, also known as the Ruding Committee. The main question that will be answered by means of this research is: Under which conditions, with regard to content and process, is it possible to use the PPC within the municipality? This study shows which conditions are needed at State level and how these can be translated to a municipal situation and organization. The result of these findings is converted in a report and a step-by-step plan with regard to content and process for the implementation of the PPC at municipal level. This research has been conducted within, and focuses specifically on the municipality of Rotterdam. Particularly for the theoretical part, the practical part (case studies) and most of the conclusions it is possible to see the results in a broader context, so that this research also applies to local authorities more generally.
INTRODUCTION The expectation is that in the next two decades, China and India will turn into super-powers and industrialized nations. The analysis in this paper will help in understanding how each country's corporate setup works and will help in evaluating the investment potential in the buying of stocks of firms of each country in their various industry sectors. This study contains a literature review followed by the results of the study. The study utilizes a three step top to bottom analysis; macroeconomic analysis followed by industry analysis and lastly with company analysis. The various tables and figures are attached to the end of the article. LITERATURE REVIEW Hu and Honghua (2002) compare key measures of strengths between China and India. These measures include GDP, ratio of long-term economic growth expectation in the world's total, average years of education, and the ratio of exported goods and services in the world's total. The authors conclude that China is far ahead of India. Husain and Harris (2009) compare and contrast broader aspects of the political, economic, and sociocultural climates within the two countries. Kalish (2007) and Zhao (2007) draw similar conclusions based on detailed comparisons and the risks and opportunities of doing business in each country. Wu (2007) compares the service sector growth in China and India and analyzes the determinants of growth in services with an econometric model. He finds that role of services in both China and India has been rising, with China starting from a lower base. Srinivasan's (2004) exhaustive study on comparison of economic performance between China and India identifies key differences and similarities, the underlying causes of success and failures and concludes that China and India have a lot to gain, both from trading with each other and cooperating in the WTO. Maddison (2002) reveals that although India forged ahead of China until the outbreak of the First World War, since 1980, China has forged much farther ahead. Rwaski (2001), Srinivasan and Bardhan (1974), Deato and Kozel (2003), Park and Wang (2001) discuss the sources of estimates of economic performance in China and India, and their frailties. Bahl and Martinez-Vazquez (2003) argue that China's governance is much decentralized than indicated by the government and therefore, it is hard to predict the effect of greater decentralization on China's future fiscal health. Battacharya and Patel (2002) note that the Indian economy suffers from a large and increasing role of the government. Bosworth and Collins (2007) point out the weak and strong performances of India and China in various sectors and conclude that both economies should be able to sustain their growth. While a wealth of literature exists on evaluation of these two countries from a macroeconomic perspective, there exists a gap in the finance literature, specifically, a perspective for potential investors in trying to determine where to place their investment funds. In this article, we examine the valuation issues that an investor needs to consider when investing in china and India. By and large the finance literature advocates a three-step (also known as top-down) valuation process. The first step includes evaluation of general macro-economic factors which influence a country's economy. These factors include fiscal and monetary policy of countries, political conditions. The second step involves identification and assessments of an industry environment in a country's economy. It includes labor skills and relations, capital-labor and business cycle-industry inter-relationships, demographics, scope of the industry and its competitive environment to gauge business risk. The final steps comprise of individual firm analysis in an industry. We use this three-step framework to evaluate and compare the valuation environment in China and India. THE ECONOMIES We deploy Goldman Sachs version of the three-step process, which includes examination of GDP as the key component of a country's economy. âŠ
Chinta Venkateswara Rao, Ramachandran Azhagaiah, K. Chandrasekhara Rao
IntroductionWorking capital (WC) is regarded as the lifeblood of a business. It plays a pivotal role in keeping the wheels of a business enterprise running. Every organization whether profit oriented or not; big or small; rnanufacturing or processing needs requisite amount of WC. The efficient management of WC is crucial as it decides the survival, liquidity, solvency and profitability of the concerned business organization. The objective of management of WC is to maintain the optimum balance of each of the WC components. Business liquidity relies on the effective management of receivables, inventory and payables. Firms are able to reduce financing cost and/or increase the funds availability for expansion by 'minimizing the amount of funds tied up in CA (CAs). Much managerial effort is required to maintain optimum levels from non-optimum levels of CAs and current liabilities (CLs). This optimum level is achieved by balancing between the risk and efficiency1 . Efficient management of WC is an integral component of the overall corporate strategy to create shareholder's value. WC is the resultant need of time lag between the expenditure for the purchase of raw material and collection for the sale of the finished product. The continuing flow of cash starting from suppliers of inventory to accounts receivable and back into cash is referred to as the cash conversion cycle (CCC). Focusing entirely on liquidity increase will tend to reduce the chances of profitability of the firm2.Significance of Textile Industry in IndiaAccording to the CMIE, the textile industry has a significant presence in the economic life of India. It plays a pivotal role through its contribution to industrial output, employment generation and export earnings of the country. It contributes towards 14% of the industrial production, 4% to the GDP, 17 per cent to the country's exports and provides employment to 35 million people (both sexes). The Indian textile industry is extremely varied with major sectors such as the hand spun and hand woven sector, the capital incentive, sophisticated mill sector, and the decentralized Power looms / hosiery and knitting sector. The major sub-sectors that comprise the textile sector include the organized cotton / fibre textile mill industry, the man-made fibre / yam industry, the wool and woolen textile industry, the sericulture and silk textiles Industry, the Handlooms, handicrafts, and the jute and jute textile industry3.WC Management EfficiencyEfficient management of WC refers to management of various components of WC in such a way that an adequate amount of WC is maintained for smooth running of a firm and for fulfilment of twin objectives of liquidity and profitability. While inadequate amount of WC impairs the firm's liquidity, holding of excess WC results in the reduction of the profitability. Inefficient management of WC is one of the important factors causing industrial sickness4.Modern financial management aims at reducing the levels of CAs without ignoring the risk of stock outs. Efficient management of WC is an important indicator of sound health of an organization that requires reduction of unnecessary blocking of capital in order to bring down the cost of financing. There are several techniques to estimate the requirements of CAs, which include percentage approach, operating cycle approach, projected balance sheet approach, regression analysis approach etc. The most important aspect of determined and adequate CAs results in uninterrupted flow of production5.Importance of the StudyManagement of WC is very important task for every manufacturing concern. A study of management of WC of textile firms is more important and appropriate for internal and external analysis. Moreover, one of the serious problems faced by the cotton textile industry in India is the incidence of sickness. There are many reasons for sickness of cotton textile industry; one of the reasons is improper management of WC. âŠ
Dionysios Aliprantis, Scott Penick, Leigh Tesfatsion, Huan Zhao
Our research team is developing an agent-based test bed for the integrated study of retail and wholesale power markets operating over transmission and distribution networks with smart-grid functionality. This test bed seams together two existing test beds, the AMES Wholesale Power Market Test Bed and the GridLAB-D distribution platform. As a first step, we have designed an integrated retail/wholesale market module specifically based on the ERCOT (Texas) energy region, and we are using simplified versions of this module to study potential retail consumer response to real-time-pricing contracts supported by advanced metering. This study reports on the latter work.
Policy of regional autonomy is determined by thinking it can improve the financial
independence of local governments. But in reality, the 2004-2008 data showed that
the level of financial independence districts in Central Java Province, is still low as
indicated by the decrease of the realization of the PAD, TPD, and the decrease in the
realization of local taxes and levied in the region, and the increased proportion of
revenues DAU. This study aimed to analyze the acceptance of the PAD and the
financial ability districts in Central Java Province, between before and after
decentralization.
The research object is the 35 District in Central Java Province, the acceptance
of the PAD and the ability of time series covering the period 1994-2008. The research
data in the form of PAD, development spending, budget, taxes, levies, GDP, BHPBP,
DAK, DAU, TPD obtained from BPS, Central Java Province in Figures 1995 to 2009.
Data analyzed by using descriptive analysis, Mann-Whitney U, and the quadrant
method
The results are (1) there are significant differences in local revenues between
before and after decentralization, unless the ratio of PAD. After decentralization, local
governments are trying to increase revenue through increased revenue receipts taxes
and levies. Nevertheless, the increase in local revenue receipts are not automatically
increase the contribution of PAD in the budget. (2) There are differences in financial
capability is a significant area between before and after decentralization, except share
index. Local governments in the era of regional autonomy to increase acceptance of
PAD. Nevertheless, the increasing acceptance of the PAD has not been a great
contribution in the budget. (3) Before regional autonomy in mind that most (88.57%)
regions have a low financial capability, so it is still relying on funds from the center to
finance capital expenditure. Conditions are still going on until after the regional
autonomy, even the number of regions that have the financial capability of low-rise
area (from 88.57% to 91.43%).
Smart grid technologies in combination with the methodological foundation laid by the economic theory of Priority Service, enable the conversion of electric service reliability from a public good to a private good. Such a transformation is achieved by offering electricity service as a product line differentiated according to service reliability from which customers can self-select the level of reliability that fits their needs and pocketbook. This conceptual paradigm is illustrated through a specific proposal for a multilevel Emergency Interruptable Load Response Service (EILS) program at ERCOT.
Gertrude Luebbe-Wolff, born 1953, studied law at the Universities of Bielefeld and Freiburg (1969-1974) and took an LL.M. degree at Harvard Law School (1975). Having compeleted post-graduate practical legal training and received a docotoral degree (University of Freiburg, 1980), she worked at the University of Bielefeld and qualified for academic teaching and research (âHabilitationâ, 1987). From 1988-1992 she served as Director of municipal environmental administration in Bielefeld, where her family lives. As a professor of public law at Bielefeld University, faculty of law (since 1992), she headed the directorate of the university's Center for Interdisciplinary Research (1996-2002), chaired the Federal Government's Council of Environmental Advisors (2000-2002) and received the Leibniz Award (German Research Foundation, 2002). Prior to being elected Justice of the German Federal Constitutional Court in 2002, she was a Deputy Judge at the Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia. I have found it difficult to identify the writings that have been most important to my intellectual history. The reason may be reluctance to accept the idea that any single book has had the power to influence me at all. To my own surprise, almost all the books I have listed are books that I first read before I was twenty-five. Number ten is the only exception. Most of the fields in which I have worked and at least one of the fields in which I have read a lot, and which has influenced some of my writings (economic theory), are heavily underrepresented or even not represented at all. So be it. When in doubt, I have preferred to name books by German authors. I thought that would be more interesting to non-German readers. In Gustav Schwab's colorful renarration, the ancient Greek myths had been adapted to nineteenth-century pedagogical purposes, mainly by purging them of explicit sex and of some of the cruelties that might frighten children too much (like Chronosâ devouring his offspring). Yet, what remained was enough to intrigue a little girl instilled with Catholic ideals of virtue and growing increasingly critical of some of the humans who advocated them. So little virtue even in gods! The higher in rank the god, the worse: Zeus frantic, promiscuous, andâthat much could be read between the linesâa rapist. His wife, Hera, jealous enough to try killing one of his illegitimate sons by sending snakes into his crib. And so forth. I suspected that the Greeks had molded these gods after their own image and felt there was progress in praying to a more civilized god. Nevertheless, I found Mount Olympus and its inhabitants more thrilling to read about than the Christian heaven and Christian Trinity. What totally escaped my understanding when I first became acquainted with Hercules, Theseus, and Achilles was the fatal importance of the type of heroism they represented for the historical self-perception of Germans. None of the adults who, to my delight, liked my recounts of the adventures of these heroes (reports on earlier readings had been much less successful in capturing attention) ever commented on that side of the story. Decades later, I found out on my own. âHer thoughts are my thoughts, and our feelings are the same,â I wrote into my diary in early 1966, having started to read the diary Anne Frank wrote during the more than two years she, her family, and four other Jews spent hidden in an Amsterdam achterhuis before the Nazi occupants found them and eventually killed all of them except Anne's father. The presumptuousness and blatant inadequacy of these identifications did not occur to me then. I was aware that her situation and the way she coped with it were incomparable. But that did not prevent me from feeling closer to her than to anyone I had met in the books of my first twelve years. However, unwarranted this feeling of intimacy may have been, it had an effect that would have pleased Anne. More than anything I had experienced so far, it opened my eyes and my heart for the monstrosity of what my country had done, and for the enormity of the loss it had caused. Schiller is best known as a dramatist and lyric poet; however, he was also a historian. His History of the Thirty Yearsâ War (1790) is the first major historical work I read. The great war that devastated Germany from 1618 to 1648 is a pivotal event in German history. Many European powers were involved as protectors of their fellow believers and, of course, in pursuit of interests of their own, although, in essence, it was a war between Protestant and Catholic territories of the Holy Roman Empire. If Germans later became obsessed with the âstate,â it is because of what they had had, instead, for centuries: an Empire, albeit in decay, unable to subject the vested rights and interests of the princes of its more than three hundred territories to common public purposes, whether civil or military, and unable even to prevent its members from waging war against each other. As Hegel, to whom I will come later, put it in his Essay on the Constitution of the German Empire (1801): âWhen only too often, you see vast numbers of German soldiers in the field, trust that they are not up to defend Germany, but to lacerate its viscera.â From Schiller's history of the Thirty Yearsâ War, I learned about the worst and most traumatizing example of this calamity. From his accounts of what the presence or passage of huge armies meant for a region, even if they were friendly, and from his depiction of the extremely unfriendly siege and conquest of the city of Magdeburg by Catholic Bavaria's army under General Tilly, I learned about the extremes of hardship and cruelty that may accompany warfare. I also gained an idea of how standards of humane behavior are affected by material conditions, for instance, by whether there is a means to feed brigades other than by forced requisition and means of remunerating them other than by giving them license to rob and murder (âThey must get something for their peril and labor,â Tilly said, in Magdeburg, when supplicated to stop his soldiers from plundering, setting blazes, assaulting women and spiking babies, or throwing them into the fire.) There was also evidence, however, that present material conditions, however important, do not necessarily work as full determinants. Under material conditions quite similar to those under which Tilly's army operated, the Protestant Swedish king Gustav Adolphus, according to Schiller, managed to set limits to what his troops could do to the local population. Even he could not disallow his soldiers three hours of pillaging after taking over Frankfurt an der Oder, but the general disciplinary regime was severe punishment for all excesses, and, on the whole, the conduct of the Swedish army was exemplary, so Schiller, the Protestant, reports. Schiller's description of the atrocities of the Thirty Yearsâ War also confirmed my belief that the world I lived in was a much better place than the world of Tilly's and Gustav Adolphus's contemporaries, and that this was not momentary good luck but the consequence of a progress toward reason and humanity that while open to backlashes was unlikely to be completely reversible. The Holocaust presented a challenge to that conviction, but not, in my view, a refutation. It was only much later that I arrived at a clearer understanding of that intuition. Schiller himself, the fervent spokesman of Enlightenment, was not naĂŻve in his optimism nor in his idealism. He believed in the power of the ideals of freedom and tolerance, just as he acknowledged the power of religion; however, he also knew and described how such powers needed association with less sublime interests and ambitions in order to become effective historical forces (this association is what Hegel, later, called the âstratagem of reasonâ). Schiller's narration does not include the history and the details of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the war in 1648. Nor does it contain an analysis of the historical importance of this long and terrible religious war on the way to full recognition of religious freedom as a human right, or of its importance for the development of international law (it is not accidental that Grotius's De jure belli ac pacis appeared in the course of that war, in 1625). Schiller wrote too early for that. His other historical book, the History of the Revolt of the Netherlands,1 may be more enjoyable (same delightful language, same grasp of the human fears and passions at work, not so many battles). If, nevertheless, the History of the Thirty Yearsâ War made the greater and more lasting impression on me, this is probably not only because it was my first experience with great historiography but also because it gave me an initial sense of the role of war in the history of mankind and of its particularly prominent role in the history of Germany. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations were my introduction to analytical philosophy. I loved the work, although (or perhaps precisely because) I felt it was people other than myself who badly needed his instruction. It is probably due to my pleasure with Wittgenstein that I considered studying linguistics and, having rejected that plan and studied law instead, made legal semantics one of my first objects of research. Later, when ordinary-language philosophy inundated the philosophical book market and came to dominate philosophical faculties, much of what I read and heard regarding it bored me out of my mind. Understanding the meaning of âmeaningâ and the meaning of the other languages you use seemed a necessary but not everywhere a sufficient prerequisite of good philosophy. One day, I hope, my compatriots will admit Rudolf von Jhering to the place of most eminent German jurist, which has long been occupied by Friedrich Carl von Savigny. This would indicate that German legal culture is pragmatic, rational, and strong. Savigny, a great savant in Roman law, was the head of the Romantic school of law, and the most prominent opponent of codification at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lawâlike language, fairy tales, and folksongsâso he held, had always grown slowly and quietly out of the specific spirit of a people and should continue to do so. The young Jhering, himself a Romanist, admired Savigny for his analytic power in discovering the fundamentals of Roman law under the layers of doctrinal sediment accumulated by generations of less-than-inspired jurisprudence. Still, in trying to carry on with the same endeavor and to explain jurisprudence as an artâor, rather, a science, like chemistryâthat consists in finding the conceptual elements and more abstract rules implicit in the existing legal material, he ended up advocating an awareness of how the formation of legal concepts and rules is a matter not just of logical analysis but of human interests and purposes (Purpose in Law, 1877â1883). Accordingly, the Romantic view of the evolution of law was to be rejected. Law and rights, Jhering explained in The Fight for the Right (1872), were not the result of organic, silent, plantlike growth but a product of conflict and combat. Not only their adaptation to changing needs and circumstances but even their mere effective maintenance must be fought for. Going to court when your right is being intruded upon, willfully, is a contribution to that fight and a duty of the citizen toward himself and toward the community, even if only a small material value is at stake. The ideal values at stake are the legal order and the good morals that depend on it. This is what you defend in defending your right when it is violated, and it is from the readiness to engage in such a fight for your right that you can recognize the status of a society's moral health. It is forty years since I first read Purpose in Law and The Fight for the Right and fell in love with Jhering's brilliant style, his humor, and the ravishing mix of his rational sobriety and sensitiveness to human feelings. As a student of law, in much of what I had to read and listen to, I missed Jhering's pragmatism, his rule-oriented reasoning, and his sense of how good mores are tied to good law. As a judge, I learned to appreciate that some of those who have been wronged abstain from filing a lawsuit. However, it is probably due to Jhering that I know the importance of what I am doing not only when examining the Treaty of Lisbon but also when dealing with so-called petty cases. This book is famousâor infamous, with parts of the audienceâfor the message concentrated in its subtitle (A Report on the Banality of Evil). Arendt's observation that Adolf Eichmann, the leading administrative organizer of the Holocaust, was a nondescript, utterly nondemonic subordinate and the subtitle phrase in which she had summed up this finding stirred intellectual and emotional turmoil in the â60s. I did not quite understand that. Would it be more comforting to think that, where there is exorbitant crime, there must be some sort of devilish power in the delinquent? To me, the idea that great, immeasurable crimes can be committed by people devoid of any Luciferian greatness or other stature did not seem disquieting. What struck me was not Arendt's analysis of Eichmann and his trial but the part of the book that describes the course of the deportations all over Europe. I do not know whether this account is historically correct in every reported detail. It certainly is not comprehensive in identifying the reasons why patterns of collaboration or, less frequently, noncollaboration evolved so differently in the various European countries. However, it gave me a more vivid sense than many other readings had given me previously of how the project depended on compliance and acquiescence;2 of the extent to which, therefore, the presence or absence of empathy mattered; of the extent to which empathy had been absent in Germany; and of the complexity of factors bearing on how each nation behaved in this historical instance. In an auditorium of one hundred German students, you will not find one, today, who has read Karl Marx. During the student movement that began in 1968, this was different. The blue volumes of the works of Marx and Engels, if not the complete edition, printed in the German Democratic Republic, were the central object of study, and it was from Marx's Critique of Political Economy, from the three volumes of his Capital, that the activists drew their assurance of victory. It delivered scientific proofâso those who knew told those who had not yet understoodâthat capitalism was just a transitory phenomenon, doomed because of the unalterable tendency of the rate of profit to I much of what I in the of the I did not have any for the But what if our part of if the of the of the was not a matter of but a matter of I was about the of and the of mankind the way you could the of the nevertheless, I did not see a full of the of such in Karl of So I studied Marx's Capital, other writings of to find out whether his to have of the historical of was As as I the on the that the value of a is by the of that is to it. the to the by the tendency of profit to with the of human needed in Marx's however, I found his of necessary to be a from which, when you to see what was in the that Marx had with up with their way such a could work as a to the of the course of history. This is how the first of me that I did not have to to is the of the important in my The two most important are my and my must be given for my with the whom I met at a in Lisbon in most people know only from Karl The and its where he is as and as a of I do not know of a greater in the history of philosophy. What of Right is all and in which he is from all his from its had long been on the of law and as in of with its into a of right, dealing with rights and and a of virtue being precisely by its of any or other with the of virtue those of law. It is this that to with his of law and mere as because they on and do not include Christian of while with all its because it any is as but that is The of that law and order and must not be and against each other but must be to a in which the of its and elements is not but and is this or This is in the and and of the of and it most when you at the elements of what called elements are and himself in other this to the the three elements of virtue which are the of in the Catholic and In his of the the family the ideal of you to the general mainly by for your own good and that of your the ideal of And the which the of taking part in it their and it as their own the ideal of an that the right to own of Catholic ideals of a moral which consists in that will human and interests in a way that is with will them work the common He moral and as ideals of In an and more it will under circumstances be sufficient to be just and that is the better of The of philosophy of right was to about legal as a consequence and prerequisite of moral about the necessary of and progress as he to the of from one country to about the of and about the of he against the that will from any at a by mere virtue or by be it religious or than by law. have to understand and his in books can be This one was part of a I a years for the of better understanding the against as an of that was historically prominent in Germany. most known works are about capitalism and the role of Jews in today, was one of the after the of War I a German to the world from to the of To the of and the German of a in the war as the critical between heroism and the German an to his his wife, and to to more there the only profit and The of German and German is of anything that even or, more European and This is From the German self-perception had in with and found in moral war as the most on because it was at war that the moral of German heroism became and many from the between and War was into a of and I with a better understanding of the between the elements of that and with a more sense of the and involved in the of and with more awareness of the to international and law.
When twenty-one masters of theology at the University of Paris condemned the book The Mirror of Simple Souls as heretical, no doubt the inquisitor William of Paris felt justified in his proceedings against its author, the beguine Marguerite Porete. She had, for a year and a half, contumaciously refused to take the inquisitorial oath and give either an account of herself or of her book. The most learned minds of the Church had confirmed William's belief in the erroneous nature of her work, and with this confirmation he proceeded to call for its extermination. All those who possessed a copy were to turn it in to the Dominican friars fraud under pain of excommunication.1 Its author was likewise condemned, and on June 1, 1310, Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake as a relapsed heretic in the Place de Greve in Paris. For William of Paris, a job neatly done. It ended up being not as neat as William would probably have liked, for the pestiferous Mirror of Simple Souls was never exterminated. It would, without the name of its author, go on to enjoy a long and unusual afterlife throughout Europe as a popular spiritual work. Perhaps one of the most interesting events in its afterlife would occur just one year after Marguerite's execution, when another master theologian, the renowned Meister Eckhart, returned to Paris to serve as the Dominican Chair at the university. Here he lived with William of Paris in the Dominican convent of St. Jacques, where any of the turned-in copies of Marguerite's Mi rror would have been kept. Two years later, upon his return to German lands, Meister Eckhart's vernacular preaching intensified. His most innovative concepts solidified and progressed well beyond what they had previously been. In an interesting twist, however, many of Meister Eckhart's famous ideas from this time exhibit distinct characteristics and language that bear notable resemblances to those found in Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls. It is possible not only that Meister Eckhart encountered The Mirror during his time in Paris, but it may also have influenced his vernacular theology. If so, it is clear that Eckhart must have viewed The Mirror far differently than his Dominican brother William and his fellow masters of theology. It is the purpose of this paper to argue that Meister Eckhart did come across The Mirror of Simple Souls, and that the concepts and language of Marguerite Porete greatly contributed to the ideas found in Meister Eckhart's later vernacular treatises and sermons. Unfortunately, there is no smoking gun that definitively proves a connection between Meister Eckhart and The Mirror of Simple Souls, and so the question remains an open and controversial one. Several prominent scholars have weighed in on the matter over the past few decades, with varying results and opinions. The well-known German scholar Herbert Grundmann had some of the strongest convictions concerning this issue. He believed in a very real connection between Marguerite and Eckhart, citing mostly temporal and geographical evidence as strong support for this assertion. He rejected the idea of a reverse influence, that is, the ideas of Meister Eckhart being appropriated by Marguerite, stating that the works of Meister Eckhart could hardly have been known to her early enough for his ideas to be incorporated into her book.2 He also asserted that, even if it is too much to acknowledge an actual influence of Marguerite on Eckhart, there is still a remarkable accord (^'merkwurdiger Einklang) in many of their spiritual ideas. Perhaps the most intriguing (and frustrating) of Grundmann's statements appears in a footnote, where he states that Josef Koch, in a letter sent to Grundmann in 1961, was thoroughly convinced that Meister Eckhart obtained knowledge of both Marguerite's trial and her book.4 However, as other scholars have pointed out, examination of Koch's papers after his death has produced no proof that may have led him to so solid a conviction. âŠ
In relation with Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR, from now on), which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishments, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, from now on) has established there are no exceptions or limitations, no matter what the victimïżœs actions were. The ECHR has stated that the referred prohibition would be inefficient without an ïżœeffective official investigationïżœ in those cases where the existence of torture is reported. The Spanish Constitutional Court has tried to comply thoroughly with the ECtHRïżœs Judgements. In this sense, we must note the broad and generous interpretation that the Spanish Constitutional Court has made of the prohibition of using proof obtained under torture. In spite of this, Spain suffered a sentence by the ECtHR for this reason in 2004. It involves the case Martinez Sala and others v Spain, Judgment of 2 November 2004. Now then, our Constitutional Court has been consistent with this Judgement of the ECtHR. The cases in which tortures are reported during detention cannot be approached without taking into account the fundamental right at stake, considered in Article 15 of the Spanish Constitution (CE from now on, for its initials in Spanish): right to life and to not suffer torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. This demand of reinforced motivation in judicial sentences which affect the content of an important fundamental right has had great importance in relation with the case of the filing of statement of torture since the STC 224/2007, of 22 October.
Gabriele Monti, Gianluca Moro, Marco Rosetti, Giacomo Tufano
The work presents a decentralized protocol that allows self-organization of autonomous wireless devices in mobile mesh networks. In the resulting infrastructure the routing and information services are provided in a peer-to- peer fashion. Both services are performed through multi- hop radio transmissions among participant nodes with no fixed infrastructure required and avoiding to use broadcast of messages. Since links among nodes may be continuously destroyed and created, as a consequence of nodes movement and/or variations in connectivity range (e.g. due to temporary obstacles), our protocol is based on virtual network addresses which are dynamically assigned to groups of nodes (called islands). Routing requests are performed through unicast transmissions when traveling among islands and exploiting wireless overhearing when involving members of the same island (in- island routing). We will demonstrate that assigning virtual coordinates to groups of nodes guarantees network flexibility with a reasonable amount of overheard and that the amount of radio transmissions required is scalable with the number of nodes. Simulations have shown that the proposed solution can generate reliable networks, despite the unpredictable topology, assuming the use of devices with common radio range connectivity moving at pedestrian velocity.
Zero-knowledge proofs have a vast applicability in the domain of cryptography, stemming from the fact that they can be used to force potentially malicious parties to abide by the rules of a protocol, without forcing them to reveal their secrets. ÎŁ-protocols are a class of zero-knowledge proofs that can be implemented efficiently and that suffice for a great variety of practical applications. This paper presents a first machine-checked formalization of a comprehensive theory of ÎŁ-protocols. The development includes basic definitions, relations between different security properties that appear in the literature, and general composability theorems. We show its usefulness by formalizingâand proving the securityâof concrete instances of several well-known protocols. The formalization builds on CertiCrypt, a framework that provides support to reason about cryptographic systems in the Coq proof assistant, and that has been previously used to formalize security proofs of encryption and signature schemes.
David E. Bloom, Ajay Mahal, Larry Rosenberg, Jaypee Sevilla
Abstract The rapid ageing of India's population, in conjunction with migration out of rural areas and the continued concentration of the working population in the informal sector, has highlighted the need for better economic security arrangements for the elderly. Traditional family ties that have been key to ensuring a modicum of such security are beginning to fray, and increased longevity is making care of the elderly more expensive. As a result, the elderly are at increased risk of being poor or falling into poverty. In parallel with its efforts to address this issue, the Government of India and some of the Indian states have initiated an array of programmes for providing some level of access to health care or health insurance to the great majority of Indians who lack sufficient access. Formalâsector workers have greater social security than those in the informal sector, but they only represent a small share of the workforce. Women are particularly vulnerable to economic insecurity. India's experience offers some lessons for other countries. Although there is space for private initiatives in the social security arena, it is clear that most such efforts will need to be taxâfinanced. The role that private providers can play is substantial, even when most funding comes from public sources, but such activity will face greater challenges as more individuals seek benefits. India has also shown that implementation can often be carried out well by states using central government funds, with a set of advantages and disadvantages that such decentralization brings. Finally, India's experience with implementation can offer guidance on issues such as targeting, the use of information technology in social security systems, and human resource management.
Stelios Sotiriadis, Nik Bessis, Ye Huang, Paul Sant · 5 authors
Grid technology enables resource sharing among a massive number of dynamic and geographically distributed resources. The significance of such environments is based on the aptitude of grid members to look across multiple grids for resource discovery and allocation. Parallel to grid, agents are autonomous problem solvers capable of self-directed actions in flexible environments. As grid systems require self-sufficiency, agents may be the means by which to achieve a robust autonomy infrastructure. In this direction we propose a resource discovery method of interoperable grid agents which travel within Virtual Organizations (VOs) and by capturing resource information regarding their action domain; they update the internal data of each grid member. Moreover we propose that resource discovery is a systematic and continually updating process that occurs within a VO and allows information exchange to happen. This exchange takes place between various community members at a pre-defined interval, aiming to distribute internal knowledge about the domain.
Without a real change, the Romanian education system and especially the preuniversity system will not be able to overcome its instability and provisional character. The reforms that started in 2000 must continue. The success of the decentralization of the pre-university system, as a basic component of the reform, greatly depends on the manner in which the financing of preuniversity education must be carried out in accordance with the number of pupils, and the funds must be assigned to place the pupil in a flexible and facile environment.
Through persuasive communications, information technology (IT) executives hope to align the actions of end users with the expectations of senior management and of the firm regarding technology usage. One highly influential factor of persuasive effectiveness is the source of the persuasive message. This study presents a conceptual model for explaining the influence of source credibility on end user attitudes and behavioral intentions to comply with organizationally motivated, recommended IT actions within a decentralized, autonomous environment. The results of this study suggest that the elements of source competency, trustworthiness, and dynamism are significant determinants of attitudes and behavioral intentions to engage in recommended IT actions. These findings reveal the importance of these elements of effective communication in persuading end users to follow recommended IT activities and advance IT acceptance and adoption research through the application of persuasive communication theory to the domain.
CART19 therapy has revolutionized the treatment of CD19<sup>+</sup> acute lymphoblastic leukemia, demonstrating an unprecedented complete remission rate; however, as follow-up prolongs, a high relapse rate after CART19 therapy has emerged as one of the major problems. Relapse can be attributed to the loss of leukemic cell immunogenicity, diminished function and amount of CART19 cells, and the inhibitory bone marrow microenvironment. Although studies to prevent and treat relapse have begun, some encouraging results have demonstrated the possibility of decreasing the relapse rate. In this review, we focus on the possible mechanisms behind relapse. We will summarize and propose strategies to prevent and manage relapse on the basis of these potential mechanisms.
Ein E- Voting System muss einerseits sicher sein andererseits muss es gewĂ€hrleisten dass jede Wahl berĂŒcksichtigt und anonym ausgewertet wird. \nDieses Projekt befasst sich mit der Aufgabe, ein solch sicheres, stabiles und transparentes Wahlsystem anzubieten. Das Ziel der Arbeit ist es, einen Web Client zu entwickeln, der mit Hilfe einer Big- Integer Library und JavaScript Funktionen das fĂŒr E- Voting geeignete DamgĂ„rd- Jurik Kryptosystem zu implementiert. Weiter galt es, die VerfĂŒgbarkeit von echten Zufallszahlen in JavaScript abzuklĂ€ren. Die generierten DatensĂ€tze sind in der JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) an den Server weiterzuleiten. In einem optionalen Teil der Arbeit sollte die Wohlgeformtheit der verschlĂŒsselten Stimmzettel mittels eines Zero-Knowledge Proofs Protokoll nachgewiesen werden können. \nDer verwendete asymmetrische DamgĂ„rd- Jurik VerschlĂŒsselungsalgorithmus, hat die homomorphe Eigenschaft, dass die Multiplikation chiffrierter Werte gleich der verschlĂŒsselten Summe der entsprechenden Klartexte entspricht. Da nur das aufkumulierte Schlussresultat der Abstimmung entschlĂŒsselt wird, ist dadurch die AnonymitĂ€t der einzelnen Stimmen gewĂ€hrleistet. Um die GĂŒltigkeit eines verschlĂŒsselten Wahlzettels zu ĂŒberprĂŒfen, wird ein Zero-Knowledge Proofs Protokoll verwendet. Da JavaScript nur mit Zahlen bis 53 Bit rechnen kann, ist fĂŒr die Berechnungen eine JavaScript Big- Integer Library notwendig. Es wurden verschiedene Bibliotheken getestet und im Detail ausgewertet. Ebenfalls wurde die Möglichkeit echte Zufallszahlen plattformunabhĂ€ngig zu generieren abgeklĂ€rt. \nDie Wahl der Big-Integer Library ist auf jsbn.js der Stanford University gefallen und fĂŒr die Generierung von Zufallszahlen auf jscrypto.js, welche durch die Auswertung von Mausbewegungen Entropie gewinnt. Der implementierte JavaScript Client verschlĂŒsselt erfolgreich Stimmzettel mittels DamgĂ„rd- Jurik VerschlĂŒsselungsalgorithmus und leitet das Chiffrat mit zusĂ€tzlichen, fĂŒr den Zero-Knowledge Proofs Protokoll notwendigen Parametern im JSON Format an den Server weiter, der die empfangenen Daten auf ihre Wohlgeformtheit prĂŒft. Die Messungen haben ergeben, dass der Google Chrome Browser am optimalsten mit den angewendeten Libraries lĂ€uft. Bei der Verwendung eines 1024 Bit RSA Modulus benötigt der Google Chrome Browser 1.7 Sekunden fĂŒr die DamgĂ„rd- Jurik VerschlĂŒsselung und zusĂ€tzlich 8.8 Sekunden fĂŒr die Generierung der Zero-Knowledge Proofs Protokoll notwendigen Parametern.
This study aimed to clarify some general aspects of the Jordanian Arab management depending on the influence of Hofstedeâs cultural dimensions in management and organization over individual orientations in the Jordanian banks. A questionnaire, which was specially prepared for this purpose, was distributed on (6) commercial banks. A group of statistical methods, like data reliability analysis, percentages, frequencies, descriptive, cross tabulation, testing data validity (explore analysis) and binominal test, were used.
Among the most important results which were reached are:
1) Workers in the Jordanian commercial banks do feel a high degree of power distance.
2) Workers in the Jordanian commercial banks do feel a high degree of uncertainty avoidance.
3) Workers in the Jordanian commercial banks do incline collectivity in conduct.
4) Workers in the Jordanian commercial banks do incline toward masculinity in conduct.
5) There exist no long-term orientations among workers in the Jordanian commercial banks.
The study recommended the inclusion of management sciences through educational institutions and the adoption of applications and methods, which tend to be autonomous, decentralized, collective and authority deligent. Also, it recommended the activation of the department of research & development (R & D) in the banks and the adoption of strategies based on forecasting and planning.
New Zealand (NZ) is both a Gondwanan continental fragment and a geologically active oceanic island, and hence, unravelling the origins and diversification of its biota has been considered important to biogeographic theory more generally (Nelson 1975). For instance, given this dual nature, the modern NZ land mass provides an ideal setting to consider the relative contribution of vicariance (NZ is believed to have separated from the Gondwanan supercontinent c. 80 Ma; but see, e.g., Ladiges and Cantrill 2007, who suggest more recent terrestrial connections between Australia and NZ) versus more recent transoceanic long-distance dispersal in shaping biogeographic patterns (Crisp 2008, Wallis and Trewick 2008). Following its rifting from Gondwana, crustal thinning resulted in progressive submergence of the plate that carried NZ culminating in the âOligocene drowningâ (c. 34â24 Ma) when the emergent landmass of what would become NZ was reduced to a small fraction of the modern area or was submerged entirely (Campbell and Landis 2003; Trewick et al. 2006, Landis et al. 2008). The fossil record of NZ indicates a very high rate of biotic turnover since the Cretaceous (Pole 1994, Pole and Vajda 2009). The importance of Tertiary oceanic long-distance dispersal in the assembly of the modern biota has been widely demonstrated (e.g., Fleming 1979, Mildenhall 1980, Pole 1994, Macphail 1997, Winkworth et al. 2002, Cook and Crisp 2005, Knapp et al. 2005). In light of these data, it has been argued that the burden of proof rests with biogeographers to demonstrate in situ Gondwanan (vicariant) heritage, or indeed, a continuous pre-Oligocene link for the modern NZ biota (Waters and Craw 2006, Landis et al. 2008). Here, we review the claim that Kauri (Agathis australis), the sole extant NZ representative of the predominantly Southern Hemisphere conifer family Araucariaceae, survived the Oligocene drowning (Stöckler et al. 2002, Knapp et al. 2007). Stöckler et al. (2002) present a molecular (plastid rbcL sequences) phylogenetic hypothesis for Agathis and Araucariaceae in which A. australis is resolved as sister to all other Agathis spp. included in their study and is separated by a long branch leading to the Australian, New Caledonian, and Malesian representatives of that genus. We find no substantive evidence from this study to support their claim that A. australis represents a lineage that has continuously occupied NZ since before the Oligocene and potentially since the Cretaceous. Specifically, they argue that the phylogenetic position of A. australis rejects the hypothesis of Pole (1994) âthat most if not all New Zealand plant taxa have been derived by long-distance dispersal from Australia during the Tertiaryâ (Stöckler et al. 2002, p. 830; but see Pole 2008, for an alternative interpretation of Pole 1994). However, the topology of Stöckler et al. (2002) is still consistent with Tertiary long-distance dispersal of the A. australis lineage from Australia to NZ. The tree does not reject the possibility that A. australis is more closely related to extinct Australian Agathis, which are known from well-substantiated macrofossils of southern Australia from the Palaeocene to the Miocene (Hill and Brodribb 1999, Hill et al. 2008). Possibly stronger evidence for the scenario of Stöckler et al. (2002) comes from the antediluvian fossil record of NZ, including putative (then undescribed) Agathis fossils from the Cenomanian (c. 100 Ma) of NZ that would suggest a continuous presence since at least the Late Cretaceous. Pole (2008) has compared morphological variation within âA. seymouricumâ and âA. clarencianumâ of the NZ Cenomanian with that of extant Agathis and finds no support from these fossils for a presence of Agathis in NZ prior to the Cainozoic (<65.5 Ma). Lee et al. (2007) cast further doubt on the affinities of these Cretaceous fossils, noting that the original illustrations did not contain characters that have been used to define the genus. Hill et al. (2008) believe that the oldest organically preserved fossils that can be unequivocally assigned to Agathis date to the Late Palaeocene in southeast Australia, and even they have some unusual features compared with living Agathis. Furthermore, it has recently been suggested that Araucariaceae may have been extirpated from NZ at the CretaceousâTertiary boundary (c. 65 Ma; Pole 2008; Pole and Vajda 2009) corresponding to probable global deforestation following the asteroid impact in Yucatan (Vajda et al. 2001). Knapp et al. (2007) used a plastid DNA sequence data set with integrated fossil time constraints to infer a Late CretaceousâEocene divergence of A. australis from a sister clade comprising Agathis from Australia, the southwestern Pacific and Malesia. On this basis, Knapp et al. (2007) hypothesis that NZ Agathis is derived from a lineage that survived the Oligocene marine transgression, although they are cautious with respect to Cretaceous in situ vicariance and consider alternative hypotheses, including possible pre-Oligocene long-distance oceanic dispersal in the context of the Australian fossil record. Our major concern with the analyses of Knapp et al. (2007) rests largely in their treatment of the fossil data to calibrate molecular rates for Araucariaceae. Knapp et al. (2007) applied âconservativeâ age constraints to internal nodes for their divergence time estimation (i.e., older node age constraints could be justified on the basis of fossil evidence, which could result in older estimates of divergence times for A. australis), although their treatment also implies a high level of confidence with respect to the taxonomic placement of the fossil Araucariaceae. Specifically, they assume that the fossils belong within the Araucariaceae crown group radiation, disregarding the possibility that they are stem group lineages (i.e., the root of their topologies excludes the outgroup). Below, we demonstrate that this approach has strong implications for molecular evolution among araucarians, and using alternative calibration constraints, we question the strength of evidence for a pre-Oligocene presence of Agathis in NZ. We assembled a data set comprising partial plastid rbcL and matK sequences for 24 taxa including 15 Araucariaceae and 9 outgroup taxa representing the conifer families Podocarpaceae, Cupressaceae, Taxaceae, Sciadiopityaceae, and Pinaceae. Sequences were sourced from GenBank, and alignment was performed manually. The aligned sequence length (including two indels in matK) was 1965 nucleotides. Taxa sampled and GenBank accession numbers are indicated in Table 1, and the aligned data matrix is available as Supplementary material at http://www.sysbio.oxfordjournals.org. Taxa sampled and GenBank accession numbers for sequences used in this study Taxa sampled and GenBank accession numbers for sequences used in this study We used the Bayesian relaxed clock implementation BEAST (v1.4.8; Drummond and Rambaut 2007; BEAST input files available at http://www.sysbio.oxfordjournals.org) that implements a number of theoretical advances in molecular clock methods relative to those employed by Knapp et al. (2007, penalized likelihood, Sanderson 2002, and the Bayesian relaxed clock implementation, Multidivtime, Thorne et al. 1998; Thorne and Kishino 2002) including the simultaneous estimation of topology and branch lengths (divergence times) from the aligned DNA sequences, no a priori assumption of rate autocorrelation among adjacent branches of the tree and flexible priors on model parameters (such as parametric calibration priors; Drummond et al. 2006). For these analyses, we used a GTR + I + Î model of sequence evolution, a Yule prior on branch rates and uncorrelated lognormal (UCLN) prior distribution of branch rates, that is, rate variation among lineages was assumed to be uncorrelated and lognormally distributed (Drummond et al. 2006). Using essentially the same sequences, Stöckler et al. (2002) and Knapp et al. (2007) identified a GTR + I + Î submodel as providing the best overall fit to their Araucariaceae data sets and found that divergence time estimates were reasonably insensitive to the choice of substitution model (Knapp et al. 2007). We favored the UCLN model of branch rates because it includes a variance parameter (UCLN standard deviation), providing an estimate of among lineage rate variation. Using simulated data, Drummond et al. (2006) found that the UCLN implementation in BEAST performed well (in terms of accuracy and precision) when the data were clocklike or showed significant rate heterogeneity among lineages. Relative to an uncorrelated exponential prior distribution of branch rates, the UCLN model had similar accuracy but greater precision and could better accommodate data that were nearly clocklike because it includes the variance of the lognormal distribution as a parameter (Drummond et al. 2006). We estimated araucarian phylogenies using 2 different sets of constraints on node age. Firstly, we sought to approximate the hypothesis of divergence times for Araucariaceae of Knapp et al. (2007) that was originally derived from 4 fossil constraints and a prior assumption on the age of the root (their Araucariaceae crown node; Table 2; hereafter referred to as crown group scenario). We used lognormal priors with a zero offset providing lower node age constraints equivalent to those applied by Knapp et al. (2007) for their 4 constraints. The prior probability distribution of node ages had a median value (peak prior probability) approximating the mean node age estimates for each of the constraints reported by Knapp et al. (2007) for their Bayesian relaxed clock analyses of their concatenated data set (their table 3, p. 867). The upper limit of node age has a âsoftâ bound, that is, much older ages are possible but are associated with decreasing probabilities (Sanders and Lee 2007). In addition, we placed a maximum age on the root (i.e., the most recent common ancestor, MRCA, of Araucariaceae and the outgroup taxa; Fig. 1) of 320 Ma, approximating the appearance of conifers in the fossil record (Rothwell and Scheckler 1988; Gaultier et al. 1992; Miller 1999; Hernandez-Castillo et al. 2009). Constraints used to estimate divergence times, the posterior divergence time estimates (median [95%HPD], millions of years before present), and the coefficient of rate variation estimated from the data (median [95%HPD]) under scenarios (a) and (b) Notes: The UCLN mean rate (substitutions siteâ1 million yearsâ1) and its standard deviation are also indicated for each scenario. Constraints used to estimate divergence times, the posterior divergence time estimates (median [95%HPD], millions of years before present), and the coefficient of rate variation estimated from the data (median [95%HPD]) under scenarios (a) and (b) Notes: The UCLN mean rate (substitutions siteâ1 million yearsâ1) and its standard deviation are also indicated for each scenario. Tree topologies (maximum clade credibility trees) and divergence time estimates for Araucariaceae under 2 calibration schemes: (a) crown group scenario and (b) stem group scenario. The crown group scenario used 4 fossil constraints (1, Araucariaceae crown; 2, MRCA Agathis + Wollemia; 3, MRCA Section Bunya + Araucaria; and 4, MRCA Section Bunya + Eutacta), whereas for the stem group scenario, 2 age constraints (1, Araucariaceae stem node and 2, MRCA of Agathis + Wollemia) were used to estimate divergence times among Araucariaceae (see Table 2, and text, for details). Branch support (posterior probability) is 1.0 unless indicated adjacent to that branch. The horizontal bars indicate the 95% HPD of divergence times associated with each node and the timescale is in millions of years. The alternative approach (hereafter referred to as stem group scenario) used the same maximum age to constrain the root and additionally used lognormal calibration priors to constrain: First, the MRCA of Araucariaceae and Podocarpaceae based upon the oldest well-assigned fossils for both these families from the Mid-Jurassic (Hill and Brodribb 1999). Putative fossils of Araucariaceae and Podocarpaceae have been recorded from the Triassic, although the affinities of these are tentative (Hill 1995; Hill and Brodribb 1999). However, note that a Triassic age for this node is not ruled out a priori (Table 2) and, secondly, the MRCA of Agathis + Wollemia based upon the recent reviews of the macrofossil record of Agathis (Lee et al. 2007; Hill et al. 2008; Pole 2008). Currently, the oldest unequivocal fossils of Agathis are from southeastern Australia of the Late Palaeogene (c. 55â50 Ma; Hill et al. 2008). We designed the prior to include a mid-Cretaceous age within the 95% confidence interval in light of the description of A. victoriensis (Cantrill, 1992) from Cretaceous (c. 120â100 Ma) sediments of southern Australia (Table 2). However, this species lacks organic preservation, and its generic identity is considered doubtful (Hill and Brodribb 1999; Hill et al. 2008; Pole 2008). Initially, we analyzed the data with each of these fossil constraints singly to consider their internal consistency. As these analyses returned comparable posterior divergence time estimates (Supplementary material; model priors as and as both fossil constraints were included to estimate divergence times among Araucariaceae under the stem group scenario. For each scenario, were each of topology and parameter and Drummond was used to between and estimate an the median and 95% posterior of parameters sampled from the posterior distribution of the and to that the was to estimates of model parameter variance (i.e., see Drummond et al. an fraction the topologies estimated from the 4 were and topology and parameter were Drummond and Rambaut on the credibility The sister group of Araucariaceae and Podocarpaceae was not from these data 1) but is in other analyses sequence data for sampled plant lineages (e.g., et al. 2008). we estimated topologies for the alternative as with the of Araucariaceae and Podocarpaceae or and found no substantive in divergence time estimates or of rates among lineages not The reported to the set of The among Araucariaceae derived from the Bayesian of plastid rbcL and matK sequences are largely consistent with those of including et al. Stöckler et al. and Knapp et al. is resolved as as are the and whereas Bunya and are resolved as sister Wollemia and Agathis are resolved as Agathis, the divergence is that of A. australis from NZ from the Agathis species included in analyses We divergence time estimates for Araucariaceae under the two calibration 1) using 4 internal node age constraints to approximate the hypothesis of Knapp et al. (2007) group scenario) and 2) using two alternative constraints singly (Supplementary or in group Table 2 and Fig. For under the stem group scenario, the estimated age of the Araucariaceae crown group is an of the age suggested by the crown group scenario, whereas the extant lineages of Araucariaceae are of versus predominantly under the stem and crown group (Table 2 and Fig. the stem group scenario a hypothesis of araucarian evolution that the widely (e.g., and and is with of the fossil record of Araucariaceae. For instance, fossil taxa assigned to Bunya and are known from fossils, Section fossils have been reported from the Cretaceous (Hill and Brodribb and is known from the Late Cretaceous (c. Ma; Macphail et al. However, the stem group scenario the affinities of Araucariaceae and in to the crown group scenario provides an of the record. Below, we consider the implications of the alternative calibration with respect to rates of molecular evolution among Araucariaceae. We estimated phylogenies using a UCLN relaxed clock model that the distribution of branch rates to from clocklike rate variation among to in branch rate (Drummond et al. 2006). this the of rate variation among branches can be by the standard deviation of the UCLN relaxed clock In Table (see also Fig. we the estimated value of this for two calibration scenarios (see and Lee 2007). In both is significant from a molecular the standard deviation in the clock rate includes although the of from group scenario) to group indicate that the standard deviation the value of the clock rate branch rate estimates for two calibration scenarios are indicated in For the crown group scenario, the branch rate estimates are associated with the For instance, the Araucariaceae stem group lineage has an estimated median rate of 4 million years In the median branch rate estimates are associated with the Araucariaceae crown from c. to 4 million years 1, that is, to an of lower the estimated stem group the stem group scenario, median branch rate estimates for Araucariaceae from to 4 million years and are comparable to rates for the conifer 4 million years et al. 2007). For the crown group scenario, we find that the in molecular rate c. from the to the Araucariaceae within the Araucariaceae crown is a and strong to lower rates including an c. times lower rate the branches both the and the Agathis + Wollemia crown relative to the stem group rate 2). For the stem group scenario, we find branch rate estimates and in rates from to lineages the of the tree 2). to median molecular branch length to topologies with median node estimates as 1) the rate for each branch branches have a posterior probability in the phylogenies under (a) crown group and (b) stem group calibration that two in terms of constraints, it that the of Araucariaceae fossils is the of the patterns molecular rates between crown and stem group scenarios 2). 1) the fossil constraints in the study of Knapp et al. (2007) are and rates have been the timescale of araucarian evolution or 2) the Araucariaceae are by of rate which would to the that the fossil record of Araucariaceae is rate variation has been widely the tree of and has been to a of including in the of DNA and level of that species are to and reasonably it has been that time may be a major to rate whereas other (e.g., are more important for rate variation among related lineages For the with molecular rate variation demonstrated in (e.g., et al. 1992; et al. and 2008). For instance, based upon and were found to on times and 2008; maximum from their data set was a times in rate in a from a to and time with are to strong rate variation the of species are as is the for all extant Araucariaceae. alternative for the of among lineage rate variation is that the calibration is Specifically, Knapp et al. (2007) assume that the crown group is but no to this The in rate variation could be by the of the calibration a of some branches instance, the Araucariaceae stem which would be between the lower age by the fossil and the upper maximum age set on the and a of (i.e., the crown group internal and branches have in to fit the data to the an would not be in the original analyses of Knapp et al. (2007) because they did not their a scenario most of these constraints were As an of the we divergence times for Araucariaceae using equivalent to those used for the crown group scenario (Table 2) but in the of an upper root age (i.e., 320 Ma, approximating the appearance of the this is a of rate variation among branches (UCLN clock standard 95% although the estimated age of the root is to Ma, 95% not the assumption of an for extant lineages of Araucariaceae (Knapp et al. is associated with entirely estimates for the divergence times of extant conifer families given of land plant evolution (e.g., and Scheckler 1988; and a that it is the calibration approach that is this all internal constraints for Araucariaceae that the number of constraints has a on the value of the rate variation when compared with the assumption that the crown group is we the divergence time estimates for the crown group by the stem group scenario, the is that the fossil record for the family The from the stem group scenario was to find that the fossil are much older their associated lineages. However, if the Araucariaceae crown group a maximum of and Table all these older fossil belong within crown can be stem Araucariaceae not to living In light of the molecular age an alternative is that the affinities of Araucariaceae with extant lineages are an of could result if fossils extinct lineages with extant putative for the extant lineages that are more among extinct For the most the fossil record of Araucariaceae a of that have been in terms of on the basis of partial fossils as and or The extant lineages instance, the extant of are using sets of from the plant (e.g., et al. whereas it is that extinct lineages a greater of morphological is in the present and Hill et al. 1995; Hill and Brodribb 1999; Cantrill and 2006). the of and are characters from may be to taxonomic has been suggested for et al. et al. 2007). have been the affinities of known from material et al. and some putative fossil of and Crisp 2005). The of is of concern for of the between fossil and extant taxa because to as a clade ages provides a review of the of extant Southern Hemisphere conifers including Araucariaceae and found that at the of living taxa could be to the that a of fossil material is as The recent of the extant Wollemia has a of of the fossil record of Araucariaceae of which et al. p. that of Wollemia fossil and of this would be as would be assigned to et al. Section to include extinct from the of based on the of that included that are similar to those of Section whereas the closely to those of doubt as to the of fossils that have been assigned to Section et al. et al. also question the affinities of fossils assigned to Section given that the sole extant representative was resolved in a derived position in their molecular and has at least that is in the The hypothesis of Knapp et al. (2007) the divergence of Section Bunya at not more and doubt as to the of Bunya Lee et al. (2007) and preserved Agathis from the Miocene from the in the of the of New Zealand as affinities with the extant A. However, Hill et al. (2008) that these fossils are unusual for Agathis in a and the the from the is not leading to a as in extant Lee et al. (2007) that these fossils, which they believe affinities with extant Agathis support to the hypothesis of Knapp et al. However, this support is on a phylogenetic between the fossils and the extant A. which is doubt by Hill et al. In light of the evidence we believe that (Stöckler et al. Knapp et al. that the in situ of a lineage to NZ Agathis since before the Oligocene marine are not well Specifically, even if their topology and assumed divergence times are the tree of Stöckler et al. (2002) is still consistent with the possibility that the A. australis lineage from Australia to NZ whereas fossil evidence for the of this lineage in NZ is in light of recent analyses (Hill et al. 2008; Pole 2008; Pole and Vajda 2009). The for the age of A. of Knapp et al. (2007) upon a set of the taxonomic of fossils that rate variation among branches of their (Table 2 and Fig. 2). We believe that the of confidence in the fossil data by the treatment of Knapp et al. (2007) is and, for instance, a of fossil and living Araucariaceae (e.g., et al. 2009) has not been we these the of araucarians, the estimated age of the A. australis lineage is and does not reject the alternative hypothesis of long-distance dispersal to NZ. the divergence time estimates under the stem group scenario suggest the to biogeographic and for Araucariaceae. The ages of nodes suggest an family that has as well as recent diversification in to the that is to extant Supplementary accession number was under the Australian number to We and an for their and on
Financing Agreement (Second Community Based Rural Development Project in support of the National Program for Decentralized Rural Development) between Burkina Faso and the International Development Association (with schedule, appendix and International Development Association General Conditions for Credits and Grants, dated 1 July 2005). Washington, 16 April 2007
Books, and the libraries that house them, for all their staid reputation, stand as major players in the plots of a substantial number of science fiction works. Books burn in the fires of Fahrenheit 451 and teach apocalypse survivors essential skills in Dies the Fire. In Earth Abides, Ish, a survivor of the Great Disaster and now an old man, sits on the steps of the long-abandoned university library, pondering its useless legacy for a population that lives by the bow and arrow. Global catastrophe and apocalypse are surely the stuff of fiction and where lesser cataclysmic events such as earthquakes and severe storms interrupt the lives of contemporary, industrialized populations, they have been on a scale for which the rest of the infrastructure compensates. But catastrophe can build in subtle, slow trickles that presage a torrent, a cumulative event with implications fully as severe as the sudden tsunami. Those trickles are running now, and their names are energy and digital information. The energy element has several tributaries, the two most significant being climate change and peak oil. They share the factor of being mildly controversial, in that the scientific and expert communities regard them as givens (with a range of potential future scenarios), while numerous doubters give voice in the governmental, business and general populations. Climate change is most evident in an accelerating global warming trend, with its significant and deleterious effects on water and resource availability. Peak oil, perhaps less well known, is the premise â well established in geochemical science â that the world's petroleum and natural gas reserves are in the process of depletion. Decline of yields mirrors a corresponding world oil discovery peak (discovery peaked in the 1960s), and while the debate rages over the precise year of peak oil (estimated to be somewhere between 2005 and 2020), the concern should be with the realities of the slide down the other side of the peak [1], [2]. It is not the place of this essay to deal with the pros and cons of substitutes for oil. Suffice it to say that alternative energy sources come nowhere near providing the cheap, safe, uncomplicated and overwhelmingly available benefits of oil. And the unfortunate factor that intrudes on any discussion of new fuels and new technologies is that of the zero sum game. The natural and economic resources are finite. Those diverted to one form of substitution steal from something else. So why should the digital information industry care about water and tar sands? Electricity. Remember the electricity aliens from old science fiction movies? The Internet is an electricity being. It was born, lives and dies with electricity. It eats electricity and, like any good alien, eats it exponentially. Item â Feb. 2010: Severe drought in Venezuela causes an electricity shortage that is expected to lead to higher oil prices. The worst drought in 10 years has dried up the water that generates hydroelectric power. In an effort to stem the hours-long blackouts that have gripped the nation for months, President Hugo Chavez has indicated that he may divert electricity from oil-producing and -refining operations. Venezuela owns 3.5% of the world's known oil supplies [3]. Item: The western states of California, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada have had their eye on Washington's mighty Columbia River for years. Giant waterworks projects were proposed as long ago as 1968; one of the more current plans is for an undersea pipeline that would carry water to Southern California from the Columbia [4]. Item â January 2010: Google Energy LLC, subsidiary of Google, Inc., has requested permission from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to buy and sell energy [5]. Electricity is provided by hydroelectric power, the burning of oil or coal and nuclear power plants. Worldwide water and oil resources are compromised by current supply and increasing global demand. Climate change restricts the availability of water and limits the ramping up of coal use. Nuclear power plants need abundant supplies of cheap water, and cheap oil underpins the construction of all these plants and the infrastructure that delivers it to homes and businesses. Google knows that its energy alien, housed in an estimated 24 or more data centers, consumes hundreds of megawatts of energy a day â day in and day out. Internet companies are fully aware of the current and projected energy needs of their burgeoning businesses. A smaller data center might consume as much as a large university, about 31 megawatts, including everything from stadium lights to its medical school. A larger complex â180 megawatts â would be enough to provide energy for a city of 900,000 inhabitants. Data centers on average use about as much electricity as large oil refineries. Data centers, or server farms, are a billion dollar business. They are composed of buildings and entire warehouse-sized complexes crammed with computer servers, and for every dollar spent on power, an additional dollar goes for temperature control. According to Department of Energy estimates, data center power requirements will increase from 1.2 percent to 4 percent of all power consumption in the United States in the next few years [6]. As the software industry moves increasingly to a web environment, Internet companies are building their own data centers. Initially concentrated in California and suburban Washington DC, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are all headed for the hills â the hills in this case being those of Washington State and the generators of the Columbia River [8]. Local utilities are hard-pressed to handle current demand in the context of existing exigencies such as infrastructure failures and weather-related outages (storms or air-conditioning draws). Add the double whammy of realistic, projected shortages and/or soaring costs for oil and water. Then consider that the rivers that provide the water for agriculture and hydroelectric power and for filling all the reservoirs and Sigg bottles have their genesis in the mountain snow packs, and that global warming is quietly working on the mountains. The disappearance of more than 80% of Mount Kilimanjaro's fabled snows is predicted to have worldwide implications for drought. And in the Yakima basin in Washington, this winter's reduced snow pack spells problems for irrigation [9]. The Yakima River is a tributary of the Columbia River. The first premise of this construction is that the Internet, those massive layers of data and code residing in increasingly energy-hungry warehouses around the economically beleaguered United States (and elsewhere) is going to reach a point where growth will be constrained by energy limits. âWith the possible exclusion of nuclear fusion energy, there are no rational expectations that significant unknown sources of energy can be unlocked through advances in science and technology. Depletion of fossil fuel resources can only be mitigated by a combination of efficiency gains, conservation and substitution of renewable and nuclear fission energyâ [10]. The second premise is that the success of the effort to divert, conserve and find substitutes for fossil fuel resources will be severely impacted by the already demonstrable effects of climate change, particularly with respect to water. Is it wise for the information world to dedicate itself unreservedly to the digital format? (And we haven't even mentioned sunspots; a new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity brings increased risks for power grids, cyber warfare or sharks, which gnaw underwater cables.) The publishing industry, willingly or not, has committed itself irreversibly to digitization [11]. It can neither sustain a physical inventory of backlists nor withstand the storm surge of the worldwide digital marketplace. Libraries are constrained by materials supply, linked as they inextricably are to the publishing industry and also by the access and format preferences of their patrons. Academic libraries subscribe to indexing products that are overwhelmingly digital, to associated digital text, to independent digital serials titles and to an increasing array of electronic books, archives and other full-text products. The legacy that was once restricted to paper stored in physical buildings, on the steps of which our fictional hero sat, is flowing ever faster to the hard drives in the servers in the data centers. Hard drives were not intended to be long-term storage devices in the event of prolonged power outages [12]. How they might perform in that capacity remains to be seen. Can we really delude ourselves that the electricity and the water and the oil will be sufficient to sustain indefinitely the infrastructure of the digital medium? There is an ever more visible thread running through the writings of those concerned with the fragility of the information universe â a thread that is at once both more rational and thus more worrisome than the alarmist prophecies of fiction and doomsayers. From the ruminations of thoughtful and articulate workers in the industry to feature articles in New Scientist, the question is being asked â what happens to our stored knowledge âif something goes wrong?â Or, as is the theme of this essay, what happens when the something that goes wrong is the simple projection of prohibitive parameters of energy and climate factors? There is an analog for knowledge and concern for its fate in an uncertain future. Deep inside a sandstone mountain lined with permafrost on the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen is a vault designed to hold and preserve around 2 million seeds. The three million dollar project was initiated by the Norwegian government to safeguard the world's seed heritage (the world's food supply) from nuclear war, climate change, terrorism, rising sea levels, earthquakes and the collapse of electricity supplies. It has meter-thick reinforced concrete walls, airlocks and blast-proof doors. It is a seed depository, not a seed bank, and it is not an apocalypse film set. It is real â designed and constructed by a government that was willing to do something more than whine and fret about uncertainty. Museums hold a publicly accepted mandate to preserve the artifacts of cultural heritage, and libraries follow a similar conservation mandate, albeit for a lesser galaxy of objects. It would be silly and pointless to envision a second doomsday vault on Spitsbergen housing copies of the world's literary and scientific heritage. But it is not silly to be realistic about the vicissitudes of the path we tread as we purchase, utilize and store for future use the hard-won body of knowledge on which civilization as we know it depends. Libraries need to hold to that stewardship mandate, to preserve and celebrate the integrity of print formats. They should preserve in print form the world's literary canon and seminal philosophical and scientific works. They should keep in book form the kind of functional information people take so easily now from the web: basic tenets of health and education, instructional literature for building and maintaining essential services, for the raising of plants and animals â a body of print back-up tapes so that when the lights flicker and the blackouts roll, there will be some place to go, and something to hold onto â so that the human heritage of both the practical and the esoteric will not go also into the blackness.