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The traditional probability of detection (POD) method, as described in the Department of Defense Handbook MIL-HDBK-1823A for nondestructive evaluation systems, does not take the time dependency of data collection into account. When applied to in situ sensors for the measurement of flaw sizes, such as fatigue-induced crack length and corrosion-induced mass loss, the validity and reliability of the traditional method is unknown. In this paper, the POD for in situ sensors and their associated reliability assessment for detectable flaw sizes are evaluated using a size-of-damage-at-detection (SODAD) method and a random parameter model (RPM). Although applicable to other sensors, this study is focused on long-period fiber gratings (LPFG) corrosion sensors with thin Fe–C coating. The SODAD method uses corrosion-induced mass losses when successfully detected from different sensors for the first time, while the RPM model considers the randomness and difference between mass loss datasets from different sensors. The Fe–C coated LPFG sensors were tested in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution until the wavelength of transmission spectra did not change. The wavelength shift of 70% of the tested sensors ranged from 6 to 10 nm. Given a detection threshold of 2 nm in wavelength, the mass losses at 90% POD are 31.87%, 37.57%, and 34.00%, which are relatively consistent, and the upper-bound mass losses at 95% confidence level are 33.20%, 47.30%, and 40.83% from the traditional, SODAD, and RPM methods, respectively. In comparison with the SODAD method, the RPM method is more robust to any departure from model assumptions since significantly more data are used. For the 90% POD at 95% confidence level, the traditional method underestimated the mass loss by approximately 19%, which is unconservative in engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) was an international organisation established post-World War I, aimed to foster intellectual relations for global peace. As this institution becomes centenary, the digitisation of archival records has democratised access, sparking renewed scholar interest and eventually enabling new research avenues. Here, we examine two letter collections from IIIC's digitised funds, focusing on administrative and artistic/literary matters. By analysing recognisable sender-receiver pairs and their geographical origins, we construct networks revealing intricate international relationships. Notably, the community structures and roles differ between administrative and literary exchanges, suggesting distinct communication dynamics. Administrative matters depict a more egalitarian distribution. In contrast, relevant literary correspondents include Western European countries exclusively, reflecting the prominence of certain geocultural areas as well as potential geopolitical influence attempts, challenging the established historical narratives on centres and peripheries, inviting a revaluation of the IIIC's geographical organisation and intellectual cooperation during the interwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is a crop with a good ability to adapt to the environment. Over 8800 accessions have been collected in the national gene bank of China. The huge quantity of germplasms made it difficult for analysis and evaluation. Although a broomcorn millet core collection (CC) comprising 780 accessions was established, the number is still too large for researchers to explore in depth. In this study, the genetic diversity of 634 broomcorn millet accessions from the core collection was analyzed based on SSR markers. A mini-core collection (MC) containing 256 accessions was extracted. The mini-core collection accounted for less than half of the original core collection and only about 2.8% of the total resources but still provided a good representation. In addition, the results of this study validated that Shanxi is the origin of broomcorn millet, and accessions from the South region may contain novel genes. In conclusion, this study provides a comprehensive characterization of the genetic diversities of broomcorn millet core collection in China. Moreover, an MC may aid in reasonably and efficiently selecting materials for broomcorn millet breeding as researchers could screen for aimed genetic characters within a smaller scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the many centuries of interaction and exchange between China and Europe, one of the most complex and ambiguous relationships was that of the Catholic Church and its missionaries in China. On one hand, they contributed to and can be seen as a part of the European imperial project of world colonisation, but on the other hand, they were instrumental in sharing and exchanging knowledge, as well as creating schools and other institutions in the places they created missions. At the same time, attempts were being made within the Catholic Church to promote the development of a Chinese clergy, although this issue remained divisive. This article examines these complex relationships through the eyes of a French Jesuit, André Yverneau, who was in China between 1948 and 1951 and who left a collection of letters back to his family describing these years. His experiences, observations, reactions and attitudes towards China and the mission are presented and analysed in order to re-evaluate some of the main debates surrounding the mission in China in the mid-twentieth century: education, language, indigenisation, and politics, both internal to the Catholic Church and with its relations in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fruit surface is a critical first line of defense against environmental stress. Overlaying the fruit epidermis is the cuticle, comprising a matrix of cutin monomers and waxes that provides protection and mechanical support throughout development. The epidermal layer of the cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) fruit also contains prominent lipid droplets, which have recently been recognized as dynamic organelles involved in lipid storage and metabolism, stress response, and the accumulation of specialized metabolites. Our objective was to genetically characterize natural variations for traits associated with the cuticle and lipid droplets in cucumber fruit. Phenotypic characterization and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were performed using a resequenced cucumber core collection accounting for >96% of the allelic diversity present in the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System collection. The collection was grown in the field, and fruit were harvested at 16–20 days post-anthesis, an age when the cuticle thickness and the number and size of lipid droplets have stabilized. Fresh fruit tissue sections were prepared to measure cuticle thickness and lipid droplet size and number. The collection showed extensive variation for the measured traits. GWAS identified several QTLs corresponding with genes previously implicated in cuticle or lipid biosynthesis, including the transcription factor SHINE1/WIN1, as well as suggesting new candidate genes, including a potential lipid-transfer domain containing protein found in association with isolated lipid droplets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biosocial surveys increasingly use interviewers to collect objective physical health measures (or "biomeasures") in respondents' homes. While interviewers play an important role, their high involvement can lead to unintended interviewer effects on the collected measurements. Such interviewer effects add uncertainty to population estimates and have the potential to lead to erroneous inferences. This study examines interviewer effects on the measurement of physical performance in a cross-national and longitudinal setting using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. The analyzed biomeasures exhibited moderate-to-large interviewer effects on the measurements, which varied across biomeasure types and across countries. Our findings demonstrate the necessity to better understand the origin of interviewer-related measurement errors in biomeasure collection and account for these errors in statistical analyses of biomeasure data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GENDER: Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the scientific background of Daniel Defoe's The Storm (1704). This work is a collection of letters on the Great Storm, a tempest which battered the south of England on 26–27 November 1703 causing casualties in the thousands and extensive damage. Like other extreme natural phenomena, the Great Storm was interpreted by many as divine warning. This article argues that, differently to Defoe's other works on the Great Storm, The Storm reconciles the traditional religious reading of catastrophes with recent breakthroughs in empiricist philosophy and early meteorology. In its concluding section, the article offers a reassessment of Defoe's interest in scientific ideas in The Storm so as to include early‐eighteenth‐century empiricism and examines Defoe's ambivalent attitude towards them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on case of Brian Coughlin, who sought to enforce bankruptcy protections against debt collection by Lendgreen, a payday lender owned by the Lac du Flambeau Band, which claimed tribal sovereign immunity to avoid liability. Topics include impact of the automatic stay in bankruptcy, the concept of tribal sovereign immunity; and the conflict between federal bankruptcy law and tribal sovereignty.

This article analyses a collection of eyewitness accounts by survivors of Nazi persecution gathered in the mid-1950s by the Wiener Library in London, narratives that were elicited about lived experiences of railway transport and trauma, as well as the implication of railway personnel and structures in resistance activities. The accounts provide an opportunity to interrogate early postwar narratives that reveal emerging constructions of refugee identity, agency, and survival through key memories deemed particularly "valuable" to the Library, an institution created by Jewish refugees who fled Nazi persecution. Through a case study approach framed by Ketelaar's distinction between archivalisation and archivisation, this paper argues that narratives of trauma, displacement and resistance associated with deportation by train were of special interest to Library staff already in the 1950s. This is striking due to a lack of scholarly focus on these themes until decades later. The recent publication of the collection as a digital resource has the potential to further expand and recontextualise "tacit narratives" of transport embedded in the collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Satisfaction” is the famous epithet given to Anselm's atonement theory. Less well appreciated even in modern retrievals of Hadewijch's work is the centrality of “satisfaction” as a concept for her, being just as technical but more theologically extensive in her writing than it is in Anselm's. Despite cultural similarities, the meaning of satisfaction in their respective works differs. This article argues that the difference between the concepts of satisfaction in Anselm's Cur Deus Homo and Hadewijch's Brieven depends on the difference between the meaning of the “debt” that the satisfying act satisfies. Anselm's “satisfaction” (satisfactio) responds to the debt created by sin, while Hadewijch's “satisfaction” (ghenoeghen) responds to the debt created by love's demand—a debt not only, or even primarily, of the beloved to the lover, but of the lover to the beloved. Departing from depictions of debt in both medieval and modern theology, Hadewijch presents indebtedness per se not as a point of contrast between human beings and God. Instead, she suggests that atonement recreates human understanding to perceive the original meaning of debt, which is the debt of love that the divine persons “eternally demand and eternally render” from and for each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes texts about Montenegro of the Catholic Irish publicist Patrick Mac Swiney de Mashanaglass, who visited the country in 1899. He published two works about his experience and the information he collected: a travel account and a historical overview. The article discusses the motive for his arrival on the eastern Adriatic coast, the historical, political, and cultural context of this visit, and the factors that influenced the creation of a certain image of Montenegro in his works. Special attention is paid to the issues of the relationship between Montenegro and the Holy See, which Swiney analyzed from various standpoints, and which contributed to the growing interest in Catholic circles in the small Balkan principality. The key events in that sense were the signing and implementation of the Concordat between Montenegro and the Holy See, the first legal act of this type signed between the Vatican and an Orthodox country, and the political-religious problem that emerged around an institute in Rome dedicated to St Jerome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to discusses the legal protection for credit card issuing banks in cases of customer default. In practice, customer defaults frequently occur, causing financial losses for issuing banks. This research aims to identify the legal measures that banks can take to protect their interests. The research methodology used is normative juridical with a descriptive analytical approach. The results indicate that banks have several legal recourses, such as resolving disputes through litigation and non-litigation avenues, and implementing protective clauses in credit card agreements. Additionally, existing legislation provides a strong legal foundation for banks to assert their rights. The article recommends that banks be more proactive in drafting clear and detailed agreements, as well as strengthening monitoring and collection mechanisms to minimize the risk of default. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new solution for fully automated and unmanned ticket pasting verification based on deep convolutional neural networks is designed to address the issues of low efficiency, error-proneness, and wastage of manpower in the supplier service hall. The technology makes full use of machine vision and image processing, AI precise positioning correction algorithm and other methods to build an automatic unattended bill collection, paste and verification platform. Through the technologies of high-speed identification of invoice information, 3D vision-guidance planning, control of the path of robotic arm, detection of invoice pasting and repeating based on ultrasonic sensors, and tidal temporary storage of paper invoices, and so on, the automatic high-speed identification and inspection of bills in the supplier service hall are realized, and the efficiency and accuracy of bill processing in the supplier hall are improved. Experiments show that this research method reinforces ability of identification calibration and order correlation, and improves the efficiency of Invoice filing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of BMS: Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique (Sage Publications Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Opuntia Brava is the property of Universidad de Ciencias Pedagogicas de Las Tunas, Centro de Documentacion e Informacion Pedagogica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article addresses a few practical details in collection proceedings for final arbitral awards for monetary claims in Switzerland under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of June 10, 1958 (“New York Convention” or “NYC”). A diligent observance of the formalities at the place of enforcement is required and typically leads to success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article refines the analysis of interest-bearing capital and debt in Marx's circuit of capital, incorporating Kōzō Uno's critique for a more precise depiction. It reassesses Marx's model of interest-bearing capital () and Uno's distinction between creditor and debtor roles, proposing an advanced model that highlights the role of financial instruments () and debt (). The form of money-lending capital for the creditor is articulated as , where represents the issuance of a loan and the collection of debt. On the other hand, the form of merchant capital with debt for the debtor is depicted as , incorporating both the borrowing () and repayment () processes within the form of merchant capital. This approach not only clarifies the transactions between creditors and debtors but also builds upon Uno's theoretical contributions, offering a comprehensive framework for understanding the dynamics of interest-bearing capital and the movement of capital with debt. The revision aims to elucidate the processes of loan issuance, debt collection, borrowing, and repayment, rectifying previous conceptual oversights and offering a solid foundation for future economic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the transparency of debts incurred for the EU Recovery Fund. In our opinion, the Recovery Fund lacks transparency at various levels. We find that the Fund implements a hidden transfer scheme that splits member states into net contributors and net recipients. As a result, the national budgets of the EU member states will have to face uncertain future obligations. Finally, we hold that the Fund weakens the European fiscal rules because the debts of the Recovery Fund do not add to the national debt levels. The national debt levels therefore do not show the whole burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tax debt collection is an important element for optimizing state revenue, but until now it has not run optimally. The process of collecting tax debts in Indonesia is often long and complicated. Tax collection faces obstacles such as short billing expirations, regulatory complexity, and unwieldy sanctions. The solution to this challenge involves improving regulations, increasing taxpayer awareness, strengthening institutions, and mitigating external factors affecting tax payment. This research is expected to provide an evaluation of the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms in enhancing tax debt collection for state revenue in Indonesia and an analysis of the current institutional regulations governing tax debt collections, providing insights into potential areas for reform and improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notably, a lack of motivation appears as a significant contributing factor to physical inactivity, which raises one's susceptibility to noncommunicable diseases. While research indicates a strong link between smartphone fitness applications (apps) and people's motivational orientation towards physical activity and exercise, the theoretical basis of fitness app features for sustaining exercise routines remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of fitness apps as a behaviour modification tool on people's motivation to maintain physical activity and exercise behaviour. Using individual semi-structured interviews, we collected detailed accounts from nine active male and female fitness app users (Mage = 23.4 years, SD = 2.8). The findings of both inductive and deductive reflective thematic analysis revealed core themes emphasising that the use of fitness apps satisfies the participants' psychological needs through fostering emotions of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Furthermore, fitness apps make it easier to track progress, challenge oneself, and compete against other exercisers, which further motivates participants to sustain their exercise behaviours. Confirming the use of fitness apps as an effective behaviour change tool for sustaining healthy exercise routines, the findings offer valuable feedback on specific app features for fitness software and wearable device developers that could potentially enhance the functionality and impact of their apps. Further discussions include limitations and areas for future research, such as discerning the role of fitness apps in sustaining motivation among diverse age groups with specific health, sport, or lifestyle goals in varying sensory, social, and affective contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes, emphasizing an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs. It highlights the importance for municipalities to find innovative ways to deal with outstanding debts and implement credit control, focusing on prioritizing resources on the 20% of debtors who can afford to pay. Data cleansing is also emphasized to identify indigents and improve revenue collection within municipalities. The article stresses the need for municipalities to focus resources where the money is, particularly on government, business, and affluent clients, to ensure effective credit control strategies. [Extracted from the article]

Introduction: Societies place a responsibility on individuals to pay what they owe on time, establishing a coercive apparatus for debt collection and enforcement when they do not, coupled with consumer protection and debt resolution measures to protect the vulnerable. Methods: An analysis of in-depth interviews with 28 people with both payment diffculties and vulnerabilities from ill-health, using Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory to explore the experiences of vulnerable defaulters as they try to exercise the personal responsibility placed on them by society. Results: It finds that they encounter barriers in exercising the personal responsibility which primarily arise in encounters with inflexible and bureaucratic routines -- of creditors, debt enforcement agents and even money advisers whose role is to help vulnerable people. These systematically undermine defaulters' self-effcacy, and leaving them facing prolonged periods of payment diiffculties. Discussion: The findings are discussed in the light of Bandura's Theory and lessons drawn for the policies and practices of creditors, debt enforcement bodies, and money advisers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Foreword to this special issue of SEEIR, the author reflects on the larger significance of the 125th anniversary of the founding in 1899 of the historic Russian department, later Slavonic Division/Slavic and Baltic Division, NYPL. While recognizing the importance of peer European institutions celebrating their centenaries, Kasinec emphasizes the strategic location of the NYPL's research collection at the very heart of a global metropolis. In reviewing the weighty contributions of his long-time colleagues, Robert H. Davis, Jr., Hee-Gwone Yoo, David Lowe, Bogdan Horbal, and Robert Sink to this special issue, Kasinec gratefully acknowledges his great personal and professional debt owed to the collections, services, and staff of New York's "people's palaces." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy poverty (EP), a pressing global concern, is uniquely manifested in regions like eastern Turkey due to intertwined socio-economic conditions and intricate energy consumption patterns. This study critically examines the electricity market dynamics, highlighting the direct impact on end-users, from households to entire communities facing challenges such as unauthorized consumption and waste. Our findings over 2 years period of 6 million customer invoices through 17 cities of 5 distribution companies underscore the limitations of traditional income-based measures in capturing the nuances of EP. In response, we introduce a novel metric—the power-cut index per consumer (PCPC)—spotlighting the prevalence of power interruptions due to non-payment as an actionable intervention metric. To address EP's challenges, we present a mechanism encouraging consumers to reduce consumption, offering debt discounts as incentives. Our methodological approach, harnessing both the Monte Carlo simulation and optimization, promises flexible, actionable strategies tailored to diverse EP situations. Drawing parallels with the European Union's energy transition efforts, this study proposes the adaptation of European frameworks to cater to Turkey's unique landscape. By anchoring our insights in real stories of those affected by EP, we highlight the human dimension, emphasizing the urgency of stakeholder collaboration to ensure a future where energy facilitates prosperity rather than hindrance. The collective endeavors of infrastructure companies, governmental agencies, NGOs, and the public are pivotal in sculpting a brighter, equitable energy future. Highlights: Electricity prices surge due to Covid-19 and natural disasters, impacting consumers' bills and leading to energy poverty (EP). Conventional data analysis methods overlook unique circumstances contributing to EP, necessitating a comprehensive, context-specific approach. Power-cut job orders provide more accurate indicators of EP than income-based formulas, highlighting the need for tailored solutions. EP affects both developed and developing regions, leading to unauthorized consumption and emphasizing the importance of energy efficiency. The power-cut index per consumer (PCPC) offers insights into EP prevalence and its correlation with lower socio-economic development. Effective support mechanisms require clear funding, objectives, and stakeholder engagement for long-term sustainability. Collaboration between energy companies, government, and NGOs is essential to design impactful support programs addressing EP. Debt collection optimization involves tailored solutions for varying debt levels, maximizing collection rates while avoiding financial risks. Monte Carlo simulations validate effective discount scenarios that reduce debt and support vulnerable households. Social responsibility projects, combining infrastructure development and job creation, have shown promise in mitigating payment disruptions and improving welfare. Data privacy is crucial, and rigorous processing protects sensitive information from being revealed. The Electricity Market Consumer Services Regulation (EMRA) in Turkey prioritizes consumer rights and equitable practices to create a consumer-friendly electricity market. Consumers committing to reduce consumption after power-cut job orders can receive discounted debt payments, fostering responsible energy use. Optimal discount and participation rates can be determined through iterative algorithms, ensuring the program's financial viability. Addressing EP requires a nuanced approach, incentivizing energy conservation, and fostering a sustainable energy landscape for vulnerable communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has evaluated the extent to which cocaine and other drugs were detectable on currency in the USA. The literature was in agreement that the majority of bills exhibited some degree of contamination. With the increase of fentanyl in the illicit drug supply, this study was designed to evaluate the extent that fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and other substances were present on circulating currency in 2022. A quantitative assay using liquid chromatography–triple quadrupole mass spectrometry was developed and validated to detect six analytes: fentanyl, 4-anilino- N -phenethylpiperidine, acetylfentanyl, benzylfentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. One-dollar bills were collected from 13 cities across the country. Sample preparation consisted of soaking the bills in methanol followed by liquid–liquid extraction. Chromatographic separation was achieved using a C18 analytical column and gradient elution with ammonium formate in water (5 mM, pH 3) and 0.1% formic acid in acetonitrile. The quantitative working range for this assay was 0.1 μg to 1.0 μg per bill (equivalent to 1 ng/mL to 100 ng/mL of extract). Fentanyl was detected on the majority (63%) of samples, with 61% of samples having ≥0.1 μg of fentanyl and 4% of samples having ≥1.0 μg. Cocaine and methamphetamine were detected on 100% and 98% of bills, respectively, typically in amounts >1.0 μg. The remaining fentanyl-related substances were detected in 15% of samples in amounts no >0.69 μg per bill and exclusively in the presence of fentanyl. Unsurprisingly, areas of the country with higher incidence of fentanyl use yielded higher frequency of contaminated bills and higher concentrations. Human exposure to drugs on currency is unlikely to have any significant impacts toxicologically or pharmacologically; however, our research findings suggest that paper currency could serve as a useful substrate for surveillance of drug trends regionally, nationally and/or internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the influence of society satisfaction on the capital structure decisions of small and medium–sized enterprises (SMEs). Applying data from an online questionnaire, we captured the well-being and perceptions that individuals hold about their own quality of life through a latent variable measuring satisfaction with life. In addition, the study used a sample of SMEs from Portugal for the pandemic year of 2020. Using fractional regression models, our findings revealed a statistically significant relationship between society satisfaction and SMEs' leverage. Specifically, we showed that higher levels of satisfaction decrease debt levels among SMEs. However, further investigation, employing a two-part fractional regression model, showed that the overall negative effect is, in fact, only explained by the increasing propensity for firms to remain debt-free in the presence of greater levels of society satisfaction. Consequently, while society satisfaction appears to influence the decision to engage in debt financing, this does not significantly impact the amount of debt taken on by SMEs. In summary, this paper highlights the importance of society satisfaction to SME capital structure decision-making and contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms driving SME financing decisions amidst socio-economic dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Revista Técnica Tributaria is the property of Asociacion Espanola de Asesores Fiscales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studia Migracyjne Przegląd Polonijny is the property of Wydzial Studiow Miedzynarodowych i Politycznych UJ oraz Polska Akademia Umiejetnosci and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the largest institutional creditors in the United States is perhaps the most unexpected: the criminal court system. Each year, creditor courts collect more than $15 billion in revenues from criminal defendants. These fees are the lifeblood of the modern criminal legal system. In this Article, we shed new light on the legal and economic framework under which myriad stakeholders operate in creditor courts. By analyzing new survey data from clerks of court and 102 contracts with debt collection agencies in Florida, we provide general insights into how creditor courts distort incentives and teem with conflicts of interest. These inefficiencies regularly disrupt the financial stability of the judiciary as well as the lives of the largely indigent criminal defendants who remain indebted to this system. As we show, legislators, clerks of court, and the judiciary writ large subject criminal defendants to unconstrained coercion through the use of so-called "user fees." Leveraging campaign finance data and publicly available litigation material, we also find suggestive evidence of possible quid pro quo rewards between collection agencies assigned to collect debt on behalf of courts and the clerks of court tasked with administering them. We argue that state constitutional reforms that eliminate creditor courts and mandate courts be funded from general state revenues are the only meaningful ways to permanently redress the social costs generated by criminal monetary sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this special issue, we propose the letter as a form with geographic potential. Building on prior work on letters in geography, Black feminism, and Indigenous studies, we draw on a collection of sixteen letters in the section to build a case for letters as time travel, anticolonial epistemology, feminist geographic method, and worldmaking praxis. We bring together letter writers who speak to their ancestors known and unknown, to future generations, to ideas, to activists, to places, and to strangers--and weave them into a messy and generative conversation on the kinds of spaces that letters make between and among us. Our intention is to build on recent work in geography to experiment with what the letter makes possible for us as geographers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an earlier study, Rupert Sheldrake, Pam Smart, and Michael Nahm reviewed accounts of end-of-life experiences (ELEs) involving non-human animals. They showed animal ELEs to be similar to human ELEs, suggesting common underlying processes. Here, we consider apparent after-death communications (ADCs) from non-human animals and compare them to accounts of ADCs from humans. We collected 442 accounts of animal ADCs from our own appeals and from reports in the literature. We found a close resemblance between ADCs from animals and from humans in the types of experience--dream visitations, a sense of presence, visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory apparitions, and psychokinetic effects. As with human ADCs, the great majority of animal ADCs were reported to have occurred in the first hours or days after death, with a dramatic falling off over time. Moreover, our data show that people grieve their pets in much the same fashion as they grieve their human loved ones, suggesting that human bereavement studies would do well to take into account the animal data to which we draw attention. Doing so may help clarify issues regarding the fundamental nature of the experiences--determining whether they are best regarded as internal hallucinations, as living-agent-psi-mediated subjective or objective phenomena, or as actual contacts with the deceased--which in turn carries implications not only for academic studies of bereavement but for clinical practice with the bereaved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the lessons he learned in working as pro bono debt collection assistant. He discusses his start as volunteer to assist pro se defendants in debt collection cases as he approached retirement, the program assisting pro se debt collection defendants, and the importance of the program for pro se defendants.

Book publisher Claude Barbin was an important contributor to the development of the genre of epistolary novels in France in the late part of the seventeenth century. As a strategy to build commercial success for collections of private letters that he sold in his shop, Barbin instrumentalized tacit and evolving conventions about privacy for correspondence in the Ancién Régime. In this article, I discuss how Barbin instrumentalized such tacit conventions of privacy in the prefaces to collections of purportedly private letters, arguing that the label of "private letter" was part of Barbin's practical knowledge of marketing techniques in seventeenth-century France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

King William II of the Netherlands (1792–1849) created important art collections with the benefit of advice from leading dealers at home and abroad, for which special premises were built in one of the royal palaces in The Hague. Whenever the monarch was not in residence, these were made accessible to visitors. Following William's sudden death in 1849 almost everything was sold and the paintings are now distributed around the world. An attempt is made here to reconstruct the contemporary presentation of these collections, both in The Hague and before that in the palace in Brussels; online appendices present, respectively, an account of the images of the collection in the Kneuterdijk Palace, The Hague (1842–1850); a chronological list of the acquisitions of William as prince and king in 1817–28 and 1837–48; and details of eleven paintings now in the Wallace Collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An intent detector is a central component of any task-oriented conversational system. The goal of the intent detector is to identify the user's goal by classifying natural language utterances. In recent years, research has focused on supervised intent detection models. Supervised learning approaches cannot accommodate unseen intents, which may emerge after the system has been deployed – the more practically relevant setting, known as zero-shot intent detection. The existing zero-shot learning approaches split a dataset into seen and unseen intents for training and evaluations without taking the sensitivity of the data collection process into account. That is, humans tend to use repeated vocabulary and compose sentences with similar compositional structures. We argue that the source-to-target relationship learning objective of zero-shot approaches under typical data split procedure renders the zero-shot models prone to misclassifications when target intents are divergent from source intents. To this end, we propose INTEND, a zero-shot INTENt D etection methodology that leverages contrastive transfer learning and employs a zero-shot learning paradigm in its true sense. First, in contrast to partitioning the training and testing sets from the same dataset, we demonstrate that selecting training and testing sets from two different datasets allows for rigorous zero-shot intent detection evaluations. Second, our employed contrastive learning goal is model-agnostic and encourages the system to focus on learning a generic similarity function, rather than on commonly encountered patterns in the training set. We conduct extensive experimental evaluations using a range of transformer models on four public intent detection datasets for up to 150 unseen classes. Our experimental results show that INTEND consistently outperforms state-of-the-art zero-shot techniques by a substantial margin. Furthermore, our approach achieves significantly better performance than few-shot intent detection models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]