Attorney General Oversight of Charities

The attorneys general in each of the states have broad powers to regulate nonprofit, tax exempt charitable organizations. In ten states there us active enforcement of the duties of loyalty care of charitable fiduciaries, while in another twenty-nine, the attorney general oversee charitable fundraising. This paper describes the operations of these state offices, the advantages and shortcomings of state regulation, and recent changes in the laws. It contains suggestions for changes in both state and federal law to improve accountability of the charitable sector. This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 41. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Connected innovation: an international comparative study that identifies mixed modes of innovation

This paper offers a new angle on innovation modalities by adopting a recently emerging approach towards identifying innovation typologies via exploratory data analysis techniques with the aim to tease out some underlying latent variables that represent coherent innovation strategies for groups of firms. Mixed modes of innovation include aspects of both user and open innovation, and are employed to inform on such concepts. The modes of innovation are developed by exploring micro-level innovation survey data across 18 countries. The contributions of the paper lie in (a) the identification of five core innovation modes that are found in almost all countries; and (b) examining – via regression analysis – the role of different modes in firm performance

Selective Games on Binary Relations

We present a unified approach, based on dominating families in binary relations, for the study of topological properties defined in terms of selection principles and the games associated to them.Comment: 28 page

The Human Brain: A Multimedia Tutorial For The Independent Learner

The Human Brain is a multimedia, interactive, computer-based tutorial on the structure and function of the human nervous system. In creating it, we aim to solve a number of problems, both subject specific and general. As a subject, the structure and function of the nervous system is difficult to teach using traditional methods and there is a lack of integration in the teaching of structure and function. More generally, we are concerned with the difficulties of both assessing student understanding of a particular subject and remedying any deficiencies when the student is learning independently. Finally, we hope to resolve the conflict between linear and explorative modes of presentation of material in a teaching system

LabelFusion: A Pipeline for Generating Ground Truth Labels for Real RGBD Data of Cluttered Scenes

Deep neural network (DNN) architectures have been shown to outperform traditional pipelines for object segmentation and pose estimation using RGBD data, but the performance of these DNN pipelines is directly tied to how representative the training data is of the true data. Hence a key requirement for employing these methods in practice is to have a large set of labeled data for your specific robotic manipulation task, a requirement that is not generally satisfied by existing datasets. In this paper we develop a pipeline to rapidly generate high quality RGBD data with pixelwise labels and object poses. We use an RGBD camera to collect video of a scene from multiple viewpoints and leverage existing reconstruction techniques to produce a 3D dense reconstruction. We label the 3D reconstruction using a human assisted ICP-fitting of object meshes. By reprojecting the results of labeling the 3D scene we can produce labels for each RGBD image of the scene. This pipeline enabled us to collect over 1,000,000 labeled object instances in just a few days. We use this dataset to answer questions related to how much training data is required, and of what quality the data must be, to achieve high performance from a DNN architecture

Investigating the relationship between predictability and imbalance in minimisation : a simulation study

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Countering a Legal Threat to Cultural Exchanges of Works of Art: The Malewicz Case and Proposed Remedies

The ability of U.S. museums to borrow for exhibition works of art from museums owned by foreign governments is seriously threatened under a ruling of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in the case of Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam that is now on appeal. If upheld, future cultural exchanges may be seriously curtailed; in fact, there is evidence that the case has already had a chilling effect on the willingness of foreign lenders to permit their works of art to travel to the United States. The case in question involves works of art lent by the city of Amsterdam to two U.S. museums that, under the terms of the 1965 Immunity from Seizure Act, were protected from seizure while in the United States. At issue in the case is a separate statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, under which foreign governmental entities whose property is at any time in the United States are immune from suit here unless the property involves a violation of international law and commercial activity. The District Court held that the Immunity from Seizure Act only protects works of art from seizure; it does not preclude suits for damages against the owners; and that the loan of art works to U.S. museums is commercial activity as that term is used in the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. In order to assure continued cultural exchanges, legislation is needed that will extend the Immunity from Seizure Act to protect a foreign owner from any suit based on the presence of artwork in the United States that has received protection under the Act.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 42. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Clathrin Heavy Chain subunits coordinate endo- and exocytic traffic and affect stomatal movement

The current model for vesicular traffic to and from the plasma membrane is accepted but the molecular requirements for this coordination are not well defined. We have identified the has1 mutant, which has a stomatal function defect, as a clathrin heavy chain 1 (CHC1) mutant allele and show that it has a decreased rate of endocytosis and growth defects that are shared with other chc1 mutant alleles. We used chc1 alleles and the related chc2 mutant as tools to investigate the effects clathrin defects have on secretion pathways and plant growth. We show that secretion and endocytosis at the plasma membrane is sensitive to CHC1 and CHC2 function in seedling roots, and that chc mutants have physiological defects in stomatal function and plant growth that have not been previously described. These findings suggest that clathrin supports specific functions of multiple cell types. Stomata movement and gas exchange is altered in chc mutants, indicating clathrin is important for stomatal regulation. The aberrant function of chc mutant stomata is consistent with the growth phenotypes observed under different water and light conditions, which are also similar to those of the secretory SNARE mutant, syp121. The syp121 and chc mutants have impaired endo- and exocytosis compared to wild type, indicating a link between SYP121-dependent secretion and clathrin-dependent endocytosis at the plasma membrane. Our findings provide evidence that clathrin and SYP121 functions are important for the coordination of endo- and exocytosis, and have an impact on stomatal function, gas exchange, and vegetative growth in Arabidopsis