Title of Dissertation: EVALUATION OF NCEP GFS CLOUD PROPERTIES USING SATELLITE RETRIEVALS AND GROUND-BASED MEASUREMENTS Hyelim Yoo, Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 Directed By: Professor Zhanqing Li, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science/Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center Cloud properties and their vertical structure are important for meteorological studies due to their impact on both the Earth's radiation budget and adiabatic heating. Examination of bulk cloud properties and vertical distribution simulated by the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) using various satellite products and ground-based measurements is a main objective of this study. Cloud variables evaluated include the occurrence and fraction of clouds in three layers, cloud optical depth, liquid water path, and ice water path. Cloud vertical structure data are retrieved from both active and passive sensors that are compared with GFS model results. In general, the GFS model captures the spatial patterns of hydrometeors reasonably well and follows the general features seen in satellite measurements, but large discrepancies exist in lowlevel cloud properties. More boundary layer clouds over the interior continents were generated by the GFS model whereas satellite retrievals showed more low-level clouds over oceans. The GFS model simulations also missed low, shallow stratocumulus clouds along the west coast of North America, South America, and southwestern Africa and overestimated thick, large-scale clouds associated with the Asian summer monsoon. Although the frequencies of global multi-layer clouds from observations are similar to those from the model, latitudinal variations show large discrepancies in terms of structure and pattern. The modeled cloud optical depth for optically thin or intermediate clouds is less than that from passive sensor and is overestimated for optically thick clouds. The distributions of ice water path (IWP) agree better with satellite observations than do liquid water path (LWP) distributions. Mistreatment of such stratocumulus clouds in the GFS model leads to an overestimation of upward longwave flux, and an underestimation of upward shortwave flux at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA). With respect to input data bias in cloud fields, the GFS temperature is comparable with satellite retrievals and groundbased measurements, but the GFS relative humidity shows a wet bias at 150 and 850 hPa both from satellite retrievals and ground-based measurements. Discrepancies in cloud fields between observations and the model are attributed to differences in cloud water mixing ratio and mean relative humidity fields, which are major control variables determining the formation of clouds. To improve the simulation of cloud fields, application of other cloud parameterization scheme to the GFS model is performed. The new scheme generates a large quantity of marine stratocumulus clouds over the eastern tropical oceans as well as low cloud amounts in the other regions. High-level and middle-level clouds generated from the new scheme are more comparable with the satellite retrievals in terms of the spatial distributions and zonally averaged cloud fractions. An application of a simple linear relationship between de-correlation lengths (Lcf) and latitudes to the GFS model is conducted in order to see how successfully the equation explains the characteristics of cloud vertical structure on the changes in cloud fraction at different vertical levels. The method to solve for Lcf is a combination of Brent (1973) approach and a stochastic cloud generator using data collected from space-borne active sensors. Cloud fractions derived from a simple linear fit are compared to those computed from Lcf values based on observations. The pattern of zonal Lcf values from a simple linear fit is quite different from that of Lcf values based on observations. An offset pattern in subtropical regions is notable. The distribution of median Lcf values calculated from observed clouds do not show much dependence on latitude. This suggests that other physics, such as convection and cloud formation mechanism rather than simply latitude, should be considered when explaining how Lcf behaves. Such findings are expected to help improve the inherent problems of the GFS cloud parameterization scheme and to gain insight into the method used in determining cloud fraction. EVALUATION OF NCEP GFS CLOUD PROPERTIES USING SATELLITE RETRIEVALS AND GROUND-BASED MEASUREMENTS


The marattialean fern Qasimia schyfsmae (Lemoigne) gen. et comb. nov. is described from the Late Permian plant bed at Unayzah in central Saudi Arabia. Although no organic matter is preserved, impregnation of the compressions by iron minerals at an early stage of diagenesis has partly mineralised the synangia and spores. The impressions in a fine-grained shale preserve epidermal cell outlines, including those of the stomata. Qasimia resembles Marattia closely in its bivalved synangia and in its monolaesurate spores with a warty or spiny ornament. It differs in the rounded rather than pointed apices of the pinnules and the greater density of veins, particularly in the vegetative pinnules. Unlike Marattia, its synangia characteristically extend across the full halfwidth of the pinnules, their sporangial compartments are longer, and the cells of the dorsal walls of the compartments are mainly elongate rather than rounded. Venuli recurrentes occur in the fertile pinnules only (which show less than half the vein density of the vegetative pinnules). They are interpreted as vestigial vein branches that were surplus to the number needed to supply the synangia of the fertile pinnules. Such fibre bundles are common in Mesozoic Marattia but are absent from extant species. Marattia anglica (Thomas) Harris, one of the better known Mesozoic species, is compared both with Qasimia and with extant Marattia, and is shown to have a synangial structure like that of the extant species. Similar ferns occur in the Permian of China, the Soviet Far East and Southeast Asia and attention is drawn to Lophotheca panxianensis Zhao, from the Permian of Guizhou, which may be a preservational state of Qasimia. A new combination, Q. tobaensis comb. nov., is proposed for material previously assigned to Taeniopteris tobaensis by Li, Yao & Deng, 1982. Many ferns from the East Asian Cathaysian Province have been wrongly determined as Taeniopteris and Neuropteridium. Qasimia is the earliest known Marattia-like fern having taeniopteroid foliage, and is linked by Mesozoic species of Marattia to the extant ones. Its origin is discussed with reference to the Carboniferous pecopterid Danaeites saraepontanus Stur. Fusion of the separate sporangia of D. saraepontanus would produce bivalved synangia of the Qasimia type, and condensation of a pecopterid frond would produce taeniopteroid pinnules with rounded apices.


Drought stress is a major limiting factor in soybean production in South Africa. The development of soybean varieties with enhanced tolerance to soil waterlimited induced stress (WLIS) is one sustainable way to deal with drought. Root traits have shown strong potential for improvement of drought tolerance through breeding. The objectives of this study were to evaluate seedling shoot- and root growth responses under WLIS in order to study root morphology as a mechanism to cope with drought stress and to determine if there were genotypic differences in shoot-and root morphology between drought tolerant and -sensitive soybean genotypes. Seedlings of three drought tolerant and one sensitive genotype were subjected to soil WLIS in deep-root-pots for 21 days. Results suggested significant genotypic differences for shoot length, number of leaves, tap root length and root-to-shoot length ratio. Soybean tolerant genotypes were associated with moderate shoot biomass, deep rooting abilities and maintained a large root-to-shoot ratio under WLIS conditions. In contrast, the sensitive genotype was associated with a reduced root-to-shoot ratio and shallower root system. Soybean genotypes showed varying seedling root growth responses to soil WLIS, while shoot biomass characteristics were similar.


Partially restrained (PR) connections are connections that possess stiffness and moment characteristics that fall between the extreme cases of pinned and rigid. This paper proposes a design methodology for PR frames that takes into consideration the semi-rigid nature of the connections, including their loading/unloading behavior under combined gravity and wind loads. Top and seat angle connections, modeled using the three-parameter power model, are used to demonstrate the proposed design procedure. To simply the design, two linearized connection stiffness values calculated on the basis of expected connection loads are used. The analysis is carried out using the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) direct analysis method in which notional horizontal loads, expressed as a fraction of the gravity load, are applied to the PR frames in conjunction with the use of reduced member axial and bending stiffness. Examples are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method of PR frame design.


This study reconstructs the Alfredian network as consisting of twelve actors. This network is termed a coalition, within which a cluster of Mercian actors is further hypothesised. Historical sources and charter evidence suggest that Mercian scribes worked for West Saxon kings and may even have taken part in the establishment of a proto-chancery at the royal court. This writing office can be conjectured to have ties with the Alfredian coalition and described as a community of practice. The whole sociolinguistic reconstruction is supported by three case studies: Angelcynn 'the English people' and here 'band, troop' in historical-political genres, and gretan freondlice in epistolary genres. The diffusion of these Alfredian norms across time, place and genres is linked to the royal chancery and its distribution channels, as well as to the diachronic sustainability of linguistic practices within professional discourse communities and their archives.


The timing of caloric intake is a risk factor for excess weight and disease. Growing evidence suggests, however, that the impact of caloric consumption on metabolic health depends on its circadian phase, not clock hour. The objective of the current study was to identify how individuals consume calories and macronutrients relative to circadian phase in real-world settings. Young adults (n = 106; aged 19 ± 1 years; 45 females) photographically recorded the timing and content of all calories for seven consecutive days using a smartphone application during a 30-day study. Circadian phase was determined from in-laboratory assessment of dim-light melatonin onset (DLMO). Meals were assigned a circadian phase relative to each participant's DLMO (0°, ~23:17 h) and binned into 60° bins. Lean (n = 68; 15 females) and non-lean (n = 38, 30 females) body composition was determined via bioelectrical impedance. The DLMO time range was ~10 h, allowing separation of clock time and circadian phase. Eating occurred at all circadian phases, with significant circadian rhythmicity (p < 0.0001) and highest caloric intake at ~300° (~1900 h). The non-lean group ate 8% more of their daily calories at an evening circadian phase (300°) than the lean group (p = 0.007). Consumption of carbohydrates and proteins followed circadian patterns (p < 0.0001) and non-lean participants ate 13% more carbohydrates at 240° (~1500 h) than the lean group (p = 0.004). There were no significant differences when caloric intake was referenced to local clock time or sleep onset time (p > 0.05). Interventions targeting the circadian timing of calories and macronutrients for weight management should be tested.


I address the controversy over whether the financial services industry is "too big." We should be asking whether the finance industry is functioning properly instead. The facts suggest that demand for financial services increased, perhaps temporarily, rather than suggesting a changing distortion within the industry. The puzzling persistence of actively managed mutual funds is finally yielding to supply and demand analysis, but the increasing preference for high-fee delegated management by sophisticated institutional investors remains somewhat of a puzzle. Conventional alpha-beta analysis does not capture the rich structure of risk premiums, which active management may be accessing. High-frequency information trading and the price-discovery process remain a puzzle as well. Many "inefficiencies" and events of the financial crisis suggest too little rather than too much active trading. The instability and regulation of the US financial system are more important issues than its mere size.


Disagreement and conflict are inherent to democratic politics, and heated disagreement has long been a feature of politics in the United States. Incivility in Washington currently runs rampant, with politicians and pundits alike engaging in name calling and resorting to disrespectful outbursts. Calls for greater civility abound. We propose that a different, and potentially more destructive, type of political rhetoric has become more commonplace, what we call political vilification. Partisan disagreements are increasingly steeped in rhetoric that depicts the opposition as the enemy, an enemy that is evil and a threat to the United States and to its people. Vilification has become a preferred mode of political rhetoric and its effects are not benign. We argue that when people hear vilifying rhetoric, the immediate effect is heightened emotions and partisan identity and the broader effects involve shifts in partisan attitudes, support for democratic processes, and political behavior. These effects depend, though, on whether one's party is the vilifier or the vilified and on whether one is a Democrat or a Republican. We conducted a preliminary test of our model using an experimental design in which participants were randomly assigned to read about a simple policy disagreement, the opposing party vilifying the participant's party, or a control paragraph on a policy problem. We found that when their party is vilified, Republicans express significantly more negative views toward the Democratic Party whereas Democrats do not express meaningfully different views about Republicans across conditions. Rather, Democrats express more favorable views about Democrats as compared to the incivility and control conditions. Regarding participation, Democrats are more likely to respond to vilification by expressing a desire to participate in politics by talking with friends about an issue whereas Republicans respond by wanting to donate money to their party. We also find partisan differences when it comes to support for democratic processes. Democrats react to vilification by becoming more approving of government and more supportive of compromise whereas Republicans react by becoming more disapproving and less supportive. We conclude by discussing the implications of our analysis and our plans for future research.


Governance theory emerged in the early 1990s. Since then, it has been seen as an
approach to unveil the existing relationships in systems of management with two
often-conflicting governing systems, namely formal and informal. Governance
theory attempts to understand the implications of decisions made by formal and
informal institutions in order to find suitable ways of management.
The theoretical problem this thesis responds to embraces water institutions
governing and managing the DWSS. This thesis contributes to conceptualise
drinking water governance as the rules, decision making and the plurality of actors
interacting to provide the DWSS and recognising customary water institutions and
authorities in the management, operation and maintenance of the DWSS at
community level.
This research uses the concept of governance defined by Chhotray and Stoker
(2009: 3) as 'the rules that guide collective decision-making in settings where
there are a plurality of actors or organisations'. This concept is systematically
applied in an analytical framework taking into account three main components of
governance namely rules, collective decision-making, and plurality of actors to
analyse water governance with a focus on the drinking water supply service
(DWSS) in three peri-urban communities in Mexico's central highlands: San
Mateo, San Francisco and Santiaguito.
The principal research question this thesis aims to answer is how do customarilyorganised
institutions address water governance to manage the DWSS at
community level? Using qualitative methods and techniques this research explores
the interactions between formal and informal institutions and actors when
managing drinking water at community level. Informal institutions and actors are
water committees, water vendors, and domestic water users. Formal institutions
are decentralised water institution and well proprietors.
This research highlights the importance of legal plural institutions involvement in
the governance and management of drinking water and its interaction at
community level. This thesis contributes to better understanding of rules, decision
making and the plurality of actors interacting within the governance and
management of the DWSS. It highlights the importance of the legal plural
institutions involved in the governance and management of water and the way in
which they are legitimised either by formal or informal institutions. This thesis
also contributes to recognising customary water institutions in the governance of
water resources. I approach water governance and analyse society participation,
water markets and customary and official institutions involved in the DWSS
provision. Theoretical insights are also provided into the on-going dynamic of
drinking water access by domestic water users and actors. Finally, the thesis is
also rich in contributing with substantial empirical information collected through
semi-structured interviews, deep interviews, focus groups, observation and
informal talks with domestic water users and vendors.


We characterize the dust in NGC 628 and NGC 6946, two nearby spiral galaxies in the KINGFISH sample. With data from 3.6 μm to 500 μm, dust models are strongly constrained. Using the Draine & Li dust model (amorphous silicate and carbonaceous grains), for each pixel in each galaxy we estimate (1) dust mass surface density, (2) dust mass fraction contributed by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, (3) distribution of starlight intensities heating the dust, (4) total infrared (IR) luminosity emitted by the dust, and (5) IR luminosity originating in regions with high starlight intensity. We obtain maps for the dust properties, which trace the spiral structure of the galaxies. The dust models successfully reproduce the observed global and resolved spectral energy distributions (SEDs). The overall dust/H mass ratio is estimated to be 0.0082 ± 0.0017 for NGC 628, and 0.0063 ± 0.0009 for NGC 6946, consistent with what is expected for galaxies of near-solar metallicity. Our derived dust masses are larger (by up to a factor of three) than estimates based on single-temperature modified blackbody fits. We show that the SED fits are significantly improved if the starlight intensity distribution includes a (single intensity) "delta function" component. We find no evidence for significant masses of cold dust (T ≲ 12 K). Discrepancies between PACS and MIPS photometry in both low and high surface brightness areas result in large uncertainties when the modeling is done at PACS resolutions, in which case SPIRE, MIPS70, and MIPS160 data cannot be used. We recommend against attempting to model dust at the angular resolution of PACS.


Last November, the Faculty of Science of the University of Fribourg awarded the doctor honoris causa to Martin Gutzwiller, with a threefold motivation: His outstanding contributions to theoretical physics, his active interest for science in general and his relations to Fribourg. Reason enough for emphasizing the eminent role Gutzwiller played during the last half century, especially in the two still very active research areas of quantum chaos and correlated electrons, as described in some detail below. Special thanks to Michael Berry for his profound analysis of Gutzwiller's pioneering work in "quantum chaology". Martin Gutzwiller was born 1925 in Basel. His father was an internationally known professor of law, from 1921 to 1926 at the University of Fribourg, from 1926 to 1936 at the University of Heidelberg and then, after having escaped with his family from Germany because of the harassment by the nazis, again in Fribourg from 1937 to 1956. Martin passed his first school years in Heidelberg. Back to Switzerland, he received his further education in Trogen and at the Collège Saint Michel in Fribourg, where he passed the final two years of gymnasium. In 1944 he started studying physics at the University of Fribourg, but then he enrolled at the ETH in Zürich, where he received the diploma in 1949. His diploma work on the magnetic moment of nucleons with vector-meson coupling, supervised by Wolfgang Pauli, undoubtedly had a strong impact on his view of physics. 45 years later, in a letter to Physics Today (August 1994), he admits having received "a marvelous education in early field theory", but at the same time having been frustrated because the problem posed by Pauli could not be handled in a satisfactory way. Thus he pleads for coming back to "down-to-earth physics", instead of "chasing an elusive goal on the basis of abstract models". After having received his diploma, Martin Gutzwiller worked during one year as an engineer in microwave transmission at Brown Boveri in Baden. In 1951 he moved to the US, where he spent most of the time since. At the University of Kansas he made his Ph. D. studies under the guidance of Max Dresden, on "Quantum Theory of Fields in Curved Space". From 1953 to 1960 he worked on geophysics in a laboratory of Shell in Houston, Texas. A position at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, then still in Adliswil, brought him back to Switzerland for three years, but subsequently he settled definitely down in New York. He remained a researcher at IBM, from 1963 to 1970 at the Watson Laboratory and from 1970 to 1993 in Yorktown Heights. He was at the same time Adjunct Professor in Metallurgy at the Columbia University. After his retirement from IBM he became an Adjunct Professor at the Yale University. Martin Gutzwiller has published about 40 papers, most of them alone. He received prestigious prizes, such as the Dannie Heinemann prize of the American Physical Society (1993) or the Max-Planck Medal of the German Physical Society (2003). His international recognition is also well documented by four issues of Foundations of Physics (2000/2001), published at the occasion of his 75th birthday. It is worth mentioning that his research activities were broader than quantum chaos and correlated electrons, they included such diverse topics as dislocations in solids, the quantum Toda lattice and the ephemerides of the moon.


The reproductive behaviour of the sexually coercive male eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) offers an excellent model system for testing the benefits of reversible thermal acclimation responses to mating success. We acclimated male mosquitofish to either 18 or 30°C (14 h light : 10 h dark) for six weeks and tested their ability to obtain coercive copulations in the presence and the absence of male–male competition. Based on the beneficial acclimation hypothesis, we predicted for both sets of experiments that 18°C acclimated males would outperform 30°C acclimated males when tested at 18°C, and vice versa when tested at 30°C. We found that copulation success was greater for acclimated than non-acclimated males at both temperatures when individual males were tested without competing males. In contrast, when males from the different acclimation treatments were competed against each other for copulations with a single female, the 30°C acclimated males were more aggressive and obtained a greater number of copulations at both test temperatures. Thus, we found a clear benefit for acclimation when fish were tested in a non-competitive environment, but acclimation to cool temperatures was associated with a decrease in aggressive behaviour that reduced mating performance at both test temperatures in a competitive environment. In contrast with the long-held assumption that reversible plasticity is beneficial, the adaptive significance of reversible physiological plasticity is affected by a variety of other ecological factors and is more complex than previously suggested.


Recently, entreprenuership is one of the most important subjects. Because most countries are aware that they can achieve economic development and growth by the help of entreprenuership. Therefore, these countries try to create tangible and intangible opportunities that would unfold entreprenuership potential. Turkey needs entreprenuers in tourism sector. It is important for Turkey to lead their students who studies in tourism department to entreprenuership because of abundance in touristic destinations and labor-intensive characteristics of the tourism sector. In this study, entreprenuership intentions of students in tourism departments at Afyon Kocatepe University and Trakya University are compared, and similarities and differences in students' entreprenuership intentions are put forth. For this purpose, Cronbach Alpha is used to test the reliability of the study, and Kruskal Wallis analysis is conducted to test the impact of demographic factors on the entreprenuership intentions of students. The similarities of demographic factors that affect the students' entreprenuership intentions of both universities are seen on the same age groups and same objectives (establishing their own businesses, not considering to work in state agencies), and differences are observed in terms of gender and grades (semester). One of the important findings of the study is that entreprenuership education at Trakya University affected the entreprenuership intentions of the students partially and for a short period of time.


Neither plants, nor animals, nor fungi, the myxomycetes are a surprisingly diverse and fascinating group of organisms. They spend the majority of their life out of sight as single-celled amoeboid individuals in leaf litter, soil or decaying wood, foraging for bacteria and other simple life forms. However, when conditions are right, two individual cells come together to give rise to a much larger, creeping structure called a plasmodium, which produces the even more complex and often beautiful fruiting bodies. Indeed, the fruiting bodies of myxomycetes are often miniature works of art!

Their small size (usually only a few millimetres tall) and fleeting fruiting phase mean that these organisms, although ubiquitous and sometimes abundant, are overlooked by most people. However, recent research by a few dedicated individuals has shown that Australia has a very diverse myxomycete biota with more than 330 species, the largest number known for any region of the Southern Hemisphere.

This comprehensive monograph provides keys, descriptions and information on the known distribution for all of these species in addition to containing introductory material relating to their biology and ecology. Many species are illustrated, showing the diversity of their fruiting bodies, and greatly facilitating their identification.

This book will give naturalists a new insight into an often overlooked group of organisms in addition to providing an incentive to search for the many species which have undoubtedly thus far escaped notice.


In the context of statistical supervised learning, the noiseless linear model assumes that there exists a deterministic linear relation $Y = \langle \theta_*, X \rangle$ between the random output $Y$ and the random feature vector $\Phi(U)$, a potentially non-linear transformation of the inputs $U$. We analyze the convergence of single-pass, fixed step-size stochastic gradient descent on the least-square risk under this model. The convergence of the iterates to the optimum $\theta_*$ and the decay of the generalization error follow polynomial convergence rates with exponents that both depend on the regularities of the optimum $\theta_*$ and of the feature vectors $\Phi(u)$. We interpret our result in the reproducing kernel Hilbert space framework; as a special case, we analyze an online algorithm for estimating a real function on the unit interval from the noiseless observation of its value at randomly sampled points. The convergence depends on the Sobolev smoothness of the function and of a chosen kernel. Finally, we apply our analysis beyond the supervised learning setting to obtain convergence rates for the averaging process (a.k.a. gossip algorithm) on a graph depending on its spectral dimension.


The differential reflection phase shift, Δ = δp − δs, associated with the external reflection of monochromatic light at the surface of an absorbing medium is a monotonically decreasing function of the angle of incidence ϕ which is determined by the complex dielectric function ∊. A new special angle of incidence, denoted by ϕΔ′max, is defined at which the slope Δ′ = ∂Δ/∂ϕ of the Δ–ϕ curve is maximum negative,
Δmax′, and a transcendental equation is derived that determines this angle. ϕΔ′max differs from the principal angle ϕp at which Δ = 90°. As an example, ϕΔ′ max is calculated by numerical iteration for light reflection at the air–Si interface for photon energies hν from 1.7 to 5.6 eV in steps of 0.1 eV, and is plotted, along with the associated maximum slope
Δmax′, vs wavelength λ. It is noted that ϕΔ′ max > ϕp at every λ, a result that may hold in general. Also, for 4.5 ≤ hν ≤ 5.6 eV, ϕΔ′ max = 90°, so that a maximum negative slope occurs at grazing incidence in this spectral range. Another interesting observation is that, when |∊| ≫ 1 (e.g., for metals in the IR), Δ′(90°) is a direct measure of the extinction coefficient k = Im∊1/2.


The investment management of the Islamic funds is based on the syariah principles,
meanwhile the conventional funds are not restricted to any principles. Hence, the
performance of the Islamic funds and conventional funds may have a significance
difference. Moreover, the economic condition may influence or have some implications
on the performance of both funds.
The study analyzed 65 unit trust funds as the sample of the study. Monthly data were
collected over the ten-year period starting from January 1992 up to December 2001 . The
measure of performance applied in this study includes the non risk-adjusted performance
measures, risk-adjusted performance measures and the measurement of risks. Apart from
that, Treynor and Mazuy model was also used to measure the funds managers' selection
and market timing ability.
The findings revealed that over the ten-year period, the performance of the Islamic funds
and the conventional funds are equally well. However, both funds underperformed the market but it is not statistically significant (which have not been tested in previous
studies).
The performance of the funds was influenced by the economic condition. During the
economic crisis, the market was badly affected as compared to unit trust funds, hence
the funds outperformed the market (however, statistically it is not significant). Islamic
funds performed better during bearish economic trend, while the conventional funds
showed better performance during bullish economic period.
The findings indicate that the Islamic funds have lower risks as compared to the risk
associated with the conventional funds. However, the differences are not statistically
significant. Besides that, conventional funds have a marginally better diversification
level than the Islamic funds, although both funds were unable to achieve at least 50%
market diversification level.
The findings also summarized that both funds managers have poor selection and market
timing ability as the values of a and y are negative. The result implies that funds
managers are unable to correctly identify good bargain stocks and also to forecast the
price movements of the general market.


It was argued that thinking is characterized by the action of two distinctive cognitive systems, namely, intuitive (Type 1) processing and analytic (Type 2) processing. Intuitive processing is generally described as rapid, automatic, unconscious, and effortless, whereas analytic processing appears to be slow, controlled, conscious, and effortful. Decades of research have established that human judgment is often predisposed to rapid, intuitive processing. However, recent research has indicated that intuitive processing can support reasoning and even enhance it under certain conditions. Recent findings have suggested that intuitive processing should be as affected by cognitive resources and consciousness as analytic processing. However, intuitive and analytic processing will interfere with one another through a series of classical paradigms in which the results of two distinctive cognitive systems are in conflict. To avoid this interference, the present study applied the Chinese character chunking decomposition task, predicting that intuitive processing positively affect problem solving, but that it would disappear under conditions wherein cognitive resources were extremely scarce. In the present research, we first drew up the Chinese character chunking decomposition task as materials, and participants were asked to judge whether the target character (e.g., " 又 ") was a component of the original character (e.g., " 支 "). Then, the formal experiment was organized into a 2 × 2 × 2 within-subject design. The first variable was the duration time of the target character, consisting of 2 levels: 24 ms and 200 ms; the second variable was the material category, consisting of 2 levels: intuitive material and analytic material; and the third variable was the inclusion relation, consisting of 2 levels: inclusion and exclusion. The inclusion condition meant that the target character was a component of the original character, whereas the exclusion condition denoted the target character was not a component of the original character. The results indicated that participants showed a lower rate of accuracy and a longer response time on analytic materials than on intuitive ones. However, no difference was observed between the two types of materials in terms of response time and accuracy when the duration time of the target character was 24 ms, and the inclusion relation was inclusion. Meanwhile, the accuracy scores of intuitive and analytic processing were approximately 0.5 at the guessing level. Signal detection analysis showed that the results under the unconsciousness condition were not influenced by the response bias. The results proved that intuitive processing was rapid and analytic processing was slow. As predicted, intuitive processing positively affects the problem solving process. In addition, the experiment showed that intuitive processing was effortful and relied on cognitive resources, which was inconsistent with prototypical dual-process theories. Therefore, the positive effect would disappear when the cognitive resources were below demand.


Public Law 94-142 requires that special education students be placed in "the least restrictive school environment" possible and that teachers who work with special needs students in regular classrooms receive training and help from special educators. According to Vandivier & Vandivier (1981), teachers have reservations about including children with "particular types" of disabilities in regular classes, and Mooney & Algozzine (1978) reported that teachers consider "socially defiant" behaviors to be more disturbing than those associated with learning disabilities. This study was designed to determine the relationship between experienced classroom teachers' willingness to accept behaviorally disordered (BD) students in regular classrooms and their knowledge of effective and ineffective intervention strategies for mainstreaming them. Twenty experienced, regular classroom teachers from three central Illinois elementary schools volunteered to complete a survey. Knowledge scores were determined by assessing respondents' ability to accurately identify effective and ineffective strategies as described by Duquette & O'Reilly (1988), Fagen & Hill (1977), Knoff (1985), and Wells (1983). Training in special education and experience with BD students were also assessed. The hypothesis that teachers' willingness to mainstream would correlate positively with knowledge of effective intervention strategies was not statistIcally supported (Chi-Square = .9, df= 1, p >.05). However, of the 8 teachers willing to mainstream, 5 had high knowledge scores. Other findings included: 1) the more behaviorally disordered students teachers had taught in the past 5 years, the more willing they were to mainstream (Chi-Square =9.36, df = 3, p < .025); 2) of the 5 teachers who had mainstreamed 11 or more BD students in the past 5 years, 4 had high knowledge scores; 3) teachers' assessments of their own skill level did not correlate with their knowledge scores 4) nearly half (9 out of 20) of the teachers had no courses or in-service training which addressed the needs of BD students; and 5) only 3 out of 20 teachers in the study, 15%, were knowledgeable, willing to mainstream BD students if given a choice, and, in fact, had mainstreamed 11 or more BD students in the past 5 years. This pilot study leads to the following concern: Will school districts be forced to group and segregate the increasing numbers of BD students because regular classroom teachers are not prepared to work effectively with them?


This paper analyses the effects of financial policy on corporate performance of emerging market firms. Using capital structure and dividend payout as measures of financial policy, we employ fixed effects panel model in our estimation. The results indicate that capital structure has negative effects on return on assets and return on equity but is positively related with market-to-book value ratio. Dividend payout is also positively related with return on assets and return on equity. We also document that macro-level factors such as stock market development and GDP per capita are relevant in explaining corporate financial performance.


The broad focus of this paper and the study about which it reports centre on the implications of applying holistic approaches to democracy, or more specifically to public decision making practices. This paper advocates that more complex and holistic methods be used to respond to the complexities of global issues. It describes how these processes take more time, commitment, and structure to use and it raises a question regarding citizen motivation to use such processes. It addresses this question in three ways: It presents a term 3D Democracy that highlights this complexity; it discusses why public processes need to address the task of decision making, and it reports on a small case study. Results of that study indicate that using critical reflection and deliberation on the adequacy of current methods of public involvement in decision making can stimulate citizens to be interested in and motivated to use such a holistic method. The paper ends with reflections and further questions.


Heart transplant remains the gold standard treatment for end-stage heart failure, in spite of the recent advances in pharmacological treatment and device therapy. As expected, since the first heart transplant was performed 50 years ago, outcomes in heart transplant have continued to improve over the last decades focusing on perioperative management, the availability of newer and better mechanical circulatory support before and after heart transplant and immunosuppressive drug development. Nonetheless, in the last years we have witnessed a significant drop in the heart donor's pool as the greatest limiting factor, coupled with a rising number of advanced heart failure patients. Moreover, the difficulty in handling these patients, with multiple and more complex comorbidities, is continuously increasing. More importantly and despite these difficulties, conditional half-life in transplanted patients has nowadays reached 12 years of life expectancy. Thus, besides trying to increase donor numbers, candidate selection emerges as one of the most challenging issues for heart transplant programs. In this chapter we review the latest knowledge on indications for heart transplant, as well as the available screening and optimization tools in candidate selection in order to continue improving outcomes.


Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is a modern generation of intelligent systems with the integrated computational performance and physical capacities. The CPS is affected by the malicious attacks due to the growth of system complexity and system openness. Therefore, an efficient data transmission method is developed to improve the CPS performances. In this paper, the Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based transmission device is used in the CPS to achieve the high data rate requirement of modern communications. The Priority Aware Frequency Domain Polling (PAFDP) protocol is proposed to detect the desired node from the group of nodes based on the priority value. Here, the priority is identified by using the throughput and data rate. Moreover, the malicious nodes existing in the network are identified and avoided to minimize the packet loss in the network. The performances of the PAFDP-OFDM-CPS are analysed in terms of packet delivery rate, packet loss ratio, throughput and overhead. The PAFDP-OFDM-CPS method is evaluated by using three existing methods such as Trust Aware Wireless Routing Protocol (TAWP), Trust Aware Routing Framework (TARF) and Adaptive Duty Cycle Control Based Opportunistic Routing (ADCCOR) protocol. It was found that the PDR of the PAFDP-OFDM-CPS is 99.4% for 5 malicious nodes high compared to the TAWP and TARF protocol.


This book provides a wonderful overview of the landscapes, vegetation types, and plants of the five regions of the world that have a Mediterranean climate. This climate of mild, rainy winters and dry, warm summers is found in California, Central Chile, the Cape Region of South Africa, the southwestern part of Australia and the Mediterranean Basin. The regions are widely separated and the flora of each is distinctive, having for the most part developed independently. Nevertheless, the plants share remarkably similar characteristics which allow them to thrive in these unusual conditions. Peter Dallman's non-technical prose is complemented by numerous maps, tables, and figures, and the book is richly illustrated with photographs of landscapes, plants, and flowers. With its detailed information on some of the world's most resilient plant life, this book will serve as an excellent reference for everyone interested in growing drought-resistant plants and as a naturalist's guide to these beautiful and unusual bioregions. For the growing number of travelers whose vacations focus on learning about and appreciating natural history, Dallman also includes a chapter on planning trips to the five Mediterranean regions.


User contribution is critical to online communities but also difficult to sustain given its public goods nature. This paper studies the design of IT artifacts to motivate voluntary contributions in online communities. We propose a dynamic approach, which allows the effect of motivating mechanisms to change across users over time. We characterize the dynamics of user contributions using a hidden Markov model (HMM) with latent motivation states under the public goods framework. We focus on three motivating mechanisms on transitioning users between the latent states: reciprocity, peer recognition, and self-image. Based on Bayesian estimation of the model with user-level panel data, we identify three motivation states (low, medium, and high), and show that the motivating mechanisms, implemented through various IT artifacts, could work differently across states. Specifically, reciprocity is only effective to transition users from low to medium motivation state, whereas peer recognition can boost all users to higher states. And self-image shows no effect when a user is already in high motivation state, although it helps users in low and medium states move to the high state. Design simulations on our structural model provide additional insights into the consequences of changing specific IT artifacts. These findings offer implications for platform designers on how to motivate user contributions and build sustainable online communities.


Working on a micro based data set this paper attempts to shed light on the effects of public grants on firms? investments, with particular emphasis on ICT adoption. The results show that adoption of ICT is affected by both the industry and firm characteristics. We examine particularly whether subsidies are important in this process and whether there are differences based on firm size. A matching estimator for the average treatment effect is applied to explore the effectiveness of subsidies. Regardless of sector we find evidence that subsidies on average have a significant impact on both overall investment and ICT investment. The impact is more pronounced for small firms and insignificant for the largest firms. Subsidies spill over both to internal and external financial resources. Given the small average size of firms in Italy, we conclude that small firms should receive subsidies to stimulate investment. JEL Classification: C21, D24, L23, O30.


This article is based on a PhD thesis that examined open innovation in the Brazilian cosmetics sector a n d its relationship with knowledge integration, comparing less open and more open firms. The ability to integrate knowledge is related to competitive advantage, and this study sheds light onto OI at each different firm. The main findings show that, different levels of openness in innovation, demand firm-specific mechanism for KI. Also, openness increases complexity in management. The understanding of how firms select their knowledge for appropriation and differentiation is also considered. The Brazilian cosmetics market was chosen because it occupies the 3 rd position in the worlds ranking and this industry is under researched. A cross-case


The increasing availability of mobile educational technologies provides new opportunities for biodiversity research, education, and public engagement with the natural world. However, these tools are often timeconsuming and expensive to create. Here we describe the The Butterfly Guide: Butterflies of the Sacramento Valley, Delta, and San Francisco Bay Area, a mobile natural history application with which users can collect and share species observation data. The app is free, but perhaps more importantly, documentation and source code are available on request. We describe our aim for The Butterfly Guide to serve as a template for others interested in creating similar tools, and discuss the future of such digital technology for enhancing natural history observation and experience.


Objectives: To determine what proportion of research papers at an injury prevention conference reported an evaluation. Methods: A random sample of 250 abstracts from the 6th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Control were classified by methodological type. Those that described any evaluation were further subdivided by whether the evaluation was of process or if it used an intermediate or "true" outcome. Results: Of 250 abstracts, 20 (8%; 95% confidence interval 5.0% to 12.1%) showed evaluations with intermediate or true outcomes. Research designs were weak. Among the 20 reports, none was a randomized trial and only two conducted a before and after study with control group. The remaining 17 used before-after or "after only" designs. Conclusion: The conference papers included few evaluations. To ensure that resources are best used, those in the injury prevention field must increase their use of rigorous evaluation.


This paper draws on research in the United Kingdom which set out to explore young people's understandings and experiences of health as experienced in their everyday lives and according to their own terms of reference, rather than in response to policy priorities. The project involved a peer research process followed by a large community learning event in which practitioners, community leaders and decision makers were brought together in dialogue with young people to develop understanding and explore responses to young people's health needs as a collaborative process. The paper documents an 'alternative' 'participative action research' approach to involving young people in research and developing responses to issues and problems that affect them. The paper highlights the value of a dialogical and enquiry-based approach supported by the use of visuals for engaging professionals in collaboration with young people in a process of learning for change. It draws attention to the 'policy gap' between professional understandings of young people's health needs and young people's lived realities and how this is reflected in differences in what young people and professionals consider appropriate responses to stress.


Chondrichthyans are usually caught incidentally in fisheries for species of high commercial value and then discarded on board or landed as by-products. On the coast of Chubut province and adjacent waters (43°00′S–44°56′S) a bottom trawl fishery has developed targeted at the Patagonian shrimp (Pleoticus muelleri) and common hake (Merluccius hubbsi). Since 2005, this fishery has been monitored by the On-board Observers Program of Chubut province (POBCh). With the aim of advancing towards an ecosystem approach, POBCh not only collects information about target species but also about all the species caught by the trawl nets of the province fisheries. From the information collected by this programme it was possible to identify and record the chondrichthyan species vulnerable to the fishing gear used by the coastal fleet that operates from Puerto Rawson. The composition of the fleet catch was characterized according to the target species during the 2005–2014 period. In the analysis of 3786 hauls, 23 species of chondrichthyans (seven species of sharks, 15 species of batoids and a single species of Holocephali) were identified. Seven species showed a frequency of occurrence greater than 10% (Callorhinchus callorynchus, Discopyge tschudii, Mustelus schmitti, Sympterygia bonapartii, Psammobatis normani, Squalus acanthias and Zearaja chilensis). Species spatial distribution was evaluated and five areas of species assemblages were established. Besides the aspects related to bycatch, these analyses have contributed to the knowledge of the chondrichthyan biodiversity in the provincial coast where the fleet operates, a region with incomplete and mostly dispersed and outdated information.


This thesis contributes to a small but growing body of academic
research that is concerned with the late twentieth and early twenty-first century
religion of Goddess feminism and the religio-political discourse of thealogy. Current
academic approaches to Goddess feminism have been primarily historical,
-- I- phenomenological, psychological and sociological studies that have presented
descriptive and/or functional accounts of this religion. Relatively little academic work
has emerged from within Goddess feminism. Still less has attempted to delineate the
meaning of a female/feminist deity and religious worldview in a philosophical
manner.
This thesis attends to these areas of academic neglect by combining
philosophical concems and methods with a position of thealogical advocacy. By
developing a thealogical reading of the principal reality-claims embedded within a
number of influential Goddess feminist texts it is, I propose, possible to address
philosophical questions that have not, as yet, been confronted by Goddess feminists,
and also theorize the contours and coherence of what may be termed a feminist
metaphysic.
Most Goddess feminists, I contend, presently emphasize the affective,
experiential and performative dimensions of their religion, to the detriment or
exclusion of the conceptual, philosophical and metaphysical. I argue in this thesis that
there are no compelling reasons why Goddess feminists should reject philosophy and
metaphysics. There are, rather, good political, practical and religious reasons for
feminist thealogians, to produce an alternative metaphysic of deity and the world to
those deployed by patriarchy. Throughout this constructive work of thealogy
recurrent Goddess feminist models, myths and reality-claims, such as those of the
cosmogonic womb, the cycling processes of Birth-Death-Rebirth, and the web of life,
are conceptually unpacked, developed and elucidated so as to provide a
comprehensive thealogical, and thereby metaphysical, account of the fundamental
organization of reality and the human condition. The originality and significance of
this thesis lies in its elaboration of a feminist metaphysical account of the Goddess as
nature, Goddess/Naturet,h, at has largely been assumedr ather than articulated by most
Goddess feminists. I conclude that although it is not, as yet, possible to articulate a
complete Goddess feminist metaphysical theory, it is possible to develop a
philosophical and systematic thealogy that delineates the primary metaphysical
commitments and reality-claims implicit within Goddess feminist discourse in a
coherent manner. This thesis is a prolegomena to future works of philosophical
thealogy and feminist metaphysical theorizing.


The questions addressed in the study concerned the way two word‐related factors (i.e., lexical category and word frequency) interplayed with two learner‐related characteristics (i.e., proficiency and word familiarity) and influenced 1) L1 and L2 users' knowledge of vocabulary, 2) their preference to build specific types of lexical connections among the words they know, and 3) their ability to maintain networks of associations as an indicator of the connectivity of their lexicons. Three groups of participants—L1 speakers of English, L2 advanced, and L2 intermediate users of English—responded in writing to a word association test containing words balanced for lexical class (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and frequency of occurrence (high, mid, low). The findings revealed a complex picture of interactions between the word‐related and learner‐related factors but, whenever the effects of the variables could be disentangled, proficiency and lexical class had a stronger influence on the organization of the L1 and L2 lexicons than word frequency alone.


Abstract In-situ U-Th-Pb analyses by ion-microprobe on zircon in intact textural relationships are combined with backscatter and cathodoluminescence imaging and trace element analyses to provide evidence for growth episodes of zircon. This approach helps: (a) to unravel the polymetamorphic history of aluminous migmatitic and granitoid gneisses of the regional contact aureole around the Rogaland anorthosite-norite intrusive complex; and (b) to constrain the age of M2 ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) metamorphism and the subsequent retrograde M3 event. All samples yield magmatic inherited zircon of c. 1035 Ma, some an additional group at c. 1050 Ma. This suggests that loss of Pb by volume diffusion in non-metamict zircon is not an important factor even under extreme crustal conditions. Furthermore, the identical inheritance patterns in aluminous (garnet, cordierite ± osumilite-bearing) migmatites and orthogneisses indicate a metasomatic igneous instead of a sedimentary protolith for the migmatite. Results for the M1 metamorphic event at c. 1000 Ma BP are consistent in all samples, including those from outside the orthopyroxene-in isograd. The latter do not show evidence for zircon growth during the M2 metamorphic episode. Zircon intergrown with or included within M2 metamorphic minerals (magnetite, spinel, orthopyroxene) give an age of 927 ± 7 Ma (2σ, n = 20). The youngest observed results are found in zircon outside M2 minerals, some overgrown by M3 mineral assemblages (late garnet coronas, garnet + quartz and orthopyroxene + garnet symplectites) and yield a slightly younger pooled age of 908 ± 9 Ma (2σ, n = 6). These textures are relative time markers for the crystallization of zircon overgrowths during discrete stages of the UHT event. These youngest age groups are consistent with the emplacement age of the Rogaland intrusive complex and the last magmatic activity (Tellnes dyke intrusion), respectively. This is direct and conclusive evidence for UHT metamorphism in the regional aureole being caused by the intrusions, and corrects earlier notions that the events are not linked. Trace element behaviour of zircon (Tb/U and Y content) has been tracked through time in the samples and shows variations both within and between samples. This heterogeneous behaviour at all scales appears to be common in metamorphic rocks and precludes the use of 'rules of thumb' in the interpretation of zircon chemistry, but chemical tracers are useful for recognition of zircon growth or recrystallization during metamorphism.


The possibility of mining seafl oor massive sulfide deposits has stirred debate about the sustainable use of this new resource and whether commercial development is worth the risk. Among the outstanding questions is how many deposits might be accessible to deep-sea mining. More than 300 sites of high-temperature hydrothermal venting have been identifi ed since the discovery of black smokers, but signifi cant massive sulfide accumulation has been found at only 165 of these sites. Estimates of the total number of vent fields and associated mineral deposits, based on plume studies and deposit occurrence models, range from 500 to 5000. We have used new deposit occurrence data from 10,000 km of ridge, arc, and backarc spreading centers to estimate the amount of massive sulfide in the easily accessible neovolcanic zones of the global oceans. The total accumulation in these areas is estimated to be on the order of 6 × 108 tonnes, containing ~3 × 107 tonnes of copper and zinc. This is similar to the total discovered copper and zinc in Cenozoic massive sulfi de deposits mined on land but is insuffi cient to satisfy a growing global demand for these metals.


Background Limited attention has been given to the challenge of providing family-centred care alongside simulations in the clinical area.1 The validated2 interprofessional in-situ SPRinT (Simulated Paediatric Resuscitation Team Training) programme delivers courses aimed at improving team performance and patient safety during critical events. We hypothesised that parents would actively support such training. Methodology A prospective, cross-sectional survey of parents of inpatient children present during a SPRinT course was carried out Mar–May 2014. 2 h SPRinT courses consisted of didactic crisis resource management teaching, simulated scenario, and video-assisted debriefing by trained interprofessional faculty. Scenarios derived from real events (eg emergency resternotomy, catastrophic haemorrhage) have a full responding team using real equipment, medications and arrest calls. Parents completed anonymous questionnaires assessing perception of SPRinT courses and their effect. 13 quantitative questions with 0–100% score indicating level of agreement with statements and qualitative response. Level of agreement: >80% score=strong; <20%=weak. Results 12 parents (6 fathers, 6 mothers; mean age 32 yrs, range 21–53 yrs) of 8 children (mean hospitalisation 47 days, range 1–270 days) returned questionnaires following 4 SPRinT courses. 1 questionnaire was excluded. 140/143 quantitative questions answered. Strong mean level of agreement scores were reported for: increased confidence in staff when they rehearse emergencies (97.3%), training should occur in all PICUs (97.3%), simulation may help staff provide safer care (96.4%). Weak mean level of agreement scores were reported for: perception of in-situ simulation to be disruptive/intimidating (4%), emergencies should be rehearsed elsewhere (5.5%), simulations upset me due to reminding me of what could happen to my child (19.1%), emergency simulations make me feel additional anxiety (19.1%). Qualitative analysis: "have seen the real thing on PICU, training definitely pays off". Conclusions Parents felt simulations should occur in PICU, some reported mild increases in anxiety. Further research is required to determine specific provisions and information to mitigate anxiety. References Patterson MD, Blike GT, Nadkarni VM. In Situ Simulation: Challenges and Results. In: Henriksen K, Battles JB, Keyes MA, et al., editors. Advances in Patient Safety: New Directions and Alternative Approaches (Vol. 3: Performance and Tools). Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2008 Aug Stocker M, Allen M, Pool N, et al. Impact of an embedded simulation team training programme in a paediatric intensive care unit: a prospective, single-centre, longitudinal study. Intensive Care Med. 2012;38(1):99–104


Background/Context Models of self-regulated learning (SRL) have increasingly acknowledged aspects of social context influence in its process; however, great diversity exists in the theoretical positioning of "social" in these models. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this review article is to introduce and contrast social aspects across three perspectives: self-regulated learning, coregulated learning, and socially shared regulation of learning. Research Design The kind of research design taken in this review paper is an analytic essay. The article contrasts self-regulated, coregulated, and socially shared regulation of learning in terms of theory, operational definition, and research approaches. Data Collection and Analysis Chapters and articles were collected through search engines (e.g., EBSCOhost, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, ERIC). Findings/Results Three different perspectives are summarized: self-regulation, coregulation, and socially shared regulation of learning. Conclusions/Recommendations In this article, we contrasted three different perspectives of social in each model, as well as research based on each model. In doing so, the article introduces a language for describing various bodies of work that strive to consider roles of individual and social context in the regulation of learning. We hope to provide a frame for considering multimethodological approaches to study SRL in future research.


Chinese scientists will start to drill a deep ice core at Kunlun station near Dome A in the near future. Re- cent work has predicted that Dome A is a location where ice older than 1 million years can be found. We model flow, temperature and the age of the ice by applying a three-dimensional, thermomechanically coupled full-Stokes model to a 70◊ 70 km 2 domain around Kunlun station, us- ing isotropic non-linear rheology and different prescribed anisotropic ice fabrics that vary the evolution from isotropic to single maximum at 1/3 or 2/3 depths. The variation in fabric is about as important as the uncertainties in geothermal heat flux in determining the vertical advection which in con- sequence controls both the basal temperature and the age pro- file. We find strongly variable basal ages across the domain since the ice varies greatly in thickness, and any basal melt- ing effectively removes very old ice in the deepest parts of the subglacial valleys. Comparison with dated radar isochrones in the upper one third of the ice sheet cannot sufficiently con- strain the age of the deeper ice, with uncertainties as large as 500 000 years in the basal age. We also assess basal age and thermal state sensitivities to geothermal heat flux and sur- face conditions. Despite expectations of modest changes in surface height over a glacial cycle at Dome A, even small variations in the evolution of surface conditions cause large variation in basal conditions, which is consistent with basal accretion features seen in radar surveys.


We present molecular simulations to find the optimal conditions for the separation by adsorption of SF6 from a gaseous mixture with N2, a mixture of key interest in electrical applications. The effect of pore size, pressure, and mixture compositions on the selective adsorption of SF6 was investigated by using Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations with simple fluid models and a simplified model of MCM-41. Simulations performed with multisite fluid models confirm that general trends are predicted using simple models, including a maximum in SF6 selectivity for pore diameters around 1.1 nm. Simulations were also performed using two atomistic models of zeolite-templated carbon (ZTC), FAU-ZTC, and EMT-ZTC, materials with average pore sizes close to 1.1 nm, obtaining high selectivities for both materials. Selectivities for FAU-ZTC are approximately four times higher than the best materials published for this mixture separation, opening excellent opportunities to use it for recovering SF6 from SF6/N2 mixtures. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011


Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker (1504-75) defended priestly matrimony throughout his career. His life, library, and letters provide counterevidence to Eric Carlson's argument that the clergy failed to receive marriage enthusiastically and were themselves responsible for its slow acceptance in England. Parker maintained his positive attitude toward marriage through five decades of shifting royal policies, when he delayed his marriage during the reign of Henry VIII, was married prematurely under Edward VI, sacrificed his career because of marriage during Mary's reign, and endured Elizabeth displeasure because of his married state. In contrast to Carlson's premise that Elizabeth harbored no hostility toward married clergy, Parker perceived the queens negative attitude and, therefore, defended clerical matrimony with his policies and publications. His example of a happily married clergyman suggests that Carlson's interpretation might be tempered by study of both the opponents and advocates of clerical marriage.


Abstract. Iron is an essential nutrient involved in a variety of biological processes in the ocean, including photosynthesis, respiration and dinitrogen fixation. Atmospheric deposition of aerosols is recognized as the main source of iron for the surface ocean. In high nutrient, low chlorophyll areas, it is now clearly established that iron limits phytoplankton productivity but its biogeochemical role in low nutrient, low chlorophyll environments has been poorly studied. We investigated this question in the unexplored southeast Pacific, arguably the most oligotrophic area of the global ocean. Situated far from any continental aerosol source, the atmospheric iron flux to this province is amongst the lowest of the world ocean. Here we report that, despite low dissolved iron concentrations (~0.1 nmol l−1) across the whole gyre (3 stations located in the center and at the western and the eastern edges), primary productivity are only limited by iron availability at the border of the gyre, but not in the center. The seasonal stability of the gyre has apparently allowed for the development of populations acclimated to these extreme oligotrophic conditions. Moreover, despite clear evidence of nitrogen limitation in the central gyre, we were unable to measure dinitrogen fixation in our experiments, even after iron and/or phosphate additions, and cyanobacterial nif H gene abundances were extremely low compared to the North Pacific Gyre. The South Pacific gyre is therefore unique with respect to the physiological status of its phytoplankton populations.


The knowledge of internal ballistics simulation is quite obscure due to security reason related to rocket implementation for national defense. Internal ballistics simulation involves complex calculation of thrust profile generated by burning solid propellant mass. The design of appropriate solid propellant mass for desired thrust profile requires visualization of propellant mass and overlook how it burns from the start to the end. Object-oriented programming has been used as a tool for simulation of complex mathematic algorithms in many fields. This paper introduced object-oriented programming framework and software architecture for solving complex calculation of thrust profile and visualization of burning solid propellant. JAVA programming language is chosen to implement a test program for proving objected-oriented programming based internal ballistics simulation. The result shows the reasonable trend of thrust profile according to the real behavior of thrust generated by solid propellant. This paper gives intuitive idea of implementing simulation tool for designing of solid propellant mass in rocket application.


The journey of The South African Academy of Family Practice/Primary Care for the past twenty five years may be divided into two phases. The first part was a solo journey for the Academy when its main focus was provision of continuous professional development for family doctors. The second phase began with the formation of Family Medicine Education Consortium (FaMEC), a forum representing a network of the Family Medicine departments of the eight medical schools in South Africa. The Academy and FaMEC have since formed a double act in the development of the discipline of Family Medicine.

A close relationship between the two organizations has seen us undertake several projects together: The South African Family Practice Journal (SAFP); Rural Heath Initiative (RHI); The Interuniversity Centre for Family Medicine (ICHO)- FaMEC Training Project; Family Practice Congresses; The South African Family Practice Manual. Together, we have evolved from an organization providing CPD to an organization that truly is at the forefront in under- and post- graduate training of doctors in Family Medicine, development of the discipline of Family Medicine and Accreditation of CPD activities in General/Family Practice.


In nature, textures can be found everywhere. Texture, together with color and shape, represents the fundamental characteristics of objects. Texture conveys an idea of repetition of a certain structure, which is not limited only to the visual domain. We can refer to the texture of a sound, a fabric, or a certain wine. In image processing, a static texture is defined as an image showing spatial stationarity, while a dynamic texture is a sequence of images showing temporal stationarity. Texture synthesis is the process of producing artificial textures starting from a given texture sample. In this thesis, we consider texture synthesis starting from compact representations. For static, this reduces to define the smallest portion of a texture that, when used for synthesis, produces a synthetic texture indistinguishable from the original image. We designed a psychophysical experiment to quantify this size for a collection of textures and two synthesis algorithms: the parametric algorithm by Portilla and Simoncelli and the procedural algorithm by Nealen and Alexa. The results of the experiment show that for pre-attentive vision condition the size of the compact texture does not depend on the algorithm used for synthesis but is a characteristic of the texture. We evaluated if an objective function, based on spatial correlation between pixels, is able to predict the texture size necessary for synthesis. We found that a statistical measure based on random walks correlated well with the results of the subjective experiment. In the case of dynamic textures, the term "compact" applies to the model size that is used for synthesis. We propose a dynamic texture analysis that is able to obtain a more compact model starting from the linear model of Soatto and Doretto. Current methods perform a dimension reduction of the data by applying the SVD to the video frames unfolded into column vectors. This permits only to exploit the temporal correlation. We avoid the unfolding operations and decompose the signal directly using a multidimensional decomposition known as Higher-Order SVD (HOSVD). Chromatic components are exploited more efficiently by combining the HOSVD decomposition with the YCbCr color encoding for the input data. Tests show that the combined model has far fewer parameters than models derived with other algorithms, for the same visual quality and approximately the same computational synthesis cost. The HOSVD-based model was used in two applications for portable devices where memory and computational power are limited. We created a video effect for webcams and smartphones where a dynamic texture is synthesized and blended to the video in real time.


Our aim in constructing our keynote events was to present a spectrum of approaches to the conjunction of performance and ecology, to give some account of what has been done in writing and in practice. We also wanted to demonstrate in our methodology some of the dynamics of the conjunction; to raise some questions both about the 'ecology' of a 'performance' in a group setting and to suggest some topics for further speculation. Since we adopted an interactive approach, picking up approaches and points for discussion from each other and moving, physically and metaphorically, around the space, we cannot completely reproduce the process and directionality of that event in writing. Instead, we offer a set of notes and topics, written individually by each of us but woven together in what seems like a useful sequence, but which is not, either in its sequence or in the exact words, a replica of what occurred in the session. We will cover much if not all of what we tried to raise there, and there may be occasional additions. We start to think about the complexity of what might constitute an ecology of the theatre. Although we do not ignore text, we focus principally on the nature of performance training and practice and the kinds of 'ecological' knowledge which can be identified here, the relationship between performance and site/location/environment, and the ways in which thinking about theatre and performance as an ecology problematises what goes on. We question the nature/culture binary which would keep the two separate, and we've tried to come up with different ways of addressing that. We also challenge the idea that human beings, and by extension theatre, are in some way separate from nature and the animal.


Confronted with allegations of perjury, obstruction of justice, and other misconduct committed by President Clinton,(1) members of the 105th and 106th Congresses battled mightily over the constitutionality of not only impeachment, but also an alternative method of punishment: censure. Unlike impeachment, however, censure has no obvious constitutional home. The debate over its legality thus centers primarily on historical practice, rather than constitutional text.(2) After all, in cases of constitutional ambiguity, a well-established pattern of historical practice involving deliberate actors operating conscious of their constitutional constraints may affect our understanding of what the Constitution requires, forbids, and allows. As the Supreme Court has often noted, we may look past our own skepticism and to historical practice if over time there has developed an accumulated wisdom as to what the Framers of the Constitution must have intended.(3) Impeachment watchers thus will recall that censure supporters and opponents alike cited the 1834 Senate resolution against President Andrew Jackson(4) to bolster their constitutional arguments. Clinton allies who supported censure as a means of stemming the impeachment tide cited the Jackson episode as historical precedent.(5) Clinton detractors, perhaps out of fear that their adversaries' plan would work, cited the very same events as a lesson in what not to do, noting both the force of Jackson's arguments and his ultimate vindication when the Senate expunged the resolution three years later.(6) Unnoticed by both sides, however, was the fact that the Senate did not actually censure Jackson. The resolution did describe the events in controversy and conclude that Jackson's act was improper, but it did not inflict any punishment. It did not remove him from office. It did not disqualify him from seeking future office. It did not fine him. And it did not condemn him with words of censure. Throughout history Congress has commented on all manner of subjects through resolutions. The Senate was thus filling a well-established role -- and nothing more -- when it opined that Jackson had committed certain acts in violation of the Constitution and the laws of the United States: "Resolved, That the President, in the late executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."(7) By approving this resolution senators simply recounted the events as they saw them and noted their disagreement with the legality of the President's actions, leaving it to others -- historians, the American people -- to determine Jackson's fate, and the state of his honor. The resolution merely described what the President had done; it did not indicate what, if anything, Congress would do in response, either in the form of words of condemnation and censure, or some other, more tangible disciplinary action. By contrast, the resolutions contemplated by the 105th and 106th Congresses did not merely describe Clinton's actions and express congressional disapproval of them. Rather than restrict Congress to the role of commentator, the Clinton resolutions would have put members in the role of disciplinarian. Like the Jackson resolution, the Clinton resolutions recounted the various evil deeds committed by the President, such as "deliberately misle[ading] and deceiv[ing] the American people, and people in all branches of the United States government"(8) and numerous other wrongs. But the Clinton resolutions took a critical additional step by stating that "the United States Senate does hereby censure William Jefferson Clinton ... and does condemn his wrongful conduct in the strongest terms."(9) Through those resolutions, members of Congress sought to inflict punishment upon the President, albeit with only words of condemnation and censure, rather than removal or fine. …


The paper presents a new Kalman filter (KF) implementation useful in applications where the accuracy of numerical solution of the associated Riccati equation might be crucially reduced by influence of roundoff errors. Since the appearance of the KF in 1960s, it has been recognized that the factored-form of the KF is preferable for practical implementation. The most popular and beneficial techniques are found in the class of square-root algorithms based on the Cholesky decomposition of error covariance matrix. Another important matrix factorization method is the singular value decomposition (SVD) and, hence, further encouraging implementations might be found under this approach. The analysis presented here exposes that the previously proposed SVD-based KF variant is still sensitive to roundoff errors and poorly treats ill-conditioned situations, although the SVDbased strategy is inherently more stable than the conventional KF approach. In this paper we design a new SVD-based KF implementation for enhancing the robustness against roundoff errors, provide its detailed derivation, and discuss the numerical stability issues. A set of numerical experiments are performed for comparative study. The obtained results illustrate that the new SVD-based method is algebraically equivalent to the conventional KF and to the previously proposed SVD-based method, but it outperforms the mentioned techniques for estimation accuracy in ill-conditioned situations.


The adoption of RFID systems has been slow and their implementation often yielding lower than expected returns. Much of this is attributable to lack of planning. Prior research attempted to find order in this apparently chaotic adoption and implementations by proposing a model (Matta & Koonce, 2009) to classify the fundamental functions served by the RFID technology. This model semantically classified the functionality provided by RFID technology into three categories: Identification, Location and State, with Location and State consisting of specialized sub-categories. With the advancements in RFID technology over time and the establishment of new standards for the use and deployment of RFID tags business applications and functions of RFID have also evolved. Within the category of Identification, this paper proposes an additional sub-category, Authentication, a function achieved by RFID systems that is discreet from the function of Identification. Additionally, the paper argues that the Proxy function of the tag, whereby one tag represented other tags is fundamentally a sub-category of Identification and not Location as proposed by the original model. The transfer of the Proxy category from Location eliminated the need for any further classifications, therefore simplifying the model and facilitating its utility. For the entire category (including its sub-categories) of State, the paper suggests a more cogent naming convention, one that is a function rather than a description of the tag. In this way, this paper discusses the potential of newer applications and extends the functional model proposed in prior research.


This is the last in a series of three articles

Over half of all beds allocated for health care in the United Kingdom are in independent nursing homes for older people; this is a result of policies initially introduced to change the basis of social security payments1 and now directed towards privatising long term care. Official statistics from the Department of Health indicate that between 1979 and 2000 the total number of beds in the NHS in England decreased from 480 000 to 189 000, while the number of beds in the independent sector, which is run mainly for profit, increased from 23 000 in 19832 to 193 000 in 2000.

Experiences in the United States and Australia have shown the lack of political will to promote the interests of residents against the interests of the industry and its shareholders. 3 4 In Australia the industry successfully lobbied to replace legally enforceable regulations with less effective accreditation schemes; this has had disastrous consequences. In the United States the industry successfully opposed the introduction of robust standards for minimum numbers of staff, and the result is continuously declining health outcomes for residents. The risks to residents of nursing homes in the United Kingdom are considerable as subsidiaries of large US multinationals enter the United Kingdom5; some of these companies have come under scrutiny in the United States for fraud and embezzlement of government funds and for abusing patients.3 This paper considers whether the new regulatory framework for nursing homes in the United Kingdom offers adequate protection for patients.

#### Summary points

Over half of the healthcare beds in the United Kingdom are in independent nursing homes for older people

Little information is collected centrally about the needs for care or outcomes of services used by residents of nursing homes …


ABSTRACT: This case is designed for an introductory fraud examination or forensic accounting course. It is based upon an actual case that was investigated by the lead author while working as a forensic accountant. The case provides students with an opportunity to learn how useful public records can be to the forensic accountant. This case involves no allegations of fraud, but is a realistic example of how a forensic accountant can add value in other areas of litigation. Students must conduct a simulated asset tracing investigation using public records to help the U.S. Department of Justice collect punitive damages and a civil penalty from a defendant charged with violating the Fair Housing Act, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act. The case utilizes the problem-based learning approach wherein students are put into the role of a forensic accountant and must request additional information from the instructor. Within the context of the present case study, students are also encouraged to identify other potentia...


In the centre of Vincent Brummer's philosophical and spiritual reflection is the quest for the meaning of the Christian faith, outside the parameters of positivistic schematization. This theological sensitivity stands in close connection to the ontological thinking of his promoter A. E. Loen: meaning is a kind of ontic, creational truth closely related to the noetic category of 'uitgesprokenheid' (explicit, expressed, pronounced logos). Brummer himself has identified "Meaning and the Christian Faith" as the meanders of his thinking, thus the attempt to explore these meanders within the framework of a theological anthropology. With reference to man as homo aestheticus and the aesthetics of theopaschitic theology, the aesthetics of passion and compassion is described as divine Beauty. The passio Dei is an exposition of the praxis concept of ta splanchna. In this regard the notion of "bowel categories" describes a practical theology of the intestines which focuses on the dignity of our being human, thus the option for an inclusive 'spiritual humanism' within the framework of the ubuntu-communalism of African spiritualities (theologia Africana).


Gelation of polysaccharides under shear conditions results in the formation of a weak gel which is able to resist elastic mechanical deformation at small strains but will flow if subjected to higher strains. The resulting material, described in the literature as a fluid gel or a sheared gel, consists of gelled microparticles which can be formulated to collectively act in bulk, as pourable viscoelastic fluids whilst retaining true gel characteristics at the micro/nano level. The tuneable behaviour of these fluid gel systems makes them potentially useful in pharmaceutical applications. Fluid gels prepared from gellan gum are particularly attractive, due to its sensitivity to physiological fluids, unique rheological and physical properties, and current regulatory approval for use as a food additive and pharmaceutical excipient. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate gellan gum fluid gels as a new modified release drug delivery platform. The formation and production of fluid gels using low acyl (LA) gellan, high acyl (HA) gellan and LA HA gellan blends was investigated and applied in three different dosage forms; a modified release oral liquid, a mucoadhesive nasal spray and a topical formulation.
A modified release oral liquid was designed using a fluid gel prepared from LA gellan gum. It was demonstrated that 0.75 % w/w LA gellan gum fluid gel, containing ibuprofen as the drug, could be formulated to have a similar viscosity profile as a marketed oral ibuprofen liquid. Furthermore, due to the acid insolubility of gels prepared from LA gellan, no ibuprofen was released in stimulated gastric fluid. Subsequent release at pH 7.4 however, was affected by the duration of exposure and strength of the acidic pH used and a linear relationship between onset of release and the preceding duration of acid exposure was observed. Delayed release was a result of increasing gel stiffness, a consequence of the acidity of the initial release media and exposure time. A much faster release rate was measured when exposure time in acid was 10 min compared with 60 min. This study highlights the potential to design fluid gels that are tuned to have a specified stiffness at a particular pH and exposure time allowing the intelligent design oral liquids with specific modified release behaviour.
The second part of this study was to prepare mucoadhesive nasal drug delivery systems to enhance the retention of the nasal spray dosage form in the nasal cavity. Several groups have investigated using LA gellan solution as a drug delivery vehicle but only limited research however, has been performed on HA gellan for this purpose, despite its properties being more conducive to mucoadhesion. HA gellan (even with low concentration 0.25 % w/w) produces highly elastic gels below 60 °C which make it difficult to spray using a mechanical spray device. To address this problem, fluid gels were prepared as these systems can behave as sprayable viscoelastic fluids. In this study the rheological behaviour was investigated and the mucoadhesion behaviour of fluid gels prepared from the two different types of gellan (HA and LA) and fluid gels prepared from a blend of LA HA gellan. The results demonstrated that by preparing fluid gels from a blend of LA HA gellan, the rheological properties were sufficient to spray through a standard nasal spray device. Moreover, the fluid gels significantly enhanced both HA and LA gellan mucoadhesion properties.
In the final part of this thesis the topical application of gellan fluid gels was explored. A range of gellan fluid gel formulations were prepared containing diclofenac sodium for topical application. The rheological results showed that it was possible to produce a topical formulation with a viscosity and the mechanical strength similar to that of the commercially available Voltaren® gel using 1 % w/w of a 50:50 LA HA gellan blend. The permeation results highlighted that the penetration of diclofenac through procaine tissue is significantly increased by increasing gellan concentration and decreasing sodium ion concentration in the formulation.


Urban agriculture has become a rapidly growing international movement. Most urban gardens are established, organized and managed collectively as commons. When applying collective action theory to urban gardens, it becomes evident that they are special in the motivation why people get organized to produce food. Particularly in developed countries, urban gardens emerge in response to a lack of participation in city development, democratic use of public spaces or opportunities and time for socializing instead of economic competitiveness or the desire for regional food. Therefore communities emerge which design, change and manage their urban landscape and rise up new urban social-ecological systems. Yet, urban agriculture, or urban gardens, lack closer scientific examination in this respect. Therefore, the paper presents elements which are characteristic to describe this recent development. Likewise, we present criteria to explore the differences between the gardens. With three pilot case studies we demonstrate the applicability of these criteria in urban gardens to differentiate between different degrees of collectively used resources and therefore diverse levels of collective action in urban garden projects. We can show that many urban agriculture movements offer the possibility to build new regional identities through the option of sharing time, sharing knowledge and participation in public decisions.


The Bachelor of Professional Studies is designed for adult learners with prior college experience who lack a degree. All required courses for this degree-completion program will be offered at the College of Charleston North Campus.


Title of Dissertation: ALTERNATE STATE THEORY AND TIDAL FRESHWATER MUDFLAT EXPERIMENTAL ECOLOGY ON ANACOSTIA RIVER, WASHINGTON, D.C. Peter Ian May, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation directed by: Patrick Kangas Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences The concept that multiple community states may alte rnat ly exist for some ecosystems has been the subject of controversy for decades. This theory is tested and applied to the mudflats of the low/middle marsh int ertidal zone of two restored freshwater tidal marshes on the Anacostia River. I t is believed that experimental exclosures exposed strong species interactions and provided a window with which to view the potential alternate existence of two struc turally different systems, intertidal mudflat and emergent marsh. The occurrence, persis t nce and community composition of the two ecosystem states are examine d through experimental exclosures at the two marsh restoration study areas . The power of large grazers to deflect the goals of wetland restoration practitioners is studied in the context of alternat e state theory. Initially unvegetated mudflat, native marsh vegetation emerged within exc losure study areas at two restoration sites. Resident Canada geese ( Branta canadensis maxima) decimated planted areas of restored marsh left open to grazin g, returning marsh to unvegetated mudflats. Data from exclosures are presented on ma crophyte community composition, sediment elevation, bird, fish, invert eb ate and algae associations from two separate sets of Anacostia River experimental e xclosure sites, one covering 588 m, the other covering 2,700 m . Results support the hypothesized alternate existence of the two system states in the same spac e and relative time, each dependant upon the access of a critical mass of large grazers . A description of the mudflat biotic community and its interconnectivity is discussed as an important feature of the Anacostia River system. An emergy analysis of each state and an accounting of fisheries energy flow is conducted. Information collected relating to the pr -restoration (tidal mudflat) and post-restoration (emergent marsh) physical and biol og cal conditions are detailed and analyzed. A determination of the emergy inputs for a large-scale marsh restoration project are calculated and as a final analysis, eco nomic (emdollar) equivalents are developed to compare the yield of fisheries product ion supplied by mudflats vs. a restored and mature emergent freshwater tidal marsh . Through these studies support is given to valuing mudflats as important system co p nents of Anacostia River. ALTERNATE STATE THEORY AND TIDAL FRESHWATER MUDFLAT EXPERIMENTAL ECOLOGY ON ANACOSTIA RIVER, WASHINGTON, D.C.


Flusser and Bec's exploration of otherness in 'Vampyroteuthis Infernalis', their fictionalised report on a deep sea squid's Dasein, owes a not inconsiderable debt to the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Having established in his Cartesian Meditations the primacy of the ego's 'sphere of ownness', Husserl includes within it the other as merely intended. Despite his recognition that the otherness of the other should not by rights originate in the subject, Husserl attributed it to a sense constituted within the ego itself, just as the vampyroteuthic other is said to exist 'only in relation to me' (Flusser & Bec 2012, 38). On the other hand, Husserl also posits my flesh, my lived body, as coextensive with the proper sphere of my ego. However, although only I experience my body immediately as my flesh, it is inherently reversible: what is flesh for me at one moment can become mere body at another. In other words, the flesh and hence the ego's proper sphere cannot ultimately be closed off, as Husserl wished, but is rather continuous with the field of what is apparently outside and other. Where Flusser and Bec transcend the limitations of the Husserlian foundation is by going on to dwell in their text on the ramifications of this flesh/body pivot, which challenges any such seclusion of the ego from the world and the other. This paper will return to the Husserlian account of the other and explore it in relation to Roni Horn's sculpture 'Things That Happen Again: For Two Rooms' (1986). What could be identified as more or less explicit posthuman and materialist themes thread through the exploration of animal and physical forms in Horn's work. Beyond these themes, however, Horn also often explores identity and difference in an almost phenomenological manner. 'Things That Happen Again' is a case in point. The sculpture consists of two truncated cones of milled metal to be located in different rooms within an exhibition. In making us aware that we see the one cone in relation to our memory or anticipation of the other, the work focuses us on the fact that that every 'here' implies a 'there' or an 'elsewhere', and that implicit within the perception of any present object is a sense itself not present. So, Horn's sculpture, I will argue, returns us to the theme of the flesh and its reversibility, which communicates with the more explicit imagery and tropes within the larger ambit of her practice.


A dual transfer program was created in 1983 in the St. Louis metropolitan area following a 1972 lawsuit brought upon the city, charging it with withholding an equal educational opportunity for Black students. Through this program, Black students from St. Louis City are provided with free transportation to one of 15 suburban school districts, and White students from the surrounding suburbs are eligible to attend city magnet schools. At its peak in 1999, enrollment reached approximately 15,000 students, of which over 13,500 were from St. Louis City. Following the lifting of the court order in 1999, suburban participation became voluntary and tuition reimbursements to the participating suburban districts were reduced. By 2009, program enrollment had fallen to approximately 7,000 students, of which 6,800 were from St. Louis City. Using critical policy analysis and a media framing analysis on almost 100 newspaper articles collected from four media outlets, this study found that, between 1999 and 2009, suburban implementation of the voluntary transfer program was largely affected by economic factors.  Though the program is still in operation, and will continue through at least the 2018-2019 school year, this research raises important questions about the various factors that contribute to or hinder implementation of this long-running voluntary desegregation program.