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Sample records for sample short essay

  1. Computer-Automated Approach for Scoring Short Essays in an Introductory Statistics Course

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zimmerman, Whitney Alicia; Kang, Hyun Bin; Kim, Kyung; Gao, Mengzhao; Johnson, Glenn; Clariana, Roy; Zhang, Fan

    2018-01-01

    Over two semesters short essay prompts were developed for use with the Graphical Interface for Knowledge Structure (GIKS), an automated essay scoring system. Participants were students in an undergraduate-level online introductory statistics course. The GIKS compares students' writing samples with an expert's to produce keyword occurrence and…

  2. Our 9/11 of hope: Short essays on European democracy since 1989

    OpenAIRE

    Tassinari, Fabrizio

    2010-01-01

    This collection of short essays proceeds from an international conference organized by DIIS on 9th November 2009, the day of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The volume centers on the political, social, and economic implications of the revolutions of 1989 on European democracy. The authors of these essays come from very different backgrounds and interests: ranging from academics and public intellectuals that have written extensively on post-Cold War Europe, to practit...

  3. Essaying the essay: nursing scholarship and the hegemony of the laboratory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gardner, Lyn; Rolfe, Gary

    2013-01-01

    It might appear odd or even perverse to be arguing for the essay as a vehicle for academic thought and writing, particularly given the current emphasis on scientific research and evidence-based practice. In fact, the scholarly essay has virtually ceased to exist as an academic form in practice disciplines such as nursing, excluded by what we will identify and refer to as the hegemony of the laboratory. In a practical as well as an intellectual attempt to reinstate it, this paper is structured in the form of two consecutive short essays. In the first, we identify the character, features and purpose of the scholarly essay and examine its demise as an academic form. In the second, we explore some possible reasons why the essay never became fully accepted as an academic form in nursing. We suggest that the essay is thematically eclectic and stylistically promiscuous, drawing from a broad range of cultural, disciplinary and academic reference points. As such, it presents a challenge to the dominant technical rational approach to academic nursing in both its form and its content, particularly in its disregard for the rigidly imposed genres and structures increasingly demanded by academic nursing journals. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Audiotape Feedback for Essays in Distance Education

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kirschner, P.A.; Brink, H. van den; Meester, M.

    1991-01-01

    Students who were required to write three short essays for a university level course on photochemistry at the Open university of the Netherlands received either audio-cassette or written feedback on their essays. The students receiving the audio feedback described their experience as personal,

  5. E-education Essay

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    李妍

    2012-01-01

    This entry is filed under Examples and tagged e-education essay sample,free education essay example,sample education essay.So many things around us have been changed by development of technology of which education can't help being an exception.Some kinds of technology have applied to education and one of produc~ is the E-education which makes us be ableto get education wherever and whenever we want to.This feature of E-education has given us many advantages.However,there is debate between online education and ordinary education due to some of concern such as technology of E-education and students responsibility for learning.Even though some problems have heen found in E-education,it could be one of best way to get good quality education and supplement ordinary education because technology which supports online education keeps developing and there are a lot of good online course which offer good qualityeducation.

  6. Valuing Essays: Essaying Values

    Science.gov (United States)

    Badley, Graham

    2010-01-01

    The essay regularly comes under attack. It is criticised for being rigidly linear rather than flexible and reflective. I first challenge this view by examining reasons why the essay should be valued as an important genre. Secondly, I propose that in using the essay form students and academics necessarily exemplify their own critical values. Essays…

  7. Writing a pictorial essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peh, W C G; Ng, K H

    2010-03-01

    A pictorial essay is a type of educational article that aims to provide both textual and visual portrayals of a topical issue. It usually consists of a short unstructured abstract, brief introduction, subheadings to organise the material and a summary. The number of references is limited to a few key articles, typically, eight to 15, or fewer. The text is usually short, often approximately 1,000 to 2,000 words in length, with much of the message contained in the figure legends. This type of article allows for a large number of figures, typically up to 20 figures or 30 figure parts. The main criteria for publication are currency, educational value and high quality of illustrations.

  8. An interim report on the MCAT Essay Pilot Project.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koenig, J A; Mitchell, K J

    1988-01-01

    Results from four pilot administrations of the Medical College Admission Test essay question are reported. Analyses focused on (a) the performance characteristics of sample groups differentiated by gender, size of hometown, race/ethnicity, and dominant language; (b) the relationships between essay scores and academic/demographic characteristics; and (c) the reliability of one 45-minute versus two 30-minute essays. No differences were found for examinees grouped by gender and size of home community. Mean differences among the racial/ethnic groups were explained largely by reading level differences. Differences in essay performance by language group were large and unexplained by reading level differences. No relationship was found between the essay score and the academic/demographic characteristics. Reliability estimates for two 30-minute essays were higher than for one 45-minute essay; however, the 30-minute period yielded writing of poorer quality. Test-retest reliabilities for the 45-minute topics will remain the focus of future studies as will performance by examinees for whom English is a second language. The impact of the essay on the selection process will also be assessed.

  9. Reliability of Holistic Scoring for the 1985 MCAT Essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitchell, Karen J.; Anderson, Judith A.

    A pilot essay was included in the 1985 Spring and Fall administrations of the Medical College Admission Test. A sample of 320 of the essays written by Fall examinees who had expressed an interest in allopathic medicine was used to calculate interrater reliability estimates. Sixteen of 20 readers who had been trained by White's suggestions for…

  10. Essays on Strategic Communication

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Z. Sharif (Zara)

    2016-01-01

    markdownabstractThree essays on strategic communication are discussed in this dissertation. These essays consider different settings in which a decision maker has to rely on another agent for information. In each essay, we analyze how much information the sender is able to credibly communicate to

  11. Astr 101 Students' Attitudes Towards Essays On Transits, Eclipses And Occultations

    Science.gov (United States)

    D'Cruz, Noella L.

    2012-05-01

    Joliet Junior College, Joliet, IL offers a one semester introductory astronomy course each semester. We teach over 110 primarily non-science major students each semester. We use proven active learning strategies such lecture tutorials, think-pair-share questions and small group discussions to help these students develop and retain a good understanding of astrophysical concepts. Occasionally, we offer projects that allow students to explore course topics beyond the classroom. We hope that such projects will increase students' interest in astronomy. We also hope that these assignments will help students to improve their critical thinking and writing skills. In Spring 12, we are offering three short individual essay assignments in our face-to-face sections. The essays focus on transits, eclipses and occultations to highlight the 2012 transit of Venus. For the first essay, students will find images of transit and occultation events using the Astronomy Picture of the Day website and describe their chosen events. In addition, students will predict how variations in certain physical and orbital parameters would alter their particular events. The second essay involves transits, eclipses and occultations observed by spacecraft. Students will describe their transit event, their spacecraft's mission, orbital path, how the orbital path was achieved, etc. The third essay deals with transiting exoplanets. Students will choose at least two exoplanets from an exoplanet database, one of which has been discovered through the transit method. This essay will enable students to learn about detecting exoplanets and how they compare with our solar system. Details of the essay assignments and students' reactions to them will be presented at the meeting.

  12. EXTROVERT PERSONALITY AND ITS IMPACT ON STUDENTS’ ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY WRITING SKILL

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wida Sopia Marwa

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available This research aims at finding the positive correlation between extroversion personality and students’ argumentative essay writing skill. The objective of this research is to know the correlation between extroversion personality and students’ argumentative essay of sophomore English Department students in University of Kuningan. The population in this research was all sophomore English Department students with total 60 students. A convenience purposive sampling was applied to get the sample students. The samples of this research were 12 extrovert students. From the results of statistical tests to test the correlation between two variables, this research used Pearson product moment. As the result of the calculation, it was found that r-observed (0,778 > t-tables (0, 532. Then, based on the hypothesis test with two tail test, the result of hypothesis test obtained t-observed (3, 917 > t-tables (1, 782. Thus, it can be concluded that Ha was accepted and there was a correlation between extroversion personality and students’ argumentative essay writing skill.

  13. Essays in energy economics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Malischek, Raimund

    2016-10-25

    This thesis presents four essays in energy economics. The first essay investigates one of the workhorse models of resource economics, the Hotelling model of an inter-temporally optimizing resource extracting firm. The Hotelling model provides a convincing theory of fundamental concepts like resource scarcity, but very few empirical validations of the model have been conducted. This essay attempts to empirically validate the Hotelling model by first expanding it to include exploration activity and market power and then using a newly constructed data set for the uranium mining industry to test whether a major resource extracting mining firm in the industry is following the theory's predictions. The results show that the theory is rejected in all considered settings. The second and third essays investigate the difference in market outcomes under spot-market based trade as compared to long-term contract based trade in oligopolistic markets with investments. The second essay investigates analytically the difference in market outcomes in an electricity market setting, showing that investments and consumer welfare may be higher under spot-market based trade than under long-term contracts. The third essay proposes techniques to solve large-scale models of this kind, empirically, by exploring the practicability of this approach in an application to the international metallurgical coal market. The final essay investigates the influence of policy uncertainty on investment decisions. With France debating the role of nuclear technology, this essay analyses how policy uncertainty regarding nuclear power in France may feature in the French and European power sector. Applying a stochastic model for the European power system, the analysis shows that the costs of uncertainty in this particular application are rather low compared to the overall costs of a nuclear phase-out.

  14. Essays in energy economics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Malischek, Raimund

    2016-01-01

    This thesis presents four essays in energy economics. The first essay investigates one of the workhorse models of resource economics, the Hotelling model of an inter-temporally optimizing resource extracting firm. The Hotelling model provides a convincing theory of fundamental concepts like resource scarcity, but very few empirical validations of the model have been conducted. This essay attempts to empirically validate the Hotelling model by first expanding it to include exploration activity and market power and then using a newly constructed data set for the uranium mining industry to test whether a major resource extracting mining firm in the industry is following the theory's predictions. The results show that the theory is rejected in all considered settings. The second and third essays investigate the difference in market outcomes under spot-market based trade as compared to long-term contract based trade in oligopolistic markets with investments. The second essay investigates analytically the difference in market outcomes in an electricity market setting, showing that investments and consumer welfare may be higher under spot-market based trade than under long-term contracts. The third essay proposes techniques to solve large-scale models of this kind, empirically, by exploring the practicability of this approach in an application to the international metallurgical coal market. The final essay investigates the influence of policy uncertainty on investment decisions. With France debating the role of nuclear technology, this essay analyses how policy uncertainty regarding nuclear power in France may feature in the French and European power sector. Applying a stochastic model for the European power system, the analysis shows that the costs of uncertainty in this particular application are rather low compared to the overall costs of a nuclear phase-out.

  15. Short Essay on Managing Multicultural Students Groups within Diversity Context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cătălin Ploae

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The present essay focuses on summarizing the key elements that should be considered wheneducators are in a position to manage and interact with a group of students from different culturesor social environments. In this respect, we consider that the challenge educators’ face inconnecting with students of diverse backgrounds is to develop a critical consciousness of the waysin which these larger discourses operate in their classrooms and to care enough to question them,to challenge them and to advocate for their students. To care for students who come fromhistorically marginalized populations educators need to remember that schooling can serve eithera liberating or marginalizing function. They can empower students to identify structures in societythat have contributed to marginalizing their perspective and seek to maintain inequitable structuresin society or even narrow communities.

  16. Essay Genre in Tatar Journalism

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    Aigul A. Guseinova

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available In this article, an essay is considered as a journalistic genre in the context of modern Tatar journalism. Using the example of works by contemporary authors in the Tatar-speaking periodicals of Russia, the main genre and the semantic features of this genre are studied. An essay is a publicistic form to reflect on the topical issues of Russian reality. The reproduction of a fact is not so important for an essay. An important role is played by the description of the author's impressions, reflections and emotions. The periodical press has many materials in the Tatar language in which the author's opinion, author's principle and subjective opinion are strongly expressed. In fact, during the last decades of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century there was a surge of essays in modern journalism. Due to some political events in Russia during the early 90s of the twentieth century, it was possible to express their thoughts and speak on the urgent problems in society openly in comparison with the Soviet reality. The object of research is essayism as a kind of journalistic creativity, the subject of the study is the essay genre in Tatar journalism. The empirical basis of the work consisted of the essays from Tatar journalists, publicists and writers. Provided that the personality of an author is one of the effectiveness factors concerning the publications in the genre of essay, the essayization of texts in Tatar journalism will be increased in the future.

  17. Essays in empirical finance and monetary policy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Holle, Frederiek

    2017-01-01

    This dissertation consists of three essays. In the first paper, “Stock-Bond Correlations, Macroeconomic Regimes and Monetary Policy”, we link the evolution of stock-bond correlations for an international sample to both local and global regimes in inflation, the output gap and monetary policy. We

  18. Self-Assessment in Coursework Essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Longhurst, Nigel; Norton, Lin S.

    1997-01-01

    Self-assessments of coursework essays were compared with tutor grades for 67 college students. Students could accurately assess their overall essay grades and could give an overall rank for deep processing, but when judging essays on individual criteria they were not so accurate when compared to tutor evaluations. (SLD)

  19. Plagiarism in residency application essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Segal, Scott; Gelfand, Brian J; Hurwitz, Shelley; Berkowitz, Lori; Ashley, Stanley W; Nadel, Eric S; Katz, Joel T

    2010-07-20

    Anecdotal reports suggest that some residency application essays contain plagiarized content. To determine the prevalence of plagiarism in a large cohort of residency application essays. Retrospective cohort study. 4975 application essays submitted to residency programs at a single large academic medical center between 1 September 2005 and 22 March 2007. Specialized software was used to compare residency application essays with a database of Internet pages, published works, and previously submitted essays and the percentage of the submission matching another source was calculated. A match of more than 10% to an existing work was defined as evidence of plagiarism. Evidence of plagiarism was found in 5.2% (95% CI, 4.6% to 5.9%) of essays. The essays of non-U.S. citizens were more likely to demonstrate evidence of plagiarism. Other characteristics associated with the prevalence of plagiarism included medical school location outside the United States and Canada; previous residency or fellowship; lack of research experience, volunteer experience, or publications; a low United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 score; and non-membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. The software database is probably incomplete, the 10%-match threshold for defining plagiarism has not been statistically validated, and the study was confined to applicants to 1 institution. Evidence of matching content in an essay cannot be used to infer the applicant's intent and is not sensitive to variations in the cultural context of copying in some societies. Evidence of plagiarism in residency application essays is more common in international applicants but was found in those by applicants to all specialty programs, from all medical school types, and even among applicants with significant academic honors. No external funding.

  20. THE EFFECTS OF TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING ON STUDENTS’ ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A’am Rifaldi Khunaifi

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available This study is directed to find out whether teaching critical thinking affects the writing ability of argumentative essay. This research employed quasi experimental design as it was intended to measure the effects of the strategy on the students’ ability in writing argumentative essay. The samples of the study were the students of class A and B enrolled in the seventh semester of the English Education Department of State Islamic College of Palangka Raya. To collect the data needed, it was used test as the instrument; it was Academic Writing for IELTS Test. The data were processed and analyzed by using SPSS 19.0 statistic technique of independent t-test and paired-sample t-test, and the analized data were concluded. From the result of the test, the independent t-test calculation in posttest scores in both groups shows that the significance value is higher than level of significance (0.194 > 0.05. It indicates that there is no significant difference between experimental and control groups. Moreover, the paired t-test calculation shows the result of paired sample test (0.000 < 0.05 in which there is a significant difference between pretest and posttest scores in experimental group after having treatments. Keywords: critical thinking, writing ability, argumentative essay

  1. Essays in behavioral strategy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dumas, Jean-Malik

    2016-01-01

    This dissertation is composed of three quantitative empirical essays. Using social psychology, psychology and economic theory, the first essay explores how fear of death, belief in afterlife, self-esteem and generation influence the way employees project themselves in the future of their working

  2. Prognosis Essay Scoring and Article Relevancy Using Multi-Text Features and Machine Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arif Mehmood

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This study develops a model for essay scoring and article relevancy. Essay scoring is a costly process when we consider the time spent by an evaluator. It may lead to inequalities of the effort by various evaluators to apply the same evaluation criteria. Bibliometric research uses the evaluation criteria to find relevancy of articles instead. Researchers mostly face relevancy issues while searching articles. Therefore, they classify the articles manually. However, manual classification is burdensome due to time needed for evaluation. The proposed model performs automatic essay evaluation using multi-text features and ensemble machine learning. The proposed method is implemented in two data sets: a Kaggle short answer data set for essay scoring that includes four ranges of disciplines (Science, Biology, English, and English language Arts, and a bibliometric data set having IoT (Internet of Things and non-IoT classes. The efficacy of the model is measured against the Tandalla and AutoP approach using Cohen’s kappa. The model achieves kappa values of 0.80 and 0.83 for the first and second data sets, respectively. Kappa values show that the proposed model has better performance than those of earlier approaches.

  3. Effectiveness of Student Admission Essays in Identifying Attrition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadler, Judith

    2003-01-01

    From a longitudinal sample of nursing students, 193 completers and 43 noncompleters were compared, revealing significant differences in the groups' mean scores on admission essays but not admission grade point averages. Content analysis revealed how completers had internalized the role of nurse. (Contains 12 references.) (SK)

  4. The effect of short-range spatial variability on soil sampling uncertainty

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Perk, Marcel van der [Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht (Netherlands)], E-mail: m.vanderperk@geo.uu.nl; De Zorzi, Paolo; Barbizzi, Sabrina; Belli, Maria [Agenzia per la Protezione dell' Ambiente e per i Servizi Tecnici (APAT), Servizio Laboratori, Misure ed Attivita di Campo, Via di Castel Romano, 100-00128 Roma (Italy); Fajgelj, Ales; Sansone, Umberto [International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Agency' s Laboratories Seibersdorf, A-1400 Vienna (Austria); Jeran, Zvonka; Jacimovic, Radojko [Jozef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana (Slovenia)

    2008-11-15

    This paper aims to quantify the soil sampling uncertainty arising from the short-range spatial variability of elemental concentrations in the topsoils of agricultural, semi-natural, and contaminated environments. For the agricultural site, the relative standard sampling uncertainty ranges between 1% and 5.5%. For the semi-natural area, the sampling uncertainties are 2-4 times larger than in the agricultural area. The contaminated site exhibited significant short-range spatial variability in elemental composition, which resulted in sampling uncertainties of 20-30%.

  5. The effect of short-range spatial variability on soil sampling uncertainty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van der Perk, Marcel; de Zorzi, Paolo; Barbizzi, Sabrina; Belli, Maria; Fajgelj, Ales; Sansone, Umberto; Jeran, Zvonka; Jaćimović, Radojko

    2008-11-01

    This paper aims to quantify the soil sampling uncertainty arising from the short-range spatial variability of elemental concentrations in the topsoils of agricultural, semi-natural, and contaminated environments. For the agricultural site, the relative standard sampling uncertainty ranges between 1% and 5.5%. For the semi-natural area, the sampling uncertainties are 2-4 times larger than in the agricultural area. The contaminated site exhibited significant short-range spatial variability in elemental composition, which resulted in sampling uncertainties of 20-30%.

  6. Essays on partial retirement

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kantarci, T.

    2012-01-01

    The five essays in this dissertation address a range of topics in the micro-economic literature on partial retirement. The focus is on the labor market behavior of older age groups. The essays examine the economic and non-economic determinants of partial retirement behavior, the effect of partial

  7. Essays on Empirical Asset Pricing : Essays over het empirisch prijzen van financiele producten

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    R.W.M. Verbeek (Roy)

    2017-01-01

    textabstractThis dissertation consists of three essays on empirical asset pricing. In the first essay, I investigate whether common risk factors are priced across investment horizons. I show that only the market and size factors are priced, but only up to sixteen months. The results highlight the

  8. Essays in industrial organization and management strategy

    OpenAIRE

    de Bijl, P.W.J.

    1996-01-01

    This thesis contains five essays in the theory of industrial organization and management strategy. An introduction makes the main ideas accessible to non-specialists by presenting the essays as fictitious cases. The first essay investigates strategic disclosure of verifiable information. The disclosed information concerns a hidden action, and the transmission of information takes place in a noisy environment. The second essay explores how search costs and informational asymmetries influence t...

  9. CAREM reactor thermohydraulic essays laboratory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Horro, R.; Mazzi, R.; Rossini, A.

    1990-01-01

    The main characteristics, essays projected and the present state of the Thermohydraulic Essays Laboratory -under construction at present- prepared to meet the experimental needs resulting from a power reactor design of the CAREM type, are herein described. (Author) [es

  10. Essays in industrial organization and management strategy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Bijl, P.W.J.

    1996-01-01

    This thesis contains five essays in the theory of industrial organization and management strategy. An introduction makes the main ideas accessible to non-specialists by presenting the essays as fictitious cases. The first essay investigates strategic disclosure of verifiable information. The

  11. Essays on Economic Volatility and Financial Frictions

    OpenAIRE

    Zhao, Hongyan

    2012-01-01

    This dissertation consists of three essays in macroeconomics. The first one essay discusses the reasons of Chinese huge foreign reserves holdings. It contributes to the literature of sudden stops, precautionary saving and foreign assets holdings. In the second essay, I study the price volatility of commodities and manufactured goods. I measure the price volatility of each individual goods but not on the aggregated level and therefore the results complete the related study. The third essay exp...

  12. Essays in microeconomics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davies, Tim

    This dissertation consists of three essays in applied microeconomics. Each essay explores a different issue of economic interest. The essay in Chapter 2 describes an experiment designed to investigate if using assets with an intrinsic value that increases over time leads to persistent undervaluation in laboratory asset trading markets. This question has not previously been investigated by researchers. Results from ten sessions are reported. Three used assets with an intrinsic value that decreased over time. The results from these sessions are consistent with the findings by prior researchers who frequently observed price bubbles in laboratory asset trading experiments. The remaining seven sessions used assets with an intrinsic value that increased over time. In all these sessions trading generally occurred at prices below the asset's intrinsic value. In Chapter 3, in an essay co-authored with Adrian Stoian, we study road running races. Tournaments, where ordinal position determines rewards, are an important component of our economy. By studying sporting tournaments, we hope to shed light on the nature of other economically significant tournaments where data may be less readily available. We separately quantify the sorting and incentive effects of tournament prizes by employing a novel two-part model which we apply to a unique data set of road running race results. We present a counterfactual example of how a hypothetical change in prizes would be predicted to change race participation and speed. In Chapter 4, in an essay co-authored with Jedidiah Brewer and Joseph Cullen, we examine the combined effects of the locations and the brands of retail gasoline outlets in Tucson, Arizona on market prices. We apply an innovative approach to model the impact of competing gas stations that avoids limiting analysis to predetermined nearby locations. We show that increased brand diversity is associated with higher prices and that gas stations affiliated with mass

  13. Essays on Customization Applications in Marketing

    OpenAIRE

    Adiguzel, Feray

    2006-01-01

    The primary objective of this thesis is to develop and validate new methodologies to improve the collection of data and the effectiveness of promotion customization. This thesis contains two essays. In these essays, we search for optimal combinations of components of questionnaires to design split questionnaires and product categories to offer promotions. The first essay deals with how to improve collection of data. We focus on split questionnaires to collect data instead of using the more ty...

  14. Effectiveness of a Test-Taking Strategy on Achievement in Essay Tests for Students with Learning Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Therrien, William J.; Hughes, Charles; Kapelski, Cory; Mokhtari, Kouider

    2009-01-01

    Research was conducted to ascertain if an essay-writing strategy was effective at improving the achievement on essay tests for 7th- and 8th-grade students with reading and writing disabilities. Students were assigned via a stratified random sample to treatment or control group. Student scores were also compared to students without learning…

  15. Essays on Dynamic Competition and Academic Entrepreneurship

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pham, Huyen T.

    2012-01-01

    My dissertation focuses on dynamic firm competition and academic entrepreneurship. The first essay studies the dynamics and equilibrium outcomes of a duopoly in which firms make decisions about both capacity expansion and cost reduction. The second essay is an extension of the framework used in the first essay to study the strategic roles of…

  16. Essays on electricity markets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rud, Linda

    2009-07-01

    The report covers several topics of electricity markets: The first essay, 'Selected Topics on Early Electricity Market Design in Norway' studies market design issues in establishing the market-based Norwegian electricity market. Essays 2-4 focus on issues of network congestion: 'Capacity Charges: A Price Adjustment Process for Managing Congestion in Electricity Transmission Networks' presents the capacity charge approach for managing transmission constraints in electricity networks. 'Understanding the Stochastics of Nodal Prices: Price Processes in a Constrained Network' seeks a further understanding of stochastic nodal prices processes. 'Investment Evaluation in a Constrained Electricity Network with Stochastic Nodal Price Processes' studies how the interaction of the competitive market and the capacitated network affects the evaluation of investments under uncertainty, and points out potential pitfalls of evaluation. In the last essay, 'A Newsboy Model Perspective on the Power Market: The Case of a Wind Power Producer' we discuss aspects of optimal bidding for a wind power producer. (Author)

  17. Essays on electricity markets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rud, Linda

    2009-07-01

    The report covers several topics of electricity markets: The first essay, 'Selected Topics on Early Electricity Market Design in Norway' studies market design issues in establishing the market-based Norwegian electricity market. Essays 2-4 focus on issues of network congestion: 'Capacity Charges: A Price Adjustment Process for Managing Congestion in Electricity Transmission Networks' presents the capacity charge approach for managing transmission constraints in electricity networks. 'Understanding the Stochastics of Nodal Prices: Price Processes in a Constrained Network' seeks a further understanding of stochastic nodal prices processes. 'Investment Evaluation in a Constrained Electricity Network with Stochastic Nodal Price Processes' studies how the interaction of the competitive market and the capacitated network affects the evaluation of investments under uncertainty, and points out potential pitfalls of evaluation. In the last essay, 'A Newsboy Model Perspective on the Power Market: The Case of a Wind Power Producer' we discuss aspects of optimal bidding for a wind power producer. (Author)

  18. Application of the PEE Model to essay composition in an IELTS preparation class

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ender Orlando Velasco Tovar

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Based on two case studies, this study investigates the application of the Point, Explanation, Example (PEE model to essay composition in a multi-lingual IELTS preparation class. This model was incorporated into an eight-week programme of instruction to ESL adults in London, England. Students preparing for the IELTS exam were asked to write pre and post instruction essays on a given topic within 40 minutes. Employing the IELTS band descriptors (IELTS, 2013b and analyses of coherence and cohesion in line with Systemic Functional Linguistic concepts (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; McCarthy, 1991, samples of students’ writing were analysed. Data from students’ pre and post instruction interviews was also gathered and analysed. The findings of this study suggest that the PEE model is to some extent effective in improving the essay composition performance of IELTS students, in particular in the area of cohesion and coherence. Students find the PEE model useful in regard to the clarity and structure that the model seems to add to their essays.

  19. Essays on Customization Applications in Marketing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Adiguzel, Feray

    2006-01-01

    The primary objective of this thesis is to develop and validate new methodologies to improve the collection of data and the effectiveness of promotion customization. This thesis contains two essays. In these essays, we search for optimal combinations of components of questionnaires to design split

  20. Einstein's essays in science

    CERN Document Server

    Einstein, Albert

    2009-01-01

    His name is synonymous with ""genius,"" but these essays by the renowned physicist and scholar are accessible to any reader. In addition to outlining the core of relativity theory in everyday language, Albert Einstein presents fascinating discussions of other scientific fields to which he made significant contributions. The Nobel Laureate also profiles some of history's most influential physicists, upon whose studies his own work was based.Assembled during Einstein's lifetime from his speeches and essays, this book marks the first presentation to the wider world of the scientist's accomplishme

  1. Essays in Household Finance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hanspal, Tobin

    This Ph.D. thesis, entitled Essays in Household Finance, analyzes the determinants and implications of investment biases, personal experiences in financial markets, and financing disruptions on households, individual investors, and entrepreneurs and small business owners. The first essay...... on risk taking is the potential bias resulting from inertia and inattention, which has been shown to be endemic in household finance. If individuals are inert or inattentive, it is difficult to establish whether changes in risk taking are caused by personal experiences or whether the change in risk taking...

  2. Essays on Social Media Fundraising and E-Commerce

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Xue

    2017-01-01

    This dissertation has two components: social media fundraising and e-commerce. The first component of social media fundraising discusses social media users' charitable content generation in essay 1 and charitable giving in essay 2. In essay 1, we examine how reciprocity of followees affects social influence on users' charitable content generation.…

  3. Essays on energy derivatives pricing and financial risk management =

    Science.gov (United States)

    Madaleno, Mara Teresa da Silva

    This thesis consists of an introductory chapter (essay I) and five more empirical essays on electricity markets and CO2 spot price behaviour, derivatives pricing analysis and hedging. Essay I presents the structure of the thesis and electricity markets functioning and characteristics, as well as the type of products traded, to be analyzed on the following essays. In the second essay we conduct an empirical study on co-movements in electricity markets resorting to wavelet analysis, discussing long-term dynamics and markets integration. Essay three is about hedging performance and multiscale relationships in the German electricity spot and futures markets, also using wavelet analysis. We concentrate the investigation on the relationship between coherence evolution and hedge ratio analysis, on a time-frequency-scale approach, between spot and futures which conditions the effectiveness of the hedging strategy. Essays four, five and six are interrelated between them and with the other two previous essays given the nature of the commodity analyzed, CO2 emission allowances, traded in electricity markets. Relationships between electricity prices, primary energy fuel prices and carbon dioxide permits are analyzed on essay four. The efficiency of the European market for allowances is examined taking into account markets heterogeneity. Essay five analyzes stylized statistical properties of the recent traded asset CO2 emission allowances, for spot and futures returns, examining also the relation linking convenience yield and risk premium, for the German European Energy Exchange (EEX) between October 2005 and October 2009. The study was conducted through empirical estimations of CO2 allowances risk premium, convenience yield, and their relation. Future prices from an ex-post perspective are examined to show evidence for significant negative risk premium, or else a positive forward premium. Finally, essay six analyzes emission allowances futures hedging effectiveness, providing

  4. Video essay

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2015-01-01

    Camera movement has a profound influence on the way films look and the way films are experienced by spectators. In this visual essay Jakob Isak Nielsen proposes six major functions of camera movement in narrative cinema. Individual camera movements may serve more of these functions at the same time...

  5. Three essays in energy and environmental economics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Redlinger, Michael

    This thesis exploits the boom in U.S. oil and gas production to explore several empirical questions in environmental and energy economics. In the first essay, statistical techniques are employed to evaluate learning-by-doing in the Bakken Shale Play. Furthermore, the essay demonstrates organizational forgetting and knowledge spillovers among firms. The results show rates of learning in an important sector the U.S. economy and may have broader lessons for productivity gains and losses. The second essay investigates interfirm learning economies in oil well drilling in terms of productivity improvements and increases in environmental safety. The empirical results improve our understanding of how interfirm relationships influence productivity as well as the drivers of environmental incidents. Lastly, the third essay analyzes the impacts of stricter environmental regulations on oil production and well drilling in North Dakota. The results have particular relevance for policymakers seeking to understand the trade-offs between resource development and environmental quality. These three essays ultimately expand our knowledge of how learning economies occur and the effects of environmental regulations on economic activity.

  6. A short TE gradient-echo sequence using asymmetric sampling

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fujita, Norihiko; Harada, Kohshi; Sakurai, Kosuke; Nakanishi, Katsuyuki; Kim, Shyogen; Kozuka, Takahiro

    1990-01-01

    We have developed a gradient-echo pulse sequence with a short TE less than 4 msec using a data set of asymmetric off-center sampling with a broad bandwidth. The use of such a short TE significantly reduces T 2 * dephasing effect even in a two-dimensional mode, and by collecting an off-center echo, motion-induced phase dispersion is also considerably decreased. High immunity of this sequence to these dephasing effects permits clear visualization of anatomical details near the skull base where large local field inhomogeneities and rapid blood flow such as in the internal carotid artery are present. (author)

  7. Three essays on economic development

    OpenAIRE

    Méndez Errico, Paula Luciana

    2014-01-01

    The main objective of this dissertation is to study some of the mechanisms suggested by the economic literature as factors that could prevent individuals from attaining certain domains of well-being. This thesis is divided in three independent essays providing new evidence on three issues within the field of economic development: the effect of social networks on immigrants' labor market outcomes (first essay), the long-lasting impact of income inequality on entrepreneurial success and job cre...

  8. How Reflective Is the Academic Essay?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maclellan, Effie

    2004-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the extent of reflection in academic essays. Forty essays, all previously deemed to be of merit quality, were analysed in terms of three elements of reflection--how the educational issue is conceptualized; what the issue means for practice; and how practice might be changed to resolve the problematic. Each…

  9. Ecosociological essays

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vaillancourt, J.

    1982-01-01

    This book contains a collection of 25 essays, articles and reports of work in the domain of environmental sociology, a new area of sociology which can be labelled ΣecosociologyΣ. This area is situated on the border between sociology and ecology but from the point of view of sociology rather than that of ecology

  10. Essays on financial structure and macroeconomic performance

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zhu, D.

    2006-01-01

    In addressing the matter, two essays study the effects of the debt vs. equity dimension of the financial structure on international consumption smoothing and macroeconomic volatility (in particular, economic downturns). Another essay evaluates the role of informal financial institution by looking

  11. THE EFFECT OF CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE ON WRITING EXPOSITORY ESSAYS OF EFL STUDENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabarun Sabarun

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available The study is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of using clustering technique in writing expository essays. The aim of the study is to prove whether there is a significant difference between writing using clustering technique and writing without using it on the students’ writing achievement or not. The study belonged to experimental study by applying counterbalance procedure to collect the data. The study was conducted at the fourth semester English department students of Palangka Raya State Islamic College of 2012/ 2013 academic year. The number of the sample was 13 students. This study was restricted to two focuses: using clustering technique and without using clustering technique to write composition. Using clustering technique to write essay was one of the pre writing strategies in writing process. To answer the research problem, the t test for correlated samples was applied. The research findings showed that,it was found that the t value was 10.554.It was also found that the df (Degree of freedom of the distribution observed was 13-1= 12.  Based on the Table of t value, if df was 12, the 5% of significant level of t value was at 1.782 and the 1% of significant level of t value was at 2.179. It meant that using clustering gave facilitative effect on the students’ essay writing performance. Keywords: reading comprehension, text, scaffolding

  12. Four essays on market power in energy economics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hansen, Petter Vegard

    2008-07-01

    Market power in energy markets is discussed intensively in both academic and public arenas. There has been an intense energy debate on market power at least since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) exercised its market power and caused the 'oil crisis' of the 1970s, and again following the deregulation of electricity markets at the beginning of the 1990s. However, this debate is not new. In 1911, for example, the US Supreme Court divided Standard Oil into 34 separate companies using antitrust law. With increasing energy prices and the ongoing process of liberalization of electricity markets throughout the world, the topic is still relevant for future markets. The four essays in this dissertation discuss specific aspects of market power in energy markets. The first essay concerns the crude oil market, and the remaining three essays relate to market power in the Nordic and Norwegian electricity markets. In the first essay, a multi-equation dynamic econometric model tests whether the behaviour of OPEC, as a whole or as different subgroups, is consistent with the behaviour of dominant producers in the world crude oil market. The second essay is a theoretical work that introduces uncertainty in inflow to the discussion of market power in hydropower markets by analysing the effects of uncertainty in inflow on market performance under alternative assumptions about market structure. In the third essay, high-frequency data are used to analyse how price signals from the spot market affect end-user demand in the Norwegian and Swedish electricity markets. Finally, in the fourth essay, retailer and household behaviour in the Norwegian electricity market are analysed using detailed information on prices and other market characteristics. In the following section, I provide highlights from a general discussion of market power in order to set the essays included in this dissertation in context. (Author). refs., figs., tabs

  13. Essays on preference formation and home production

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Xu, Yan

    2017-01-01

    This thesis consists of three essays in quantitative marketing, focusing on structural empirical analysis of the evolution of consumer brand preference under incomplete information and the effect of time on consumer purchase behavior. The first essay studies the evolution of consumer brand

  14. Automated essay scoring and the future of educational assessment in medical education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gierl, Mark J; Latifi, Syed; Lai, Hollis; Boulais, André-Philippe; De Champlain, André

    2014-10-01

    Constructed-response tasks, which range from short-answer tests to essay questions, are included in assessments of medical knowledge because they allow educators to measure students' ability to think, reason, solve complex problems, communicate and collaborate through their use of writing. However, constructed-response tasks are also costly to administer and challenging to score because they rely on human raters. One alternative to the manual scoring process is to integrate computer technology with writing assessment. The process of scoring written responses using computer programs is known as 'automated essay scoring' (AES). An AES system uses a computer program that builds a scoring model by extracting linguistic features from a constructed-response prompt that has been pre-scored by human raters and then, using machine learning algorithms, maps the linguistic features to the human scores so that the computer can be used to classify (i.e. score or grade) the responses of a new group of students. The accuracy of the score classification can be evaluated using different measures of agreement. Automated essay scoring provides a method for scoring constructed-response tests that complements the current use of selected-response testing in medical education. The method can serve medical educators by providing the summative scores required for high-stakes testing. It can also serve medical students by providing them with detailed feedback as part of a formative assessment process. Automated essay scoring systems yield scores that consistently agree with those of human raters at a level as high, if not higher, as the level of agreement among human raters themselves. The system offers medical educators many benefits for scoring constructed-response tasks, such as improving the consistency of scoring, reducing the time required for scoring and reporting, minimising the costs of scoring, and providing students with immediate feedback on constructed-response tasks. © 2014

  15. Application essays and future performance in medical school: are they related?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dong, Ting; Kay, Allen; Artino, Anthony R; Gilliland, William R; Waechter, Donna M; Cruess, David; DeZee, Kent J; Durning, Steven J

    2013-01-01

    There is a paucity of research on whether application essays are a valid indicator of medical students' future performance. The goal is to score medical school application essays systematically and examine the correlations between these essay scores and several indicators of student performance during medical school and internship. A journalist created a scoring rubric based on the journalism literature and scored 2 required essays of students admitted to our university in 1 year (N = 145). We picked 7 indicators of medical school and internship performance and correlated these measures with overall essay scores: preclinical medical school grade point average (GPA), clinical medical school GPA, cumulative medical school GPA, U.S. Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 and 2 scores, and scores on a program director's evaluation measuring intern professionalism and expertise. We then examined the Pearson and Spearman correlations between essay scores and the outcomes. Essay scores did not vary widely. American Medical College Application Service essay scores ranged from 3.3 to 4.5 (M = 4.11, SD = 0.15), and Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences essay scores ranged from 2.9 to 4.5 (M = 4.09, SD = 0.17). None of the medical school or internship performance indicators was significantly correlated with the essay scores. These findings raise questions about the utility of matriculation essays, a resource-intensive admission requirement.

  16. Aristotle, De Memoria et Reminiscentia. Text, Translation and Interpretive Essays

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bloch, David Kristian

    2006-01-01

    The dissertation analyses Aristotle's De Memoria et Reminiscentia. It contains an introduction, a critical edition accompanied by an English translation, an essay on Aristotle's own theories and an essay on the Aristotelian tradition.......The dissertation analyses Aristotle's De Memoria et Reminiscentia. It contains an introduction, a critical edition accompanied by an English translation, an essay on Aristotle's own theories and an essay on the Aristotelian tradition....

  17. The Literary Essay as Encomium in Virginia Woolf’s “The Enchanted Organ”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Margarita Esther Sánchez Cuervo

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available This article proposes a rhetorical analysis of “The Enchanted Organ”, a short essay by Virginia Woolf that reviews Anne Thackeray’s collection of letters that was published after her death. In this review, Woolf portrays Anne Thackeray’s character starting from extracts from the diary and letters that she wrote as part of her literary production. The argumentative nature of this essay can be studied by means of a rhetorical analysis that examines the operations of inventio, dispositio and elocutio. The account of arguments and rhetorical figures that appears after the analysis of these operations results in an interpretation of presence that draws Anne Thackeray as a gentle figure that was content with simple things and that “was dancing to the music” of her writing. As a result, “The Enchanted Organ” can be read as an encomium that praises Thackeray’s cheerful personality rather than her literary merits.

  18. Essays on top management and corporate behavior

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wu, H.T.

    2010-01-01

    Human behavior is fascinating, and there is no exception to what its influences are on the financial market. This dissertation consists of three essays that examine corporate behavior that is affected by decisions made by the top management. The first essay studies the rationale for leveraged buyout

  19. Essays in financial reporting, tax, and politics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Janssen, W.H.P.

    2015-01-01

    This dissertation contains three essays on financial reporting, tax, and politics. The first essay explores whether the tax authority is able to generate spillover effects for auditors. The IRS can generate spillover effects for auditors, as a strong IRS increases manager’s incentives to comply with

  20. Intertextual Trips: Teaching the Essay in the Composition Class.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kline, Nancy

    1989-01-01

    Cites essays by Joan Didion, John Berryman, and Martin Luther King in arguing that the essay, no matter how serious, can be considered as a fiction and a playful, exploratory and deeply interesting rhetorical game. Describes how these works were used to teach students that the essay is a living document calling for interaction. (SG)

  1. Giving Personal Examples and Telling Stories in Academic Essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hinkel, Eli

    2001-01-01

    Analyzes the extensive use of personal examples and stories in the academic essays of students who are nonnative speakers of English. Draws on a large database of college examination essays to compare the use of personal examples in essays written by native and nonnative speakers. Finds nonnative students not only use examples more often than…

  2. Essays on incomplete contracts in regulatory activities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saavedra, Eduardo Humberto

    This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay, The Hold-Up Problem in Public Infrastructure Franchising, characterizes the equilibria of the investment decisions in public infrastructure franchising under incomplete contracting and ex-post renegotiation. The parties (government and a firm) are unable to credibly commit to the contracted investment plan, so that a second step investment is renegotiated by the parties at the revision stage. As expected, the possibility of renegotiation affects initial non-verifiable investments. The main conclusion of this essay is that not only underinvestment but also overinvestment in infrastructure may arise in equilibrium, compared to the complete contracting case. The second essay, Alternative Institutional Arrangements in Network Utilities: An Incomplete Contracting Approach, presents a theoretical assessment of the efficiency implications of privatizing natural monopolies which are vertically related to potential competitive firms. Based on the incomplete contracts and asymmetric information paradigm. I develop a model that analyzes the relative advantages of different institutional arrangements---alternative ownership and market structures in the industry--- in terms of their allocative and productive efficiencies. The main policy conclusion of this essay is that both ownership and the existence of conglomerates in network industries matter. Among other conclusions, this essay provides an economic rationale for a mixed economy in which the network is public and vertical separation of the industry when the natural monopoly is under private ownership. The last essay, Opportunistic Behavior and Legal Disputes in the Chilean Electricity Sector, analyzes post-contractual disputes in this newly privatized industry. It discusses the presumption that opportunistic behavior and disputes arise due to inadequate market design, ambiguous regulation, and institutional weaknesses. This chapter also assesses the presumption

  3. Essays on numbers and figures

    CERN Document Server

    Prasolov, V V

    2000-01-01

    This is the English translation of the book originally published in Russian. It contains 20 essays, each dealing with a separate mathematical topic. The topics range from brilliant mathematical statements with interesting proofs, to simple and effective methods of problem-solving, to interesting properties of polynomials, to exceptional points of the triangle. Many of the topics have a long and interesting history. The author has lectured on them to students worldwide. The essays are independent of one another for the most part, and each presents a vivid mathematical result that led to current

  4. Essays on the role of accounting in acquisition decision-making

    OpenAIRE

    Puhakka, Hannu

    2017-01-01

    This dissertation investigates the role of accounting in acquisition decision-making via three essays. First essay examines the influence of accounting on trust development during the acquisition negotiation process. Essay 2 explores the interplay of formal and informal pre-decision control mechanisms and seeks to provide new insights on the interplay of various pre-decision control mechanisms at different stages of the acquisition decision-making process. Third essay seeks to specify how acc...

  5. The future-essay as a design tool

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thomsen, Bente Dahl; Kappel, Anne

    2007-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to present scenarios, photo-essays and future-essays as tools in communication, and as tools for clarifying the use of products in the future and the aesthetic qualities in the programme. In the design process, the programme is a description of the function, the condition...

  6. Constitution 200: A Bicentennial Collection of Essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hepburn, Mary A., Ed.; And Others

    Constitutional essays which formed the basis of public assemblies throughout three states are compiled in this book. The first three essays consider the U.S. government principles of federalism, judicial review, and the separation of powers. Michael L. Benedict proposes that the question of ultimate sovereignty has been answered differently by…

  7. The future of the city. Essays; De toekomst van de stad. Essays

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Uitermark, J.; Schinkel, W. [Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam EUR, Rotterdam (Netherlands); Engelen, E. [Universiteit van Amsterdam UvA, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Raspe, O.; Hamers, D. [Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving PBL, Den Haag (Netherlands); Janssen, J.; Beunen, R. [Wageningen University WUR, Wageningen (Netherlands); Schutten, I. [Studio Iris Schutten, Den Haag (Netherlands); Mommaas, H. [Universiteit Tilburg, Telos, Brabants Centrum voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling, Tilburg (Netherlands); Tillie, N. [Landschapsarchitect en adviseur duurzaamheid, Technische Universiteit Delft TUD, Delft (Netherlands); Verheijen, M. [Hogeschool Rotterdam, Rotterdam (Netherlands); Schuilenburg, M. [Vrije Universiteit VU, Amsterdam (Netherlands); De Jong, J.D. [Rebond onderzoek en advies, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Van Steekelenburg, M. [Spatialplanning.com, Provinciehuis Zuid-Holland, Den Haag (Netherlands); Vermeulen, P. [Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening Amsterdam, Amsterdam (Netherlands); De Waal, M. [The Public Matters, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Mulder, B. [Mandorla Consultancy, Bussum (Netherlands); Soeterbroek, F. [De Ruimtemaker, Utrecht (Netherlands); Wijma, J. [Programmabureau Regio Groningen-Assen, Groningen (Netherlands)

    2012-08-15

    The essays discuss nine tasks for the city. Each problem will be approached from two angles. The focus is on the relationship between governments and the self-resolving power in the city, the capacity of individuals, groups and organizations to change. Where In what cases does the self-resolving power of the city hamper? When is government intervention required? What is the role of connections between tasks, policies and groups? [Dutch] De essays gaan in op negen opgaven voor de stad. Elke opgave wordt vanuit twee invalshoeken belicht. Centraal staat de verhouding tussen overheden en zelfoplossend vermogen in de stad, de 'veranderkracht' van individuen, groepen en organisaties. Waar hapert het zelfoplossend vermogen van de stad? Wanneer is overheidsinterventie gewenst? Welke rol spelen verbindingen tussen opgaven, beleidssectoren en groepen daarbij?.

  8. The future of the city. Essays; De toekomst van de stad. Essays

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Uitermark, J.; Schinkel, W. [Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam EUR, Rotterdam (Netherlands); Engelen, E. [Universiteit van Amsterdam UvA, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Raspe, O.; Hamers, D. [Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving PBL, Den Haag (Netherlands); Janssen, J.; Beunen, R. [Wageningen University WUR, Wageningen (Netherlands); Schutten, I. [Studio Iris Schutten, Den Haag (Netherlands); Mommaas, H. [Universiteit Tilburg, Telos, Brabants Centrum voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling, Tilburg (Netherlands); Tillie, N. [Landschapsarchitect en adviseur duurzaamheid, Technische Universiteit Delft TUD, Delft (Netherlands); Verheijen, M. [Hogeschool Rotterdam, Rotterdam (Netherlands); Schuilenburg, M. [Vrije Universiteit VU, Amsterdam (Netherlands); De Jong, J. D. [Rebond onderzoek en advies, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Van Steekelenburg, M. [Spatialplanning.com, Provinciehuis Zuid-Holland, Den Haag (Netherlands); Vermeulen, P. [Dienst Ruimtelijke Ordening Amsterdam, Amsterdam (Netherlands); De Waal, M. [The Public Matters, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Mulder, B. [Mandorla Consultancy, Bussum (Netherlands); Soeterbroek, F. [De Ruimtemaker, Utrecht (Netherlands); Wijma, J. [Programmabureau Regio Groningen-Assen, Groningen (Netherlands)

    2012-08-15

    The essays discuss nine tasks for the city. Each problem will be approached from two angles. The focus is on the relationship between governments and the self-resolving power in the city, the capacity of individuals, groups and organizations to change. Where In what cases does the self-resolving power of the city hamper? When is government intervention required? What is the role of connections between tasks, policies and groups? [Dutch] De essays gaan in op negen opgaven voor de stad. Elke opgave wordt vanuit twee invalshoeken belicht. Centraal staat de verhouding tussen overheden en zelfoplossend vermogen in de stad, de 'veranderkracht' van individuen, groepen en organisaties. Waar hapert het zelfoplossend vermogen van de stad? Wanneer is overheidsinterventie gewenst? Welke rol spelen verbindingen tussen opgaven, beleidssectoren en groepen daarbij?.

  9. Review Essay: Grenzgänger Seeks Reflexive Methodology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wolff-Michael Roth

    2002-09-01

    Full Text Available Reflexive Methodology reviews major strands of current thought in epistemology, philosophy, social science, and interpretive methods. The book falls short in that it neither does a thorough job reviewing the literature nor does it provide method-related advice useful to students. Grenzgängerin constitutes a collection of essays on a broad range of topics, but which are only loosely connected if at all. Drawing on DERRIDA and the notion of a historical science of the historical subject, I attempt to practice method, something I missed in both texts. I make explicit the historical nature of my own writing and the historical nature of my subject. I make explicit intertextuality and in the process practice reflexivity in the particular way I am writing. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs020328

  10. Essays on liberalized energy markets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Nese, Gjermund

    2003-07-01

    This thesis consists of four essays that aim at contributing to the understanding of some of the new challenges associated by the liberalized energy markets. More specifically the essays consider investments in energy generation projects; international trade of Green Certificates, market power in a Green Certificate system, and finally the behaviour of public firms in liberalized markets. Essay 1 considers energy investment, when a choice has to be made between fossil fuel and biomass fired production technologies. A dynamic model is presented to illustrate the effect of the different degrees of input price uncertainty on the choice of technology and the timing of the investment. It is shown that when the choice of technology is irreversible, it may be optimal to postpone the investment even if it would otherwise be optimal to invest in one or both of the plant types. We provide a numerical example based on cost estimates of two different power plant types. Essay 2 presents an analytical equilibrium model for simultaneously functioning international markets for electricity and Green Certificates is formulated. The percentage requirement is perceived as the policy instrument affecting the level of green electricity in end-use consumption. In none of the cases considered does an increase in the country's percentage requirement necessarily result in an increase in the generation of green electricity in that country, but it may have a positive effect on the trading partner's generation of green electricity. Further, under quite realistic assumptions, a country maximizes its generation of green electricity by setting the percentage requirement to zero. In essay 3 an analytic equilibrium model for a simultaneously functioning electricity market and a market for Green Certificates is formulated. The major focus of the paper is the effect of market power in a Green Certificate system. One of the main results is that the certificate system faced with market power

  11. Essays on liberalized energy markets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nese, Gjermund

    2003-01-01

    This thesis consists of four essays that aim at contributing to the understanding of some of the new challenges associated by the liberalized energy markets. More specifically the essays consider investments in energy generation projects; international trade of Green Certificates, market power in a Green Certificate system, and finally the behaviour of public firms in liberalized markets. Essay 1 considers energy investment, when a choice has to be made between fossil fuel and biomass fired production technologies. A dynamic model is presented to illustrate the effect of the different degrees of input price uncertainty on the choice of technology and the timing of the investment. It is shown that when the choice of technology is irreversible, it may be optimal to postpone the investment even if it would otherwise be optimal to invest in one or both of the plant types. We provide a numerical example based on cost estimates of two different power plant types. Essay 2 presents an analytical equilibrium model for simultaneously functioning international markets for electricity and Green Certificates is formulated. The percentage requirement is perceived as the policy instrument affecting the level of green electricity in end-use consumption. In none of the cases considered does an increase in the country's percentage requirement necessarily result in an increase in the generation of green electricity in that country, but it may have a positive effect on the trading partner's generation of green electricity. Further, under quite realistic assumptions, a country maximizes its generation of green electricity by setting the percentage requirement to zero. In essay 3 an analytic equilibrium model for a simultaneously functioning electricity market and a market for Green Certificates is formulated. The major focus of the paper is the effect of market power in a Green Certificate system. One of the main results is that the certificate system faced with market power may

  12. Essays on Industrial Organization and Political Economy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Camara, Odilon Roberto VG de a

    2009-01-01

    This thesis presents three essays on industrial organization and political economy. In the first essay, I show how the attributes of a managerial workforce affect firms' placement decisions and wage offers, and managers' quit decisions. My OLG model features two division managers and a CEO, where each executive may be at a different point in his…

  13. Essays on oil and the macroeconomy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Melolinna, M.

    2012-07-01

    This dissertation studies the effects of crude oil on the macroeconomy using a vector autoregression (VAR) modelling framework. In particular, the importance of identifying different types of oil shocks is explored for both small and large open economies. A VAR model is also used to study the information content of oil futures contracts. The dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay of the dissertation introduces a methodology for identifying oil supply shocks in a small open economy. Financial market information is used to construct an identification scheme that forces the response to an oil shock of the VAR model to be the same as that implied by futures markets. Due to the identification scheme, the model is only partially identified, and confidence intervals for impulse responses are calculated by using a bootstrapping procedure. The methodology is applied in illustrative examples to two small open economies in a VAR model that includes key domestic and international macroeconomic variables. The results suggest that while oil supply shocks have had an effect on domestic inflation during recent past, the effect on domestic GDP is ambiguous. The second essay of the dissertation studies the existence of risk premiums in crude oil futures prices with simple ordinary least squares regression and Bayesian VAR models. It also studies the importance of three main theoretical risk premium models in explaining and forecasting the risk premiums in practice. Whilst the existence of the premiums and the validity of the models can be established at certain time points, it turns out that the choice of sample period has a considerable effect on the results. Hence, the risk premiums are highly time-varying. The study also establishes a model, based on speculative positions in the futures markets, which has some predictive power for future oil spot prices. The third essay of the dissertation explores oil market and other macroeconomic shocks in a structural VAR

  14. Three Essays on Macroeconomics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doda, Lider Baran

    This dissertation consists of three independent essays in macroeconomics. The first essay studies the transition to a low carbon economy using an extension of the neoclassical growth model featuring endogenous energy efficiency, exhaustible energy and explicit climate-economy interaction. I derive the properties of the laissez faire equilibrium and compare them to the optimal allocations of a social planner who internalizes the climate change externality. Three main results emerge. First, the exhaustibility of energy generates strong market based incentives to improve energy efficiency and reduce CO 2 emissions without any government intervention. Second, the market and optimal allocations are substantially different suggesting a role for the government. Third, high and persistent taxes are required to implement the optimal allocations as a competitive equilibrium with taxes. The second essay focuses on coal fired power plants (CFPP) - one of the largest sources of CO2 emissions globally - and their generation efficiency using a macroeconomic model with an embedded CFPP sector. A key feature of the model is the endogenous choice of production technologies which differ in their energy efficiency. After establishing four empirical facts about the CFPP sector, I analyze the long run quantitative effects of energy taxes. Using the calibrated model, I find that sector-specific coal taxes have large effects on generation efficiency by inducing the use of more efficient technologies. Moreover, such taxes achieve large CO2 emissions reductions with relatively small effects on consumption and output. The final essay studies the procyclicality of fiscal policy in developing countries, which is a well-documented empirical observation seemingly at odds with Neoclassical and Keynesian policy prescriptions. I examine this issue by solving the optimal fiscal policy problem of a small open economy government when the interest rates on external debt are endogenous. Given an

  15. Essays on empirical industrial organization : Entry and innovation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Fernandez Machado, Roxana

    2017-01-01

    The dissertation contains three essays on empirical industrial organization devoted to studying firms' strategic interaction in different settings. The first essay develops an entry model to address an important matter in the area of urban economics: the development of cities. In particular, it

  16. Empirical essays on behavioral economics and lifecycle decisions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dillingh, Rik

    2016-01-01

    This dissertation consists of four empirical essays that study decisions on insurance, consumption and the accumulation and decumulation of wealth. The studies pay due attention to behavioral factors that may limit rationality, such as complexity and intertemporal choice. The first essay looks at

  17. Three Essays on National Oil Company Efficiency, Energy Demand and Transportation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eller, Stacy L.

    This dissertation is composed of three separate essays in the field of energy economics. In the first paper, both data envelopment analysis and stochastic production frontier estimation are employed to provide empirical evidence on the revenue efficiency of national oil companies (NOCs) and private international oil companies (IOCs). Using a panel of 80 oil producing firms, the analysis suggests that NOCs are generally less efficient at generating revenue from a given resource base than IOCs, with some exceptions. Due to differing firm objectives, however, structural and institutional features may help explain much of the inefficiency. The second paper analyzes the relationship between economic development and the demand for energy. Energy consumption is modeled using panel data from 1990 to 2004 for 50 countries spanning all levels of development. We find the relationship between energy consumption and economic development corresponds to the structure of aggregate output and the nature of derived demand for electricity and direct-use fuels in each sector. Notably, the evidence of non-constant income elasticity of demand is much greater for electricity demand than for direct-use fuel consumption. In addition, we show that during periods of rapid economic development, one in which the short-term growth rate exceeds the long-run average, an increase in aggregate output is met by less energy-efficient capital. This is a result of capital being fixed in the short-term. As additional, more efficient capital stock is added to the production process, the short-term increase in energy intensity will diminish. In the third essay, we develop a system of equations to estimate a model of motor vehicle fuel consumption, vehicle miles traveled and implied fuel efficiency for the 67 counties of the State of Florida from 2001 to 2008. This procedure allows us to decompose the factors of fuel demand into elasticities of vehicle driving demand and fuel efficiency. Particular

  18. Determination of short-lived trace elements in environmental samples by neutron activation analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wardani, S.; Sihombing, E.; Hamzah, A.; Rochidi; Hery, P.S.; Hartaman, S.; Iman, J.

    1998-01-01

    Concentration of a short-lived trace elements in environmental samples were determined by neutron activation analysis, a counting loss often occur due to the high counting rate. A Pile-Up Rejecter (PUR) electric circuit was installed in counting a short-lived trace elements by a γ-ray spectrometer in order to correct a counting loss. The samples were irradiated for 30∼60 seconds at neutron flux of 3.5 x 10 12 n.cm -2 .s -1 , then the samples cooled for 120 second and counted for 180 second using this system. The nuclides concentration in the varieties environmental samples have a difference analysis result, was more accurate and precise, which the measured result would be 30 % more higher by PUR system than the result would be counted using a conventional γ-ray spectrometry method

  19. The Comparison of Typed and Handwritten Essays of Iranian EFL Students in terms of Length, Spelling, and Grammar

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Behrouz Sarbakhshian

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available This study attempted to compare typed and handwritten essays of Iranian EFL students in terms of length, spelling, and grammar. To administer the study, the researchers utilized Alice Touch Typing Tutor software to select 15 upper intermediate students with higher ability to write two essays: one typed and the other handwritten. The students were both males and females between the ages of 22 to 35. The analyses of the students’ scores in the three mentioned criteria through three paired samples t-tests indicate that typed essays are significantly better than handwritten ones in terms of length of texts and grammatical mistakes, but not significantly different in spelling mistakes. Positive effects of typing can provide a logical reason for students, especially TOEFL applicants, to spend more time on acquiring typing skill and also for teachers to encourage their students with higher typing ability to choose typed format in their essays.

  20. Short-Run Contexts and Imperfect Testing for Continuous Sampling Plans

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mirella Rodriguez

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Continuous sampling plans are used to ensure a high level of quality for items produced in long-run contexts. The basic idea of these plans is to alternate between 100% inspection and a reduced rate of inspection frequency. Any inspected item that is found to be defective is replaced with a non-defective item. Because not all items are inspected, some defective items will escape to the customer. Analytical formulas have been developed that measure both the customer perceived quality and also the level of inspection effort. The analysis of continuous sampling plans does not apply to short-run contexts, where only a finite-size batch of items is to be produced. In this paper, a simulation algorithm is designed and implemented to analyze the customer perceived quality and the level of inspection effort for short-run contexts. A parameter representing the effectiveness of the test used during inspection is introduced to the analysis, and an analytical approximation is discussed. An application of the simulation algorithm that helped answer questions for the U.S. Navy is discussed.

  1. Long life of a short film.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wadia, R V

    2000-01-01

    What follows is an account of my personal experiences as an independent Indian film director who had the fortune to make the country's first openly gay film, the short BOMgAY That said, I would like this essay to be accepted as, rather than a critical appraisal of Indian cinema, a humbly autobiographical account of one individual caught in the hectic throes of political (and cinematic) visibility.

  2. Conceptualizing Essay Tests' Reliability and Validity: From Research to Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Badjadi, Nour El Imane

    2013-01-01

    The current paper on writing assessment surveys the literature on the reliability and validity of essay tests. The paper aims to examine the two concepts in relationship with essay testing as well as to provide a snapshot of the current understandings of the reliability and validity of essay tests as drawn in recent research studies. Bearing in…

  3. Essay on Option Pricing, Hedging and Calibration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    da Silva Ribeiro, André Manuel

    Quantitative finance is concerned about applying mathematics to financial markets.This thesis is a collection of essays that study different problems in this field: How efficient are option price approximations to calibrate a stochastic volatilitymodel? (Chapter 2) How different is the discretely...... of dynamics? (Chapter 5) How can we formulate a simple free-arbitrage model to price correlationswaps? (Chapter 6) A summary of the work presented in this thesis: Approximation Behooves Calibration In this paper we show that calibration based on an expansion approximation for option prices in the Heston...... stochastic volatility model gives stable, accurate, and fast results for S&P500-index option data over the period 2005 to 2009. Discretely Sampled Variance Options: A Stochastic Approximation Approach In this paper, we expand Drimus and Farkas (2012) framework to price variance options on discretely sampled...

  4. Essay about nuclear right

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Puig, D.

    1994-01-01

    The present essay treat about all Uruguaian Nuclear Energy legislation. Nuclear energy history, international treaties, agreements, national programs, nuclear government politics, radiation protection regulations, wastes, radioactive materials transport, environment and safeguards has been given in this compilation

  5. Essays in game theory and natural resource management

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pham Do, K.H.

    2003-01-01

    This thesis presents a collection of essays in game theory with applications to environmental resource problems and their management. A major focus of these essays is related to coalitional games in which several classes of games, their properties and solution concepts are studied. Game theory is

  6. Essays on Commodity Prices and Macroeconomic Performance of Developing and Resources Rich Economies: Evidence from Kazakhstan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bilgin, Ferhat I.

    My dissertation consists of three essays in empirical macroeconomics. The objective of this research is to use rigorous time-series econometric analysis to investigate the impact of commodity prices on macroeconomic performance of a small, developing and resource-rich country, which is in the process of transition from a purely command and control economy to a market oriented one. Essay 1 studies the relationship between Kazakhstan's GDP, total government expenditure, real effective exchange rate and the world oil price. Specifically, I use the cointegrated vector autoregression (CVAR) and error correction modeling (ECM) approach to identify the long and short-run relations that may exist among these macroeconomic variables. I found a long-run relationship for Kazakhstan's GDP, which depends on government spending and the oil price positively, and on the real effective exchange rate negatively. In the short run, the growth rate of GDP depends on the growth rates of the oil price, investment and the magnitude of the deviation from the long-run equilibrium. Essay 2 studies the inflation process in Kazakhstan based on the analysis of price formation in the following sectors: monetary, external, labor and goods and services. The modeling is conducted from two different perspectives: the first is the monetary model of inflation framework and the second is the mark-up modeling framework. Encompassing test results show that the mark-up model performs better than the monetary model in explaining inflation in Kazakhstan. According to the mark-up inflation model, in the long run, the price level is positively related to unit labor costs, import prices and government administered prices as well the world oil prices. In the short run, the inflation is positively influenced by the previous quarter's inflation, the contemporaneous changes in the government administered prices, oil prices and by the changes of contemporaneous and lagged unit labor costs, and negatively affected

  7. A comparative study of students' performance in preclinical physiology assessed by multiple choice and short essay questions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oyebola, D D; Adewoye, O E; Iyaniwura, J O; Alada, A R; Fasanmade, A A; Raji, Y

    2000-01-01

    This study was designed to compare the performance of medical students in physiology when assessed by multiple choice questions (MCQs) and short essay questions (SEQs). The study also examined the influence of factors such as age, sex, O/level grades and JAMB scores on performance in the MCQs and SEQs. A structured questionnaire was administered to 264 medical students' four months before the Part I MBBS examination. Apart from personal data of each student, the questionnaire sought information on the JAMB scores and GCE O' Level grades of each student in English Language, Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. The physiology syllabus was divided into five parts and the students were administered separate examinations (tests) on each part. Each test consisted of MCQs and SEQs. The performance in MCQs and SEQs were compared. Also, the effects of JAMB scores and GCE O/level grades on the performance in both the MCQs and SEQs were assessed. The results showed that the students performed better in all MCQ tests than in the SEQs. JAMB scores and O' level English Language grade had no significant effect on students' performance in MCQs and SEQs. However O' level grades in Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics had significant effects on performance in MCQs and SEQs. Inadequate knowledge of physiology and inability to present information in a logical sequence are believed to be major factors contributing to the poorer performance in the SEQs compared with MCQs. In view of the finding of significant association between performance in MCQs and SEQs and GCE O/level grades in science subjects and mathematics, it was recommended that both JAMB results and the GCE results in the four O/level subjects above may be considered when selecting candidates for admission into the medical schools.

  8. Blue Marble Space Institute essay contest

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wendel, JoAnna

    2014-04-01

    The Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, based in Seattle, Wash., is inviting college students to participate in its essay contest. Essays need to address the question, "In the next 100 years, how can human civilization prepare for the long-term changes to the Earth system that will occur over the coming millennium?" According to the institute, the purpose of the contest is "to stimulate creative thinking relating to space exploration and global issues by exploring how changes in the Earth system will affect humanity's future."

  9. Back to the future: eugenics--a bibliographic essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cullen, David

    2007-01-01

    The following essay is a review of the literature about the American eugenics movement produced by scholars over the last fifty years. The essay provides an explanation for today's renewed interest in the subject and for why the science of eugenics remains relevant to contemporary society. The essay examines the catalyst to re-examine the eugenics movement, the influence of Darwinian thought upon its development, the political and institutional support for its growth, the relationship between eugenics, sterilization, and sex, and how the twentieth-century promises of the science of better breeding was a precursor to the twenty-first-century promise of genetic engineering.

  10. Essays on incentives and pro-environmental behaviour

    OpenAIRE

    De Martino, Samantha

    2017-01-01

    This thesis consists of four self-contained essays at the nexus of applied microeconomics, behavioural economics, and environmental economics. In the essays of the thesis, I use field experiments and econometric tools to examine the impact of monetary and non monetary incentives for behavioural change during resource scarcity. I use methods of eliciting intrinsic motivations and then empirically test theories on the interaction of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives. Specifically I ...

  11. Writing Essays on a Laptop or a Desktop Computer: Does It Matter?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ling, Guangming; Bridgeman, Brent

    2013-01-01

    To explore the potential effect of computer type on the Test of English as a Foreign Language-Internet-Based Test (TOEFL iBT) Writing Test, a sample of 444 international students was used. The students were randomly assigned to either a laptop or a desktop computer to write two TOEFL iBT practice essays in a simulated testing environment, followed…

  12. Contamination profiles of short-chain polychlorinated n-alkanes in foodstuff samples from Japan

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Matsukami, Hidenori; Kurunthachalam, S; Ohi, Etsumasa; Takasuga, Takumi [Shimadzu Techno Research, Inc., Kyoto (Japan); Iino, Fukuya; Nakanishi, Junko [National Inst. of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba (Japan)

    2004-09-15

    Polychlorinated n-alkanes (PCAs) are group of chemicals manufactured by chlorination of liquid n-paraffin or paraffin wax that contain 30 to 70% chlorine by weight. Large amounts of PCAs are widely used as plasticizers for vinyl chloride, lubricants, paints, and flame retardants and number of other industrial applications. Annual global production of PCAs is approximately 300 kilo tones, with a majority having medium-carbon-chain (C14-C19) length. According to the investigation made by Kagaku Kogyo Nippon-Sha, the annual consumption of PCAs in Japan was about 83,000 tons in between 1986-2001. Short-carbon-chain (C10-C13) has been placed on the Priority Substance List under Canadian Environmental Protection Act and on the Environmental Protection Agency Toxic Release Inventory in the USA due to its potential to act as tumor promoters in mammals. Data on environment levels of PCAs is meager, nevertheless, PCAs have been measured at relatively high concentrations in biota from Sweden, biota, sediment from Canada and marine biota and human milk from the Canadian Arctic. In our earlier study, we reported concentrations of short-chain PCAs from sewage treatment plant (STP) collected from Tama River, Tokyo and river water and sediment from Tokyo and Osaka. STP influent water contained greater shortchain PCAs concentrations than STP effluent. In addition, some river water and sediment samples contained detectable concentrations of short-chain PCAs, which was similar to other industrial countries. However, there is no study conducted to explore the contamination profiles of short-chain PCAs in human foodstuff samples. In the present study, we analyzed eleven foodstuff samples that were purchased from various supermarkets in order to know the short-chain PCAs concentrations in the foodstuff and possible human total daily intake (TDI) amounts.

  13. AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY (CASE STUDY AT UNIVERSITY MUHAMMADIYAH OF METRO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fenny - Thresia

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this study was study analyze the students’ error in writing argumentative essay. The researcher focuses on errors of verb, concord and learner language. This study took 20 students as the subject of research from the third semester. The data took from observation and documentation. Based on the result of the data analysis there are some errors still found on the student’s argumentative essay in English writing? The common errors which repeatedly appear are verb. The second is concord, and learner languages are the smallest error. From 20 samples that took, the frequency the errors of verb are 12 items (60%, concord are 8 items (40%, learner languages are 7 items (35%. As a result, verb has the biggest number of common errors.

  14. Writing an academic essay: a practical guide for nurses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Booth, Y

    Writing academic essays can be a major hurdle and source of anxiety for many students. Fears and misconceptions relating to this kind of writing can be dispelled if the task is approached in a logical and systematic manner. This article outlines the key steps involved in successfully completing an essay and provides some practical tips to facilitate critical and analytical writing. These steps are: analysing the task; exploring the subject; planning the essay; writing the account; and revising the drafts. Although this process is challenging, academic writing is a means of developing both personally and professionally.

  15. Rethinking the Argumentative Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schneer, David

    2014-01-01

    This article investigates the construction of the argumentative essay as it is commonly presented in academic writing textbooks and classrooms for English language learners. The author first examines the traditional three-stage structure (thesis-argument-conclusion) and then problematizes it within a genre-based approach to academic writing. He…

  16. The SAT® Essay and College Performance: Understanding What Essay Scores Add to HSGPA and SAT. Research Report 2012-9 (REV: 4-2013)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaw, Emily J.; Kobrin, Jennifer L.

    2013-01-01

    This study examines the relationship between students' SAT essay scores and college outcomes, including first-year grade point average (FYGPA) and first-year English course grade average (FY EngGPA), overall and by various demographic and academic performance subgroups. Results showed that the SAT essay score has a positive relationship with both…

  17. Cooperation, networks and emotions: Three essays in behavioral economics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Leeuwen, B.

    2015-01-01

    This thesis contains three essays that study how people behave in a social context. The first two essays are on cooperation and networks. Chapter 2 investigates a mechanism to facilitate public good provision in networks. It relies on the idea that people compete for attractive network positions (or

  18. A Crosscultural Analysis of Argumentative Strategies in Student Essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamimura, Taeko; Oi, Kyoko

    A study of essays on a single topic (capital punishment) written by 22 American high school students and 30 second-year Japanese college students investigated: cultural differences in organizational patterns in argumentative essays; comparative use of rational and affective appeals; differences in content of rational and affective appeals;…

  19. Scaffolding for Second Language Writers: Producing an Academic Essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cotterall, Sara; Cohen, Robin

    2003-01-01

    Describes how a group of intermediate learners of English were guided through the process of producing their first academic essays in English. The approach applied the concept of scaffolding to the academic writing process by proving flexible support for the learners throughout the writing of their essays. (Author/VWL)

  20. Essays on medieval computational astronomy

    CERN Document Server

    Bergón, José Chabás

    2014-01-01

    In Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy the authors provide examples of original and intelligent approaches and solutions given by medieval astronomers to the problems of their discipline, mostly presented in the form of astronomical tables.

  1. Essays in auction theory

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Maasland, E.

    2012-01-01

    Auction theory is a branch of game theory that considers human behavior in auction markets and the ensuing market outcomes. It is also successfully used as a tool to design real-life auctions. This thesis contains five essays addressing a variety of topics within the realm of auction theory. The

  2. Rhetorical, Metacognitive, and Cognitive Strategies in Teacher Candidates’ Essay Writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Claudio Díaz Larenas

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper reports on a study about the rhetoric, metacognitive, and cognitive strategies pre-service teachers use before and after a process-based writing intervention when completing an argumentative essay. The data were collected through two think-aloud protocols while 21 Chilean English as a foreign language pre-service teachers completed an essay task. The findings show that strategies such as summarizing, reaffirming, and selecting ideas were only evidenced during the post intervention essay, without the use of communication and socio-affective strategies in either of the two essays. All in all, a process-based writing intervention does not only influence the number of times a strategy is used, but also the number of students who employs strategies when writing an essay—two key considerations for the devising of any writing program.

  3. The Early (Feminist) Essays of Victoria Ocampo

    OpenAIRE

    Doris Meyer

    1996-01-01

    This study examines the essays written by Ocampo between 1920 and 1934, prior to the time when she publicly voiced her adhesion to feminism and the rights of women in Argentine society. In these works from her Testimonios in which Ocampo struggles to find her voice as a female writer, the maleable essay serves her need to engage in discursive dialogues from the margins of the literary culture of her time. Both as a woman and a member of the oligarchy, she questions cultural assumptions and ...

  4. Essays and Explorations: Studies in Ideas, Language, and Literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bloomfield, Morton W.

    Seventeen reprinted essays and an unpublished one are contained in this collection and organized under five headings: History of Ideas, Approaches to Medieval Literature, Chaucer and Fourteenth-Century English Literature, Language and Linguistics, and Essay-Reviews. Topics discussed include the origin of the concept of the Seven Cardinal Sins;…

  5. Essays in public economics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seligman, Jason Scott

    2002-01-01

    Three essays in the field of public economics are included in this thesis. Chapter 1 begins this work with an introduction to public economics and places the remaining chapters in context. Like all economic agents, the government must manage its cash position. Chapter 2 considers this activity. Short-term financial requirements cause the government to solicit the market for bills not previously scheduled (Cash Management Bills). Using data from the US Treasury's Proprietary Domestic Finance Database, this chapter shows that these bills have higher costs than normal bills, suggesting that both Treasury and financial markets appreciate that demand is more inelastic for these instruments. In addition, this research identifies several factors that increase finance costs for Treasury in meeting short-term financial need. Chapter 3 explores location choices for generation investment in a re-regulated electricity market. Recently, there have been significant changes in the regulation of electricity in the State of California. These changes may affect generation investment behavior within the State, an important consideration for policy makers. This work identifies the impact of public sector regulatory change on private sector investment outcomes, by comparing the location and scope of electricity generation projects before and after two specific regulatory changes in air quality management and transmission tariff charges, while controlling for expected population growth patterns within the State. Significant changes in location preference are identified using factors for the northern and southern transmission zones, NP15 and SP15, the intermediate zone ZP26, and for areas outside of ISO control. Chapter 4 considers Disability Insurance and individual public pension investment accounts. Current debate on the Social Security Administration's long-term finance of benefits includes proposals for independent private investment via individual accounts. The author investigates

  6. Five essays on fiscal policy, intergenerational welfare and petroleum wealth

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thoegersen, Oe

    1994-12-01

    Motivated by current macro economic problems facing the Norwegian economy, this thesis deals with fiscal policy and the management of petroleum wealth in a small open resource economy. The thesis highlights the fact that considerable parts of the petroleum revenues are collected by the government and studies in particular the interaction between fiscal policy, uncertain petroleum revenues and welfare between generations. Essay 1 is a paper on the calculation of the Norwegian petroleum wealth and surveys economic effects of the development of the petroleum sector and the spending of the petroleum revenues. Essay 2 deals with the effects of uncertain government petroleum revenues on fiscal policy, wealth accumulation and inter generational welfare. In Essay 3 a discussion is given of the effects of oil price risk on international risk sharing. Petroleum importing and exporting countries are considered within OECD-Europe. A possible wealth consumption policy is found to have serious and long-lasting negative effects on the welfare of coming generations, as described in Essay 4. Finally, Essay 5 considers a dynamic dependent economy model extended to incorporate finite horizons of the households and structural adjustment costs in production. 121 refs., 19 figs., 10 tabs.

  7. Three essays on access pricing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sydee, Ahmed Nasim

    In the first essay, a theoretical model is developed to determine the time path of optimal access price in the telecommunications industry. Determining the optimal access price is an important issue in the economics of telecommunications. Setting a high access price discourages potential entrants; a low access price, on the other hand, amounts to confiscation of private property because the infrastructure already built by the incumbent is sunk. Furthermore, a low access price does not give the incumbent incentives to maintain the current network and to invest in new infrastructures. Much of the existing literature on access pricing suffers either from the limitations of a static framework or from the assumption that all costs are avoidable. The telecommunications industry is subject to high stranded costs and, therefore, to address this issue a dynamic model is imperative. This essay presents a dynamic model of one-way access pricing in which the compensation involved in deregulatory taking is formalized and then analyzed. The short run adjustment after deregulatory taking has occurred is carried out and discussed. The long run equilibrium is also analyzed. A time path for the Ramsey price is shown as the correct dynamic price of access. In the second essay, a theoretical model is developed to determine the time path of optimal access price for an infrastructure that is characterized by congestion and lumpy investment. Much of the theoretical literature on access pricing of infrastructure prescribes that the access price be set at the marginal cost of the infrastructure. In proposing this rule of access pricing, the conventional analysis assumes that infrastructure investments are infinitely divisible so that it makes sense to talk about the marginal cost of investment. Often it is the case that investments in infrastructure are lumpy and can only be made in large chunks, and this renders the marginal cost concept meaningless. In this essay, we formalize a model of

  8. Discourse Connector Usage in Argumentative Essays by American and Thai University Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jangarun, Kamolphan; Luksaneeyanawin, Sudaporn

    2016-01-01

    This study investigated the similarities and differences in the use of discourse connectors (DCs) in argumentative essays of American undergraduate students (AMs), Thai with high-English exposure (THHs) and Thai with low-English exposure (THLs). The data of these three groups were collected from 60 essays; 20 essays were from the corpus of…

  9. Essays on Character & Opportunity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Center on Children and Families at Brookings, 2014

    2014-01-01

    These essays provide richer set of writings on the philosophical, empirical and practical issues raised by a focus on character, and in particular its relationship to questions of opportunity. Each one is an intellectual pemmican: sharp and to the point. Two scholars draw attention to the gendered nature of character formation (Segal and Lexmond);…

  10. Discussion of David Thissen's Bad Questions: An Essay Involving Item Response Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wainer, Howard

    2016-01-01

    The usual role of a discussant is to clarify and correct the paper being discussed, but in this case, the author, Howard Wainer, generally agrees with everything David Thissen says in his essay, "Bad Questions: An Essay Involving Item Response Theory." This essay expands on David Thissen's statement that there are typically two principal…

  11. Rethinking the Ph.D. in English. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: English.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lunsford, Andrea Abernethy

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a series of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). The essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. The essay explores the Ph.D. in English and suggests changes the author would make in…

  12. Essays in energy economics: The electricity industry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinez-Chombo, Eduardo

    Electricity demand analysis using cointegration and error-correction models with time varying parameters: The Mexican case. In this essay we show how some flexibility can be allowed in modeling the parameters of the electricity demand function by employing the time varying coefficient (TVC) cointegrating model developed by Park and Hahn (1999). With the income elasticity of electricity demand modeled as a TVC, we perform tests to examine the adequacy of the proposed model against the cointegrating regression with fixed coefficients, as well as against the spuriousness of the regression with TVC. The results reject the specification of the model with fixed coefficients and favor the proposed model. We also show how some flexibility is gained in the specification of the error correction model based on the proposed TVC cointegrating model, by including more lags of the error correction term as predetermined variables. Finally, we present the results of some out-of-sample forecast comparison among competing models. Electricity demand and supply in Mexico. In this essay we present a simplified model of the Mexican electricity transmission network. We use the model to approximate the marginal cost of supplying electricity to consumers in different locations and at different times of the year. We examine how costs and system operations will be affected by proposed investments in generation and transmission capacity given a forecast of growth in regional electricity demands. Decomposing electricity prices with jumps. In this essay we propose a model that decomposes electricity prices into two independent stochastic processes: one that represents the "normal" pattern of electricity prices and the other that captures temporary shocks, or "jumps", with non-lasting effects in the market. Each contains specific mean reverting parameters to estimate. In order to identify such components we specify a state-space model with regime switching. Using Kim's (1994) filtering algorithm

  13. THE STRATEGY OF USING PERSUASIVE ESSAY IN ENGLISH FOR MEDICAL ACADEMIC WRITING

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ellie Setyo Wahyuni

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Writing persuasive essay has the purpose of providing some techniques in organizing the idea and constructing the sentences in coherence. The content of this essay contains the health issue and medical terms. The students of medical faculty are expected to make a good persuasive essay in order to find out the recommendation solution of a health problem through the strategies (1 brainstorming (2 mapping (3 the 5 W’s (4 setting thesis statement (5 providing fact, statistic, and example (5 conclusion. The techniques have improved the student writing as the essays have been evaluated and given positive input on the content and development of paragraphs. This academic writing aims to give some practices for the Medical Faculty students of Hang Tuah University in order to produce a good persuasive essay in term of coherence, sentence structure, and organization.

  14. Three Essays Examining Household Energy Demand and Behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murray, Anthony G.

    This dissertation consists of three essays examining household energy decisions and behavior. The first essay examines the adoption of energy efficient Energy Star home appliances by U.S. households. Program effectiveness requires that consumers be aware of the labeling scheme and also change their purchase decisions based on label information. The first essay examines the factors associated with consumer awareness of the Energy Star label of recently purchased major appliances and the factors associated with the choice of Energy Star labeled appliances. The findings suggest that eliminating identified gaps in Energy Star appliance adoption would result in house electricity cost savings of $164 million per year and associated carbon emission reductions of about 1.1 million metric tons per year. The second essay evaluates household energy security and the effectiveness of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), the single largest energy assistance program available to poor households within the United States. Energy security is conceptually akin to the well-known concept of food security. Rasch models and household responses to energy security questions in the 2005 Residential Energy Consumption Survey are used to generate an energy insecurity index that is consistent with those found in the food insecurity literature. Participating in LIHEAP is found to significantly reduce household energy insecurity score in the index. Further, simulations show that the elimination of the energy assistance safety net currently available to households increases the number of energy insecure house- holds by over 16 percent. The third essay develops a five equation demand system to estimate household own-price, cross-price and income elasticities between electricity, natural gas, food at home, food away from home, and non-durable commodity groups. Household cross-price elasticities between energy and food commodities are of particular importance. Energy price shocks

  15. Essays on financial market integration

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pungulescu, C.

    2009-01-01

    The four essays in this dissertation address these main questions and alternate a general perspective with focused analysis on specific measures of integration and regions, providing several novel answers. First, new relevant proxies are proposed to measure financial market integration. They give

  16. On Voting, Violence, and Health: Essays on Political Economics and Development

    OpenAIRE

    Leon, Gianmarco

    2012-01-01

    The three essays conforming this thesis are representative pieces of my approach to analyzing the causes and consequences of economic underdevelopment. The overaching topic that ties together these essays is role that institutions and culture play in affecting specific behaviors that undermine development. The approach to the questions addressed in each essay is empirical, using data from Per\\'{u} and Sierra Leone, and relies on economic theory to provide a general framework and deepen our un...

  17. The Gulf War: A Critical Essay

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Tzu, Sun

    1992-01-01

    This essay, written by the famous Chinese military theoretician, Sun Tzu, proposes a thesis that ought to provoke considerable discussion among theoreticians in training at the National War College...

  18. Development of a short sample test facility for evaluating superconducting wires

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Singh, M.R.; Kulkarni, D.G.; Sahni, V.C.; Ravikumar, G.; Patel, K.L.

    2002-01-01

    In this paper we describe a short sample test facility we have set up at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). This facility has been used to measure critical currents of NbTi/Cu composite superconducting wires by recording V versus I data at 4.2 K. It offers sample current as large as 1500 A and a transverse magnetic field up to 7.4 T. A power law, V ∼I n( H) is fitted to the resistive transition region to estimate the exponent n, which is a measure of the uniformity of superconducting filaments in composite wires. It is observed that inadequate thermal stabilization of sample wire results in thermal runaway, which limits the V-I data to∼ 2μ V . This in turn affects the reliability of estimated filament uniformity. To mitigate this problem, we have used a sample holder made of OFHC-Cu which enhances thermal stabilization of the sample. With this sample holder, the results of measurements carried out on wires developed by the Atomic Fuel Division, BARC show a high filament uniformity (n ∼ 58). (author)

  19. Essays on oil: project evaluation and investment impact

    OpenAIRE

    Bagh, Dima

    2015-01-01

    This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London This thesis contains three essays related to fixed investment and crude oil. The first essay examines the implications of building a cross-border oil infrastructure project within the context of the bargaining problem (the Nash bargaining solution, and the alternating offer bargain of Rubinstein). We examine the viability of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline project, which is empl...

  20. The Doctorate in Chemistry. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: Chemistry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Breslow, Ronald

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

  1. Essays on globalization. Policies in trade, development, resources and climate change

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kerkelae, L.

    2009-07-01

    This research study on globalization consists of an introduction on the methodology applied, a summary and four independent essays focussing on applied policy research in international trade. The study follows the CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) research tradition. The simulation environment is the publicly available GTAP model. The essays examine the specific topics of trade and aid policies, price liberalization of the Russian energy markets, trade preferences in the sugar sector of the EU and the role of carbon sinks in mitigating climate change. The first essay examines trade and aid policies in Mozambique. The essay analyses the impact of alternative options like trade agreements, aid and trade facilitation. The results suggest that Mozambique has very little to gain from trade agreements or the Doha Round, although some agreements with the EU do yield some benefit. Trade facilitation and aid-for-trade programs on the other hand have the potential for larger benefits. The second essay examines the impact of liberalising RussiaAEs energy sector. The analysis is based on the implicit subsidies in regulated prices of electricity and gas and focuses on the effect of the different taxes and subsidies with respect to welfare and GDP in Russia and abroad. Increases in the price of electricity and gas improve efficiency and shift output from domestic markets to exports. The third essay investigates the impact of liberalising the EUAEs sugar sector by taking into account the complex structure of the EU sugar market and preferences in imports for developing countries. The fourth essay focuses on the effects of including carbon sinks into the analysis of the impacts of the Kyoto agreement. (orig.)

  2. Discriminant analysis of essay, mathematics/science type of essay, college scholastic ability test, and grade point average as predictors of acceptance to a pre-med course at a Korean medical school.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jeong, Geum-Hee

    2008-01-01

    A discriminant analysis was conducted to investigate how an essay, a mathematics/science type of essay, a college scholastic ability test, and grade point average affect acceptance to a pre-med course at a Korean medical school. Subjects included 122 and 385 applicants for, respectively, early and regular admission to a medical school in Korea. The early admission examination was conducted in October 2007, and the regular admission examination was conducted in January 2008. The analysis of early admission data revealed significant F values for the mathematics/science type of essay (51.64; Pgrade point average (10.66; P=0.0014). The analysis of regular admission data revealed the following F values: 28.81 (Pgrade point average, 27.47 (P<0.0001) for college scholastic ability test, 10.67 (P=0.0012) for the essay, and 216.74 (P<0.0001) for the mathematics/science type of essay. Since the mathematics/science type of essay had a strong effect on acceptance, an emphasis on this requirement and exclusion of other kinds of essays would be effective in subsequent entrance examinations for this premed course.

  3. Source-Based Tasks in Writing Independent and Integrated Essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Javad Gholami

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Integrated writing tasks have gained considerable attention in ESL and EFL writing assessment and are frequently needed and used in academic settings and daily life. However, they are very rarely practiced and promoted in writing classes. This paper explored the effects of source-based writing practice on EFL learners’ composing abilities and investigated the probable differences between those tasks and independent writing ones in improving Iranian EFL learners’ essay writing abilities. To this end, a quasi-experimental design was implemented to gauge EFL learners’ writing improvements using a pretest-posttest layout. Twenty female learners taking a TOEFL iBT preparation course were randomly divided into an only-writing group with just independent writing instruction and essay practice, and a hybrid-writing-approach group receiving instruction and practice on independent writing plus source-based essay writing for ten sessions. Based on the findings, the participants with hybrid writing practice outperformed their counterparts in integrated essay tests. Their superior performance was not observed in the case of traditional independent writing tasks. The present study calls for incorporating more source-based writing tasks in writing courses.

  4. The first DC performance test and analysis of CC conductor short sample at ASIPP conductor test facility

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shi Yi; Wu Yu; Liu Huajun; Long Feng; Qian Li; Ren Zhibin; Li Shaolei; Liu Bo; Chen Jinglin

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► In this study the first DC performance experiments of ITER correction coil conductor short sample have been carried out in ASIPP test facility. ► A CC conductor short sample was fabricated and tested to confirm the capability of this test facility for qualification tests of CC conductors. ► There is no obvious impact of cycling on DC performance measurement. ► Those measured results of current sharing temperature are in agreement with the expected results from strand scaling - Abstract: The first DC performance experiments of ITER correction coil (CC) conductor short sample have been carried out in the conductor test facility of Institute of Plasma Physics, CAS (ASIPP) in January this year. Those experiments aim to investigate the DC performance of ITER CC conductor. The tested conductor short sample is bended as a half circle with the diameter of 270 mm to meet the background magnetic field shape. The half circle part of sample is longer than the final twist pitch. The current sharing temperature (T cs ) in the 3.86 T external magnetic field (B ex ), ≤12 kA could be measured including the critical current (I c ) run. There is no obvious impact of 1000 cycles on DC performance. Those measured T cs results are in agreement with the expected results from strand scaling.

  5. Essays on Expressivism

    OpenAIRE

    Toppinen, Teemu

    2014-01-01

    This dissertation consists of five articles plus an introductory essay, the overarching goal being that of defending an expressivist view about normative thought and talk. According to expressivism, the meaning of normative sentences (e.g. 'We ought to cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions,' 'There is more to good life than enjoyment') is to be explained by their expressing broadly practical, 'desire-like,' states of mind, rather than by what they are about, or by their truth-conditions. T...

  6. Writing anxiety: an affective filter for essay writing instruction among ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study which adopted the descriptive research design investigated the relationship between writing anxiety and students' achievement in essay writing. SS2 Students from six schools in Ibadan Metropolis were used for the study. The instruments used were Essay Writing Achievement Test(r=0.81) and Writing Anxiety ...

  7. Essays on the economics of decarbonization and renewable energy support

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jaegemann, Cosima Claudia

    2014-01-01

    The thesis consists of five essays investigating various aspects associated with the decarbonization of Europe's power sector and the politically incentivized expansion of renewable energy generation. The first essay analyzes the economic implications of alternative decarbonization pathways and policy instruments for Europe's power sector up to 2050 and illustrates the importance of ensuring competition between all low-carbon technologies in order to limit the costs of decarbonization. The second essay analyzes the economic inefficiency associated with the concept of grid parity for the case of photovoltaic (PV). In order to both enhance overall welfare and avoid redistributional effects, the indirect financial incentive for in-house PV electricity consumption should be abolished. The third essay discusses the system price effect of wind and solar power generation and illustrates that the decrease in the marginal value of wind and solar power (as a consequence of increased penetration) is already highly relevant for both wind and solar power generation in Germany. The fourth essay adds to the ongoing debate surrounding the cost-efficient achievement of politically implemented renewable energy targets. Renewable energy support schemes that fail to incentivize investors to account for differences in the marginal value of wind and solar power generation are associated with excess costs as they prevent the equalization of net marginal costs across technologies and regions. The fifth essay analyzes the economic value of storage as a function of the overall generation mix and illustrates the economic inefficiency arising from feed-in tariff systems for the special case of thermal energy storage units in concentrating solar power plants.

  8. Essays on the economics of decarbonization and renewable energy support

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jaegemann, Cosima Claudia

    2014-06-05

    The thesis consists of five essays investigating various aspects associated with the decarbonization of Europe's power sector and the politically incentivized expansion of renewable energy generation. The first essay analyzes the economic implications of alternative decarbonization pathways and policy instruments for Europe's power sector up to 2050 and illustrates the importance of ensuring competition between all low-carbon technologies in order to limit the costs of decarbonization. The second essay analyzes the economic inefficiency associated with the concept of grid parity for the case of photovoltaic (PV). In order to both enhance overall welfare and avoid redistributional effects, the indirect financial incentive for in-house PV electricity consumption should be abolished. The third essay discusses the system price effect of wind and solar power generation and illustrates that the decrease in the marginal value of wind and solar power (as a consequence of increased penetration) is already highly relevant for both wind and solar power generation in Germany. The fourth essay adds to the ongoing debate surrounding the cost-efficient achievement of politically implemented renewable energy targets. Renewable energy support schemes that fail to incentivize investors to account for differences in the marginal value of wind and solar power generation are associated with excess costs as they prevent the equalization of net marginal costs across technologies and regions. The fifth essay analyzes the economic value of storage as a function of the overall generation mix and illustrates the economic inefficiency arising from feed-in tariff systems for the special case of thermal energy storage units in concentrating solar power plants.

  9. Transforming the Reserve Component: Four Essays

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Binnendijk, Hans; Baranick, Michael J; Bell, Raymond E., Jr; Cordero, Gina; Duncan, Stephen M; Holshek, Christopher; Wentz, Larry

    2005-01-01

    .... The first essay calls for a fundamental restructuring of the Reserve Component in light of the largest mobilization since the Korean War, which has been fraught with problems in terms of combat...

  10. General And Specific Features In Realizing An Essay In English Language – A Case Study Of Essay On Economic Themes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daliana Ecaterina TASCOVICI

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available The present paper wants to be a systematic and not only a theoretical approach on essays. This type of writing knows several points of view connecting its form, content, specific features and types, rules to be observed in its writing, structures or styles. As we know, it implies freedom of composition, originality, associations of surprising images and propensity for aphorism. We try to frame all its specifications within the economic essay, as economics is a field of exact utterance, where the speaker cannot play with the words and their meaning.

  11. Essays on environmental policies, corruption, and energy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baksi, Soham

    This thesis consists of four essays. The first essay looks at pollution taxation under capital mobility, and analyzes the role of pre-commitment by countries to their pollution tax rate. A polluting firm sells its product in two countries, and can locate and produce in a single country or in both countries. Due to the discrete-choice nature of the firm's location problem, the countries' welfare functions are discontinuous in their pollution tax rate. We show that when the countries cannot pre-commit to their pollution tax, the firm can still engender tax competition between them by strategically locating in both the countries. Moreover, pre-commitment pollution taxation may not be welfare improving for the countries, although it always makes the firm better off. The second essay studies the effect of liberalization on corruption. Corruptible inspectors enforce an environmental regulation on firms, and are monitored by an honest regulator. Liberalization not only increases the variety of goods and the marginal utility of accepting a bribe, but also puts pressure on the regulator to curb corruption. The interaction of these two effects can cause corruption to initially increase with liberalization, and then decrease beyond a threshold. Moreover, equilibrium corruption is lower when the regulator is able to pre-commit to her monitoring frequency. The third essay analyzes optimal labeling (information revelation) procedures for hidden attributes of credence goods. Consumers are heterogeneous in their preference for the hidden attribute, and producers can either self-label their products, or have them certified by a third party. The government can impose self or third-party labeling requirements on either the "green" or the "brown" producers. When corrupt producers can affix spurious labels, the government needs to monitor them. A mandatory self-labeling policy is shown to generally dominate mandatory third-party labeling. The fourth essay develops formulas for

  12. Why Citation Impact is so Important for Tourism Researchers (Essay Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maximiliano E. KORSTANJE

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available During long time academy pondered the productivity of authors as criterion of distinction, but this model seems to be changed to citation impacts. In this short essay review, which is centred in my own experience, we discuss to what an extent the current editorial system is sustainable for the discipline as well as in interests of market to restrict the number of published papers. Nowadays, H-Index which is oft-used as a useful instrument to rank scholars and scientists confers further impact to those scholars who publish few but are highly cited. Readers will see why this model leads to feed editorial monopolies which are ideologically framed to the belief that quality of papers are not associated to their quality but the journal where they are pipelined and published.

  13. An Evaluation of the IntelliMetric[SM] Essay Scoring System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudner, Lawrence M.; Garcia, Veronica; Welch, Catherine

    2006-01-01

    This report provides a two-part evaluation of the IntelliMetric[SM] automated essay scoring system based on its performance scoring essays from the Analytic Writing Assessment of the Graduate Management Admission Test[TM] (GMAT[TM]). The IntelliMetric system performance is first compared to that of individual human raters, a Bayesian system…

  14. Essays in Education and Macroeconomics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herrington, Christopher M.

    2013-01-01

    This dissertation consists of three essays on education and macroeconomics. The first chapter analyzes whether public education financing systems can account for large differences among developed countries in earnings inequality and intergenerational earnings persistence. I first document facts about public education in the U.S. and Norway, which…

  15. Essays on mergers and acquisitions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Faelten, A.I.

    2016-01-01

    Essays on Mergers and Acquisitions" tackles some of the most prominent business challenges related to M&A activity. The Introduction examines the reasons why deals fail through well-known case studies; Chapter 1 presents a new index measuring countries M&A maturity worldwide; Chapter 2 focus on the

  16. Three essays on the effect of wind generation on power system planning and operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Clay Duane

    While the benefits of wind generation are well known, some drawbacks are still being understood as wind power is integrated into the power grid at increasing levels. The primary difference between wind generation and other forms of generation is the intermittent, and somewhat unpredictable, aspect of this resource. The somewhat uncontrollable aspect of wind generation makes it important to consider the relationship between this resource and load, and also how the operation of other non-wind generation resources may be affected. The three essays that comprise this dissertation focus on these and other important issues related to wind generation; leading to an improved understanding of how to better plan for and utilize this resource. The first essay addresses the cost of increased levels of installed wind capacity from both a capacity planning and economic dispatch perspective to arrive at the total system cost of installing a unit of wind capacity. This total includes not only the cost of the wind turbine and associated infrastructure, but also the cost impact an additional unit of wind capacity has on the optimal mix and operation of other generating units in the electricity supply portfolio. The results of the model showed that for all wind expansion scenarios, wind capacity is not cost-effective regardless of the level of the wind production tax credit and carbon prices that were considered. Larger levels of installed wind capacity result in reduced variable cost, but this reduction is not able to offset increases in capital cost, as a unit of installed wind capacity does not result in an equal reduction in other non-wind capacity needs. The second essay develops a methodology to better handle unexpected short term fluctuations in wind generation within the existing power system. The methodology developed in this essay leads to lower expected costs by anticipating and planning for fluctuations in wind generation by focusing on key constraints in the system. The

  17. Essays on the Determinants of Prosocial Behavior in Singapore

    OpenAIRE

    Lim, Daniel

    2015-01-01

    Previous research has sought to explain why people engage in prosocial behavior and undertake activities that are costly to themselves and mostly benefit others, such as volunteering and donating. My dissertation comprises three essays that collectively explore the determinants of prosocial behavior and leverages insights from behavioral economics to design interventions to nudge people to behave more prosocially. The first essay is an observational study that examines how rapid demographic c...

  18. Essays in Industrial Organization: Intermediation, Marketing, and Strategic Pricing

    OpenAIRE

    Wismer, Sebastian

    2014-01-01

    This dissertation deals with certain business strategies that have become particularly relevant with the spread and development of new information technologies. The introduction explains the motivation, discusses different ways of defining the term "two-sided market", and briefly summarizes the subsequent essays. The first essay examines the effects of product information on the pricing and advertising decision of a seller who offers an experience good whose quality is unknown to cons...

  19. Essays on optimal hedging and investment strategies and on derivative pricing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van den Goorbergh, R.W.J.

    2004-01-01

    This dissertation encompasses four essays on various topics within the field of finance. Chapter 1 presents an overview of the contributions of each essay. Chapter 2, titled Risk Aversion, Price Uncertainty, and Irreversible Investments, extends the theory of irreversible investment under

  20. Calculation of uncertainties in influence quantities in biological essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pierre Morel

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Due to the need of showing the reliability of results from biological essays, such as in health and environmental areas, laboratories have been implementing quality systems, particularly ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 17025 (ABNT, 2001, which include as one of the requirements, the calculation of uncertainty in essays results. It is of common knowledge that estimating uncertainty in essays using organisms, such as animal and vegetal species, is difficult, preventing from meeting that requirement in the standard. The paper shows the calculation of uncertainties in influences quantities in these essays as a tool to allow validating the measuring process, by using the essays performed by Rhodia Environmental Impact Analysis Laboratory and IPEN Ecotoxicology Laboratory as examples.Devido à necessidade de demonstrar a confiabilidade dos resultados de ensaios biológicos como, por exemplo, nas áreas de saúde e ambiental, laboratórios vêm implementando sistemas da qualidade, em especial a ABNT NBR ISO/IEC 17025 (ABNT, 2001 que inclui como um dos requisitos o cálculo da incerteza dos resultados dos ensaios. É reconhecidamente difícil de estimar a incerteza de ensaios que utilizam organismos, como com espécies animais e vegetais o que impede, consequentemente, o atendimento deste requisito da norma. O trabalho apresenta o cálculo de incerteza das grandezas de influências nestes ensaios como uma ferramenta que permite validar o processo de medição, utilizando como exemplos aqueles realizados pelos Laboratórios de Análise de Impacto Ambiental da Rhodia e de Ecologia e Ecotoxicologia do IPEN.

  1. Essays on the theory of numbers

    CERN Document Server

    Dedekind, Richard

    1963-01-01

    Two classic essays by great German mathematician: one provides an arithmetic, rigorous foundation for the irrational numbers, the other is an attempt to give the logical basis for transfinite numbers and properties of the natural numbers.

  2. Short version of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI-short) with and without the Future-Negative scale, verified on nationally representative samples

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Košťál, Jaroslav; Klicperová-Baker, Martina; Lukavská, K.; Lukavský, Jiří

    2016-01-01

    Roč. 25, č. 2 (2016), s. 169-192 ISSN 0961-463X Institutional support: RVO:68081740 Keywords : ZTPI * ZTPI-short * time perspective * temporal orientation * representative sample Subject RIV: AN - Psychology Impact factor: 1.206, year: 2016

  3. Transforming the Reserve Component: Four Essays

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Binnendijk, Hans; Baranick, Michael J; Bell, Raymond E., Jr; Cordero, Gina; Duncan, Stephen M; Holshek, Christopher; Wentz, Larry

    2005-01-01

    This volume contains four essays on various aspects of the Reserve Component. We publish it at a time when Reserves are serving overseas at historically high rates and when new missions like homeland security demand their attention...

  4. Pictorial essay: Orbital tuberculosis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Narula, Mahender K; Chaudhary, Vikas; Baruah, Dhiraj; Kathuria, Manoj; Anand, Rama

    2010-01-01

    Tuberculosis of the orbit is rare, even in places where tuberculosis is endemic. The disease may involve soft tissue, the lacrimal gland, or the periosteum or bones of the orbital wall. Intracranial extension, in the form of extradural abscess, and infratemporal fossa extension has been described. This pictorial essay illustrates the imaging findings of nine histopathologically confirmed cases of orbital tuberculosis. All these patients responded to antituberculous treatment

  5. A trial essay about studies of Grief Toward to recovery support for mothers who abuse their children

    OpenAIRE

    遠藤, 野ゆり

    2016-01-01

    This paper is a short essay about studies of Grief which are written by Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, John Bowlby, and Keigo Okonogi. The final aim is to describe parents’, mainly mother’s mechanism of recovery process from their abusing of children. This paper is one piece of this aim. The lag of support for abusing mother seems to be caused by the complexity and difficulty of their mechanism. They often have been abused in their childhood and can’t remember it. The process of recovery is pa...

  6. Guidelines for writing an argumentative essay

    OpenAIRE

    Aleksandra Egurnova

    2014-01-01

    The guidelines below are intended for teachers, professors, students, and the public at large who are interested in the issues of English writing culture. They provide a detailed plan for completing the writing task–writing an argumentative essay.

  7. Determination of short half-life elements in biological, foodstuff, and environmental samples qualitatively by neutron activation analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Syukria Kurniawati; Muhayatun Santoso; Diah Dwiana Lestiani

    2010-01-01

    NAA applications at routine operation power of 15 MW at Multipurpose Reactor GA Siwabessy (MPR-GAS) for sample matrices analysis have been widely applied. However, the results are not optimum for some matrices especially for short half-live elements. Preliminary study of short half-life elements determination in biological, foodstuff, and environmental samples using 1 MW power have been conducted to solve this problem. The samples were irradiated in rabbit system of MPR-GAS for 5 minutes, counted for 200 seconds by HPGe detector, and the spectrum were analyzed further using software Genie 2000 and Bandung NAA Utility. Analysis under 1 MW power on biological and foodstuff samples were capable to detect eight elements: Al, Br, CI, Ca, I, K, Mg, Ti, and Na for biological samples; Al, Br, CI, Ca, I, K, Mg, Mn, and Na for foodstuff samples, while at 15 MW power only three elements (CI, K, Na) were detected. At 1 MW power the counting process is more optimum due to smaller radiation exposure and dead time. For the environmental samples, the number of elements detected by 1 MW and 15 MW powers did not differ significantly. Generally, the results on the three types of samples showed that the elements of short half-life are better detected at 1 MW than that of 15 MW power. Further research needs to be done to obtain the optimum analytical conditions for irradiation and counting time determination. (author)

  8. Essays on Asset Pricing with Financial Frictions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Klingler, Sven

    The first essay focuses on Credit default swap (CDS) premiums of safe sovereigns, that is, the insurance against the default of countries with a low credit risk, like Germany, Japan, or the United States. We motivate the essay by establishing the following two stylized facts. First, we document...... insurance against the default of safe sovereigns? Second, what drives safe-haven CDS premiums if not credit risk?...... between bond yield and risk-free rate, for safe sovereigns. This finding is in opposition to the no-arbitrage theory that CDS premiums and yield spreads should move in lockstep. Motivated by these stylized facts, we investigate the following two questions: First, what are the motives behind purchasing...

  9. Essays on environmental, energy, and natural resource economics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Fan

    My dissertation focuses on examining the interrelationship among the environment, energy and economic development. In the first essay, I explore the effects of increased uncertainty over future output prices, input costs and productivity levels on intertemporal emission permits trading. In a dynamic programming setting, a permit price is a convex function of each of these three sources of uncertainty. Increased uncertainty about future market conditions increases the expected permit price and causes risk-neutral firms to reduce ex ante emissions to smooth marginal abatement costs over time. Empirical analysis shows that increased price volatility induced by electricity market restructuring could explain 8-11% of the allowances banked during Phase I of the U.S. sulfur dioxide trading program. Numerical simulation suggests that high uncertainty may generate substantial initial compliance costs, thereby deterring new entrants and reducing efficiency; sharp emission spikes are also more likely to occur under industry-wide uncertainty shocks. In the second essay, I examine whether electricity restructuring improves the efficiency of U.S. nuclear power generation. Based on the full sample of 73 investor-owned nuclear plants in the United States from 1992 to 1998, I estimate cross-sectional and longitudinal efficiency changes associated with restructuring, at the plant level. Various modeling strategies are presented to deal with the policy endogeneity bias that high cost plants are more likely to be restructured. Overall, I find a strikingly positive relationship between the multiple steps of restructuring and plant operating efficiency. In the third essay, I estimate the economic impact of China's national land conversion program on local farm-dependent economies. The impact of the program on 14 industrial sectors in Gansu provinces are investigated using an input-output model. Due to regulatory restrictions, the agricultural sector cannot automatically expand or shrink

  10. Essays on measurement and evaluation of demand side management programs in the electricity industry, and impacts of firm strategy on stock price in the biotechnology industry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bandres Motola, Miguel A.

    Essay one estimates changes in small business customer energy consumption (kWh) patterns resulting from a seasonally differentiated pricing structure. Econometric analysis leverages cross-sectional time series data across the entire population of affected customers, from 2007 through the present. Observations include: monthly energy usage (kWh), relevant customer segmentations, local daily temperature, energy price, and region-specific economic conditions, among other variables. The study identifies the determinants of responsiveness to seasonal price differentiation. In addition, estimated energy consumption changes occurring during the 2010 summer season are reported for the average customer and in aggregate grouped by relevant customer segments, climate zone, and total customer base. Essay two develops an econometric modeling methodology to evaluate load impacts for short duration demand response events. The study analyzes time series data from a season of direct load control program tests aimed at integrating demand response into the wholesale electricity market. I have combined "fuzzy logic" with binary variables to create "fuzzy indicator variables" that allow for measurement of short duration events while using industry standard model specifications. Typically, binary variables for every hour are applied in load impact analysis of programs dispatched in hourly intervals. As programs evolve towards integration with the wholesale market, event durations become irregular and often occur for periods of only a few minutes. This methodology is innovative in that it conserves the degrees of freedom in the model while allowing for analysis of high frequency data using fixed effects. Essay three examines the effects of strategies, intangibles, and FDA news on the stocks of young biopharmaceutical firms. An event study methodology is used to explore those effects. This study investigates 20,839 announcements from 1990 to 2005. Announcements on drug development

  11. The Ph.D. in Education. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richardson, Virginia

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

  12. Content Analysis of Essays from a Cross-National Survey: Implications for Teaching Strategies in Holocaust Studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McRoy, James J.

    The content of essays written by randomly selected samples of 1500 U.S. and 500 British secondary students on the topic "What have I learned about Adolf Hitler?" were partitioned into theme-related assertions and analyzed. An experimental group of 150 9th- and 11th-grade male students who had studied the Holocaust also contributed papers…

  13. Enhancing Argumentative Essay Writing of Fourth-Grade Students with Learning Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deatline-Buchman, Andria; Jitendra, Asha K.

    2006-01-01

    A within-subject pretest-posttest comparison design was used to explore the effectiveness of a planning and writing intervention in improving the argumentative writing performance of five fourth-grade students with learning disabilities. Students were taught to collaboratively plan and revise their essays and independently write their essays using…

  14. Four essays on the economics of climate change - with a supplement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Torvanger, A.

    1993-01-01

    Climate change has been a main environmental issue over the last decade. The atmospheric concentration of some trace gases are increased through various human activities. Some of these trace gases, the greenhouse gases (GHGs), are transparent to incoming solar radiation, but absorb the infrared radiation from the Earth's surface. Through this mechanism the GHGs are able to induce global warming and climate change, even if their concentration is relatively low. The essays of this dissertation relate to different aspects of the climate change issue. The first essay and the supplement analyze the carbon dioxide emission sources and the distribution of emissions. In the first essay, ''Manufacturing sector carbon dioxide emissions in nine OECD countries 1973-87'', the relation between carbon dioxide emissions in manufacturing and output, structure, energy source mix and technology is discussed. In the supplement, ''Global, regional and national carbon dioxide emissions 1949-86'', the geographical distribution and time series of emissions are described. The next three essays relate to various aspects of climate policy. In ''An optimal growth model for Norway with a carbon dioxide emissions constraint'', the focus is on the economic consequences of an emissions abatement policy implemented as a carbon tax on fossil fuels. The topic of the subsequent essay, ''Efficient contracts in a game of nations pursuing greenhouse gas emissions abatement'', is the design and enforcement by a policing institution of efficient contracts to reduce GHG emissions under country moral hazard. Finally, in the last essay, ''Uncertain change in an intergenerational planning model'', some long-term aspects of climate policy such as intergenerational equity and uncertainty are analyzed

  15. Dance for two selected essays

    CERN Document Server

    Lightman, Alan

    1996-01-01

    The author of Einstein's Dreams now presents a collection of essays, written over the past 20 years, that displays his genius for bringing literary and scientific concerns into ringing harmony. Sometimes provocative, sometimes fanciful, always elegantly conceived and written, these meditations offer readers a fascinating look into the creative compulsions shared by the scientist and the artist. Reading tour.

  16. What Do Education Students Think about Their Ability to Write Essays?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quintero, Gisela Consolación

    2018-01-01

    The present study reflects the results obtained from a diagnosis carried out with Education students concerning the writing of academic essays. The objective was to identify the perceptions that Comprehensive Education students have about their ability to write academic essays. A descriptive cross-sectional research study was conducted at a single…

  17. Essays on the frontiers of modern astrophysics and cosmology

    CERN Document Server

    Mathew, Santhosh

    2014-01-01

    This book is a collection of engaging and intriguing essays that describe an intellectual journey from the beginning to the end of universe. It is the product of an ongoing effort to know our place in the universe and share with readers the underpinnings of the magnificent cosmos where we are given a chance to exist only very briefly. The essays incorporate a group of challenging ideas that modern physics and cosmology are struggling to understand, in a unique way that incorporates mythological, religious, and philosophical perspectives. The author relies on a simple and powerful philosophy that we are part of the universe and the universe is part of us.   This wonderful collection of essays provides a journey through the current frontiers of modern astrophysics and cosmology. Its depiction of the most important unsolved mysteries about our place in the Universe is peppered with original insights and philosophical perspectives, making it an intellectual treat. – Avi Loeb, Professor, Harvard University Chai...

  18. The use of an essay examination in evaluating medical students during the surgical clerkship.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smart, Blair J; Rinewalt, Daniel; Daly, Shaun C; Janssen, Imke; Luu, Minh B; Myers, Jonathan A

    2016-01-01

    Third-year medical students are graded according to subjective performance evaluations and standardized tests written by the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME). Many "poor" standardized test takers believe the heavily weighted NBME does not evaluate their true fund of knowledge and would prefer a more open-ended forum to display their individualized learning experiences. Our study examined the use of an essay examination as part of the surgical clerkship evaluation. We retrospectively examined the final surgical clerkship grades of 781 consecutive medical students enrolled in a large urban academic medical center from 2005 to 2011. We examined final grades with and without the inclusion of the essay examination for all students using a paired t test and then sought any relationship between the essay and NBME using Pearson correlations. Final average with and without the essay examination was 72.2% vs 71.3% (P essay examination increasing average scores by .4, 1.8, and 2.5 for those receiving high pass, pass, and fail, respectively. The essay decreased the average score for those earning an honors by .4. Essay scores were found to overall positively correlate with the NBME (r = .32, P essay examination as part of the third-year surgical core clerkship final did increase the final grade a modest degree, especially for those with lower scores who may identify themselves as "poor" standardized test takers. A more open-ended forum may allow these students an opportunity to overcome this deficiency and reveal their true fund of surgical knowledge. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Horizontal transfer of short and degraded DNA has evolutionary implications for microbes and eukaryotic sexual reproduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Overballe-Petersen, Søren; Willerslev, Eske

    2014-10-01

    Horizontal gene transfer in the form of long DNA fragments has changed our view of bacterial evolution. Recently, we discovered that such processes may also occur with the massive amounts of short and damaged DNA in the environment, and even with truly ancient DNA. Although it presently remains unclear how often it takes place in nature, horizontal gene transfer of short and damaged DNA opens up the possibility for genetic exchange across distinct species in both time and space. In this essay, we speculate on the potential evolutionary consequences of this phenomenon. We argue that it may challenge basic assumptions in evolutionary theory; that it may have distant origins in life's history; and that horizontal gene transfer should be viewed as an evolutionary strategy not only preceding but causally underpinning the evolution of sexual reproduction. © 2014 The Authors. BioEssays Published by WILEY Periodicals, Inc.

  20. Can that be right? essays on experiment, evidence, and science

    CERN Document Server

    Franklin, Allan

    1999-01-01

    In this collection of essays Allan Franklin defends the view that science provides us with knowledge about the world which is based on experimental evidence and on reasoned and critical discussion. In short, he argues that science is a reasonable enterprise. He begins with detailed studies of four episodes from the history of modern physics: (1) the early attempts to detect gravity waves, (2) how the physics community decided that a proposed new elementary particle, 17-keV neutrino, did not exist, (3) a sequence of experiments on K meson decay, and (4) the origins of the Fifth Force hypothesis, a proposed modification of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. The case studies are then used to examine issues such as how discord between experimental results is resolved, calibration of an experimental apparatus and its legitimate use in validating an experimental result, and how experimental results provide reasonable grounds for belief in both the truth of physical theories and in the existence of the entities ...

  1. Demise of the essay question.

    OpenAIRE

    Tombleson, P.

    1990-01-01

    Psychometric studies of the essay paper in 1988 showed this instrument to have unacceptably low levels of reliability and generalizability. Furthermore, factor analysis showed that the paper's perceived functions could not be supported statistically. It was decided to discontinue the paper and introduce a replacement which would reflect the line of development envisaged by the College in the 1990s.

  2. ‘Everybody’s Doing It’ : Essays on trust, social norms and integration

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Smerdon, D.C.

    2017-01-01

    This thesis investigates three topics at the intersection of behavioural and development economics, using a combination of experiments, econometric analysis and mathematical theory. The essays are borne out of topical questions with important policy implications. The first essay seeks to answer why

  3. Essays in renewable energy and emissions trading

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kneifel, Joshua D.

    Environmental issues have become a key political issue over the past forty years and has resulted in the enactment of many different environmental policies. The three essays in this dissertation add to the literature of renewable energy policies and sulfur dioxide emissions trading. The first essay ascertains which state policies are accelerating deployment of non-hydropower renewable electricity generation capacity into a states electric power industry. As would be expected, policies that lead to significant increases in actual renewable capacity in that state either set a Renewables Portfolio Standard with a certain level of required renewable capacity or use Clean Energy Funds to directly fund utility-scale renewable capacity construction. A surprising result is that Required Green Power Options, a policy that merely requires all utilities in a state to offer the option for consumers to purchase renewable energy at a premium rate, has a sizable impact on non-hydro renewable capacity in that state. The second essay studies the theoretical impacts fuel contract constraints have on an electricity generating unit's compliance costs of meeting the emissions compliance restrictions set by Phase I of the Title IV SO2 Emissions Trading Program. Fuel contract constraints restrict a utility's degrees of freedom in coal purchasing options, which can lead to the use of a more expensive compliance option and higher compliance costs. The third essay analytically and empirically shows how fuel contract constraints impact the emissions allowance market and total electric power industry compliance costs. This paper uses generating unit-level simulations to replicate results from previous studies and show that fuel contracts appear to explain a large portion (65%) of the previously unexplained compliance cost simulations. Also, my study considers a more appropriate plant-level decisions for compliance choices by analytically analyzing the plant level decision-making process to

  4. Academic Essay Writing as Imitative Problem Solving: Examples from Distance Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robertson, Sydney Ian

    2014-01-01

    Students in tertiary education are often faced with the prospect of writing an essay on a topic they know nothing about in advance. In distance learning institutions, essays are a common method of assessment in the UK, and specified course texts remain the main sources of information the students have. How do students use a source text to…

  5. Metadiscourse in persuasive essays by elementary students in South Korea and the US

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kim Il-Hee

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This study investigated metadiscourse in the persuasive essays of fourth graders from both urban and rural communities: 224 students in South Korea and 188 in the US. Each student was asked to write a persuasive essay in his or her native Korean or English in response to a story not previously read or discussed. Analysis with a taxonomy developed by Hyland (2004 indicated significant differences in the metadiscourse by country. In terms of interactive metadiscourse, South Korean students used more sentence-level transitions than U.S. students, who used more frame markers and endophoric markers. With regard to interactional metadiscourse, U.S. students used more hedges, boosters, engagement markers, and self-mentions in their essays. This study also compared the students′ essays by the type of community in which the writers lived. In the US the essays of students in rural communities contained more hedges, whereas those of students in urban areas included significantly more self-mentions. In South Korea, no significant difference was detected in the metadiscourse of students living in rural and urban areas.

  6. Cosmopolitanism and peace in Kant's essay on 'Perpetual Peace'

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Huggler, Jørgen

    2010-01-01

    Immanuel Kant's essay on Perpetual Peace (1795/96) contains a rejection of the idea of a world government (earlier advocated by Kant himself). In connexion with a substantial argument for cosmopolitan rights based on the human body and its need for a space on the surface of the Earth, Kant presents...... the most rigorous philosophical formulation ever given of the limitations of the cosmopolitan law. In this contribution, Kant's essay is analysed and the reasons he gives for these restrictions discussed in relation to his main focus: to project a realistic path to perpetual peace....

  7. Background estimation in short-wave region during determination of total sample composition by x-ray fluorescence method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Simakov, V.A.; Kordyukov, S.V.; Petrov, E.N.

    1988-01-01

    Method of background estimation in short-wave spectral region during determination of total sample composition by X-ray fluorescence method is described. 13 types of different rocks with considerable variations of base composition and Zr, Nb, Th, U content below 7x10 -3 % are investigated. The suggested method of background accounting provides for a less statistical error of the background estimation than direct isolated measurement and reliability of its determination in a short-wave region independent on the sample base. Possibilities of suggested method for artificial mixtures conforming by the content of main component to technological concemtrates - niobium, zirconium, tantalum are estimated

  8. Reflections on Doctoral Education in Chemistry. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: Chemistry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwiram, Alvin L.

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

  9. Drafting and acting on feedback supports student learning when writing essay assignments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Freestone, Nicholas

    2009-06-01

    A diverse student population is a relatively recent feature of the higher education system in the United Kingdom. Consequently, it may be thought that more "traditional" types of assessment based around essay writing skills for science undergraduates may be of decreasing value and relevance to contemporary students. This article describes a study in which the process of feedback on, and associated redrafting of, an essay was closely supervised to improve essay writing skills and subsequent exam performance. The results of this study show that students can significantly improve their learning and academic performance, as assessed by final examination mark, by a process that more closely mimics a "real-world" situation of review and redrafting. Additionally, the data show that students benefit from feedback only when this is used appropriately by the student. The article also discusses the continuing importance and relevance of essay writing skills so that writing, and acting upon feedback to do with that writing, remains an integral part of the process of learning.

  10. Essays on pricing electricity and electricity derivatives in deregulated markets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Popova, Julia

    2008-10-01

    This dissertation is composed of four essays on the behavior of wholesale electricity prices and their derivatives. The first essay provides an empirical model that takes into account the spatial features of a transmission network on the electricity market. The spatial structure of the transmission grid plays a key role in determining electricity prices, but it has not been incorporated into previous empirical models. The econometric model in this essay incorporates a simple representation of the transmission system into a spatial panel data model of electricity prices, and also accounts for the effect of dynamic transmission system constraints on electricity market integration. Empirical results using PJM data confirm the existence of spatial patterns in electricity prices and show that spatial correlation diminishes as transmission lines become more congested. The second essay develops and empirically tests a model of the influence of natural gas storage inventories on the electricity forward premium. I link a model of the effect of gas storage constraints on the higher moments of the distribution of electricity prices to a model of the effect of those moments on the forward premium. Empirical results using PJM data support the model's predictions that gas storage inventories sharply reduce the electricity forward premium when demand for electricity is high and space-heating demand for gas is low. The third essay examines the efficiency of PJM electricity markets. A market is efficient if prices reflect all relevant information, so that prices follow a random walk. The hypothesis of random walk is examined using empirical tests, including the Portmanteau, Augmented Dickey-Fuller, KPSS, and multiple variance ratio tests. The results are mixed though evidence of some level of market efficiency is found. The last essay investigates the possibility that previous researchers have drawn spurious conclusions based on classical unit root tests incorrectly applied to

  11. Essays on alternative energy policies affecting the US transportation sector

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Rear, Eric G.

    This dissertation encompasses three essays evaluating the impacts of different policies targeting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fuel demands, etc. of the transportation sector. Though there are some similarities across the three chapters, each essay stands alone as an independent work. The 2010 US EPA MARKAL model is used in each essay to evaluate policy effects. Essay 1 focuses on the recent increases in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, and the implications of a "rebound effect." These increases are compared to a carbon tax generating similar reductions in system-wide emissions. As anticipated, the largest reductions in fuel use by light-duty vehicles (LDV) and emissions are achieved under CAFE. Consideration of the rebound effect does little to distort CAFE benefits. Our work validates many economists' belief that a carbon tax is a more efficient approach. However, because the tax takes advantage of cheaper abatement opportunities in other sectors, reductions in transportation emissions will be much lower than what we observe with CAFE. Essay 2 compares CAFE increases with what some economists suggest would be a much more "efficient" alternative -- a system-wide oil tax internalizing some environmental externalities. Because oil taxes are likely to be implemented in addition to CAFE standards, we consider a combined policy case reflecting this. Our supplementary analysis approximates the appropriate tax rates to produce similar reductions in oil demands as CAFE (CAFE-equivalent tax rates). We discover that taxes result in greater and more cost-effective reductions in system-wide emissions and net oil imports than CAFE. The current fuel tax system is compared to three versions of a national vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax charged to all LDVs in Essay 3. VMT taxes directly charge motorists for each mile driven and help to correct the problem of eroding tax revenues given the failure of today's fuel taxes to adjust with inflation. Results

  12. Assessing the use of multiple sources in student essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hastings, Peter; Hughes, Simon; Magliano, Joseph P; Goldman, Susan R; Lawless, Kimberly

    2012-09-01

    The present study explored different approaches for automatically scoring student essays that were written on the basis of multiple texts. Specifically, these approaches were developed to classify whether or not important elements of the texts were present in the essays. The first was a simple pattern-matching approach called "multi-word" that allowed for flexible matching of words and phrases in the sentences. The second technique was latent semantic analysis (LSA), which was used to compare student sentences to original source sentences using its high-dimensional vector-based representation. Finally, the third was a machine-learning technique, support vector machines, which learned a classification scheme from the corpus. The results of the study suggested that the LSA-based system was superior for detecting the presence of explicit content from the texts, but the multi-word pattern-matching approach was better for detecting inferences outside or across texts. These results suggest that the best approach for analyzing essays of this nature should draw upon multiple natural language processing approaches.

  13. Development and Psychometric Properties of the Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay Scale

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sharon A. Gutman

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available The purpose was to describe the development and psychometric properties of the Emotional Intelligence Admission Essay scale. The authors developed an admission essay question and rating scale designed to provide information about applicants’ emotional intelligence (EI. Content validity, convergent validity, interrater reliability, and internal consistency were established. The scale was also examined to determine if it could discriminate between students with and without professional behavior problems in the academic and fieldwork settings. Content validity was found to be high by a panel of three experts in EI (content validity index = 1.0. Convergent validity with the Assessing Emotions Scale was moderate (r = .46, p < .02. Interrater reliability between two trained faculty raters was high (ICC = .91, p < .000. Internal consistency of the scale was high with a Cronbach’s alpha of .95. This version of the scale was not able to discriminate between students with and without professional behavior problems. The moderate to strong psychometric properties suggest that the EI Admission Essay Scale has the ability to provide information about applicants’ EI. The wording of the essay question must be modified to better instruct applicants to address interpersonal conflict.

  14. Essays on Crowdfunding: Exploring the Funding and Post-Funding Phases and Outcomes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan-Osuala, Onochie

    2017-01-01

    In the recent years, crowdfunding (a phenomenon where individuals collectively contribute money to back different goals and projects through the internet) has been gaining a lot of attention especially for its socio-economic impact. This dissertation explores this phenomenon in three distinct but related essays. The first essay explores the nature…

  15. Sexual Essays

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Giles, James

    Through a series of interrelated essays, this book explores fundamental issues concerning gender, sexual and romantic attraction, sexual desire and fantasies, the sexual positions, age dysphoria, and the role of naked skin in human sexuality. It does so by exploring experiential, social, biological...... on sex. It is further argued that sexual desire is an existential need based on the experience of having a gendered body. A case study of age dysphoria is presented showing how the conclusions concerning concerning gender and desire apply in an atypical case. The body's fundamental role in sexuality......, and evolutionary aspects of sexual life. The author criticizes several popular views, rejecting both social constructionist accounts of gender and social constructionist and biological accounts of sexual desire. It is argued instead that gender roles and gender are often confused and that gender itself is based...

  16. Short torch design for direct liquid sample introduction using conventional and micro-nebulizers for plasma spectrometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montaser, Akbar [Potomac, MD; Westphal, Craig S [Landenberg, PA; Kahen, Kaveh [Montgomery Village, MD; Rutkowski, William F [Arlington, VA

    2008-01-08

    An apparatus and method for providing direct liquid sample introduction using a nebulizer are provided. The apparatus and method include a short torch having an inner tube and an outer tube, and an elongated adapter having a cavity for receiving the nebulizer and positioning a nozzle tip of the nebulizer a predetermined distance from a tip of the outer tube of the short torch. The predetermined distance is preferably about 2-5 mm.

  17. Space, Time, Matter, and Form Essays on Aristotle's Physics

    CERN Document Server

    Bostock, David

    2006-01-01

    Space, Time, Matter, and Form collects ten of David Bostock's essays on themes from Aristotle's Physics, four of them published here for the first time. The first five papers look at issues raised in the first two books of the Physics, centred on notions of matter and form, and the idea of substance as what persists through change. They also range over other of Aristotle's scientific works, such as his biology and psychology and the account of change in his De Generatione et Corruptione. The volume's remaining essays examine themes in later books of the Physics, including infinity, place, time

  18. Essays in general relativity a Festschrift for Abraham Taub

    CERN Document Server

    Tipler, Frank J

    1981-01-01

    Essays in General Relativity: A Festschrift for Abraham Taub is collection of essays to honor Professor Abraham H. Taub on the occasion of his retirement from the mathematics faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. Relativistic hydrodynamics has always been a subject dear to Taub's heart. In fact, many basic results on special relativistic fluid flows are due to him, and he has been a major contributor to the study of fluid flows near shocks. The book contains 16 chapters and begins with a discussion of a geometrical approach to general relativity. This is followed by separate cha

  19. Three essays in risky behaviors

    OpenAIRE

    Sampaio, Mafalda

    2012-01-01

    A PhD Dissertation, presented as part of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the NOVA - School of Business and Economics This dissertation consists of three essays on the relationship between risky behaviors and social environment, including the strategic construction of conversational networks to discuss HIV related issues, the impact of social stigma on risky behaviors, and how subjective expectations from parents can influence childhood obesity. Underst...

  20. Comparing Postsecondary Marketing Student Performance on Computer-Based and Handwritten Essay Tests

    Science.gov (United States)

    Truell, Allen D.; Alexander, Melody W.; Davis, Rodney E.

    2004-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine if there were differences in postsecondary marketing student performance on essay tests based on test format (i.e., computer-based or handwritten). Specifically, the variables of performance, test completion time, and gender were explored for differences based on essay test format. Results of the study…

  1. Associated Effects of Automated Essay Evaluation Software on Growth in Writing Quality for Students with and without Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Joshua

    2017-01-01

    The present study examined growth in writing quality associated with feedback provided by an automated essay evaluation system called PEG Writing. Equal numbers of students with disabilities (SWD) and typically-developing students (TD) matched on prior writing achievement were sampled (n = 1196 total). Data from a subsample of students (n = 655)…

  2. A Strategy for Detection of Inconsistency in Evaluation of Essay Type Answers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shukla, Archana; Chaudhary, Banshi D.

    2014-01-01

    The quality of evaluation of essay type answer books involving multiple evaluators for courses with large number of enrollments is likely to be affected due to heterogeneity in experience, expertise and maturity of evaluators. In this paper, we present a strategy to detect anomalies in evaluation of essay type answers by multiple evaluators based…

  3. An Analysis of the Language of Attribution in University Students' Academic Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jabulani, Sibanda

    2014-01-01

    The study reports on challenges related to the use of the language of attribution in academic essay writing by Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) students at Rhodes University, as a microcosm of similar challenges faced by university students elsewhere. The study content-analysed 150 essays written by 50 PGCE students taking the course…

  4. Relations between scripted online peer feedback processes and quality of written argumentative essay

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Noroozi, Omid; Biemans, Harm; Mulder, Martin

    2016-01-01

    Teachers often complain about the quality of students' written essays in higher education. This study explores the relations between scripted online peer feedback processes and quality of written argumentative essay as they occur in an authentic learning situation with direct practical relevance.

  5. Use of X-ray essay and fluoroscopy in the armament industry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bohnsack, G.

    1989-01-01

    Of the nondestructive testing the process of test by radiography has a special place. With view to great variety of problems of essays in the armament industry, the X-Ray radiography has excellent possibilities of testing, that not possible, for example, with ultrasonography. Different possibilities that the X-ray radiography offer to essays of grenade and blasting cap, through practice examples described case to case are presented. (V.R.B.)

  6. French Higher Education: A Cartoon Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, Matthew Henry

    2012-01-01

    In this cartoon essay, the author shares his experience from a travel to Paris to see the French higher education system. From his travel, he learned that in France, "degree" inflation may be an issue, but not grade inflation. On the flight home, the author reflects how French and American academics answer one question about the state of…

  7. The Effects of Browse Time on the Internet on Students' Essay Scores

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doan, Kim; Bloomfield, Aaron

    2014-01-01

    This study examined how 30 minutes of search time on the Web affected students' essay scores in response to a writing prompt. Expository essays were obtained from 49 fourth- and fifth-grade students enrolled in an elementary school in Virginia, in the United States. Students were placed by random assignment into three groups with the same writing…

  8. Essays in Empirical Asset Pricing

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rzeznik, Aleksandra

    This thesis consists of three essays investigating financial and real estate markets and identifying a relationship between them. A 2008 financial crises provides a perfect example of sizeable interactions between US housing market and equity prices, where a negative shock to house prices trigger...... a word-wide recession. Therefore, understanding forces driving investors behaviour and preferences, which in turn affect asset prices in both equity and housing market are of great interest....

  9. How to improve nuclear security worldwide: Three young women win IAEA essay contest

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Jeremy

    2016-01-01

    Three essays that provided actionable and innovative recommendations to strengthen nuclear security through stronger border controls, closer international cooperation and public education won the IAEA’s first ever nuclear security essay contest. In preparation for the International Conference on Nuclear Security: Commitments and Actions, the IAEA invited students and young professionals to submit essays focusing on challenges and recommendations to strengthen nuclear security. A panel of experts from the IAEA and the International Nuclear Security Education Network selected three winners from among the 353 submissions received. The winners will present their papers at the conference, taking place in Vienna in December 2016

  10. How to improve nuclear security worldwide: Three young women win IAEA essay contest

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Jeremy

    2016-01-01

    Three essays that provided actionable and innovative recommendations to strengthen nuclear security through stronger border controls, closer international cooperation and public education won the IAEA’s first ever nuclear security essay contest. In preparation for the International Conference on Nuclear Security: Commitments and Actions, the IAEA invited students and young professionals to submit essays focusing on challenges and recommendations to strengthen nuclear security. A panel of experts from the IAEA and the International Nuclear Security Education Network selected three winners from among the 353 submissions received. The winners will present their papers at the conference, taking place in Vienna in December 2016.

  11. Proposing a Wiki-Based Technique for Collaborative Essay Writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mabel Ortiz Navarrete

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims at proposing a technique for students learning English as a foreign language when they collaboratively write an argumentative essay in a wiki environment. A wiki environment and collaborative work play an important role within the academic writing task. Nevertheless, an appropriate and systematic work assignment is required in order to make use of both. In this paper the proposed technique when writing a collaborative essay mainly attempts to provide the most effective way to enhance equal participation among group members by taking as a base computer mediated collaboration. Within this context, the students’ role is clearly defined and individual and collaborative tasks are explained.

  12. The Camouflage of the Sacred in the Short Fiction of Hemingway

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zaid Ali

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This essay examines the short fiction of Ernest Hemingway in the light of Mircea Eliade’s notion of the camouflage of the sacred and the larval survival of original spiritual meaning. A subterranean love pulsates beneath the terse dialogue of Hemingway’s characters whose inner life we glimpse only obliquely. In the short play (“Today Is Friday” and four short stories (“The Killers,” “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” “Old Man at the Bridge,” and “The Light of the World,” discussed here, light imagery, biblical allusions, and the figure of Christ, reveal a hidden imaginary universe. This sacral dimension has been largely overlooked by critics who dwell on the ostensible spiritual absence that characterizes Hemingway’s fiction.

  13. The Mathematics Doctorate: A Time for Change? Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: Mathematics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, Tony F.

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

  14. Essays on household time allocation decisions in a collective household model

    OpenAIRE

    Silvennoinen, Heidi

    2008-01-01

    This thesis considers the consequences of traditional division of labour in households in a setting where spouses are allowed to have distinct preferences. This approach leads to different results compared to the traditional unitary approach and is better equipped to take into consideration gender related issues of household decision making. The thesis consists of three theoretical essays where the household production theory is applied in the collective household model. The first essay ...

  15. Biotechnology essay competition: biotechnology and sustainable food practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Judy; Schoeb, Helena; Lee, Gina

    2013-06-01

    Biotechnology Journal announces our second biotechnology essay competition with the theme "biotechnology and sustainable food practices", open to all undergraduate students. Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  16. Solving the Students’ Problems in Writing Argumentative Essay Through the Provision of Planning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lestari Setyowati

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Most Indonesian students who are learning English often consider writing as not only the most difficult skill to master, but also a demanding activity. To help them cope these problems, the application of planning in the writing process seems to be a solution. This study attempts to find out howdifferent planning formats can improve EFL students’ writing performance in argumentative essays. The subjects of the studywere the fourth semester students taking essay writing class. The research was conducted from May to June 2015, consisting of three cycles in Classroom Action Research design by using different planning types, namely rough drafting and outlining strategy in which each cycle consisted of two meetings.The students’ compositions were measured by using primary trait scoring rubric for argumentative essay. The result of the study shows that the provision of planning is effective to improve the students’ performance in writing argumentative essay. The effectiveness of different types planningdepends on the students’ preference of which to use.

  17. Review Essay: From Local Practices to Public Knowledge: Action Research as Scientific Contribution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joel Martí

    2008-07-01

    Full Text Available In recent years action research has been gradually introduced into academic thought, giving impetus to contributions such as The Action Research Dissertation, specifically aimed at doing and reporting doctoral research based on this methodology. Beyond purely instrumental aspects (contributing criteria and tools for the execution of dissertations through action research, the book raises some issues that play a fundamental role in assessing action research at the university level: its epistemological bases, researchers' positionality, quality criteria, and the ways in which the process is narrated. This review essay introduces the debate (Section 1, reviews the chapters of the book (Section 2, and notes its contributions to this ongoing discussion and where it falls short, and, more generally, on the relation between universities, action research, and social practices (Section 3. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs080320

  18. Essays on energy, equity, and the environment in developing countries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Israel, Debra Kim

    1999-11-01

    The essays in this dissertation explore different environmental and public policy issues relevant to developing countries. Essay I examines household-level survey responses to the question "How willing would you be to pay somewhat higher taxes to the government if you knew the money would be spent to protect the environment and prevent land, water and air pollution?" Specifically, for twelve developing and three developed countries included in the survey, the empirical relationships among willingness to pay for environmental quality, relative household income and national income are investigated. The results indicate that when the effects of household and national income are combined, households with below-average income in low-income countries are less willing to pay for environmental protection than those with above-average income in high-income countries. Furthermore, willingness to pay for environmental protection increases more significantly with relative household income than with national income. Essay II uses data from urban Bolivia to study the determinants of household fuel choice, an important link between deforestation and indoor air pollution in developing countries. In particular, the effects of fixed fuel costs, income growth, and female earned income on household fuel choice are examined. The results imply that reduction in firewood use in developing countries is not likely to occur simply as the result of income growth. The essay discusses possible policy implications based on the results that fixed fuel costs appear to be a deterrent to switching to a cleaner fuel and households with female earned income seem less likely to use firewood than other households. Essay III analyzes the equity implications of the elimination of fuel subsidies in the 1985 Bolivian economic reforms. An analysis of the direct static burden shows that while the elimination of gasoline subsidies was progressively distributed, the elimination of LPG and kerosene subsidies

  19. Essays on Entrepreneurship and Innovation

    OpenAIRE

    Queiro, Francisco

    2015-01-01

    These essays investigate the role of entrepreneurial human capital as a driver of innovation and growth. In the first chapter, I estimate the effect of manager education on firm employment growth using administrative panel data on the universe of firms in Portugal between 1995 and 2009. I exploit manager changes and switches between management and other occupations to account for unobserved firm and manager characteristics as well as selection into management. I find that a year of manager sc...

  20. Five essays in property valuation

    OpenAIRE

    Yang, Zan

    2000-01-01

    This doctoral thesis consists of five self-contained essayspresented to the Faculty Board of the Royal Institute ofTechnology. Property valuation is a central issue that forms acommon thread in the analysis in these essays. In the thesisproperty is considered in a mixed asset context in an attemptto build a bridge between valuation, property investment andfinancial theory. The object of the thesis is to value propertyfor finance, sales and purchases and investment. Theinvestigation of the the...

  1. Essays on mergers and acquisitions

    OpenAIRE

    Faelten, A.I.

    2016-01-01

    Essays on Mergers and Acquisitions" tackles some of the most prominent business challenges related to M&A activity. The Introduction examines the reasons why deals fail through well-known case studies; Chapter 1 presents a new index measuring countries M&A maturity worldwide; Chapter 2 focus on the importance of corporate governance when conducting deals in unknown territories; whilst Chapter 3 and 4 conduct research on companies’ decision to tap capital markets and their subsequent M&A acti...

  2. Essays in real-time forecasting

    OpenAIRE

    Liebermann, Joelle

    2012-01-01

    This thesis contains three essays in the field of real-time econometrics, and more particularlyforecasting.The issue of using data as available in real-time to forecasters, policymakers or financialmarkets is an important one which has only recently been taken on board in the empiricalliterature. Data available and used in real-time are preliminary and differ from ex-postrevised data, and given that data revisions may be quite substantial, the use of latestavailable instead of real-time can s...

  3. Automated Essay Grading using Machine Learning Algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramalingam, V. V.; Pandian, A.; Chetry, Prateek; Nigam, Himanshu

    2018-04-01

    Essays are paramount for of assessing the academic excellence along with linking the different ideas with the ability to recall but are notably time consuming when they are assessed manually. Manual grading takes significant amount of evaluator’s time and hence it is an expensive process. Automated grading if proven effective will not only reduce the time for assessment but comparing it with human scores will also make the score realistic. The project aims to develop an automated essay assessment system by use of machine learning techniques by classifying a corpus of textual entities into small number of discrete categories, corresponding to possible grades. Linear regression technique will be utilized for training the model along with making the use of various other classifications and clustering techniques. We intend to train classifiers on the training set, make it go through the downloaded dataset, and then measure performance our dataset by comparing the obtained values with the dataset values. We have implemented our model using java.

  4. Creel survey sampling designs for estimating effort in short-duration Chinook salmon fisheries

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCormick, Joshua L.; Quist, Michael C.; Schill, Daniel J.

    2013-01-01

    Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha sport fisheries in the Columbia River basin are commonly monitored using roving creel survey designs and require precise, unbiased catch estimates. The objective of this study was to examine the relative bias and precision of total catch estimates using various sampling designs to estimate angling effort under the assumption that mean catch rate was known. We obtained information on angling populations based on direct visual observations of portions of Chinook Salmon fisheries in three Idaho river systems over a 23-d period. Based on the angling population, Monte Carlo simulations were used to evaluate the properties of effort and catch estimates for each sampling design. All sampling designs evaluated were relatively unbiased. Systematic random sampling (SYS) resulted in the most precise estimates. The SYS and simple random sampling designs had mean square error (MSE) estimates that were generally half of those observed with cluster sampling designs. The SYS design was more efficient (i.e., higher accuracy per unit cost) than a two-cluster design. Increasing the number of clusters available for sampling within a day decreased the MSE of estimates of daily angling effort, but the MSE of total catch estimates was variable depending on the fishery. The results of our simulations provide guidelines on the relative influence of sample sizes and sampling designs on parameters of interest in short-duration Chinook Salmon fisheries.

  5. STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR REFLECTIVE ESSAY WRITING EXPERIENCE AND TEACHER FEEDBACK COMMENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Asiah Mohd Sharif

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Reflection which encompasses critical and analytical capabilities is a critical 21st century skill for students to develop. To ensure students are equipped with this skill, reflective writing has been identified as a possible tool. Teacher feedback on students’ written output therefore plays a role in developing students’ reflective skills. This study asks two questions: How do students perceive their experience writing reflective essays? What is the nature of the teacher’s feedback comments on students’ reflective essays and how do students perceive them? To answer these questions, nineteen ESL students in an entry-level Medical programme completed a questionnaire concerning their experiences writing reflective essays and perceptions of teacher feedback on these essays. Interviews were conducted with two students to follow-up on questionnaire responses. The content analysis showed that the students believed reflective writing played a small contribution to their language learning. Further investigation into the students’ perspectives of their teachers’ feedback comments suggests that even though the teachers’ feedback was positive, the students also referred to the comments as inadequate and ineffective. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

  6. Essays on electricity transmission investment and financial transmission rights

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shang, Wenzhuo

    The U.S. electric power industry has been going through fundamental restructuring and realignment since the 1990's. Many issues and problems have emerged during the transition, and both economists and engineers have been looking for the solutions fervently. In this dissertation, which consists primarily of three essays, we apply economics theory and techniques to the power industry and address two related issues, transmission investment and financial transmission rights (FTRs). The first essay takes the decentralized perspective and investigates the efficiency attribute of market-based transmission investment under perfect competition. We clarify, for the first time, the nature of the externality created by loop flows that causes transmission investment to be inefficient. Our findings have important implications for better understanding of transmission market design and creating incentives for efficient transmission investment. In the second essay, we define several rules for allocating transmission investment cost within the framework of cooperative game theory. These rules provide fair, stable or efficient cost allocations in theory and are good benchmarks against which the allocation mechanism in practice can be compared and improved upon. In the last essay, we make exploratory efforts in analyzing and assessing empirically the performance of the Midwest independent system operator (MISO) FTR auction market. We reveal some stylized facts about this young market and find that it is not efficient under the risk-neutrality assumption. We also point out and correct the drawbacks in previous related work and suggest about more complete empirical work in future. In all, this dissertation makes both theoretic and empirical analysis of the two hot issues related to the power industry and comes up with findings that have important implications for the development of this industry.

  7. Comparison between Two Assessment Methods; Modified Essay Questions and Multiple Choice Questions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Assadi S.N.* MD

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Aims Using the best assessment methods is an important factor in educational development of health students. Modified essay questions and multiple choice questions are two prevalent methods of assessing the students. The aim of this study was to compare two methods of modified essay questions and multiple choice questions in occupational health engineering and work laws courses. Materials & Methods This semi-experimental study was performed during 2013 to 2014 on occupational health students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. The class of occupational health and work laws course in 2013 was considered as group A and the class of 2014 as group B. Each group had 50 students.The group A students were assessed by modified essay questions method and the group B by multiple choice questions method.Data were analyzed in SPSS 16 software by paired T test and odd’s ratio. Findings The mean grade of occupational health and work laws course was 18.68±0.91 in group A (modified essay questions and was 18.78±0.86 in group B (multiple choice questions which was not significantly different (t=-0.41; p=0.684. The mean grade of chemical chapter (p<0.001 in occupational health engineering and harmful work law (p<0.001 and other (p=0.015 chapters in work laws were significantly different between two groups. Conclusion Modified essay questions and multiple choice questions methods have nearly the same student assessing value for the occupational health engineering and work laws course.

  8. Topical Structure in Argumentative Essays of EFL Learners and Implications for Writing Classes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiliç, Mehmet; Genç, Bilal; Bada, Erdogan

    2016-01-01

    The literature on the topical organization of essays suggests that there are four possible types of progression from the topic of one clause to the topics of the following clauses. These are parallel, sequential, extended parallel, and extended sequential progressions. Essay writers' ability to create cohesion and coherence can be evaluated on the…

  9. Bioremediation of polluted wasewaterwater influent: phiosphorus and nitrogen removal. Scientific Research and Essays

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Muchie, Mammo; Akpor, OB

    2010-01-01

    Akpor OB and Muchie M. (2010). Bioremediation of polluted wasewaterwater influent: phiosphorus and nitrogen removal. Scientific Research and Essays, Vol. 5(21), pp. 3222–3230......Akpor OB and Muchie M. (2010). Bioremediation of polluted wasewaterwater influent: phiosphorus and nitrogen removal. Scientific Research and Essays, Vol. 5(21), pp. 3222–3230...

  10. A Pilot Intervention to Improve the Structural Quality of Exam Essay Writing in UK Undergraduate Psychology Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Connelly, Vincent; Dockrell, Julie E.; Barnett, Jo

    2006-01-01

    Psychology undergraduates need to produce good quality essays in order to succeed at university. Students find the transition to university writing difficult. Using a rubric, a profile of student weakness in psychology essay writing was described. The students were generally poor at the structural organisation of their essays. A pilot intervention…

  11. Re-Theorizing the Role of Creative Writing in Composition Studies: Cautionary Notes towards Re-Thinking the Essay in the Teaching of Writing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Julier, Laura

    An essay, often called a personal essay, familiar essay, lyric essay, the disjunctive or spiral essay, is a piece of writing which takes its form in the shifts and turns of a particular mind at work. The essay is a piece of writing which pays attention to and sometimes plays with form; often uses images and figures that are familiar with poetry;…

  12. Art and Pornography: Philosophical Essays

    OpenAIRE

    2012-01-01

    Art and Pornography presents a series of essays\\ud which investigate the artistic status and aesthetic\\ud dimension of pornographic pictures, films, and\\ud literature, and explores the distinction, if there is\\ud any, between pornography and erotic art. Is there\\ud any overlap between art and pornography, or are\\ud the two mutually exclusive? If they are, why is\\ud that? If they are not, how might we characterize\\ud pornographic art or artistic pornography, and how\\ud might pornographic art b...

  13. Measurement of radon-222 concentration in environment sampled within short time using charcoal detector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yamasaki, Tadashi; Sekiyama, Shigenobu; Tokin, Mina; Nakayasu, Yumiko; Watanabe, Tamaki.

    1994-01-01

    The concentration of 222 Rn in air sampled within a very short period of time was measured using activated charcoal as the adsorber. The detector is the plastic canister containing mixture of the activated charcoal and the silica gel. The radon gas was adsorbed in the charcoal in the radon chamber at the temperature of 25degC. A little amount of liquid scintillation cocktail was added into the vial of liquid scintillation counter with the canister. The radon in the charcoal was extracted in the liquid scintillation cocktail. Alpha particles emitted from radon and its daughter nuclei in the cocktail were detected using the liquid scintillation counter. Present method has advantages of not only short sampling time of air but also adsorption of radon in charcoal under a constant temperature. The concentration of radon in air down to 2 Bq/m 3 could be detected. A kinetic model for adsorption of radon in the charcoal is also presented. The ratio of radon concentration in the charcoal to that in air under the equilibrium state of adsorption was estimated to be from 6.1 to 6.8 m 3 /kg at the temperature of 25degC. (author)

  14. Can Style Be Creative? An Exploratory Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clinton, Gregory

    2016-01-01

    This essay explores the nature of creativity of the practicing professional through the examination of the role of personal style in creative work, as well as how personality can affect and sustain creativity. Instructional designers, as practicing creatives, must balance the divergent and novel with the restraints of clients, projects, and…

  15. Automated Assessment of Non-Native Learner Essays: Investigating the Role of Linguistic Features

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vajjala, Sowmya

    2018-01-01

    Automatic essay scoring (AES) refers to the process of scoring free text responses to given prompts, considering human grader scores as the gold standard. Writing such essays is an essential component of many language and aptitude exams. Hence, AES became an active and established area of research, and there are many proprietary systems used in…

  16. Researching Race and Social Justice in Education: Essays in Honour of Barry Troyna.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sikes, Pat, Ed.; Rizvi, Fazal, Ed.

    The essays in this book comprise a "festschrift", a group of essays, to commemorate Barry Troyna, who made an important contribution to thinking about race, racism, and research on social-justice issues in the school context. Much of his work was directed at showing that it was impossible to research questions of "race"…

  17. Using Automated Essay Scores as an Anchor When Equating Constructed Response Writing Tests

    Science.gov (United States)

    Almond, Russell G.

    2014-01-01

    Assessments consisting of only a few extended constructed response items (essays) are not typically equated using anchor test designs as there are typically too few essay prompts in each form to allow for meaningful equating. This article explores the idea that output from an automated scoring program designed to measure writing fluency (a common…

  18. Essays on Public Documents and Government Policies (3).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morehead, Joe

    1986-01-01

    Eight essays on government documents examine a variety of subjects--the publication "Policy and Supporting Positions," Supreme Court and separation of powers rulings, private legislation, environmental information, publications of the Department of Education, physical fitness, and national cemeteries. (EM)

  19. ReaderBench Learns Dutch: Building a Comprehensive Automated Essay Scoring System for Dutch Language

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dascalu, Mihai; Westera, Wim; Ruseti, Stefan; Trausan-Matu, Stefan; Kurvers, Hub

    2018-01-01

    Automated Essay Scoring has gained a wider applicability and usage with the integration of advanced Natural Language Processing techniques which enabled in-depth analyses of discourse in order capture the specificities of written texts. In this paper, we introduce a novel Automatic Essay Scoring

  20. Essays on Labour Markets

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buhai, Ioan Sebastian

    ), on modelling the arousal and persistence of occupational segregation and labour market inequalities between social subgroups (chapter 4), and respectively on characterizing the link between the firms' health and safety work environment and their financial performance (chapter 5). Each of the essays contributes...... return to seniority", with seniority the position of the worker in the tenure hierarchy of her firm, this concept establishing parsimoniously but effectively the link between the worker's fate in the labour market and her firm's fate in the product market; if network referrals are relevant for job search...... work") raises, but any other specific work health and safety practice indicators do not affect, a firm's productivity....

  1. The Effect of Teaching Methods and Learning Styles on Capabilities of Writing Essays on Elementary School's Students in East Jakarta

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wuryani; Yufiarti

    2017-01-01

    The objective of this research was to discover the effect of teaching methods and learning styles on the student's ability to write essays. This study was conducted in elementary school in East Jakarta. The population of this studies was 3rd-grade elementary school students who study in East Jakarta. Samples were taken with stratified cluster…

  2. Words and Responsibilities: Graduate Education and the Humanities. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: Humanities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stimpson, Catharine R.

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

  3. La «speciale provvidenza» nella caduta di una falena: ibridismi woolfiani tra saggio e short story

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paolo Bugliani

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Il contributo intende mettere in luce le dinamiche di ibridazione tra i generi saggio e novella nella prosa breve di Virginia Woolf, in particolare in quegli esemplari di saggi che presentano delle caratteristiche smaccatamente immaginifiche e narrative che li distanziano nettamente dall’ideale di saggio quale «breve testo nonfinzionale in prosa». Nota al grande pubblico proprio per la sua programmatica ricerca di codici espressivi sempre nuovi e per le sperimentazioni con i generi più disparati, nel caso della prosa breve Woolf riesce con successo a infrangere i confini tra argomentativo e narrativo per giungere a una forma mediana che trae la sua identità sia dalla fiction che dalla nonfiction. Tramite un’analisi di alcune tra le short stories e i saggi più significativi, il contributo vuole essere uno spunto per una più ampia riflessione su quanto la mescolanza di stilemi diversi sia non solo un tratto letterario tipico della letteratura modernista, quanto piuttosto la risposta a una necessità di trovare una via altra nel panorama letterario, quasi una pulsione creativa primigenia che, nel caso delle contaminazioni tra saggio e narrativa breve, può essere affiancata al concetto di saggismo proposto da Robert Musil. The Death of the Moth, Street Haunting e molti altri saggi woolfiani permettono quindi di ricalibrare le demarcazioni fra generi, e di ripensare gli idealtipi che nella mentalità comune sono assurti a modelli e per l’uno e per l’altro dei due generi brevi in prosa, che in questa sede rappresentano i limiti estremi dello spettro di analisi. My paper aims at evaluating the hybridizing techniques that V. Woolf deployed in her shorter prose to blur the edges between the essay and the short story, in particular in those essayistic specimens that present some markedly imaginative features which undermine the ideal of the essay as a «brief, nonfictional prose piece». Woolf is justly renowned for her programmatic and

  4. Aesthetic Function Realized in the Selected Modern Chinese Essays by Zhang Peiji

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    罗丹

    2014-01-01

    The selected modern Chinese essays translated by Zhang Peiji is a masterpiece for Chinese scholars to do translation research. Prof. Zhang not only excels at translating the Chinese works accurately but also conveys the aesthetic value in the translated version. This paper wil analyse the aesthetic function used in Zhang Peiji’s selected modern Chinese essays from five aspects, music value, rhythm value, ful-grownness value, conciseness value and artistic conception value.

  5. Relative humidity effects on water vapour fluxes measured with closed-path eddy-covariance systems with short sampling lines

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fratini, Gerardo; Ibrom, Andreas; Arriga, Nicola

    2012-01-01

    It has been formerly recognised that increasing relative humidity in the sampling line of closed-path eddy-covariance systems leads to increasing attenuation of water vapour turbulent fluctuations, resulting in strong latent heat flux losses. This occurrence has been analyzed for very long (50 m...... from eddy-covariance systems featuring short (4 m) and very short (1 m) sampling lines running at the same clover field and show that relative humidity effects persist also for these setups, and should not be neglected. Starting from the work of Ibrom and co-workers, we propose a mixed method...... and correction method proposed here is deemed applicable to closed-path systems featuring a broad range of sampling lines, and indeed applicable also to passive gases as a special case. The methods described in this paper are incorporated, as processing options, in the free and open-source eddy...

  6. Telling Lives in Science: Essays on Scientific Biography

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Harman, Peter

    1997-09-01

    This collection of ten essays by historians of science, several of them biographers, is concerned with the role of scientific biography in forming conceptions of science and scientists. The essays include studies of the biographies of individual scientists, assessments of the aims and style of scientific portraits in different historical contexts, examinations of changing biographical interpretations of scientists, and much discussion of the methodological issues involved in the writing of scientific biographies. Many historians consider biography to be an ambiguous genre, its appeal based on nostalgia rather than history, with a focus on personality rather than historical context, but the biographer can reply that scientific biography reveals the practice of science at its most fundamental level. Indeed, scientific biography has provided a powerful medium in which public conceptions of science have been established. Einstein observed that 'the essential being of a man of my type lies in what he thinks and how he thinks', and his Autobiographical Notes suppress personality in favour of physics. But the biographer may see matters differently, and wish to integrate the public and the private life of the scientist. In their substantial introduction the editors discuss these and other problems, and the book is directed to the professional concerns of historians of science. While there is little here on the history of physics, Geoffrey Cantor's essay on public images of Faraday as constructed in popular biographies, a discussion of conflicting portraits of Faraday as romantic genius or hard-working slogger, may interest readers of this journal. (book review)

  7. Telling Lives in Science: Essays on Scientific Biography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Harman, Peter

    1997-01-01

    This collection of ten essays by historians of science, several of them biographers, is concerned with the role of scientific biography in forming conceptions of science and scientists. The essays include studies of the biographies of individual scientists, assessments of the aims and style of scientific portraits in different historical contexts, examinations of changing biographical interpretations of scientists, and much discussion of the methodological issues involved in the writing of scientific biographies. Many historians consider biography to be an ambiguous genre, its appeal based on nostalgia rather than history, with a focus on personality rather than historical context, but the biographer can reply that scientific biography reveals the practice of science at its most fundamental level. Indeed, scientific biography has provided a powerful medium in which public conceptions of science have been established. Einstein observed that 'the essential being of a man of my type lies in what he thinks and how he thinks', and his Autobiographical Notes suppress personality in favour of physics. But the biographer may see matters differently, and wish to integrate the public and the private life of the scientist. In their substantial introduction the editors discuss these and other problems, and the book is directed to the professional concerns of historians of science. While there is little here on the history of physics, Geoffrey Cantor's essay on public images of Faraday as constructed in popular biographies, a discussion of conflicting portraits of Faraday as romantic genius or hard-working slogger, may interest readers of this journal. (book review)

  8. Three essays on the exploration for non-renewable resources

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sadorsky, P.A.

    1990-06-01

    A new additional motive for exploration activity is proposed in the first essay. When exploration occurs before the resource is extracted, there is an incentive to use exploration activity as a strategic instrument to capture market share and inflict capital losses on rivals. This provides an incentive for governments to use strategic taxation to capture greater rents from the imperfectly competitive world output markets. Analytic expressions for the optimal domestic extraction tax and exploration subsidy are presented. In the second essay, Canadian data are used to estimate a multiple-output translog exploration cost function. A new definition of depletion is introduced and its estimated coefficient is found to be statistically significant. Monte Carlo integration techniques were applied to ensure the estimated cost function satisfies concavity and monotonicity. The fitted cost function parameters are then used to estimate the marginal cost of oil and gas exploration. These estimates are used, along with estimates of exploration rents, to measure resource scarcity. In the third essay, Canadian data are used to estimate a stochastic and dynamic model of oil exploration and extraction in Alberta. The main determinants of current period extraction are one period lagged extraction and one period expected extraction. The main determinants of current period exploration are one period lagged cumulative exploration and a relative price variable. 150 refs., 13 figs., 19 tabs

  9. Lexical Cohesion in Students' Argumentative Essay among a Select Group of Filipino College Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alarcon, Josephine B.

    2013-01-01

    This study analyzed the lexical devices used by undergraduate students in their argumentative text using Halliday and Hasan (1976) and Halliday's (2004) taxonomy. One hundred forty-eight argumentative essays were analyzed. The essays underwent interrating by three independent raters using a 20-point rubric and were grouped according to rating.…

  10. A philosophical essay on probabilities

    CERN Document Server

    Laplace, Marquis de

    1996-01-01

    A classic of science, this famous essay by ""the Newton of France"" introduces lay readers to the concepts and uses of probability theory. It is of especial interest today as an application of mathematical techniques to problems in social and biological sciences.Generally recognized as the founder of the modern phase of probability theory, Laplace here applies the principles and general results of his theory ""to the most important questions of life, which are, in effect, for the most part, problems in probability."" Thus, without the use of higher mathematics, he demonstrates the application

  11. Three Essays on Bureaucracy at American Research Universities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taggart, Gabel

    2017-01-01

    The three essays in this dissertation each examine how aspects of contemporary administrative structure within American research universities affect faculty outcomes. Specific aspects of administrative structure tested in this dissertation include the introduction of new administrative roles, administrative intensity (i.e., relative size of…

  12. Essays on Learning, Uncertainty, and Choice

    OpenAIRE

    Frick, Mira Anna Phyllis

    2015-01-01

    This dissertation presents three independent essays in microeconomic theory. Motivated by the rise of social media, Chapter 1 (co-authored with Yuhta Ishii) builds a model studying the effect of an economy's potential for social learning on the adoption of innovations of uncertain quality. Provided consumers are forward-looking (i.e. recognize the value of waiting for information), equilibrium dynamics depend non-trivially on qualitative and quantitative features of the informational envir...

  13. Technology and Military Doctrine. Essays on a Challenging Relationship

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Holley, I

    2004-01-01

    .... In these essays, Holley primarily addresses the need for the Air Force to adapt its doctrine and the processes of formulating and disseminating that guidance as the technology of air and space warfare improves. Dr...

  14. HGSA DNA day essay contest winner 60 years on: still coding for cutting-edge science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yates, Patrick

    2013-08-01

    MESSAGE FROM THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: In 2013, the Education Committee of the Human Genetics Society of Australasia (HGSA) established the DNA Day Essay Contest in Australia and New Zealand. The contest was first established by the American Society of Human Genetics in 2005 and the HGSA DNA Day Essay Contest is adapted from this contest via a collaborative partnership. The aim of the contest is to engage high school students with important concepts in genetics through literature research and reflection. As 2013 marks the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick and the 10th anniversary of the first sequencing of the human genome, the essay topic was to choose either of these breakthroughs and explain its broader impact on biotechnology, human health and disease, or our understanding of basic genetics, such as genetic variation or gene expression. The contest attracted 87 entrants in 2013, with the winning essay authored by Patrick Yates, a Year 12 student from Melbourne High School. Further details about the contest including the names and schools of the other finalists can be found at http://www.hgsa-essay.net.au/. The Education Committee would like to thank all the 2013 applicants and encourage students to enter in 2014.

  15. A Small Essay About a Big Boulevard

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena Grigoryeva

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The essay presents the analogies of turning city borders and walls into boulevards and gardens through the examples of Moscow and Irkutsk. The main street of Irkutsk is viewed in a new light, as a boulevard. It is proposed to take into consideration the peculiarities of the four sense-parts of the street when working on design codes.

  16. Games in libraries essays on using play to connect and instruct

    CERN Document Server

    Kirsch, Breanne A

    2014-01-01

    Librarians are beginning to see the importance of game based learning and the incorporation of games into library services. This book is written for them--so they can use games to improve people's understanding and enjoyment of the library. Full of practical suggestions, the essays discuss not only innovative uses of games in libraries but also the game making process. The contributors are all well versed in games and game-based learning and a variety of different types of libraries are considered. The essays will inspire librarians and educators to get into this exciting new area of patron

  17. Admitted or Denied: Multilingual Writers Negotiate Admissions Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wight, Shauna

    2017-01-01

    This article presents data from a collection of yearlong case studies on resident multilingual writers' college admissions essays. The focal student in this piece revealed the challenges that such writers face in presenting themselves to college admissions officers. Exploring these cultural and linguistic conflicts, this analysis uses Goffman's…

  18. Imaging evaluation of middle ear cholesteatoma: iconographic essay

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Avila, Ana Flavia Assis de; Aburjeli, Bruna de Oliveira Melim; Moreira, Wanderval; Motta, Emilia Guerra Pinto Coelho; Ribeiro, Marcelo Almeida; Diniz, Renata Lopes Furletti Caldeira, E-mail: fauassis@hotmail.com [Hospital Mater Dei, Belo Horizonte, MG (Brazil)

    2013-06-15

    Middle ear cholesteatoma is a relevant and relatively common disease that may have severe consequences. In the present pictorial essay, the authors have selected illustrative examples of multislice computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging depicting the main presentations of cholesteatomas, and describing their characteristics, locations, and major complications. (author)

  19. Anatomy of the ankle ligaments: a pictorial essay

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Golanó, Pau; Vega, Jordi; de Leeuw, Peter A. J.; Malagelada, Francesc; Manzanares, M. Cristina; Götzens, Víctor; van Dijk, C. Niek

    2010-01-01

    Understanding the anatomy of the ankle ligaments is important for correct diagnosis and treatment. Ankle ligament injury is the most frequent cause of acute ankle pain. Chronic ankle pain often finds its cause in laxity of one of the ankle ligaments. In this pictorial essay, the ligaments around the

  20. Anatomy of the ankle ligaments: a pictorial essay

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Golanó, Pau; Vega, Jordi; de Leeuw, Peter A. J.; Malagelada, Francesc; Manzanares, M. Cristina; Götzens, Víctor; van Dijk, C. Niek

    2016-01-01

    Understanding the anatomy of the ankle ligaments is important for correct diagnosis and treatment. Ankle ligament injury is the most frequent cause of acute ankle pain. Chronic ankle pain often finds its cause in laxity of one of the ankle ligaments. In this pictorial essay, the ligaments around the

  1. Profiling Learners' Achievement Goals when Completing Academic Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Chi-Hung Clarence

    2009-01-01

    This study explored adult learners' goal profiles in relation to the completion of a compulsory academic essay. Based on learners' scores on items assessing mastery, performance-approach, and work-avoidance goals, cluster analyses produced three distinct categories of learners: performance-focused, work-avoidant, and multiple-goal learners. These…

  2. Librarianship and literature essays in honour of Jack Pafford

    CERN Document Server

    Milne, A T

    2014-01-01

    These essays are produced in honour of the seventieth birthday of Dr J. H. Pafford, Goldsmith's Librarian of the University of London from 1945 to 1967, and reflect his interests in librarianship, textual editing and local history.

  3. The Ph.D. in English: Towards a New Consensus. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: English.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graff, Gerald

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

  4. Consumption-based learning about brand quality : Essays on how private labels share and borrow reputation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Szymanowski, M.G.

    2009-01-01

    CONSUMPTION-BASED LEARNING ABOUT BRAND QUALITY: ESSAYS ON HOW PRIVATE LABELS SHARE AND BORROW REPUTATION is a collection of essays exploring the process of consumer cross-brand learning in the context of brands belonging to retailers: the so-called private labels. Private labels have gradually grown

  5. A Corpus-based Study on the Use of Contractions by EFL Learners in Argumentative Essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Pınar Babanoğlu

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Contraction forms in English are mostly occur in speech and informal writing and they are generally avoided in formal writing types such as academic prose, business reports and journal articles, therefore, most teachers discourage their use in academic essays (Biber, Johansonn, Leech, Conrad and Finegan 1999. Contractions in English have two types; negative contractions (isn’t, haven’t, doesn’t and verb contractions (I’m, they’ve, that’s. This corpus based study attempts to investigate contraction usage in learner and native English speaker essays. Major goal is to examine whether learners consider essay writing rules in respect of contractions which are accepted inappropriate for academic prose style. Five corpora, three learner and two native English, were utilized in order to analyze verb and not-contraction forms. Frequency calculations of contraction forms in each corpus compared via log-likelihood measurement for statistical significance.  Results revealed that learners use considerably more contraction forms, especially negative ones, than native English students in their argumentative essays.

  6. Validation of the Short Form of the Career Development Inventory with an Iranian High School Sample

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadeghi, Ahmad; Baghban, Iran; Bahrami, Fatemeh; Ahmadi, Ahmad; Creed, Peter

    2011-01-01

    A short 33-item form of the Career Development Inventory was validated on a sample of 310 Iranian high school students. Factor analysis indicated that attitude and cognitive subscale items loaded on their respective factors, and that internal reliability coefficients at all levels were satisfactory to good. Support for validity was demonstrated by…

  7. Photo Essay: Pictures for Our “Honorable American Friends”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samuel Hideo Yamashita

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available An American minister’s outrage over a celebration of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan led to a generous gift of school supplies for students at a primary school in Hiroshima City. In gratitude, students at this school sent dozens of drawings and paintings to the minister’s church. This exchange was inspired by the minister’s Unitarian faith and moral decency and realized through the generosity of his parishioners. But the Japanese children’s artwork can be read in several other ways that greatly complicate the story and implicate Cold War narratives of victory and defeat as well as powerful memories of the destruction, death, and suffering caused by the war. This essay accompanies the “Hiroshima Children’s Drawings” photo essay featured in the March 2013 issue of Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review...

  8. Validation of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire Short Scale (NARQ-S) in convenience and representative samples.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leckelt, Marius; Wetzel, Eunike; Gerlach, Tanja M; Ackerman, Robert A; Miller, Joshua D; Chopik, William J; Penke, Lars; Geukes, Katharina; Küfner, Albrecht C P; Hutteman, Roos; Richter, David; Renner, Karl-Heinz; Allroggen, Marc; Brecheen, Courtney; Campbell, W Keith; Grossmann, Igor; Back, Mitja D

    2018-01-01

    Due to increased empirical interest in narcissism across the social sciences, there is a need for inventories that can be administered quickly while also reliably measuring both the agentic and antagonistic aspects of grandiose narcissism. In this study, we sought to validate the factor structure, provide representative descriptive data and reliability estimates, assess the reliability across the trait spectrum, and examine the nomological network of the short version of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ-S; Back et al., 2013). We used data from a large convenience sample (total N = 11,937) as well as data from a large representative sample (total N = 4,433) that included responses to other narcissism measures as well as related constructs, including the other Dark Triad traits, Big Five personality traits, and self-esteem. Confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory were used to validate the factor structure and estimate the reliability across the latent trait spectrum, respectively. Results suggest that the NARQ-S shows a robust factor structure and is a reliable and valid short measure of the agentic and antagonistic aspects of grandiose narcissism. We also discuss future directions and applications of the NARQ-S as a short and comprehensive measure of grandiose narcissism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  9. Automated Guidance for Thermodynamics Essays: Critiquing versus Revisiting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Donnelly, Dermot F.; Vitale, Jonathan M.; Linn, Marcia C.

    2015-01-01

    Middle school students struggle to explain thermodynamics concepts. In this study, to help students succeed, we use a natural language processing program to analyze their essays explaining the aspects of thermodynamics and provide guidance based on the automated score. The 346 sixth-grade students were assigned to either the critique condition…

  10. Ideals and realities selected essays of Abdus Salam

    CERN Document Server

    Salam, Abdus; Lai, CH

    1989-01-01

    The latest edition of "Ideals and Realities" includes some of the most recent talks given by Professor Abdus Salam. They replace a few essays which were published in the second edition. An attempt has also been made to update some of the figures rendered absolete with the passage of time.

  11. Coherence in the Argumentative Essays of First Year College of Liberal Arts Students at De La Salle University

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alphie G. Garing

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The study investigates five textual features of coherence in the students’ argumentative essays for text comprehensibility and overall writing quality. Specifically, it examines how comprehensible the students’ argumentative essays considering the following: focus, organization, cohesion, support and elaboration, and conventions; and the relationship between the textual features and the comprehensibility of the students’ argumentative essays. The data consists of 13 argumentative essays written in ENGLCOM class first year College of Liberal Arts students of De La Salle University. Two techniques were used to analyze the data. First, an analytic and holistic scorings using a four-point writing rubric were used to evaluate each of the textual features of coherence and comprehensibility, respectively. Second, correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationship between the coherence features and the comprehensibility of the students’ texts and between the comprehensibility of the students’ argumentative essays.

  12. Essays on investor behavior and trading activity

    OpenAIRE

    Kyröläinen, P. (Petri)

    2007-01-01

    Abstract This thesis investigates a set of equity market phenomena associated with investors' trading activity, using a comprehensive Finnish Central Securities Depository (FCSD) database that records practically all trades by Finnish investors. This database enables us to classify a large number of heterogeneous investors using both economic and institutional characteristics. The first essay classifies investors by trading activity. It analyzes trading styles of active and passive inv...

  13. Passages to Literature: Essays on Teaching in Australia, Canada, England, the United States, and Wales.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Milner, Joseph O'Beirne, Ed.; Milner, Lucy Floyd Morcock, Ed.

    Representing Australia, Canada, England, the United States, and Wales, this collection of essays focuses on ways in which teachers can adapt classroom activities and modify writing assignments to encourage personal response and exploration of texts. Essays, their authors, and nationalities are as follows: (1) "The River and Its Banks:…

  14. MDCT imaging of post interventional liver: a pictorial essay

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Romano, Stefania; Tortora, Giovanni; Scaglione, Mariano; Lassandro, Francesco; Guidi, Guido; Grassi, Roberto; Romano, Luigia

    2005-01-01

    In this pictorial essay, we consider the post operative MDCT findings after liver resection, transplantation, surgical managed major trauma and radiofrequency ablation of focal lesions. Common complications such as fluid collections, hemorrhage, biloma, vascular disease, hematoma, abscesses will be also considered

  15. Microcomputer-based systems for automatic control of sample irradiation and chemical analysis of short-lived isotopes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bourret, S.C.

    1974-01-01

    Two systems resulted from the need for the study of the nuclear decay of short-lived radionuclides. Automation was required for better repeatability, speed of chemical separation after irradiation and for protection from the high radiation fields of the samples. A MCS-8 computer was used as the nucleus of the automatic sample irradiation system because the control system required an extensive multiple-sequential circuit. This approach reduced the sequential problem to a computer program. The automatic chemistry control system is a mixture of a fixed and a computer-based programmable control system. The fixed control receives the irradiated liquid sample from the reactor, extracts the liquid and disposes of the used sample container. The programmable control executes the chemistry program that the user has entered through the teletype. (U.S.)

  16. Three essays on human resource management

    OpenAIRE

    Avgoustaki, Argyro

    2012-01-01

    This thesis comprises three essays on human resource management. The first one studies the effect of on-the-job training on firm productivity using a micro-dataset of a large firm in Greece for the period 2005 to 2006. The data consist of daily observations on the productivity of the same workers tracked before, during, and after the receipt of training. Overall, the empirical findings show that after the implementation of on-the-job training, productivity improves by almost 6.5 percent. Resu...

  17. An analysis of medical students’ reflective essays in problem-based learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jihyun Si

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Purpose This study aimed to explore students’ learning experience in problem-based learning (PBL particularly in terms of what they learned and how they learned in one Korean medical school by analyzing their reflective essays with qualitative research methods. Methods This study included 44 first-year medical students. They took three consecutive PBL courses and wrote reflective essays 3 times anonymously on the last day of each course. Their reflective essays were analyzed using an inductive content analysis method. Results The coding process yielded 16 sub-categories and these categories were grouped into six categories according to the distinctive characteristics of PBL learning experience: integrated knowledge base, clinical problem solving, collaboration, intrinsic motivation, self-directed learning, and professional attitude. Among these categories, integrated knowledge base (34.68% and professional attitude (2.31% were the categories mentioned most and least frequently. Conclusion The findings of this study provide an overall understanding of the learning experience of Korean medical students during PBL in terms of what they learned and how they learned with rich descriptive commentaries from their perspectives as well as several thoughtful insights to help develop instructional strategies to enhance the effectiveness of PBL.

  18. Three essays in transportation energy and environmental policy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hajiamiri, Sara

    technologies instead of a similar-sized conventional gasoline-powered vehicle (CV). The electric vehicle technologies considered are gasoline-powered hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles. It is found that the private benefits are positive, but smaller than the expected short-term cost premiums on these technologies, which suggest the need for government support if a large-scale adoption of electric vehicles is desired. Also, it is found that the net present values of the societal benefits that are not internalized by the vehicle purchaser are not likely to exceed $1,700. This estimate accounts for changes in GHG emissions, criteria air pollutants, gasoline consumption and the driver's contribution to congestion. The third essay explores the implications of a large-scale adoption of electric vehicles on transportation finance. While fuel efficiency improvements are desirable with respect to goals for achieving energy security and environmental improvement, it has adverse implications for the current system of transportation finance. Reductions in gasoline consumption relative to the amount of driving that takes place would result in a decline in fuel tax revenues that are needed to fund planning, construction, maintenance, and operation of highways and public transit systems. In this paper the forgone fuel tax revenue that results when an electric vehicle replaces a similar-sized CV is estimated. It is found that under several vehicle electrification scenarios, the combined federal and state trust funds could decline by as much as 5 percent by 2020 and as much as 12.5 percent by 2030. Alternative fee systems that tie more directly to transportation system use rather then to fuel consumption could reconcile energy security, environmental, and transportation finance goals.

  19. Essays on Pricing of Information Goods and Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lahiri, Atanu

    2010-01-01

    This dissertation consists of three essays that examine, in three specific contexts, issues related to pricing of information goods and services. As the ability to measure technology resource usage gets easier with increased connectivity, the question whether a technology resource should be priced by the amount of the resource used or by the…

  20. The legacy of Albert Einstein a collection of essays in celebration of the Year of Physics

    CERN Document Server

    2007-01-01

    This indispensable volume contains a compendium of articles covering a vast range of topics in physics which were begun or influenced by the works of Albert Einstein: special relativity, quantum theory, statistical physics, condensed matter physics, general relativity, geometry, cosmology and unified field theory. An essay on the societal role of Einstein is included. These articles, written by some of the renowned experts, offer an insider's view of the exciting world of fundamental science. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Einstein and the Search for Unification (625 KB). Contents: Einstein and

  1. Corrections on Grammar, Sentence Variety and Developing Detail to Qualify Academic Essay of Indonesian Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Solikhah, Imroatus

    2017-01-01

    This experimental research examines: (1) significant differences of corrections on grammar, sentence variety and developing details on the quality of the essay by Indonesian learners; and (2) different effect of corrections on grammar, sentence variety, and developing details on the quality of the essay. Treatments for each were served as follows:…

  2. Essays on the effects of human capital, innovation and technology on economic performance

    OpenAIRE

    Tiruneh, Esubalew Alehegn

    2014-01-01

    This thesis is on human capital (HC) and innovation in Germany and comprises of three essays. The first essay provides a comparative analysis on the economic performance impacts of creative class and HC at regional level with the purpose of testing whether the contemporary occupation-based creative class or the conventional education-based HC can be used as a better driver of regional economy. In doing so, I disaggregate creative class into creative core (scientific experts), creative profess...

  3. Antropologie tussen wetenschap en kunst : Essays over Clifford Geertz

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kuiper, Yme; Bakker, Jan Willem; Miedema, Jelle

    1987-01-01

    Clifford Geertz (*1926) is one of the most influential anthropologists of his generation. His most famous monographs and collection of essays are The Religion of Java, Agricultural Involution, Islam Observed, The Interpretation of Cultures, Local Knowledge, Negara: The Balinese Theatre State in

  4. Classification of Swedish Learner Essays by CEFR Levels

    Science.gov (United States)

    Volodina, Elena; Pilán, Ildikó; Alfter, David

    2016-01-01

    The paper describes initial efforts on creating a system for the automatic assessment of Swedish second language (L2) learner essays from two points of view: holistic evaluation of the reached level according to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), and the lexical analysis of texts for receptive and productive vocabulary per CEFR…

  5. Argument-Counterargument Structure in Indonesian EFL Learners' English Argumentative Essays: A Dialogic Concept of Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rusfandi

    2015-01-01

    This study investigates the potential use of the argument-counterargument structure in English L2 essays written by Indonesian EFL learners. It examines whether L2 proficiency affects the use of opposing views in their essays, and measures whether there is a correlation between the use of the rhetorical structure and the participants' overall…

  6. Discriminant Analysis of Essay, Mathematics/Science Type of Essay, College Scholastic Ability Test, and Grade Point Average as Predictors of Acceptance to a Pre-med Course at a Korean Medical School

    OpenAIRE

    Geum-Hee Jeong

    2008-01-01

    A discriminant analysis was conducted to investigate how an essay, a mathematics/science type of essay, a college scholastic ability test, and grade point average affect acceptance to a pre-med course at a Korean medical school. Subjects included 122 and 385 applicants for, respectively, early and regular admission to a medical school in Korea. The early admission examination was conducted in October 2007, and the regular admission examination was conducted in January 2008. The analysis of ea...

  7. An essay on the importance of being nonlinear

    CERN Document Server

    West, Bruce J

    1985-01-01

    One of my favorite quotes is from a letter of Charles Darwin (1887): "I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is proof of earnestness, and that you do not form your opinions without undergoing labour of some kind. " It is not clear if this private opinion of Darwin was one that he held to be absolutely true, or was one of those opinions that, as with most of us, coincides with our "bad days," but is replaced with a more optimistic view on our "good days. " I hold the sense of the statement to be true in general, but not with regard to scientists never reading each other's work. Even if that were true however, the present essay. would still have been written as a proof of earnestness. This essay outlines my personal view of how nonlinear mathematics may be of value in formulating models outside the physical sciences. This perspective has developed over a number of years during which time I have repeatedly been amazed at how an "accepted" ...

  8. Three Essays in the Public Economics of Offshore Hydrocarbon Investment and Production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kearney, Owen P.

    Offshore sources, in both shallow and deep waters, are increasingly important contributors to global oil and natural gas production. As both resource owner and taxing authority, national governments play an important role in the production of these offshore hydrocarbons. How the policy choices of these governments affect firm behavior, however, is not necessarily well understood. This dissertation contributes to our knowledge of how public policy influences offshore hydrocarbon investment and production. In the first essay, I estimate the investment responses of hydrocarbon producers to the suspension of the royalty, a type of production tax levied on production from federal lands. I find that the potential for a royalty payments waiver: (1) increases the probability that an individual tract is acquired by an average of 193% (a mean increase of 5.6 percentage points); (2) decreases the probability that a lease is ever drilled during its observed lease term by an average of 14.5% (a mean decrease of 1.3 percentage points); and (3) increases the expected number of explored leases by 150%. The introduction of DWRRA also increases the average winning bid per lease by 60%. These estimates quantify the magnitudes of the discouraging effects of production taxation on oil and natural gas investment. In the second essay, I quantify the implied value of information spillovers in oil and natural gas exploration using an event study design. I find that 25 trading days after a discovery, firms that own leases adjacent to the discovery lease (but not the discovery lease, itself) realize an average abnormal return translating to 315 million in market capitalization. This effect is quantitatively large compared to costs for drilling an exploratory well. In the final essay, I measure how oil price affects water injection, a method for prolonging the productive lifetime of oil fields. I find that a 1 rise in price increases the water injected into the well's reservoir by

  9. Essays on the behavior of the oil market and OPEC

    Science.gov (United States)

    Algudhea, Salim

    This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay is mainly concerned with investigating the risk-responsive behavior of OPEC members. Economic theory suggests that producers respond to the risk of volatile price by lowering production level. In the case of OPEC, the risk of the volatility in the price of crude oil does not seem to be a key determinant in the production decision-making process. Engineering constraints, data frequency, and political consideration may be the main causes of such a result. In the second essay, we tested the presence of the asymmetric adjustment in the cheating behavior as a result of crude oil price shocks. We utilize a set of cointegration and error correction methods that do not assume a linear adjustment to test whether cheaters within OPEC respond more to positive or negative crude oil price shocks. We conclude that cheaters respond more to negative shocks than positive shocks in oil price. The inelastic nature of demand for oil seems to play a crucial role in such asymmetric behavior. When there is a negative price shock, OPEC producers compensate for the loss in revenue by overproducing (i.e. cheat). Yet, if there is a positive shock in the price of crude oil, OPEC producers have less incentive to overproduce because of the inelastic demand for oil. The third essay is concerned with testing for the asymmetric adjustment in gasoline prices in the U.S. We consider a Momentum Threshold Autoregressive (MTAR) process to test for the asymmetric adjustment in all of the possible stages that a gallon of gasoline goes through in order to find the source of asymmetry. Then, we examine the dynamics of gasoline prices using asymmetric error correction models based on the MTAR specifications. We find the asymmetric adjustment present in all stages. The asymmetry in the retail stage seems to be the result of insufficient demand faced by retailers.

  10. Essays in Applied Microeconomics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ge, Qi

    This dissertation consists of three self-contained applied microeconomics essays on topics related to behavioral economics and industrial organization. Chapter 1 studies how sentiment as a result of sports event outcomes affects consumers' tipping behavior in the presence of social norms. I formulate a model of tipping behavior that captures consumer sentiment following a reference-dependent preference framework and empirically test its relevance using the game outcomes of the NBA and the trip and tipping data on New York City taxicabs. While I find that consumers' tipping behavior responds to unexpected wins and losses of their home team, particularly in close game outcomes, I do not find evidence for loss aversion. Coupled with the findings on default tipping, my empirical results on the asymmetric tipping responses suggest that while social norms may dominate loss aversion, affect and surprises can result in freedom on the upside of tipping. Chapter 2 utilizes a novel data source of airline entry and exit announcements and examines how the incumbent airlines adjust quality provisions as a response to their competitors' announcements and the role of timing in such responses. I find no evidence that the incumbents engage in preemptive actions when facing probable entry and exit threats as signaled by the competitors' announcements in either short term or long term. There is, however, evidence supporting their responses to the competitors' realized entry or exit. My empirical findings underscore the role of timing in determining preemptive actions and suggest that previous studies may have overestimated how the incumbent airlines respond to entry threats. Chapter 3, which is collaborated with Benjamin Ho, investigates the habit formation of consumers' thermostat setting behavior, an often implicitly made decision and yet a key determinant of home energy consumption and expenditures. We utilize a high frequency dataset on household thermostat usage and find that

  11. Accounting Issues: An Essay Series Part V--Intangible Assets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laux, Judy

    2008-01-01

    This article represents the fifth in a series of theoretical essays intended to supplement the introductory financial accounting course and investigates the accounting treatment and related conceptual connections for intangibles. In addition, intangibles present unique accounting issues, conceptual challenges, and measurement dilemmas not found…

  12. Automated Subscores for TOEFL iBT[R] Independent Essays. Research Report. ETS RR-11-39

    Science.gov (United States)

    Attali, Yigal

    2011-01-01

    The e-rater[R] automated essay scoring system is used operationally in the scoring of TOEFL iBT[R] independent essays. Previous research has found support for a 3-factor structure of the e-rater features. This 3-factor structure has an attractive hierarchical linguistic interpretation with a word choice factor, a grammatical convention within a…

  13. Pressure-assisted introduction of urine samples into a short capillary for electrophoretic separation with contactless conductivity and UV spectrometry detection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Makrlíková, Anna; Opekar, František; Tůma, Petr

    2015-08-01

    A computer-controlled hydrodynamic sample introduction method has been proposed for short-capillary electrophoresis. In the method, the BGE flushes sample from the loop of a six-way sampling valve and is carried to the injection end of the capillary. A short pressure impulse is generated in the electrolyte stream at the time when the sample zone is at the capillary, leading to injection of the sample into the capillary. Then the electrolyte flow is stopped and the separation voltage is turned on. This way of sample introduction does not involve movement of the capillary and both of its ends remain constantly in the solution during both sample injection and separation. The amount of sample introduced to the capillary is controlled by the duration of the pressure pulse. The new sample introduction method was tested in the determination of ammonia, creatinine, uric acid, and hippuric acid in human urine. The determination was performed in a capillary with an overall length of 10.5 cm, in two BGEs with compositions 50 mM MES + 5 mM NaOH (pH 5.1) and 1 M acetic acid + 1.5 mM crown ether 18-crown-6 (pH 2.4). A dual contactless conductivity/UV spectrometric detector was used for the detection. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  14. The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate: The Case of Mathematics. Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate: Mathematics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bass, Hyman

    The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

  15. Essays on issues relevant to the regulation of radioactive waste management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bishop, W.P.; Hoos, I.R.; Hilberry, N.; Metlay, D.S.; Watson, R.A.

    1978-05-01

    This document contains a collection of essays prepared by the individuals who participated in a Special Task Group for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the purpose of identifying and proposing goals (or guiding principles) for the regulation of radioactive waste management. The report of the Special Task group to the NRC is contained in 'Proposed Goals for Radioactive Waste Management'. The titles of the essays are as follows: History and interpretation of radioactive waste management in the United States; The credibility issue; Assessment of methodologies for radioactive waste management; Remarks on managerial errors and public participation; Observations and impressions on the nature of radioactive waste management problems; and Goals for nuclear waste management

  16. Team Dynamics. Essays in the Sociology and Social Psychology of Sport Including Methodological and Epistemological Issues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenk, Hans

    This document contains nine essays on the sociology and social psychology of team dynamics, including methodological and epistemological issues involved in such study. Essay titles are: (1) Conflict and Achievement in Top Athletic Teams--Sociometric Structures of Racing Eight Oar Crews; (2) Top Performance Despite Internal Conflict--An Antithesis…

  17. Essays on the economics of British Columbian timber policy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Niquidet, Kurt

    2007-01-01

    This thesis examines the process of institutional change in British Columbia’s timber sector. It is composed of a series of essays which highlight the underlying political and economic factors that have shaped past and current reforms. Taking center stage in the analysis, are the resource rents

  18. Essays on Port, Container, and Bulk Chemical Logistics Optimization

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    E. van Asperen (Eelco)

    2009-01-01

    textabstractThe essays in this thesis are concerned with two main themes in port logistics. The first theme is the coordination of transport arrivals with the distribution processes and the use of storage facilities. We study this for both containerized and bulk chemical transport. The second theme

  19. Archives and societal provenance Australian essays

    CERN Document Server

    Piggott, Michael

    2012-01-01

    Records and archival arrangements in Australia are globally relevant because Australia's indigenous people represent the oldest living culture in the world, and because modern Australia is an ex-colonial society now heavily multicultural in outlook. Archives and Societal Provenance explores this distinctiveness using the theoretical concept of societal provenance as propounded by Canadian archival scholars led by Dr Tom Nesmith. The book's seventeen essays blend new writing and re-workings of earlier work, comprising the fi rst text to apply a societal provenance perspective to a national sett

  20. Improving Undergraduates’ Argumentative Group Essay Writing through Self-assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yong Mei Fung

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available When writing an argumentative essay, writers develop and evaluate arguments to embody, initiate, or simulate various kinds of interpersonal and textual interaction for reader consideration (Wu & Allison, 2003. This is quite challenging for English as a second language (ESL learners. To improve the quality of their writing, students need to review their draft throughout the writing process. This study aimed to investigate the effect of self-assessment in group writing and how group work improves students’ writing ability. An intact class comprising 22 first-year undergraduates participated in the study.  Data were collected from pre- and post-treatment writing tests, semi-structured interview and reflection entries. The results revealed that self-assessment has a significant effect on students’ writing performance. Group work also enhanced social and cognitive development of the students. This study provides insights into the use of self-assessment in writing class to develop learner autonomy and improve writing ability. Keywords: Argumentative essay, Self-assessment, Learner autonomy, Group writing, ESL learners

  1. Tales from the front lines: the creative essay as a tool for teaching genetics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koehler, K E; Hawley, R S

    1999-07-01

    In contrast to the more typical mock grant proposals or literature reviews, we describe the use of the creative essay as a novel tool for teaching human genetics at the college level. This method has worked well for both nonmajor and advanced courses for biology majors. The 10- to 15-page essay is written in storylike form and represents a student's response to the choice of 6-8 scenarios describing human beings coping with various genetic dilemmas. We have found this tool to be invaluable both in developing students' ability to express genetic concepts in lay terms and in promoting student awareness of genetic issues outside of the classroom. Examples from student essays are presented to illustrate these points, and guidelines are suggested regarding instructor expectations of student creativity and scientific accuracy. Methods of grading this assignment are also discussed.

  2. Three essays in control, entrepreneurship and innovation

    OpenAIRE

    Cardenas, F.

    2012-01-01

    One of the key emphases of these three essays is to provide practical managerial insight. However, good practical insight, can only be created by grounding it firmly on theoretical and empirical research. Practical experience-based understanding without theoretical grounding remains tacit and cannot be easily disseminated. Theoretical understanding without links to real life remains sterile. My studies aim to increase the understanding of how radical innovation could be generated at large est...

  3. Essays on Online and Multi-Channel Marketing

    OpenAIRE

    Zhang, Lingling

    2016-01-01

    Firms increasingly adopt online and multi-channel marketing strategies to reach and persuade consumers. Therefore, designing an effective marketing mix is critical to their success. The aim of my dissertation is to understand the strategy behind firms’ channel choices and assess marketing effectiveness. It consists of three large-scale empirical studies examining several important aspects of online and multi-channel marketing. My first essay focuses on the business-to-business (B2B) inte...

  4. Essays on carbon policy and enhanced oil recovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cook, Benjamin R.

    The growing concerns about climate change have led policy makers to consider various regulatory schemes designed to reduce the stock and growth of atmospheric CO2 concentrations while at the same time improving energy security. The most prominent proposals are the so called "cap-and-trade" frameworks which set aggregate emission levels for a jurisdiction and then issue or sell a corresponding number of allowances to emitters. Typically, these policy measures will also encourage the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in geological formations and mature oil fields through subsidies or other incentives. The ability to store CO 2 in mature oil fields through the deployment of CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2--EOR) is particularly attractive as it can simultaneously improve oil recovery at those fields, and serve as a possible financial bridge to the development of CO2 transportation infrastructure. The purpose of this research is to explore the impact that a tandem subsidy-tax policy regime may have on bargaining between emitters and sequestration providers, and also to identify oil units in Wyoming that can profitably undertake CO 2--EOR as a starting point for the build-out of CO2 pipelines. In the first essay an economics lab experiment is designed to simulate private bargaining between carbon emitters (such as power plants) and carbon sequestration sites when the emitter faces carbon taxes, sequestration subsidies or both. In a tax-subsidy policy regime the carbon tax (or purchased allowances) can be avoided by sequestering the carbon, and in some cases the emitter can also earn a subsidy to help pay for the sequestration. The main policy implications of the experiment results are that the sequestration market might be inefficient, and sequestration providers seem to have bargaining power sufficient to command high prices. This may lead to the integration of CO2 sources and sequestration sites, and reduced prices for the injectable CO2 purchased by oil

  5. Sources of Social Control in School: A Speculative Essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlechty, Phillip C.; Burke, William I.

    1980-01-01

    This essay attempts to demonstrate that age segregation and subject matter specialization are two important supports of the authority of teachers and the school's ability to control students. Therefore, efforts to change these organizational patterns without considering alternative means of establishing control are doomed to failure. (Author/SJL)

  6. The Psychology of Reading Instruction (A Collection of Essays).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ediger, Marlow

    Focusing on various areas of concern to classroom teachers, this collection contains the following essays: (1) "Herbart versus Froebel on Teaching Pupils"; (2) "The Integrated Reading Curriculum"; (3) "Motivation and the Learner in Reading"; (4) "Issues in the Reading Curriculum"; (5) "Inservice Education and the Curriculum"; (6) "Textbooks and…

  7. Entrepreneurship and innovation. Essays in honour of Wim During

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Sijde, Peter; Ridder, Annemarie; Groen, Arend J.

    2004-01-01

    Wim During started his work at the University of Twente in 1973. During his academic career, he elaborated two main themes: (high tech) entrepreneurship and high-tech small firms. The essays in this book -published on the occasion of his retirement as professor of Innovative Entrepreneurship at the

  8. The Sensible and Insensible Body: A Visual Essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joanna Bourke

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Translating pain into tangible images brings it into the public consciousness, raising the spectre of bodily suffering as virtually intrinsic to the human condition. Beginning with Descartes, who famously advanced mind-body theories in the late seventeenth century, this essay explores the effects of his influence together with shifting attitudes towards pain and its role over the long nineteenth century.

  9. Essays on regulation, institutions, and industrial organization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergara, Mario Esteban

    Essay I develops a comparative institutional analysis of network access price regulation and "light-handed" regulation. While the former is a specific-agency-based arrangement with higher political influence, the latter is a court-based system. Consequently, the main trade-off between both frameworks reflects the merits of having efficient political and judicial institutions. Price regulation is superior when distributional concerns are irrelevant and information asymmetries are lower. Poorly functioning political systems and high welfare costs of raising funds make price regulation less attractive. Light regulation is more attractive when potential rents are smaller, the monopolist is more risk averse, the judicial system is more efficient, and the threat of government intervention is more credible. The possibility of private transfers makes price regulation more advantageous. Higher information asymmetries among firms makes light-handed regulation more attractive. The main results are consistent with a plausible interpretation of the drastic deregulatory process in New Zealand. Essay II studies the preliminary effects of the deregulation of direct access in the New Zealand's electricity market. A slight improvement in quality standards and an overall efficiency increase took place after two years of deregulation. Retailers were able to successfully enter in large demand, dense areas, with a large proportion of industrial and commercial users, where incumbents were not distributing electricity efficiently. Pricing policies appears to be influenced by market forces (associated to economic and demographic characteristics) as expected in a light regulatory framework. Essay III focuses on the possibility of endogenous sunk costs and the introduction of new products. Firms that exert some monopoly power in one market and introduce a new good whose demand is determined by a broader set of consumers might be forced to change their competing strategies. If the new product

  10. På kant med Kant : Et bekjennende essay

    OpenAIRE

    Dahl, Per

    2013-01-01

    Kant can’t always be right. There are some aspects of Kant’s philosophy that make him unsuitable for the understanding of a musical experience. His contribution to aesthetic theory is developed in the Critique of Judgement (1790), where he investigates the possibility and logical status of “judgements of taste”. In this essay, I argue that his exploration of the inherent limits of our knowledge through philosophical reasoning seems to impede an understanding of the musical expe...

  11. Essays on the Impact of Social Media: Evidence from the Music Industry and the Stock Market

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Hailiang

    2012-01-01

    As both individuals and businesses are starting to embrace social media, understanding the power and influence of social media becomes an important question. This dissertation aims to address this issue and study the impact of social media in different contexts. It consists of two essays. The first essay examines the effectiveness of social media…

  12. The Determination of Children's Knowledge of Global Lunar Patterns from Online Essays Using Text Mining Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheon, Jongpil; Lee, Sangno; Smith, Walter; Song, Jaeki; Kim, Yongjin

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to use text mining analysis of early adolescents' online essays to determine their knowledge of global lunar patterns. Australian and American students in grades five to seven wrote about global lunar patterns they had discovered by sharing observations with each other via the Internet. These essays were analyzed for…

  13. The Impact of Training Students How to Write Introductions for Academic Essays: An Exploratory, Longitudinal Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Gavin T. L.; Marshall, Jennifer C.

    2012-01-01

    Successful academic writing requires strong command of the rhetorical moves that orient the reader to the theme and substantive material of an academic essay. Effective control of the introduction leads to better overall writing. The goal of this study was to devise and evaluate a pedagogy for teaching the writing of academic essay introductions.…

  14. Improving Undergraduates' Argumentative Group Essay Writing through Self-Assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fung, Yong Mei; Mei, Hooi Chee

    2015-01-01

    When writing an argumentative essay, writers develop and evaluate arguments to embody, initiate, or simulate various kinds of interpersonal and textual interaction for reader consideration (Wu & Allison, 2003). This is quite challenging for English as a second language (ESL) learners. To improve the quality of their writing, students need to…

  15. "Argument!" Helping Students Understand What Essay Writing Is About

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wingate, Ursula

    2012-01-01

    Argumentation is a key requirement of the essay, which is the most common genre that students have to write. However, how argumentation is realised in disciplinary writing is often poorly understood by academic tutors, and therefore not adequately taught to students. This paper presents research into undergraduate students' concepts of argument…

  16. Three Epiphanic Fragments: Education and the Essay in Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aldridge, David

    2014-01-01

    Pádraig Hogan has argued for a powerful conception of education as epiphany that is illuminated by the work of Heidegger and Joyce. But what are we to make of Stephen Dedalus' intention (pretension?) to "Remember your epiphanies"? Developing the phenomenological Erinnerungsversuch or "essay in memory" of David Farrell…

  17. Scoring and setting pass/fail standards for an essay certification examination in nurse-midwifery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fullerton, J T; Greener, D L; Gross, L J

    1992-03-01

    Examination for certification or licensure of health professionals (credentialing) in the United States is almost exclusively of the multiple choice format. The certification examination for entry into the practice of the profession of nurse-midwifery has, however, used a modified essay format throughout its twenty-year history. The examination has recently undergone a revision in the method for score interpretation and for pass/fail decision-making. The revised method, described in this paper, has important implications for all health professional credentialing agencies which use modified essay, oral or practical methods of competency assessment. This paper describes criterion-referenced scoring, the process of constructing the essay items, the methods for assuring validity and reliability for the examination, and the manner of standard setting. In addition, two alternative methods for increasing the validity of the pass/fail decision are evaluated, and the rationale for decision-making about marginal candidates is described.

  18. 7-ad attoe-an essay concerning the foundational myth of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    JONATHAN

    5 No. 1. January – June, 2016. P age. 1. 0. 0. AN ESSAY CONCERNING THE ... philosophy, which eventually led to the proliferation of a vast array of mostly ... often tend to forcefully impose the concept of philosophical on certain stories,.

  19. Rhombencephalitis: pictorial essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Líllian Gonçalves Campos

    Full Text Available Abstract The term rhombencephalitis refers to inflammatory diseases affecting the hindbrain (brainstem and cerebellum. Rhombencephalitis has a wide variety of etiologies, including infections, autoimmune diseases, and paraneoplastic syndromes. Infection with bacteria of the genus Listeria is the most common cause of rhombencephalitis. Primary rhombencephalitis caused by infection with Listeria spp. occurs in healthy young adults. It usually has a biphasic time course with a flu-like syndrome, followed by brainstem dysfunction; 75% of patients have cerebrospinal fluid pleocytosis, and nearly 100% have an abnormal brain magnetic resonance imaging scan. However, other possible causes of rhombencephalitis must be borne in mind. In addition to the clinical aspects, the patterns seen in magnetic resonance imaging can be helpful in defining the possible cause. Some of the reported causes of rhombencephalitis are potentially severe and life threatening; therefore, an accurate initial diagnostic approach is important to establishing a proper early treatment regimen. This pictorial essay reviews the various causes of rhombencephalitis and the corresponding magnetic resonance imaging findings, by describing illustrative confirmed cases.

  20. Metaphor of society (a sociological essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gennadii Vasil’evich Osipov

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The essay by Academician G.V. Osipov, who is the patriarch of Russian sociology, is dedicated to one of the most cognitive topics of modern sociology – identification of sociological metaphor as such and its application in research projects. This topic is avant-garde for the world sociological thought, and in Russia such kind of research is making its first steps. However, its future importance is difficult to overestimate. Sociological metaphor, if a methodology for its application is developed, can provide scientists with qualitatively new synthetic research tools. It can also bring together scientific structures and artifacts on the space of interdisciplinary and inter-subject borderland and give them qualitatively new intellectual and sensuous (system and mental technological capabilities for learning the surrounding world. The advantage of the following essay can be found in the fact that it is based on the objective analysis of the real embodiment of social metaphor in the work of art – a pictorial triptych “The Mystery of the 21st Century”. This is the first such experience in domestic sociological and artistic-painting practice. The authors of the final product are a scientist of great scientific and life experience and a young artist, who received in-depth sociological training and defended his Ph.D. in Sociology dissertation. But the main result of their collaboration is a product that combines scientific (sociological knowledge and insight and intuitive-creative artistic perception in a qualitatively new perception of the world and world outlook

  1. Four essays on offshore wind power potential, development, regulatory framework, and integration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dhanju, Amardeep

    Offshore wind power is an energy resource whose potential in the US has been recognized only recently. There is now growing interest among the coastal states to harness the resource, particularly in states adjacent to the Mid-Atlantic Bight where the shallow continental shelf allows installation of wind turbines using the existing foundation technology. But the promise of bountiful clean energy from offshore wind could be delayed or forestalled due to policy and regulatory challenges. This dissertation is an effort to identify and address some of the important challenges. Focusing on Delaware as a case study it calculates the extent of the wind resource; considers one means to facilitate resource development---the establishment of statewide and regional public power authorities; analyzes possible regulatory frameworks to manage the resource in state-controlled waters; and assesses the use of distributed storage to manage intermittent output from wind turbines. In order to cover a diversity of topics, this research uses a multi-paper format with four essays forming the body of work. The first essay lays out an accessible methodology to calculate offshore wind resource potential using publicly available data, and uses this methodology to access wind resources off Delaware. The assessment suggests a wind resource approximately four times the average electrical load in Delaware. The second essay examines the potential role of a power authority, a quasi-public institution, in lowering the cost of capital, reducing financial risk of developing and operating a wind farm, and enhancing regional collaboration on resource development and management issues. The analysis suggests that a power authority can lower the cost of offshore wind power by as much as 1/3, thereby preserving the ability to pursue cost-competitive development even if the current federal incentives are removed. The third essay addresses the existing regulatory void in state-controlled waters of Delaware

  2. Essays in applied microeconomics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Lucas William

    2005-11-01

    The first essay measures the impact of an outbreak of pediatric leukemia on local housing values. A model of residential location choice is used to describe conditions under which the gradient of the hedonic price function with respect to health risk is equal to household marginal willingness to pay to avoid pediatric leukemia risk. This equalizing differential is estimated using property-level sales records from a county in Nevada where residents have recently experienced a severe increase in pediatric leukemia. Housing values are compared before and after the increase with a nearby county acting as a control group. The results indicate that housing values decreased 15.6% during the period of maximum risk. Results are similar for alternative measures of risk and across houses of different sizes. With risk estimates derived using a Bayesian learning model the results imply a statistical value of pediatric leukemia of $5.6 million. The results from the paper provide some of the first market-based estimates of the value of health for children. The second essay evaluates the cost-effectiveness of public incentives that encourage households to purchase high-efficiency durable goods. The demand for durable goods and the demand for energy and other inputs are modeled jointly as the solution to a household production problem. The empirical analysis focuses on the case of clothes washers. The production technology and utilization decision are estimated using household-level data from field trials in which participants received front-loading clothes washers free of charge. The estimation strategy exploits this quasi-random replacement of washers to derive robust estimates of the utilization decision. The results indicate a price elasticity, -.06, that is statistically different from zero across specifications. The parameters from the utilization decision are used to estimate the purchase decision using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, 1994-2002. Households

  3. Humanizing mathematics and its philosophy essays celebrating the 90th birthday of Reuben Hersh

    CERN Document Server

    2017-01-01

    This Festschrift contains numerous colorful and eclectic essays from well-known mathematicians, philosophers, logicians, and linguists celebrating the 90th birthday of Reuben Hersh. The essays offer, in part, attempts to answer the following questions set forth by Reuben himself as a focus for this volume: Can practicing mathematicians, as such, contribute anything to the philosophy of math? Can or should philosophers of math, as such, say anything to practicing mathematicians? Twenty or fifty years from now, what will be similar, and what will, or could, or should be altogether different: About the philosophy of math? About math education? About math research institutions? About data processing and scientific computing? The essays also offer glimpses into Reuben’s fertile mind and his lasting influence on the mathematical community, as well as revealing the diverse roots, obstacles and philosophical dispositions that characterize the working lives of mathematicians. With contributions from a veritable “w...

  4. The Multimedia Essay. The Information Technologies as a Tool for The Humanities’ Statements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Piotr Cichocki

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available The article applies for the educational experiment practiced during last several years at The Institute of Ethnology and Culture Anthropology, University of Warsaw, related to the multimedia essay. More accomplished than a multimedia presentation, more connected with textual analysis than a movie or videoclip, the multimedia essay may be mean especially fitted to humanities’ statements. The kind of attempts may result in the new discoursive hypertextual field, however nowadays they deal with dilemmas connected with copyrights and corporative control under the datas. Therefore the science is entangled with processes of constant change in the legislation.

  5. Short time-scale optical variability properties of the largest AGN sample observed with Kepler/K2

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aranzana, E.; Körding, E.; Uttley, P.; Scaringi, S.; Bloemen, S.

    2018-05-01

    We present the first short time-scale (˜hours to days) optical variability study of a large sample of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) observed with the Kepler/K2 mission. The sample contains 252 AGN observed over four campaigns with ˜30 min cadence selected from the Million Quasar Catalogue with R magnitude <19. We performed time series analysis to determine their variability properties by means of the power spectral densities (PSDs) and applied Monte Carlo techniques to find the best model parameters that fit the observed power spectra. A power-law model is sufficient to describe all the PSDs of our sample. A variety of power-law slopes were found indicating that there is not a universal slope for all AGNs. We find that the rest-frame amplitude variability in the frequency range of 6 × 10-6-10-4 Hz varies from 1to10 per cent with an average of 1.7 per cent. We explore correlations between the variability amplitude and key parameters of the AGN, finding a significant correlation of rest-frame short-term variability amplitude with redshift. We attribute this effect to the known `bluer when brighter' variability of quasars combined with the fixed bandpass of Kepler data. This study also enables us to distinguish between Seyferts and blazars and confirm AGN candidates. For our study, we have compared results obtained from light curves extracted using different aperture sizes and with and without detrending. We find that limited detrending of the optimal photometric precision light curve is the best approach, although some systematic effects still remain present.

  6. Essays on Housing Markets

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bäckman, Claes

    In Denmark and in many countries around the world, housing markets are of considerable importance for households and policy-makers alike. As the boom and bust in the US and Danish housing market so aptly demonstrated, disruptions in the housing market potentially have wide-ranging consequences...... for individual households and for the aggregate economy. Housing is important because we all have to live somewhere, but also because it serves as a considerable source of both wealth and debt. As such, housing market policy can not only create vast benefits for many, but can also have substantial negative...... impacts for all, and should therefore be a topic of major interest for economists and policy makers alike. This Ph.D. thesis, entitled “Essays on Housing Markets”, analyzes the Danish housing market during the 2000s, with a focus on how policy changes affected house prices and how changes in house prices...

  7. Onsite: A Residency with Tim Rollins/KOS. A Photo Essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Placky, Robert

    2000-01-01

    Presents a photo essay that visually narrates the workshop that took place in State College, Pennsylvania, from October 19-24, 1998 bringing together middle and high school students with Tim Rollins, who is a conceptual artist and educator, and Kids of Survival (KOS). (CMK)

  8. Cervantes, The Sot-Weed Factor. The “Wild Writing” of John Barth, Contemporary Review of the Cervantinian Narrative Models: Romance, Novella, (Proto Essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María Encarnación Pérez Abellán

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available By “wild writing” Cervantes understands the disharmonious composition of chivalric romance by the incongruous sequencing of its constituent elements. However, he also proposes a positive reading of the expression whenever the theme compositional heterogeneity brings together the principle of unity and coherence. The Quixote himself exemplifies the “wild writing” integrating formally the Italianate novella, short stories and an embryonic essay in order to become the new genre: the novel. Don Quixote is the starting point of The Sot-Weed Factor (John Barth 1960, as well as it is uniquely amalgamate the three narratives submodalities, as a conscious tribute to Cervantes, already installed Barth in postmodern novel.

  9. Three essays on productivity and risk, marketing decisions, and changes in well-being over time

    OpenAIRE

    Larochelle, Catherine

    2011-01-01

    This dissertation is composed of three essays; the first two examine the decision-making of potato producing households in Bolivia and the third examines well-being changes among Zimbabwe households. The first essay entitled â The role of risk mitigation in production efficiency: A case study of potato cultivation in the Bolivian Andesâ estimates the costs of self-managing environmental risk through activity and environmental diversification. Risk management has the potential to reduce in...

  10. Influence of short-term sampling parameters on the uncertainty of the Lden environmental noise indicator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mateus, M; Carrilho, J Dias; Da Silva, M Gameiro

    2015-01-01

    The present study deals with the influence of the sampling parameters on the uncertainty of noise equivalent level in environmental noise measurements. The study has been carried out through the test of different sampling strategies doing resampling trials over continuous monitoring noise files obtained previously in an urban location in the city of Coimbra, in Portugal. On short term measurements, not only the duration of the sampling episodes but also its number have influence on the uncertainty of the result. This influence is higher for the time periods where sound levels suffer a greater variation, such as during the night period. In this period, in case both parameters (duration and number of sampling episodes) are not carefully selected, the uncertainty level can reach too high values contributing to a loss of precision of the measurements. With the obtained data it was investigated the sampling parameters influence on the long term noise indicator uncertainty, calculated according the Draft 1st CD ISO 1996-2:2012 proposed method. It has been verified that this method allows the possibility of defining a general methodology which enables the setting of the parameters once the precision level is fixed. For the three reference periods defined for environmental noise (day, evening and night), it was possible to derive a two variable power law representing the uncertainty of the determined values as a function of the two sampling parameters: duration of sampling episode and number of episodes

  11. The Education of a Teacher. Essays on American Culture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Howard

    Written in the immediacy of the Vietnam period and its aftermath, these essays record, from the perspective of a college professor, the dramatic shifts of students from the active, even violent, style of protests for social justice of the sixties to the self-interested "protest of style" of the seventies, to the insecurity and career orientation…

  12. Cosmopolitanism and Peace in Kant's Essay on "Perpetual Peace"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huggler, Jorgen

    2010-01-01

    Immanuel Kant's essay on Perpetual Peace (1795/96) contains a rejection of the idea of a world government (earlier advocated by Kant himself). In connexion with a substantial argument for cosmopolitan rights based on the human body and its need for a space on the surface of the Earth, Kant presents the most rigorous philosophical formulation ever…

  13. Two Essays in Financial Economics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Putnam, Kyle J.

    The following dissertation contains two distinct empirical essays which contribute to the overall field of Financial Economics. Chapter 1, entitled "The Determinants of Dynamic Dependence: An Analysis of Commodity Futures and Equity Markets," examines the determinants of the dynamic equity-commodity return correlations between five commodity futures sub-sectors (energy, foods and fibers, grains and oilseeds, livestock, and precious metals) and a value-weighted equity market index (S&P 500). The study utilizes the traditional DCC model, as well as three time-varying copulas: (i) the normal copula, (ii) the student's t copula, and (iii) the rotated-gumbel copula as dependence measures. Subsequently, the determinants of these various dependence measures are explored by analyzing several macroeconomic, financial, and speculation variables over different sample periods. Results indicate that the dynamic equity-commodity correlations for the energy, grains and oilseeds, precious metals, and to a lesser extent the foods and fibers, sub-sectors have become increasingly explainable by broad macroeconomic and financial market indicators, particularly after May 2003. Furthermore, these variables exhibit heterogeneous effects in terms of both magnitude and sign on each sub-sectors' equity-commodity correlation structure. Interestingly, the effects of increased financial market speculation are found to be extremely varied among the five sub-sectors. These results have important implications for portfolio selection, price formation, and risk management. Chapter 2, entitled, "US Community Bank Failure: An Empirical Investigation," examines the declining, but still pivotal role, of the US community banking industry. The study utilizes survival analysis to determine which accounting and macroeconomic variables help to predict community bank failure. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Federal Reserve Bank data are utilized to compare 452 community banks which failed between

  14. Cholestatic jaundice by malignant lesions: pictorial essay

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Santa Anna, Tatiana Kelly Brasileiro de; Santana, Alex Menezes; Rizzuto, Mauricio Soares; Chagas, Alessandro Rosa Rodrigues; Zuppani, Aguinaldo Cunha; Rezende, Marcelo Bruno; Viveiros, Marcelo de Melo

    2009-01-01

    Malignant obstructive jaundice is most commonly caused by cancer of pancreatic head, papilla tumor, cholangiocarcinoma and biliary obstruction induced by secondary lesions of the liver or lymph nodes. Patients usually present with weight loss, abdominal pain, jaundice and progressive increase of direct bilirubin, being essential the evaluation by imaging methods for the proper diagnosis, staging and therapeutic planning. This essay illustrates the imaging aspects of ultrasound and computed tomography - and in specific situations magnetic resonance cholangiography - of the major malignancies that lead to cholestatic jaundice. (author)

  15. Essays in competition with product differentiation and bargaining in markets

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bouckaert, J.M.C.

    1996-01-01

    The fourth essay uses bargaining theory and compares the outcome of a negotiation in two differently organized markets. In the first market, sellers simultaneously offer their good or service for sale. In the second market, sellers queue and offer their good or service sequentially for sale.

  16. Review Essay A history of colonialism through post-colonial lenses ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Review Essay A history of colonialism through post-colonial lenses: reading Mahmood Mamdani's citizen and subject. Sanya Osha. Abstract. No Abstract. The Nigerian Journal of Economic History Vol. 2, 1999: 155-161. Full Text: EMAIL FULL TEXT EMAIL FULL TEXT · DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT.

  17. A short version of the revised 'experience of close relationships questionnaire': investigating non-clinical and clinical samples.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wongpakaran, Tinakon; Wongpakaran, Nahathai

    2012-01-01

    This study seeks to investigate the psychometric properties of the short version of the revised 'Experience of Close Relationships' questionnaire, comparing non-clinical and clinical samples. In total 702 subjects participated in this study, of whom 531 were non-clinical participants and 171 were psychiatric patients. They completed the short version of the revised 'Experience of Close Relationships' questionnaire (ECR-R-18), the Perceived Stress Scale-10(PSS-10), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and the UCLA Loneliness scale. A retest of the ECR-R-18 was then performed at four-week intervals. Then, confirmatory factor analyses were performed to test the validity of the new scale. The ECR-R-18 showed a fair to good internal consistency (α 0.77 to 0.87) for both samples, and the test-retest reliability was found to be satisfactory (ICC = 0.75). The anxiety sub-scale demonstrated concurrent validity with PSS-10 and RSES, while the avoidance sub-scale showed concurrent validity with the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Confirmatory factor analysis using method factors yielded two factors with an acceptable model fit for both groups. An invariance test revealed that the ECR-R-18 when used on the clinical group differed from when used with the non-clinical group. The ECR-R-18 questionnaire revealed an overall better level of fit than the original 36 item questionnaire, indicating its suitability for use with a broader group of samples, including clinical samples. The reliability of the ECR-R- 18 might be increased if a modified scoring system is used and if our suggestions with regard to future studies are followed up.

  18. Accounting Issues: An Essay Series Part IV--Property, Plant, & Equipment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laux, Judy

    2007-01-01

    This fourth article in a series of theoretical essays intended to supplement the introductory financial accounting course is dedicated to the topic of property, plant, and equipment (PP&E), including both the accounting treatment and its related conceptual connections. The paper also addresses the measurement dilemmas, scandalous accounting…

  19. The Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art (DICA): A Photo-Essay

    OpenAIRE

    Yam Lau

    2014-01-01

    This photo-essay documents the conception and realization of a ‘mobile display unit,’ a kind of cabinet of curiosities attached to a donkey, and made to travel through the streets of Beijing so that the texts, works and videos displayed there were accessible to passers-by.

  20. Mass Media and the National Experience; Essays in Communications History.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farrar, Ronald T., Ed.; Stevens, John D., Ed.

    In 11 different essays, journalism historians reflect on the present state of their art and suggest ways and means of doing the important work that lies ahead. Areas of productive research suggested include freedom of expression, politics and economics, technology regionalism, Black journalism, the journalist as social critic, photographic…

  1. Accounting Issues: An Essay Series Part VI--Investments in Securities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laux, Judy

    2008-01-01

    The sixth in a series of theory-based essays, this article presents accounting for investments in debt and equity securities along with some related conceptual and measurement issues. Additional coverage is devoted to potential ethical dilemmas and both theoretical and empirical literature related to this asset. (Contains 1 footnote.)

  2. Towards a Realist Sociology of Education: A Polyphonic Review Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grenfell, Michael; Hood, Susan; Barrett, Brian D.; Schubert, Dan

    2017-01-01

    This review essay evaluates Karl Maton's "Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education" as a recent examination of the sociological causes and effects of education in the tradition of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu and the British educational sociologist Basil Bernstein. Maton's book synthesizes the…

  3. Essays on the Effects of Medical Marijuana Laws

    OpenAIRE

    Smart, Rosanna

    2016-01-01

    Over half of the US states have adopted "medical marijuana" laws (MMLs), and 58% of Americans now favor marijuana legalization. Despite public support, federal law continues to prohibit the use and sale of marijuana due to public health concerns of increased dependence and abuse, youth access, and drugged driving. These essays contribute toward understanding the likely health consequences of marijuana liberalization using evidence from MMLs.Chapter 1 -- Growing Like Weed: Explaining Variation...

  4. Essays on Stock Issuance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kohl, Niklas

    Firms which issue new equity subsequently have lower returns than other firms, but does the strength of the issuance effect vary in the cross section of firms? The essay shows, that US firms with characteristics that makes them “hard to value” have returns which are strongly related to their past...... issuance activity, while the return of “easy to value” firms are less related to their past issuance activity. In most cases the difference between “hard to value” and “easy to value” firms are signiffcant. As proxies for “hard to value”, I use three different types of firm characteristics. First, I...... consider firms for which relatively little information is available as “hard to value”. Examples are firms covered by few analysts and small firms. Second, I consider firms with high levels of analyst disagreement on stock price target, next quarter earnings per share and share recommendation as “hard...

  5. The Short Version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21): Factor Structure in a Young Adolescent Sample

    Science.gov (United States)

    Szabo, Marianna

    2010-01-01

    This study explored the factor structure of the short form of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995b) in a young adolescent sample. A group of 484 high school students ("Mean" age = 13.62 years, Min = 11.83, Max = 15.67 years, 52 % boys) completed the DASS-21. Several models were tested using Confirmatory Factor…

  6. Essays in Energy Policy: The Interplay Between Risks and Incentives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lordan-Perret, Rebecca Jane Bishop

    My dissertation considers examples of how social, economic, and political incentives associated with energy production, distribution, and consumption increase the risk of harm to society and the environment. In the first essay, "Why America should move toward dry cask consolidated interim storage of used nuclear fuel," my co-authors and I discuss how the confluence of the U.S. Government and electricity utilities' political and economic incentives created a gridlock preventing a long-term nuclear waste disposal solution. We find that our current policies undermine the safety and security of the nuclear waste, and so, suggest a temporary, consolidated storage solution. In the second essay, "Import-Adjusted Fatality Rates for Individual OECD Countries Caused by Accidents in the Oil Energy Chain," my co-authors and I adopt a technique from the greenhouse gas accounting literature and assign CO2 emissions to the final consumer (rather than the producer) by allocating the risk - measured in fatalities - associated with oil production to the final consumer. The new assignments show that normal methods of tracking oil production impacts only capture part of the actual costs. In the third essay, "Insurgent Attacks on Energy Infrastructure and Electoral Institutions in Colombia," my co-authors and I consider the economic and political incentives that an energy resource create in a conflict environment. Our research shows that insurgents in Colombia, Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN), strategically time attacks on critical energy infrastructure during elections. These results are the first to quantify insurgent tactics to target critical energy infrastructure, which potentially undermine state capacity and democratic processes.

  7. Correlation Between Lexical Richness and Overall Quality of Argumentative Essays Written by English Department Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rizky Lutviana

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: This study aims at revealing the contribution of diction to the overall quality of argumenta-tive essays written by 42 EFL students. The researcher compared two sets of scores, the score of students’ lexical richness, measured with LFP (Lexical Frequency Profile, and the score of overall quality of EFL students’ argumentative essay, using analytical scoring rubric. The small and not significant correlation (ñ=.18, sig=.23 implied that diction had small contribution to the overall quality of the essay. There might be another factor related to the diction that supports the quality of written text. Thus, further research is needed to be conducted. Key Words: diction, lexical richness, overall quality, argumentative essay Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan kontribusi diksi untuk kualitas keseluruhan dari esai argumentatif yang ditulis oleh 42 siswa EFL. Peneliti membandingkan dua set nilai, skor siswa kekayaan leksikal, diukur dengan LFP (Lexical Frequency Profile, dan skor keseluruhan kualitas siswa EFL pada esai argumentatif, dengan menggunakan rubrik skoring analitis. Korelasi kecil dan tidak signifikan (ñ = 0,18, sig = 0,23 menunjukkan bahwa diksi memiliki kontribusi kecil untuk kualitas keseluruhan dari esai. Kemungkinan, ada faktor lain yang berhubungan dengan diksi yang mendukung kualitas dari teks. Dengan demikian, penelitian lebih lanjut diperlukan untuk dilakukan. Kata kunci: diksi, kekayaan leksikal, kualitas secara keseluruhan, esai argumentatif

  8. Empirical essays on energy economics

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Thoenes, Stefan

    2013-06-13

    The main part of this thesis consists of three distinct essays that empirically analyze economic issues related to energy markets in the United States and Europe. The first chapter provides an introduction and discusses the motivation for the different analyses pursued in this thesis. The second chapter examines attention effects in the market for hybrid vehicles. We show that local media coverage, gasoline price changes and unprecedented record gasoline prices have a significant impact on the consumers' attention. As attention is not directly observable, we analyze online search behavior as a proxy for the revealed consumer attention. Our study is based on a unique weekly panel dataset for 19 metropolitan areas in the US. Additionally, we use monthly state-level panel data to show that the adoption rate of hybrid vehicles is robustly related to our measure of attention. Our results show that the consumers' attention fluctuates strongly and systematically. The third chapter shows how the effect of fuel prices varies with the level of electricity demand. It analyzes the relationship between daily prices of electricity, natural gas and carbon emission allowances with a semiparametric varying smooth coefficient cointegration model. This model is used to analyze the market impact of the nuclear moratorium by the German Government in March 2011. Futures prices of electricity, natural gas and emission allowances are used to show that the market efficiently accounts for the suspended capacity and correctly expects that several nuclear plants will not be switched on after the moratorium. In the fourth chapter, we develop a structural vector autoregressive model (VAR) for the German natural gas market. In particular, we illustrate the usefulness of our approach by disentangling the effects of different fundamental influences during four specific events: The financial crisis starting in 2008, the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute in January 2009, the Libyan civil war

  9. Empirical essays on energy economics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Thoenes, Stefan

    2013-01-01

    The main part of this thesis consists of three distinct essays that empirically analyze economic issues related to energy markets in the United States and Europe. The first chapter provides an introduction and discusses the motivation for the different analyses pursued in this thesis. The second chapter examines attention effects in the market for hybrid vehicles. We show that local media coverage, gasoline price changes and unprecedented record gasoline prices have a significant impact on the consumers' attention. As attention is not directly observable, we analyze online search behavior as a proxy for the revealed consumer attention. Our study is based on a unique weekly panel dataset for 19 metropolitan areas in the US. Additionally, we use monthly state-level panel data to show that the adoption rate of hybrid vehicles is robustly related to our measure of attention. Our results show that the consumers' attention fluctuates strongly and systematically. The third chapter shows how the effect of fuel prices varies with the level of electricity demand. It analyzes the relationship between daily prices of electricity, natural gas and carbon emission allowances with a semiparametric varying smooth coefficient cointegration model. This model is used to analyze the market impact of the nuclear moratorium by the German Government in March 2011. Futures prices of electricity, natural gas and emission allowances are used to show that the market efficiently accounts for the suspended capacity and correctly expects that several nuclear plants will not be switched on after the moratorium. In the fourth chapter, we develop a structural vector autoregressive model (VAR) for the German natural gas market. In particular, we illustrate the usefulness of our approach by disentangling the effects of different fundamental influences during four specific events: The financial crisis starting in 2008, the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute in January 2009, the Libyan civil war in 2011 as

  10. The Legacy of Albert Einstein: A Collection of Essays in Celebration of the Year of Physics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Straumann, Norbert

    2007-01-01

    During the 'World Year of Physics' much has been written on the epoch-making 1905 papers of Albert Einstein and his later great contributions to physics. Why another book on the enormous impact of Einstein's work on 20th-century physics? The short answer is that the present collection of 13 relatively short essays on the legacy of Einstein by outstanding scientists is very pleasant to read and should be of interest to physicists of all branches. Beside looking back, most articles present later and topical developments, whose initiation began with the work of Einstein. During the year 2005, the growing recognition among physicists, historians, and philosophers of Einstein's revolutionary role in quantum theory was often emphasized. It is truly astonishing that most active physicists were largely unaware of this before. Fortunately, the article 'Einstein and the quantum' by V Singh puts the subject in perspective and describes all the main steps, beginning with the truly revolutionary 1905 paper on the light-quantum hypothesis and ending with Einstein's extension of the particle-wave duality to atoms and other particles in 1924-1925. The only point which, in my opinion, is not sufficiently emphasized in the discussion of the 1916-1917 papers on absorption and emission of radiation is the part on the momentum transfer in each elementary process. Einstein's result that there is a directed recoil hν/c-also for spontaneous emission-in complete contrast to classical theory, was particularly important to him. I enjoyed reading the articles on Brownian motion (S Majumdar), Bose-Einstein condensation (N Kumar) and strongly correlated electrons (T Ramakrishnan), which are all written for non-experts. Connected with Einstein's most lasting work-general relativity-there are two articles on cosmology. The one by J Narlikar gives a brief historical account of the development that was initiated by the 1917 paper of Einstein. S Sarkar's essay emphasizes the remarkable recent

  11. Toxicity minimization of pipelines hydrostatic tests fluids, stage I: laboratory essays

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lacerda, Jorge A.S.; Penna, Monica de O.; Portela, Daniele B.; Christino, Fernando P.; Silva, Joao L.B. da; Geraldo, Lucia M.L. [Petroleo do Brasileiro S.A. (PETROBRAS), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Mota, Vanessa V.C. [Fundacao Gorceix, Ouro Preto, MG (Brazil); Cravo Junior, Walter [Pontificia Univ. Catolica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), RJ (Brazil)

    2009-07-01

    This paper presents the results of the laboratory essays stage of the project for toxicity minimization of pipelines hydrostatic tests fluids. The hydrostatic-hibernation fluid composition most used by PETROBRAS in offshore operations is seawater added with sodium bis sulfite, fluorescein, alquildimetilbenzilamonium chloride, and tetrakis-hydroxymethyl-phosphonium sulfate (THPS). In order to reduce the toxicity of the fluid used in hydrostatic tests, the use of lesser concentrations of THPS was attempted with UV radiation application as a disinfection technique prior to the adding of the fluid's components. The compositions were evaluated in different conditions of temperature use of UV radiation or not and oxygen scavenger adding (presence and absence). The fluids were kept hibernating for 120 days. All the parameters tested after hibernation were compared to fresh from preparation samples (zero time samples). The fluid's characteristics were evaluated by microbiological control and toxicity as well as the THPS residual. Results showed that the UV treatment was more effective in the absence of oxygen scavenger. The temperature acts as a microbial growth control agent, as expected. To large scale operations, a water quality monitoring must be performed previously to any field operations, in order to determinate the best treatment to be used in each case. (author)

  12. Three Essays on Renewable Energy Policy and its Effects on Fossil Fuel Generation in Electricity Markets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bowen, Eric

    In this dissertation, I investigate the effectiveness of renewable policies and consider their impact on electricity markets. The common thread of this research is to understand how renewable policy incentivizes renewable generation and how the increasing share of generation from renewables affects generation from fossil fuels. This type of research is crucial for understanding whether policies to promote renewables are meeting their stated goals and what the unintended effects might be. To this end, I use econometric methods to examine how electricity markets are responding to an influx of renewable energy. My dissertation is composed of three interrelated essays. In Chapter 1, I employ recent scholarship in spatial econometrics to assess the spatial dependence of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), a prominent state-based renewable incentive. In Chapter 2, I explore the impact of the rapid rise in renewable generation on short-run generation from fossil fuels. And in Chapter 3, I assess the impact of renewable penetration on coal plant retirement decisions.

  13. PICTORIAL ESSAY Bamboo spine – X-ray findings of ankylosing ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Pathology and imaging characteris- tics. In this pictorial essay, we focus on the characteristic axial skeleton imaging findings of AS, as it presents on conventional X-ray:1. • florid anterior spondylitis (Romanus lesions). • florid diskitis (Andersson lesions). Ankylosing spondylitis is a debilitating disease that is one of the sero-.

  14. The Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art (DICA: A Photo-Essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yam Lau

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available This photo-essay documents the conception and realization of a ‘mobile display unit,’ a kind of cabinet of curiosities attached to a donkey, and made to travel through the streets of Beijing so that the texts, works and videos displayed there were accessible to passers-by.

  15. Should God Get Tenure? Essays on Religion and Higher Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gill, David W., Ed.

    Essays on the role of religion in higher education include: "Should God Get Tenure?" (David W. Gill); "On Being a Professor: The Case of Socrates" (Bruce R. Reichenbach); "Academic Excellence: Cliche or Humanizing Vision?" (Merold Westphal); "Religion, Science, and the Humanities in the Liberal Arts Curriculum" (H. Newton Maloney); "Tolstoy and…

  16. Clinical validation of three short forms of the Dutch Wechsler Memory Scale-Fourth Edition (WMS-IV-NL) in a mixed clinical sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bouman, Zita; Hendriks, Marc P H; Van Der Veld, William M; Aldenkamp, Albert P; Kessels, Roy P C

    2016-06-01

    The reliability and validity of three short forms of the Dutch version of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Fourth Edition (WMS-IV-NL) were evaluated in a mixed clinical sample of 235 patients. The short forms were based on the WMS-IV Flexible Approach, that is, a 3-subtest combination (Older Adult Battery for Adults) and two 2-subtest combinations (Logical Memory and Visual Reproduction and Logical Memory and Designs), which can be used to estimate the Immediate, Delayed, Auditory and Visual Memory Indices. All short forms showed good reliability coefficients. As expected, for adults (16-69 years old) the 3-subtest short form was consistently more accurate (predictive accuracy ranged from 73% to 100%) than both 2-subtest short forms (range = 61%-80%). Furthermore, for older adults (65-90 years old), the predictive accuracy of the 2-subtest short form ranged from 75% to 100%. These results suggest that caution is warranted when using the WMS-IV-NL Flexible Approach short forms to estimate all four indices. © The Author(s) 2015.

  17. 'Korenizatsiia' and its Discontents: Ukraine and the Soviet Nationality Policies during the 1920s: A Review Essay

    OpenAIRE

    VUSHKO, Iryna

    2009-01-01

    This essay reviews the recent literature on the nationalities policy in Soviet Ukraine during the 1920s. It brings together different Western (English and German) and native (Ukrainian and Russian) historical narratives, all produced after 2001. Different approaches to the Soviet nationalities policy, as this essay demonstrates, reveal broader methodological differences between historians working within distinct historiographical traditions. Despite the increasing contacts between...

  18. The disturbing virgin : an analysis of criticism on Mary Wilkins Freeman's short story "A New England Nun"

    OpenAIRE

    Tidemann, Line Næstby

    2007-01-01

    Abstract Few female literary characters have been treated with more scorn and ridicule than the ‘spinster’. In this essay, I examine how modern critics of Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun” (1891) have interpreted the unmarried female protagonist of this short story, Louisa Ellis. Representative critical strategies are analysed with focus on how they interpret the protagonist, and what the political and methodological implications of choosing a particular strategy are. The two com...

  19. Discerning applicants’ interests in rural medicine: a textual analysis of admission essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carol L. Elam

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Background: Despite efforts to construct targeted medical school admission processes using applicant-level correlates of future practice location, accurately gauging applicants’ interests in rural medicine remains an imperfect science. This study explores the usefulness of textual analysis to identify rural-oriented themes and values underlying applicants’ open-ended responses to admission essays. Methods: The study population consisted of 75 applicants to the Rural Physician Leadership Program (RPLP at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Using WordStat, a proprietary text analysis program, applicants’ American Medical College Application Service personal statement and an admission essay written at the time of interview were searched for predefined keywords and phrases reflecting rural medical values. From these text searches, derived scores were then examined relative to interviewers’ subjective ratings of applicants’ overall acceptability for admission to the RPLP program and likelihood of practicing in a rural area. Results: The two interviewer-assigned ratings of likelihood of rural practice and overall acceptability were significantly related. A statistically significant relationship was also found between the rural medical values scores and estimated likelihood of rural practice. However, there was no association between rural medical values scores and subjective ratings of applicant acceptability. Conclusions: That applicants’ rural values in admission essays were not related to interviewers’ overall acceptability ratings indicates that other factors played a role in the interviewers’ assessments of applicants’ acceptability for admission.

  20. Discerning applicants' interests in rural medicine: a textual analysis of admission essays.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elam, Carol L; Weaver, Anthony D; Whittler, Elmer T; Stratton, Terry D; Asher, Linda M; Scott, Kimberly L; Wilson, Emery A

    2015-01-01

    Despite efforts to construct targeted medical school admission processes using applicant-level correlates of future practice location, accurately gauging applicants' interests in rural medicine remains an imperfect science. This study explores the usefulness of textual analysis to identify rural-oriented themes and values underlying applicants' open-ended responses to admission essays. The study population consisted of 75 applicants to the Rural Physician Leadership Program (RPLP) at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Using WordStat, a proprietary text analysis program, applicants' American Medical College Application Service personal statement and an admission essay written at the time of interview were searched for predefined keywords and phrases reflecting rural medical values. From these text searches, derived scores were then examined relative to interviewers' subjective ratings of applicants' overall acceptability for admission to the RPLP program and likelihood of practicing in a rural area. The two interviewer-assigned ratings of likelihood of rural practice and overall acceptability were significantly related. A statistically significant relationship was also found between the rural medical values scores and estimated likelihood of rural practice. However, there was no association between rural medical values scores and subjective ratings of applicant acceptability. That applicants' rural values in admission essays were not related to interviewers' overall acceptability ratings indicates that other factors played a role in the interviewers' assessments of applicants' acceptability for admission.

  1. Virtual Reality: A Definition History - A Personal Essay

    OpenAIRE

    Bryson, Steve

    2013-01-01

    This essay, written in 1998 by an active participant in both virtual reality development and the virtual reality definition debate, discusses the definition of the phrase "Virtual Reality" (VR). I start with history from a personal perspective, concentrating on the debate between the "Virtual Reality" and "Virtual Environment" labels in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Definitions of VR based on specific technologies are shown to be unsatisfactory. I propose the following definition of VR, b...

  2. An Examination of the Instruction Provided in Australian Essay Guides for Students' Development of a Critical Viewpoint

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammer, Sara

    2017-01-01

    The argumentative essay has endured as a popular form of university assessment, yet students still struggle to meet key intended learning outcomes, such as those associated with critical thinking. This paper presents the results of a study that examines the instruction provided by Australian essay writing guides to support students' development of…

  3. The Role of Women in Foreign-Language Textbooks: A Collection of Essays. Collection d'"Etudes linguistiques" No. 24.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Freudenstein, R., Ed.

    Essays that consider the way that women are portrayed in foreign language textbooks are presented. The selected essays were submitted to a competition sponsored by the Federation Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes, which requested that language teachers assess such concerns as: (1) whether women were described in a stereotyped way;…

  4. Rhetorical, Metacognitive, and Cognitive Strategies in Teacher Candidates' Essay Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Diaz Larenas, Claudio; Ramos Leiva, Lucía; Ortiz Navarrete, Mabel

    2017-01-01

    This paper reports on a study about the rhetoric, metacognitive, and cognitive strategies pre-service teachers use before and after a process-based writing intervention when completing an argumentative essay. The data were collected through two think-aloud protocols while 21 Chilean English as a foreign language pre-service teachers completed an…

  5. Dostoevsky: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wellek, Rene, Ed.

    One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Rene Wellek, Philip Rahv, Murray Krieger, Irving Howe, Eliseo Vivas, D. H. Lawrence, Sigmund Freud, Dmitri Chizhevsky, V. V. Zenkovsky, Georg Lukacs, and Derek Traversi--all dealing with the biography and literary work of…

  6. Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steiner, George, Ed.; Fagles, Robert, Ed.

    One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by George Steiner, Leo Tolstoy, Ezra Pound, Erich Auerbach, Edwin Muir, Cedric H. Whitman, Albert B. Lord, W. H. Auden, Ernst Bloch, Georg Lukacs, C. Day Lewis, Gabriel Germain, Franz Kafka, Rachel Bespaloff, Robert…

  7. Hardy: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guerard, Albert J., Ed.

    One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Albert Guerard, Donald Davidson, Morton Dauwen Zabel, D. H. Lawrence, John Hollowan, Dorothy Van Ghent, John Paterson, A. Alvarez, Delmore Schwartz, W. H. Auden, David Perkins, and Samuel Hynes--all dealing with the…

  8. Evaluating the assessment of essay type questions in the basic ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Methodology: We examined the merits and demerits of the closed and open systems of assessment of essay type questions and viva voce in professional exams in the Basic Medical Sciences together with the challenges of present day Medical Education. Result: The result showed that the closed system of marking in its ...

  9. Undergraduate Essay Writing: Online and Face-to-Face Peer Reviews

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chong, Mike R.; Goff, Lori; Dej, Kimberly

    2012-01-01

    We implemented two different approaches of using peer review to support undergraduate essay assignments for students taking large second-year courses in life sciences and biology: a web-based online peer review (OPR) approach and a more traditional face-to-face peer review (FPR) approach that was conducted in tutorial settings. The essays…

  10. Review Essay: Recent Scholarship from the Buryat Mongols of Siberia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert W. Montgomery

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Review essay on the edited volume Etnicheskaia istoriia i kul’turno-bytovye traditsii narodov baikal’skogo regiona. [The Ethnic History and the Traditions of Culture and Daily Life of the Peoples of the Baikal Region] Ed. M. N. Baldano, O. V. Buraeva and D. D. Nimaev (Ulan-Ude, 2010

  11. Raising voices: How sixth graders construct authority and knowledge in argumentative essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monahan, Mary Elizabeth

    This qualitative classroom-based study documents one teacher-researcher's response to the "voice" debate in composition studies and to the opposing views expressed by Elbow and Bartholomae. The author uses Bakhtin's principle of dialogism, Hymes's theory of communicative competence, as well as Ivanic's discussion of discoursally constructed identities to reconceptualize voice and to redesign writing instruction in her sixth grade classroom. This study shows how students, by redefining and then acting on that voice pedagogy in terms that made sense to them, shaped the author's understanding of what counts as "voiced" writing in non-narrative discourse. Based on a grounded-theory analysis of the twenty-six sixth graders' argumentative essays in science, the author explains voice, not as a property of writers or of texts, but as a process of "knowing together"---a collaborative, but not entirely congenial, exercise of establishing one's authority by talking with, against, and through other voices on the issue. As the results of this study show, the students' "I-Ness" or authorial presence within their texts, was born in a nexus of relationships with "rivals," "allies" and "readers." Given their teacher's injunctions to project confidence and authority in argumentative writing, the students assumed fairly adversarial stances toward these conversational partners throughout their essays. Exaggerating the terms for voiced writing built into the curriculum, the sixth graders produced essays that read more like caricatures than examples of argumentation. Their displays of rhetorical bravado and intellectual aggressiveness, however offsetting to the reader, still enabled these sixth graders to composed voiced essays. This study raises doubts about the value of urging students to sound like their "true selves" or to adopt the formal registers of academe. Students, it seems clear, stand to gain by experimenting with a range of textual identities. The author suggests that voice

  12. A qualitative thematic content analysis of medical students' essays on professionalism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, So-Youn; Shon, Changwoo; Kwon, Oh Young; Yoon, Tai Young; Kwon, Ivo

    2017-05-03

    Physicians in both Western and Eastern countries are being confronted by changes in health care delivery systems and medical professionalism values. The traditional concept of "In-Sul" (benevolent art) and the modern history of South Korea have led to cultural differences between South Korea and other countries in conceptualizing medical professionalism; thus, we studied medical students' perceptions of professionalism as described in essays written on this topic. In 2014, we asked 109 first-year medical students who were enrolled in a compulsory ethics course to anonymously write a description of an instance of medical professionalism that they had witnessed, as well as reflecting on their own professional context. We then processed 105 valid essays using thematic content analysis with computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. Thematic analysis of the students' essays revealed two core aspects of professionalism in South Korea, one focused on respect for patients and the other on physicians' accountability. The most common theme regarding physician-patient relationships was trust. By contrast, distributive justice was thought to be a non-essential aspect of professionalism. In Western countries, physicians tend to promote justice in the health care system, including fair distribution of medical resources; however, we found that medical students in South Korea were more inclined to emphasize doctors' relationships with patients. Medical educators should develop curricular interventions regarding medical professionalism to meet the legitimate needs of patients in their own culture. Because professionalism is a dynamic construct of culture, medical educators should reaffirm cultural context-specific definitions of professionalism for development of associated curricula.

  13. Review essay: empires, ancient and modern.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, John A

    2011-09-01

    This essay drews attention to two books on empires by historians which deserve the attention of sociologists. Bang's model of the workings of the Roman economy powerfully demonstrates the tributary nature of per-industrial tributary empires. Darwin's analysis concentrates on modern overseas empires, wholly different in character as they involved the transportation of consumption items for the many rather than luxury goods for the few. Darwin is especially good at describing the conditions of existence of late nineteenth century empires, noting that their demise was caused most of all by the failure of balance of power politics in Europe. Concluding thoughts are offered about the USA. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2011.

  14. Certainty Judgements and the Status of Propositions in Undergraduate Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siew Mei, Wu

    2013-01-01

    This paper explores the expression of certainty in a set of high- and low-rated Geography argumentative essays. Using one aspect of Hunston's (1989, 2000) concept of the evaluation of status, the paper compares the statement types used to construe the writer's expression of certainty in the construction of arguments. Drawing on the framework,…

  15. Essays on variational approximation techniques for stochastic optimization problems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deride Silva, Julio A.

    This dissertation presents five essays on approximation and modeling techniques, based on variational analysis, applied to stochastic optimization problems. It is divided into two parts, where the first is devoted to equilibrium problems and maxinf optimization, and the second corresponds to two essays in statistics and uncertainty modeling. Stochastic optimization lies at the core of this research as we were interested in relevant equilibrium applications that contain an uncertain component, and the design of a solution strategy. In addition, every stochastic optimization problem relies heavily on the underlying probability distribution that models the uncertainty. We studied these distributions, in particular, their design process and theoretical properties such as their convergence. Finally, the last aspect of stochastic optimization that we covered is the scenario creation problem, in which we described a procedure based on a probabilistic model to create scenarios for the applied problem of power estimation of renewable energies. In the first part, Equilibrium problems and maxinf optimization, we considered three Walrasian equilibrium problems: from economics, we studied a stochastic general equilibrium problem in a pure exchange economy, described in Chapter 3, and a stochastic general equilibrium with financial contracts, in Chapter 4; finally from engineering, we studied an infrastructure planning problem in Chapter 5. We stated these problems as belonging to the maxinf optimization class and, in each instance, we provided an approximation scheme based on the notion of lopsided convergence and non-concave duality. This strategy is the foundation of the augmented Walrasian algorithm, whose convergence is guaranteed by lopsided convergence, that was implemented computationally, obtaining numerical results for relevant examples. The second part, Essays about statistics and uncertainty modeling, contains two essays covering a convergence problem for a sequence

  16. Essays on competition, corporate financing and investment : A stochastic dynamic approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gryglewicz, S.

    2008-01-01

    This thesis contains four studies on economic and finance theory that analyze the effects of time, uncertainty and information on firms’ strategic and financial decisions. The first essay presents a game-theoretic model of dynamic signaling taking place in an evolving environment. The model is

  17. Essays on market design and strategic behaviour in energy markets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lorenczik, Stefan

    2017-01-01

    The thesis at hand consists of four essays which are divided into two parts. In the first part, consisting of the first two essays, market design issues in electricity markets are discussed. More precisely, it deals with concerns regarding security of supply: First, the concerns regarding the availability of sufficient flexibility to cope with intermittent renewable energy electricity generation. And second, the consequences of insufficient investments signals in energy only markets in interconnected electricity markets. Part two deals with strategic behaviour in spatial natural resource markets. Strategic behaviour and the exertion of market power have always been a matter of concern in energy markets, especially in natural resource markets. The exertion of market power can result in deadweight losses - regulatory bodies try to address this by market regulations aiming for a welfare maximising market outcome. The first problem is to detect collusive behaviour as available data is frequently limited. The second question is how regulatory decisions may influence the market outcome. Both topics are investigated by using the example of the international metallurgical coal market.

  18. Essays on market design and strategic behaviour in energy markets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lorenczik, Stefan

    2017-11-13

    The thesis at hand consists of four essays which are divided into two parts. In the first part, consisting of the first two essays, market design issues in electricity markets are discussed. More precisely, it deals with concerns regarding security of supply: First, the concerns regarding the availability of sufficient flexibility to cope with intermittent renewable energy electricity generation. And second, the consequences of insufficient investments signals in energy only markets in interconnected electricity markets. Part two deals with strategic behaviour in spatial natural resource markets. Strategic behaviour and the exertion of market power have always been a matter of concern in energy markets, especially in natural resource markets. The exertion of market power can result in deadweight losses - regulatory bodies try to address this by market regulations aiming for a welfare maximising market outcome. The first problem is to detect collusive behaviour as available data is frequently limited. The second question is how regulatory decisions may influence the market outcome. Both topics are investigated by using the example of the international metallurgical coal market.

  19. Essay and Ekphrasis (Herbert - Bieńkowska - Bieńczyk

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roma Sendyka

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Michel Riffaterre in article L'lllusion d'ekphrasis put forward an idea of "critical ekphrasis" (1994 what may become an invitation to ask if other sub-genres/modes of ekphrasis may be described. The text Essay and Ekphrasis develops this question in the field of essayistic traditions. Evoking the tendency of writing on art in that genre (from Montaigne, Diderot, Ruskin, Pater to art historians, critics and artists the article analyses three examples of ekphrases (by Zbigniew Herbert, Ewa Bieńkowska and Marek Bieńczyk to voice a hypothesis that ekphrasis in an essay may be a useful proof for those who question (ostensive representational powers of that textual tool. Essayistic ekphrasis seems to have a foremost referential character, pointing towards an object of art only to use it in order to describe cognitive procedures of the subject who in such a way (performatively and not overtly pictures himself mirroring his inner self in dispersed fragments of cultural object, dismantling the temporal and spatial difference between the viewer and the object in an illusion of an immediate presence.

  20. Tourism in a World of Risks (Essay Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maximiliano E. KORSTANJE

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Though tourism combines curiosity with security, over the recent decades, we are facing an inflation of risks that caused big problems for policy makers and officials interested in promoting tourism in their respective nations. As a result of this, one might speculate that the future of industry is uncertain. This essay review explores the already existent literature in risk perception applied on tourism fields as well as introduces the theory of attachment to explain how the world is constructed.

  1. Essays on inheritance, small businesses and energy consumption

    OpenAIRE

    Escobar, Sebastian

    2017-01-01

    Essay 1: People’s planning to evade the inheritance tax curtails its merits. However, the extent of planning remains a matter of argument. According to popular belief, it is widespread, but few estimates have been presented. This study estimates the extent of estate size under-reporting, a form of inheritance tax planning, using the repeal of the Swedish tax on spousal bequests, in 2004, and a regression discontinuity design. The results show that, on average, estate sizes were 17 percent low...

  2. The theory of relativity and other essays

    CERN Document Server

    Einstein, Albert

    2011-01-01

    E=mc2: It may be Einstein's most well-known contribution to modern science, but how many people understand the thought process or physics behind this famous equation?In this collection of his seven most important essays on physics, Einstein guides his reader step-by-step through the many layers of scientific theory that formed a starting point for his discoveries. By both supporting and refuting the theories and scientific efforts of his predecessors, Einstein reveals in a clear voice the origins and meaning of such significant topics as physics and reality, the fundamentals of theoretical ph

  3. Essays on the investment behavior of independent power producers in the United States electricity industry under regulatory restructuring

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Jingming

    2002-09-01

    In recent years, there have been efforts at both the federal and state level to introduce greater competition and markets into the US electricity industry through regulatory restructuring. A key to the success of such efforts is the ability of the restructuring to attract investment from non-utility, independent power producers (IPPs). The two essays in this dissertation examine empirically the investment behavior of IPPs under the regulatory restructuring between 1996 and 2000. In both essays, the effects of restructuring on a firm's investment decision are decomposed into the effects that work through the investment cost and that through the expected profit from the investment. The first essay studies the entry behavior of IPPs under the restructuring. The main finding of the essay is that the restructuring has done little to lower the entry barrier faced by IPPs-high fixed cost to entry is still a main factor that hinders IPP investment. The second essay studies IPPs' decisions between investing through building new power plants ("make") and investing through acquiring divested plants ("buy"). It finds that the availability of the "buy" option does not "squeeze" out investment on new capacities. IPPs that chose to "buy" did so because they expected a lower return from "make" and hence would not have switched their investment to new capacities even if the "buy" option were not available. Therefore, divestiture is a viable policy tool for state regulators to attract more IPP investment.

  4. Towards a sustainable agriculture in 2030. An essay on transition; Naar een duurzame landbouw in 2030. Een essay over transitie

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hees, E.M.; Van der Weijden, W.J.; Hin, C.J.A.

    2002-05-01

    Sustainable development of the agricultural sector in the Netherlands is high on the list of priorities in the environmental policy of the Netherlands. In this report special attention is paid to sustainability indicators which can be used in the transition of a Dutch National Environmental Balance towards a Dutch National Sustainability Balance. The report consists of three parts: (1) an essay in the form of an imaginary review from the year 2030 back to the transition process of the agricultural sector from the year 2000 onwards; (2) 14 texts on proposals for economical, socio-cultural and ecological indicators; and (3) four maps which present chances for offering 'green' services in Dutch agricultural areas. [Dutch] Een van de sectoren waar duurzame ontwikkeling hard nodig is, is de landbouw. Het 4e Nationaal Miliebeleidsplan (NMP4) noernt de landbouw naast de energiesector en biodiversiteit als een prioritaire sector. In dit rapport is een visie neergelegdeen met speciale aandacht voor duurzaamheidindicatoren. Die indicatoren zouden bouwstenen kunnen zijn voor de voorgenomen overgang van een Nationale Milieubalans naar een Nationale Duurzaamheidsbalans. Dit rapport bestaat uit drie uiteenlopende delen: een essay in de vorm van een denkbeeldige terugblik vanuit het jaar 2030 naar het transitieproces dat de landbouw vanaf 2000 heeft doorgemaakt; een 14-tal tekstuele bijIagen, met onder meer voorstellen voor te hanteren economische, sociaal-culturele en ecologische indicatoren; en een viertal kaart-bijlagen waarop staat aangegeven waar in het Nederlandse landbouwareaal kansen liggen voor groene diensten.

  5. Yeats: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Unterecker, John, Ed.

    One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by John Unterecker, W. H. Auden, High Kenner, Giogio Melchiori, Frank Kermode, W. Y. Tindall, T. S. Eliot, R. P. Blackmur, Alex Zwerdling, Curtis Bradford, D. J. Gordon, Ian Fletcher, A. G. Stock, Allen Tate, and Richard…

  6. Hemingway; A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weeks, Robert P., Ed.

    One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Lillian Ross, Malcolm Crowley, E.M. Halliday, Harry Levin, Leslie Fiedler, D.H. Lawrence, Philip Young, Sean O'Faolain, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, Carlos Baker, Mark Spilka, Ray B. West, Jr., Nemi D'Agostino,…

  7. Using the Creative Cognition Approach in Essay Assignments in Leadership Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atkinson, Tim

    2018-01-01

    This application brief covers, "The Final Question," an alternative essay design that encourages the learner to think creatively in Ph.D. Organization Theory or Leadership courses. "The Final Question" asks, "Do leaders change organizations or do organizations change leaders?" It is a simple question, but only the…

  8. Latin America’s Transformative New Extraction and Local Conflicts : review essay

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hogenboom, B.

    2015-01-01

    Review essay of: A. Bebbington, J. Bury (2013) Subterranean Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America; F. Li (2015) Unearthing conflict: Corporate Mining, Activism, and Expertise in Peru; P.I. Vásquez (2014) Oil Sparks in the Amazon: Local Conflicts, Indigenous Populations,

  9. Evaluation of the technique 'wire on the screw' in laboratory accelerated essays

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Calderon, J.; Arroyave, C.

    1998-01-01

    The CLIMAT essay has been employed as for the micro climate corrosiveness determination as for large geographic zones, allowing the qualification of corrosiveness of the interesting sites, the maps raising, the materials evaluation and the pollution focus localization. However, its utility, this has not been deepen in the understanding of his characteristics and corrosive process that it experiments. With the purpose in order to deepen in its knowledge and evaluating the useful possibilities in an immersion-emersion accelerated essay, it was accomplishment the present work. For this, was employed spiral aluminium manometers forming a galvanized pair with copper and steel screws, which were exposed to representative dissolutions of rainwater of the rural, urban and marine environment. It was measured the electrode potential for the essays, the corrosion velocities were determined gravimetrically, it was drawing polarization curves and they were characterized the corrosion products by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Infrared spectrometry (Ftir), Scanning Electron Microscopy (Sem) and stereoscopic microscope. The results allow to conclude that must pass sometime for what galvanic action was established. The potential evolution after that initial time, is approximately the same for the two pairs, for which the main losing of mass obtained in the Al-Cu screw has to be explained with kinetic arguments offered for polarization curves. The main corrosion product is bayerite (Al(OH) 3 ), with greater crystallinity in Cl - dissolution than in SO 4 (2-) and with morphologies very influenced by environment. (Author)

  10. A Corpus-based Study of EFL Learners’ Errors in IELTS Essay Writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hoda Divsar

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The present study analyzed different types of errors in the EFL learners’ IELTS essays. In order to determine the major types of errors, a corpus of 70 IELTS examinees’ writings were collected, and their errors were extracted and categorized qualitatively. Errors were categorized based on a researcher-developed error-coding scheme into 13 aspects. Based on the descriptive statistical analyses, the frequency of each error type was calculated and the commonest errors committed by the EFL learners in IELTS essays were identified. The results indicated that the two most frequent errors that IELTS candidates committed were related to word choice and verb forms. Based on the research results, pedagogical implications highlight analyzing EFL learners’ writing errors as a useful basis for instructional purposes including creating pedagogical teaching materials that are in line with learners’ linguistic strengths and weaknesses.

  11. Signal processing of data from short sample tests for the projection of conductor performance in ITER magnets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Martovetsky, Nicolai

    2008-01-01

    Qualification of the ITER conductor is absolutely necessary. Testing large scale conductors is expensive and time-consuming. To test 3-4 m long straight samples in a bore of a split solenoid is a relatively economical way in comparison with the fabrication of a coil to be tested in a bore of a background field solenoid. However, testing short samples may give ambiguous results due to different constraints in current redistribution in the cable or other end effects which are not present in the large magnet. This paper discusses the processes taking place in the ITER conductor, conditions when conductor performance could be distorted and possible signal processing to deduce the behaviour of ITER conductors in ITER magnets from the test data

  12. Cohesion and the Social Construction of Meaning in the Essays of Filipino College Students Writing in L2 English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castro, Carolyn D.

    2004-01-01

    This study compares the degree of cohesion and coherence in the essays written by thirty Filipino college freshmen and analyzes how the social construction of meaning was made evident in their writing. Results showed that low, mid and highly rated essays were comparable in grammatical cohesive device use. Lexical repetition and use of synonyms…

  13. Reflecting on 25 Years of Teaching, Researching, and Textbook Writing for Introduction to Management: An Essay with Some Lessons Learned

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dyck, Bruno

    2017-01-01

    This essay describes innovations made and lessons learned while teaching introduction to management courses during a 25-year career. The essay describes how teaching two approaches to management increases students' critical and ethical thinking, and reverses the tendency for business students to become increasingly materialistic and…

  14. The Organizational Approach of Capability Theory: A Review Essay

    OpenAIRE

    Garzarelli, Giampaolo

    2006-01-01

    Richard Langlois, Tony Yu & Paul Robertson have assembled a collection of previously published papers that move beyond textbook production theory. This essay discusses work by Frank Knight and Hendrik Houthakker not reproduced in LYR in relation to the capability theory of economic organization. Knight identified the problem of organization as the search for and the coordination of different dispersed capabilities. Houthakker helps us to see more clearly that the benefits of specialization ar...

  15. Essays on Incentives and Measurement of Online Marketing Efforts

    OpenAIRE

    Berman, Ron

    2014-01-01

    This dissertation contains three essays that examine different aspects of online marketing activities, the ability of marketers to measure the effectiveness of such activities, and the design of experiments to aid in this measurement.Chapter 2 examines the impact of search engine optimization (SEO) on the competition between advertisers for organic and sponsored search results. The results show that a positive level of search engine optimization may improve the search engine's ranking quality...

  16. Gaia and the Daysies' Revolution: an Essay about Lovelockian Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrés Betancourt Morales

    2000-07-01

    Full Text Available This essay tries to stand, from an explanatory and argumentative point of view, some aspects of the James Lovelock's Gaia's theory, such as its main ideas and influence, having in count the difficulties it had to be accepted and the consequences for the Biology's development of Gaia's theory in general and of the Daysyworld model in particular.

  17. Mucinous carcinoma of the breast: iconographic essay with histopathological correlation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gustavo Nunes Medina Coeli

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available The present essay is aimed at describing the most characteristic imaging findings of mucinous carcinoma of the breast, with emphasis on the patterns related to better prognosis. The authors selected cases of mucinous carcinoma of the breast whose images were available, highlighting the imaging findings suggestive of this subtype of breast cancer, either at mammography, ultrasonography or magnetic resonance imaging.

  18. Accounting Issues: An Essay Series Part IX--Statement of Cash Flows

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laux, Judy

    2009-01-01

    This essay series, beginning with Laux [2007a], defends the proposition that eliminating the theoretical chapter from the principles level accounting course has weakened the introduction for students new to this subject, perhaps resulting in some adverse selection for the accounting profession. As a remedy, it offers concise theoretical articles…

  19. Jenna Ng (ed., Understanding Machinima. Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vincenzo Idone Cassone

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Understanding Machinima. Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds (Bloomsbury 2013, edited by Jenna Ng is an intriguing incursion into the world of machinima from a Media Studies point-of-view, trying to address the topic beyond game’s environment, in connection with the evolution of the contemporary mediascape.

  20. Hoe zaagt men van dik hout planken? : Een essay over publieksfilosofie

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kalis, A.

    2016-01-01

    Do Heidegger-teabags give philosophy a bad name? An essay about philosophy for the general public Among many academic philosophers, philosophy for the general public has a bad reputation. In this paper I give an overview of the main points of criticism, and use these to develop a positive account of

  1. To Write or to Type? The Effects of Handwriting and Word-Processing on the Written Style of Examination Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mogey, Nora; Hartley, James

    2013-01-01

    There is much debate about whether or not these days students should be able to word-process essay-type examinations as opposed to handwriting them, particularly when they are asked to word-process everything else. This study used word-processing software to examine the stylistic features of 13 examination essays written by hand and 24 by…

  2. Application of Fourier analysis to the study of roughness profiles of eroded samples

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bethencourt, M.; Botana, F.J.; Calvino, J.J.; Marcos, M.; Rodriguez-Chacon, M.A.

    1998-01-01

    Fourier transforms are applied to analyse surface roughness profiles recorded on samples coming from erosion-corrosion essays. The information retrieved using this method clearly complements that revealed by the more classical roughness amplitude parameters. The analysis procedure here proposed can be applied not only to characterise the surface of corroded samples but, in general, to evaluate the quality of any surface after application of finishing treatments. (Author) 7 refs

  3. [Suicide -- an essay trying to reveal the theme].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sampaio, M A; Boemer, M R

    2000-12-01

    This essay proposes to reveal facets of the suicide through the discourse of different authors treating this theme as well as through contacts that I was able to have in my nursing training, through my academic trajectory. This trajectory includes an incursion by phenomenological ideas, mainly by the ideas of Heidegger and his existential analysis of the man as being-there. In this way, the understanding of a person who decides to finalize his/her existence, can be, by the existential analysis perspective, a way to reconstruct and redimension his/her existential perspectives.

  4. Essays on parametric and nonparametric modeling and estimation with applications to energy economics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Weiyu

    My dissertation research is composed of two parts: a theoretical part on semiparametric efficient estimation and an applied part in energy economics under different dynamic settings. The essays are related in terms of their applications as well as the way in which models are constructed and estimated. In the first essay, efficient estimation of the partially linear model is studied. We work out the efficient score functions and efficiency bounds under four stochastic restrictions---independence, conditional symmetry, conditional zero mean, and partially conditional zero mean. A feasible efficient estimation method for the linear part of the model is developed based on the efficient score. A battery of specification test that allows for choosing between the alternative assumptions is provided. A Monte Carlo simulation is also conducted. The second essay presents a dynamic optimization model for a stylized oilfield resembling the largest developed light oil field in Saudi Arabia, Ghawar. We use data from different sources to estimate the oil production cost function and the revenue function. We pay particular attention to the dynamic aspect of the oil production by employing petroleum-engineering software to simulate the interaction between control variables and reservoir state variables. Optimal solutions are studied under different scenarios to account for the possible changes in the exogenous variables and the uncertainty about the forecasts. The third essay examines the effect of oil price volatility on the level of innovation displayed by the U.S. economy. A measure of innovation is calculated by decomposing an output-based Malmquist index. We also construct a nonparametric measure for oil price volatility. Technical change and oil price volatility are then placed in a VAR system with oil price and a variable indicative of monetary policy. The system is estimated and analyzed for significant relationships. We find that oil price volatility displays a significant

  5. Essays on the Design of Contracts and Markets for Power System Flexibility

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Boscán Flores, Luis Rafael

    This PhD thesis consists of five essays on the economics of Power System Flexibility, a topic that has traditionally been addressed from a technical perspective by engineers, system planners, electricity industry stakeholders and energy policymakers interested in the integration of Variable Renew...

  6. Essays on Labour Markets: Worker-Firm Dynamics, Occupational Segregation and Workplace Conditions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    I.S. Buhai (Sebastian)

    2008-01-01

    textabstractThe main chapters of this book, “Essays on Labour Markets”, focus on analyzing the dynamics of the employment relationship between workers and firms (chapters 2 and 3), modelling occupational segregation and labour market inequalities between social groups (chapter 4) and characterizing

  7. Essays on the Determinants of Energy Related CO2 Emissions =

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moutinho, Victor Manuel Ferreira

    emissions intensity is negative. The percentage of fossil fuels used reacts positively to the economic structure and to carbon intensity, i. e., the more the economic importance of the sector, the more it uses fossil fuels, and when it raises its carbon intensity, in the future the use of fossil fuel may rise. On the other hand, positive shocks on energy intensity tend to reduce the percentage of fossil fuels used. In fourth essay, we conducted an analysis to identify the effects that contribute to the intensity of GHG emissions (EI) in agriculture as well as their development. With that aim, we used the 'complete decomposition' technique in the 1995-2008 periods, for a set of European countries. It is shown that the use of Nitrogen per cultivated area is an important factor of emissions and in those countries where labour productivity increases (the inverse of average labour productivity in agriculture decreases), emissions intensity tends to decrease. These results imply that the way to reduce emissions in agriculture would be to provide better training of agricultural workers to increase their productivity, which would lead to a less need for energy and use of Nitrogen. The purpose of the last essay is to examine the long and short-run causality of the share of renewable sources on the environmental relation CO2 per KWh electricity generation- real GDP for 20 European countries over the 2001-2010 periods. It is important to analyze how the percentage of renewable energy used for electricity production affects the relationship between economic growth and emissions from this sector. The study of these relationships is important from the point of view of environmental and energy policy as it gives us information on the costs in terms of economic growth, on the application of restrictive levels of emissions and also on the effects of the policies concerning the use of renewable energy in the electricity sector (see for instance European Commission Directive 2001/77/EC, [4

  8. Measuring the Effectiveness of Writing Center Consultations on L2 Writers’ Essay Writing Skills

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shanthi Tiruchittampalam

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available With the international growth of English-medium education, tertiary institutions are increasingly providing academic support services to L2 students, and thus, the number of writing centers working with L2 student writers has also increased. Writing center practices originated in L1 English educational contexts and their appropriateness for L2 English writers requires examination. This study investigated the effect of writing center consultations on the essay writing skills of L1 Arabic foundation level students at an English-medium university in the Gulf region. Analysis was based on quantitative measures of writing ability of two distinct groups of students: an experimental group who participated in tutoring sessions at the university’s writing center and a control group who did not. Findings indicated that students who participated in writing center consultations scored significantly higher in overall essay writing scores, as well as in two aspects of writing: task fulfilment (that is ideas and text organization/coherence. These findings contribute to a limited bank of similar empirical studies on effectiveness of writing center sessions on students’ essay writing ability. They also support the case for the expansion of writing center work beyond the domains of predominantly L1 English academic communities.

  9. LEARNER AUTONOMY ON ESSAY WRITING ACCURACY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Hafidz

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: Learner autonomy on writing is independently teaching and learning that keeps students’ control to explore their knowledge and experiences in written language, find out and evaluate their errors based on the conceptual courses to make accurately simple essay. The aim was to know the effectiveness of the learner autonomy on writing accuracy. This quantitative research conducted in one group pretest and posttest design. The number of samples was 21 students in Bangkalan. The instrument were tests to gain students’ writing score before and after treatment. Researcher statistically analyzed the data using SPSS 23 version by running a Paired Samples Test. The result shown the means of pretes score was 66,83 and posttest score was 74,57, Paired Samples Correlations was 0,614 (strong correlation. Significance was 0,005, it means that  a (0,05 is higher than r value (0,005 with high variance of mean value (14,091. As a result, the hypothesis (H1­ was received that learner autonomy contributed effectively to learners’ in organizing own ideas (Ene, 2006 such as making a topic  map becomes some explanable sub-topics, writing down main and supporting idea, clustering some objects, editing next and learners  absolutely accumulate some selected vocabularies inappropriate topics  (Chengping W, 2008. Keyword: Learner Autonomy, Learning process, outcomes Absrak: Pembelajaran otonomi  adalah pembelajaran mandiri yang mengontrol mahasiswa untuk menyampaikan gagasan dan pengalamannya, mencatat dan mengevaluasi kesalahan yang terjadi dalam penulisan esai sederhana berdasarkan pembelajaran yang tersetruktur. Tujuan adalah untuk mengetahui efektifitas pembelajaran otonomi terhadap akurasi tulisan secara statistik. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan desain tes awal dan akhir. Jumlah sampel terdiri dari 21 siswa di Bangkalan. Isntrumen yang digunakan adalah tes untuk mengetahui hasil nilai mahasiswa sebelum dan sesudah melakukan

  10. Three Essays on Economic Agents' Incentives and Decision Making

    OpenAIRE

    Lee, Dongryul

    2009-01-01

    This dissertation consists of three essays on theoretical analysis of economic agents' decision making and incentives. Chapter 1 gives an outline of the subjects to be examined in the subsequent chapters and shows their conclusions in brief. Chapter 2 explores the decision problem of a superordinate (a principal) regarding whether to delegate its authority or right to make a decision to a subordinate (an agent) in an organization. We first study the optimal contracting problem of the su...

  11. Pulp fictions of medieval England: Essays in popular romance

    OpenAIRE

    McDonald, Nicola

    2004-01-01

    Middle English popular romance is the most audacious and compendious testimony to the imaginary world of the English Middle Ages. Yet, with few exceptions, it remains under read and under studied. Pulp fictions of medieval England demonstrates that popular romance merits and rewards serious critical attention and that it is crucial to our understanding of the complex and conflicted world of medieval England. Pulp fictions of medieval England comprises ten essays on individual romances that, w...

  12. Essays on Currency Competition, Institutional Restrictions and Exchange Rates

    OpenAIRE

    Bhattacharya, Arghya

    2017-01-01

    This dissertation consists of three essays on currency competition, institutional restrictions and exchange rates. When faced with currency competition, a country's government has two tools at its disposal: reduce the level of inflation or place institutional barriers to the use of foreign currency. In the first chapter, I propose a two-country, two-currency New Monetarist model to study currency competition. I model institutional barriers as a `tax' on the real value of foreign currency hol...

  13. Unusual lesions that distend the knee joint: pictorial essay

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lima, Luana T. Barros de, E-mail: luanatbl@hotmail.com [Universidade Federal de Alagoas (HUPAA/UFAL), Maceio (Brazil). Hospital Universitario; Albuquerque Filho, Eolo Santana de; Batista, Laecio Leitao [Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife (Brazil). Hospital das Clinicas; Moraes, Talita Peixoto de [Clinica Derbimagem, Recife, PE (Brazil); Pereira, Bruno Perez Guedes [Instituto de Medicina Integral Professor Fernando Figueira (IMIP), Recife, PE (Brazil)

    2016-09-15

    The high number of knee imaging exams at radiology clinics, together with the wide variety of knee disorders, calls for expanding the knowledge about the less common lesions seen in routine diagnostic practice. The purpose of this pictorial essay was to illustrate unusual lesions that distend the knee joint, selected by relevance and evaluated with multiple imaging modalities, including X-ray, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, as well as to perform a brief review of the literature. (author)

  14. Pictorial Essay: Infants of diabetic mothers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alorainy, Ibrahim A; Barlas, Nauman B; Al-Boukai, Amer A

    2010-01-01

    About 3 to 10% of pregnancies are complicated by glycemic control abnormalities. Maternal diabetes results in significantly greater risk for antenatal, perinatal, and neonatal morbidity and mortality, as well as congenital malformations. The number of diabetic mothers is expected to rise, as more and more of the obese pediatric female population in developed and some developing countries progresses to childbearing age. Radiologists, being part of the teams managing such pregnancies, should be well aware of the findings that may be encountered in infants of diabetic mothers. Timely, accurate, and proper radiological evaluation can reduce morbidity and mortality in these infants. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the imaging findings in the various pathological conditions involving the major body systems in the offspring of women with diabetes

  15. Pictorial Essay: Infants of diabetic mothers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alorainy Ibrahim

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available About 3 to 10% of pregnancies are complicated by glycemic control abnormalities. Maternal diabetes results in significantly greater risk for antenatal, perinatal, and neonatal morbidity and mortality, as well as congenital malformations. The number of diabetic mothers is expected to rise, as more and more of the obese pediatric female population in developed and some developing countries progresses to childbearing age. Radiologists, being part of the teams managing such pregnancies, should be well aware of the findings that may be encountered in infants of diabetic mothers. Timely, accurate, and proper radiological evaluation can reduce morbidity and mortality in these infants. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the imaging findings in the various pathological conditions involving the major body systems in the offspring of women with diabetes

  16. Is the Essay Dead? Revitalising Argument in the Era of Multiliteracies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gyenes, Tom; Wilks, Judith

    2014-01-01

    While the essay is the default assessment tool of the Humanities in upper secondary and tertiary education, it is a text type that has been slowly bled of communicative purpose. It is suffered by students, taught according to restrictive formula and ignored in the literature. Evidence from the tertiary sector, employers and public examinations…

  17. Validating Automated Essay Scoring: A (Modest) Refinement of the "Gold Standard"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powers, Donald E.; Escoffery, David S.; Duchnowski, Matthew P.

    2015-01-01

    By far, the most frequently used method of validating (the interpretation and use of) automated essay scores has been to compare them with scores awarded by human raters. Although this practice is questionable, human-machine agreement is still often regarded as the "gold standard." Our objective was to refine this model and apply it to…

  18. Debating International Learner Assessments as a Proxy Measure of Quality of Education in the Context of EFA--A Review Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mulongo, Godfrey

    2014-01-01

    This review essay looks at three publications that discuss the contentious issue of evaluating education quality (Note 1) by learner outcomes as a proxy indicator (Note 2). The essay explores the debates, gaps and proposes recommendations in the context of Education For All (EFA) (Note 3). The three articles reviewed are Harvey Goldstein's (2004)…

  19. Two Essays on Learning Disabilities in the Application of Fundamental Financial Principles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Auciello, Daria Joy

    2010-01-01

    This dissertation consists of two essays which examine the relationship between dyslexia and the application and acquisition of financial knowledge. Recent behavioral research has documented that factors such as representativeness, overconfidence, loss aversion, naivete, wealth, age and gender all impact a person's risk perception and asset…

  20. Evaluation of a computer-based prompting intervention to improve essay writing in undergraduates with cognitive impairment after acquired brain injury.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ledbetter, Alexander K; Sohlberg, McKay Moore; Fickas, Stephen F; Horney, Mark A; McIntosh, Kent

    2017-11-06

    This study evaluated a computer-based prompting intervention for improving expository essay writing after acquired brain injury (ABI). Four undergraduate participants aged 18-21 with mild-moderate ABI and impaired fluid cognition at least 6 months post-injury reported difficulty with the writing process after injury. The study employed a non-concurrent multiple probe across participants, in a single-case design. Outcome measures included essay quality scores and number of revisions to writing counted then coded by type using a revision taxonomy. An inter-scorer agreement procedure was completed for quality scores for 50% of essays, with data indicating that agreement exceeded a goal of 85%. Visual analysis of results showed increased essay quality for all participants in intervention phase compared with baseline, maintained 1 week after. Statistical analyses showed statistically significant results for two of the four participants. The authors discuss external cuing for self-monitoring and tapping of existing writing knowledge as possible explanations for improvement. The study provides preliminary evidence that computer-based prompting has potential to improve writing quality for undergraduates with ABI.

  1. Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watt, Ian, Ed.

    One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Virginia Woolf, C. S. Lewis, Edmund Wilson, Ian Watt, Alan D. McKillop, Reuben A. Brower, Marvin Mudrick, Mark Schorer, Arnold Kettle, Lionel Trilling, Kingsley Amis, Andrew H. Wright, Donald J. Greene, and D. W.…

  2. Mark Twain: A Collection of Critical Essays. Twentieth Century Views Series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Henry Nash, Ed.

    One of a series of works aimed at presenting contemporary critical opinion on major authors, this collection includes essays by Henry Nash Smith, Van Wyck Brooks, Maurice Le Breton, Kenneth Lynn, Leo Marx, Walter Blair, Daniel G. Hoffman, W. H. Auden, James M. Cox, Leslie Fiedler, Bernard DeVoto, and Tony Tanner--all dealing with the biography and…

  3. Methodology for Urbanism AR2U090 : Best essays 2010-2012

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rocco, R.C.

    2012-01-01

    These are essays written by students of the course AR2U090 Research and Design Methodology for Urbanism from 2010 to 2012. This is a 5 ECTS course given within the Masters in Urbanism programme of the TU Delft by Roberto Rocco and Egbert Stolk. At the end of the course students are asked to write an

  4. Film Studies in Motion : From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kiss, Miklós; van den Berg, Thomas

    2016-01-01

    Our (co-written with Thomas van den Berg) ‪media rich,‬ ‪‎open access‬ ‪‎Scalar‬ ‪e-book‬ on the ‪‎Audiovisual Essay‬ practice is available online: http://scalar.usc.edu/works/film-studies-in-motion Audiovisual essaying should be more than an appropriation of traditional video artistry, or a mere

  5. Technology, organization and economic structure essays in honor of Prof. Isamu Yamada

    CERN Document Server

    Beckmann, Martin

    1983-01-01

    The essays in this volume were presented to Professor Isamu Yamada in honor of his seventy-third birthday. In view of his many professional contributions and associations, a single volume of essays is really insufficient to house the works of all those who wish to be part of a venture of this kind. Therefore, the editors would like to apologize to those friends and well-wishers of Professor Yamada who could not be accommodated in this volume. Born in Nagoya in 1909, Professor Yamada began his brilliant career at Nagoya Commercial College where he studied economics, statistics, mathematics and physics. After serving as a Professor of Economics and Statistics at Yokohama College between 1939-1940, Professor Yamada moved to Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, where he served as a Professor of Econometrics until his retirement in 1973. Currently, he is teaching at Asia University as a Professor of Economics and Statistics. During his long tenure at Hitotsubashi University (where Professor Ichiro Nakayama, a "Japane...

  6. Psychometric properties of Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) original and short forms in an African American community sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merz, Erin L; Malcarne, Vanessa L; Roesch, Scott C; Ko, Celine M; Emerson, Marc; Roma, Vincenzo G; Sadler, Georgia Robins

    2013-12-01

    The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) has been widely used as a self-report measure of affect in community and clinical contexts. However, evaluations of the psychometric properties of PANAS scores have been limited in diverse ethnic groups. Several short forms of the PANAS have also been proposed, but very little is known about the psychometric properties of these versions. The present study investigated the psychometric properties, including the factor structure of the original PANAS and two short forms in an African American community sample (N=239). Descriptive, internal consistency reliability, factorial validity, and measurement invariance analyses were conducted. All PANAS subscales from the original and short forms had adequate internal consistency. For the original PANAS, the model specifying three correlated factors (Positive Affect, Afraid, Upset) with correlated uniquenesses from redundant items provided the best fit to the data. However, the two-factor model (Positive Affect, Negative Affect) with correlated uniquenesses was also supported. For both short forms, the two-factor model with correlated uniquenesses fit the data best. Factors from all forms were generally invariant across age and gender, although there was some minor invariance at the item level. Participants were from a limited geographic area and one ethnic group. Indicators of anxiety, depression, and cultural characteristics were not measured. The factor structure was replicated, suggesting no immediate concerns regarding the valid interpretation of PANAS scores. The results support the reliability and validity of the PANAS and its short forms for use among African Americans. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Deepening, Broadening and Scaling up: a Framework for Steering Transition Experiments. : Essay 02

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    S.J.M. van den Bosch (Suzanne); J. Rotmans (Jan)

    2008-01-01

    markdownabstractThis essay presents a conceptual framework for analyzing and influencing the contribution of small-scale experiments to transitions towards a more sustainable society. This framework is aimed at providing academics and practitioners with a theoretical and practice oriented

  8. The Readers’ International: The Politics of Foreign Literature in War Times in Benjamin Fondane’s Essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adrian Tudurachi

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The Readers’ International. A foreign literature policy in war times in Fondane’s essays. Between 1919 and 1922, B. Fondane engaged himself into a legitimisation enterprise, which grew into a unique form of reading internationalism. By radically stating the subjective nature of all ‘preferences’, the essayist could figure out the character of a reader free from all national determinations, able to cross the cultural limits as well as the prejudices on their actual hierarchy. Our essay proposes to examine this form of contingence and contact with foreign literatures, inspired, paradoxically, by the warlike imaginary of the First World War.

  9. Combined short scale roughness and surface dielectric function gradient effects on the determination of tip-sample force in atomic force microscopy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gusso, André, E-mail: gusso@metal.eeimvr.uff.br [Departamento de Ciências Exatas-EEIMVR, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Volta Redonda, RJ 27255-125 (Brazil)

    2013-11-11

    The contribution of tip roughness to the van der Waals force between an atomic force microscopy probe tip and the sample is calculated using the multilayer effective medium model, which allows us to consider the relevant case of roughness characterized by correlation length and amplitude in the nanometer scale. The effect of the surface dielectric function gradient is incorporated in the tip-sample force model. It is concluded that for rms roughness in the few nanometers range the effect of short scale tip roughness is quite significant.

  10. KIRGHIZ STEPPE IN THE TRAVEL NOTES AND ESSAYS OF M. M. PRISHVIN: IMAGOLOGY AND POETICS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena A. Khudenko

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The article investigates the cross-cutting images and themes related to topography of the Kirghiz steppe (now North-Eastern Kazakhstan in the works of M. M. Prishvin. Three early Prishvin’s texts — a Siberian diary “A Journey from Pavlodar to Karkaralinsk”, essays “Adam and Eve” and “A Black Arab” became an empirical base for it. The marginality of Prishvin’s texts in which the itinerant writer crosses the border between Europe and Asia as well as the border of consciousness, dwelling simultaneously in the space of its own and in the others’ space, permitted to reconstruct the landscape consciousness of the Kirghiz and Russian emigrees. The methodological feature of the study of these works along with the study of the poetics of the steppe images, the Kazakh, local legends and nomadic subjects, was a description of their imagological component induced by socio-historical, political and ethnic processes of the early twentieth century, the writer talks about in his books. So, the overall strategy of the narrative, moving from a documentary and essay principle to the poetic saturation by images is formed in his diaries. The essay “Adam and Eve” considers the issue of Russian immigrants, demonstrates the incompatibility between sedentary and nomadic life as two types of national behavior. A twofold image of the steppe — a foodless and saline steppe, and a rich and populated one — sets the parameters of social behavior of the rich and the poor in his essay “A Black Arab”. Basing on its materials the distinctive marks of the steppe as the Paradise are explored. Thus, the Asiatic world is seen by Prishvin through the principle of the landscape consciousness, which allowed reconstructing the features of the national image on the whole.

  11. Getting to 2014 (and beyond): The Choices and Challenges Ahead. A Collection of Essays to Encourage Constructive Dialogue among Policymakers, Educators, and Practitioners Engaged in School Reform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balfanz, Robert; Boer, Benjamin; Carey, Kevin; Cohen, Michael; Hassel, Bryan C.; Hassel, Emily Ayscue; Hyslop, Anne; Levin, Douglas A.; Fletcher, Geoffrey; Odden, Allan; Tucker, Bill; Vargas, Joel

    2012-01-01

    Education Sector commissioned an earlier version of this collection of essays in conjunction with a March 2012 event "Getting to 2014: The Choices and Challenges Ahead." This updated version includes new essays and a revised introduction. The aim of these essays is to present ideas, elicit feedback, and encourage productive dialogue…

  12. Essays on the valuation of discretionary liabilities and pension fund investment policy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Broeders, D.W.G.A.

    2010-01-01

    The four essays collected in this dissertation serve as a contribution to the broad field of pension finance. They focus on the economic understanding of liability valuation on the one hand and investment policy for pension funds on the other. The first article concerns the impact of the sponsor’s

  13. The production of the Gospel of Mark: An essay on intertextuality ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    For more than a century the emphasis has been on the growth and not on the making of the Gospel of Mark. This essay focuses on the latter. Firstly, attention is paid to the current views on the origins of the material in order to illustrate the implications of the traditional focus. Secondly, the production of the Gospel of Mark is ...

  14. Essay on Methods in Futures Studies and a Selective Bibliography

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Poulsen, Claus

    2005-01-01

    Futures studies is often conflated with science fiction or pop-futurism. Consequently there is a need for demarcation of what is futures studies and what is not. From the same reason the essay stresses the need for quality control to focus on futures research and its methods: Publications in futu...... programme are (only) partly reduced by applying Causal Layered Analysis as an internal quality control. The following selective bibliography is focussed on these methodological issues...

  15. From academic research articles to academic visual and video essays: Only a multimodal transition?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Maier, Carmen Daniela

    Drawing on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, we propose to examine multimodal texts from the academic genre set belonging to the field of presenting and discussing research results: the academic research article, the academic visual essay and the academic video essay. The data...... for this study has been collected from academic journals that belong to print medium and to multimedia. In order to articulate an analytical model for the description and interpretation of these subgenres, we depart from the understanding of genres as linguistic categories influenced by specific situations...... subgenres will also be facilitated by applying theoretical approaches focused on knowledge communication because the academic discourse in these subgenres is based on specific meaning-making structures. The fact that these structures are linked to the subgenres’ common communicative purpose of representing...

  16. Contract Cheating in UK Higher Education: A Covert Investigation of Essay Mills

    Science.gov (United States)

    Medway, Dominic; Roper, Stuart; Gillooly, Leah

    2018-01-01

    Contract cheating is currently a concern for universities and the higher education (HE) sector. It has been brought into the spotlight in recent years through the growth of online essay mills, where students can easily commission and purchase written assessment responses. This study contributes to the wider literature on academic integrity in HE…

  17. Review Essay: On Transparency, Epistemologies, and Positioning in Writing Introductory Qualitative Research Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Audra Skukauskaite

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Building on Günter MEY's (2000, para. 2 argument that "reviews should help to promote additional perspectives … and to open up new scientific discourses," in this essay review of Carol GRBICH's (2007 "Qualitative Data Analysis," we present an approach to reading texts ethnographically that enabled us to uncover how the choices GRBICH makes in positioning readers and in choosing particular ways of representing select qualitative approaches inscribes particular worlds and possibilities for qualitative research. In her text GRBICH argues that authors position readers through the ways in which they report and write about their work. In this review essay we use this argument as a basis to uncover how GRBICH positions readers, researchers, those researched, different qualitative traditions and perspectives as well as herself as an author of the text, to lay a foundation for engaging readers of FQS in a hermeneutic dialogue (KELLY, 2006 about the authoring and reviewing processes and their inter-relationships. Through this dialogue, we seek to develop with readers of FQS a new discourse about the necessity of transparency in the position that authors and reviewers take in reporting/reviewing of research, and in representing the traditions that differ from the author's/reviewer's own tradition(s. Our goal in framing this essay review as a hermeneutical dialogue is to identify previously unexamined issues of how the writing of introductory texts is shaped by the often invisible perspectives of authors, which in turn leads to a particular inscription of what counts as qualitative research. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1201233

  18. Electrochemical noise measurements techniques and the reversing dc potential drop method applied to stress corrosion essays

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aly, Omar Fernandes; Andrade, Arnaldo Paes de; MattarNeto, Miguel; Aoki, Idalina Vieira

    2002-01-01

    This paper aims to collect information and to discuss the electrochemical noise measurements and the reversing dc potential drop method, applied to stress corrosion essays that can be used to evaluate the nucleation and the increase of stress corrosion cracking in Alloy 600 and/or Alloy 182 specimens from Angra I Nuclear Power Plant. Therefore we will pretend to establish a standard procedure to essays to be realized on the new autoclave equipment on the Laboratorio de Eletroquimica e Corrosao do Departamento de Engenharia Quimica da Escola Politecnica da Universidade de Sao Paulo - Electrochemical and Corrosion Laboratory of the Chemical Engineering Department of Polytechnical School of Sao Paulo University, Brazil. (author)

  19. Olivier's 'Essay on Hamlet'

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Koprivica Zoran

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Laurence Olivier's Hamlet is more a renaissance character, a melancholic and a daydreamer, than a man of action, unlike his Henry V and Richard III film adaptations. However, it seems that Olivier showed outstanding courage not in his extremely liberal approach to interpreting this Shakespeare's tragedy, but in literal application of Freud's model on his inner problems, seen through the prism of the professor Ernest Johnson. Transposing Shakespeare's original text, starting with its global features, he abstracts numerous and diversified eventful and associative moments which might burden the polyphonic structure of his own - film story. Moreover, Olivier wants to avoid its dramatic deconstruction and focuses the viewer's attention to the climactic moments. However, dramatically the strongest and most effective scenes in his film adaptation of Hamlet are the ones related to the use of camera, that is to say, its movement and analyticity. The intention was to point not only to the ostentatious difference between cinematographic and theatrical stylisation, but, to a certain extent, he defines the viewer's standpoint. In his 'essay on Hamlet', Olivier does not consider chronology, that is to say, the problem of temporal relations. The visual structure of the film and its dynamics are determined a priori by the rhythmic parameters of the Elsinore's labyrinthic space.

  20. Essays on the future in honor of Nick Metropolis

    CERN Document Server

    Rota, Gian-Carlo

    2000-01-01

    This collection represents a unique undertaking in scientific publishing to honor Nick Metropolis. Nick was the last survivor of the World War II Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, and was an important member of the Los Alamos national Laboratory until his death in October, 1999. In this volume, some of the leading scientists and humanists of our time have contributed essays related to their respective disciplines, exploring various aspects of future developments in science and society, philosophy, national security, nuclear power, pure and applied mathematics, physics and biology, particle physics, computing, and information science.

  1. Ethics and Utopia: public health theory and practice in the sixteenth century. An essay comparing the Henrician Medical Act of 1540 and More's 1530 Ordinances, with Thomas More's novel 'Utopia' of 1516.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bishop, M G H; Gelbier, S

    2003-09-13

    This essay places the early modern origins of the ethico-legal structure of medicine, in which eventually by exclusion or inclusion, dental activity shared, in the Humanist environment of the Italian Renaissance as it was imported into England in the first years of the sixteenth century. There were two linked stages to this, the first supported by the genius of Thomas Linacre (1460-1524), and the second by the administrative ability of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). This paper concentrates on the evidence for the intellectual basis of More's medical legislation, and that which was made shortly after his death.

  2. Essays on Arbitrage and Market Liquidity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tomio, Davide

    The first essay investigates how credit risk, the risk that a bond issuer will default, affects bond market liquidity. Specifically, we depart from the current literature in that we analyze the direct and indirect channels through which credit risk affects market liquidity, rather than determining...... whether both are priced in the bond. We focus on the Italian sovereign bond market, which allows us to determine how central bank interventions affect the sensitivity of the liquidity provision by market makers to default risk. We motivate our empirical analysis with a simple model of a risk averse market...... maker, holding an inventory of a risky asset and setting her optimal marginal quotes (and, therefore, the optimal bid-ask spread), in the presence of margin constraints and borrowing costs. The margins, set by a clearing house, depend on the risk of the asset, as measured by the CDS spread...

  3. Tutor Feedback on Draft Essays: Developing Students' Academic Writing and Subject Knowledge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Court, Krista

    2014-01-01

    Providing feedback on draft essays is an accepted means of enacting a social-constructivist approach to assessment, aligning with current views on the value of formative feedback and assessment for learning (AFL). However, the use of this process as a means of improving not only content but also students' academic writing skills has not been…

  4. Students' Approaches to Essay-Writing and the Quality of the Written Product.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biggs, John B.

    Studies of text comprehension have suggested that readers focus on different levels of ideational unit while reading, thereby affecting the quality of their comprehension of the text. A study examined the viability of the deep-surface categorization with regard to essay-writing and the relation of different approaches to writing to the quality of…

  5. Contesting the Cause and Severity of the Black Death: A Review Essay

    OpenAIRE

    Noymer, A.

    2007-01-01

    The essay is a book review of Ole J. Benedictow's "The Black Death, 1346-1353: The Complete History". It discusses the history, demography, and epidemiology of the Black Death, an epidemic that struck fourteenth-century Europe with a severity that has not be equaled by any other epidemic in recorded history, before or since.

  6. Citizenship Education Research in Varied Contexts: Reflections and Future Possibilities. A Review Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tudball, Libby

    2015-01-01

    Three books are the subject of this review essay: (1) Avril Keating's (2014) publication, "Education for Citizenship in Europe: European Policies, National Adaptations and Young People's Attitudes"; (2) "The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education", Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy (2015); and (3) "We…

  7. Three Accounts of Feminism and Women's Studies in Higher Education. Book Review Essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rice, Suzanne

    1996-01-01

    Provides an integrative essay that explores three books and their contributions to feminism and women's studies in higher education. Indicates that only one of the three works managed to escape the tendency of academic and popular media to either valorize or demonize feminists and their pursuits. (MAB)

  8. The impact of interactive whiteboard technology on medical students' achievement in ESL essay writing : an early study in Egypt.

    OpenAIRE

    Albaaly, E.; Higgins, S.

    2011-01-01

    This study investigated the impact of the interactive whiteboard on Egyptian medical students' achievement in essay writing in English as a second language (ESL). First, the writing micro-skills judged essential to help these students improve their essay writing were identified, using a questionnaire which investigated experts' views. This gave rise to a taxonomy of 29 writing micro-skills, which then provided the basis for the design of a teaching module. This module was subsequently taught ...

  9. [Real-time quantification to analyze historical Colombian samples detecting a short fragment of hypervariable region II of mitochondrial DNA].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pérez, Luz Adriana; Rodríguez, Freddy; Langebaek, Carl Henrik; Groot, Helena

    2016-09-01

    Unlike other molecular biology studies, the analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA) requires special infrastructure and methodological conditions to guarantee the quality of the results. One of the main authenticity criteria is DNA quantification, where quantitative real-time PCR is often used given its sensitivity and specificity. Nevertheless, the implementation of these conditions and methodologies to fulfill authenticity criteria imply higher costs. Objective: To develop a simple and less costly method for mitochondrial DNA quantification suitable for highly degraded samples. Materials and methods: The proposed method is based on the use of mini-primers for the specific amplification of short fragments of mitochondrial DNA. The subsequent purification of these amplified fragments allows a standard curve to be constructed with concentrations in accordance to the state of degradation of the samples. Results: The proposed method successfully detected DNA from ancient samples including bone remains and mummified tissue. DNA inhibitory substances were also detected. Conclusion: The proposed method represents a simpler and cost-effective way to detect low amounts of aDNA, and a tool to differentiate DNA-free samples from samples with inhibitory substances.

  10. The attention-weighted sample-size model of visual short-term memory: Attention capture predicts resource allocation and memory load.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Philip L; Lilburn, Simon D; Corbett, Elaine A; Sewell, David K; Kyllingsbæk, Søren

    2016-09-01

    We investigated the capacity of visual short-term memory (VSTM) in a phase discrimination task that required judgments about the configural relations between pairs of black and white features. Sewell et al. (2014) previously showed that VSTM capacity in an orientation discrimination task was well described by a sample-size model, which views VSTM as a resource comprised of a finite number of noisy stimulus samples. The model predicts the invariance of [Formula: see text] , the sum of squared sensitivities across items, for displays of different sizes. For phase discrimination, the set-size effect significantly exceeded that predicted by the sample-size model for both simultaneously and sequentially presented stimuli. Instead, the set-size effect and the serial position curves with sequential presentation were predicted by an attention-weighted version of the sample-size model, which assumes that one of the items in the display captures attention and receives a disproportionate share of resources. The choice probabilities and response time distributions from the task were well described by a diffusion decision model in which the drift rates embodied the assumptions of the attention-weighted sample-size model. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Boston College Sees a Sharp Drop in Applications after Adding an Essay

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoover, Eric

    2013-01-01

    Boston College saw a 26-percent decrease in applications this year, a drop officials largely attribute to a new essay requirement. Last year the private Jesuit institution received a record 34,051 applications for 2,250 spots in its freshman class. This year approximately 25,000 students applied, and all of them had to do one thing their…

  12. Fast screening of short-chain chlorinated paraffins in indoor dust samples by graphene-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Xiu; Liu, Qian; Gao, Wei; Wang, Yawei; Nie, Zhou; Yao, Shouzhuo; Jiang, Guibin

    2018-03-01

    As an important class of emerging chemical contaminants, short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) are considered as one of the most challenging groups of compounds to analyze. In this paper, we report a new method for fast screening of SCCPs based on matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) with graphene as a matrix and 2,5,6,9-tetrachlorodecane as an internal standard. We found that the use of graphene as MALDI matrix generated high peak intensities for SCCPs while producing few background noises. The ion fragmentation mechanisms of SCCPs in MALDI are discussed in detail. Under the optimized conditions, much lower detection limits of SCCP congeners (0.1-5ng/mL) than those reported previously were obtained. Other distinct advantages such as short analysis time and simplified sample preparation procedures are also demonstrated. The method was successfully applied in fast screening of SCCPs in indoor dust samples and monitoring of human exposure levels to SCCPs, and the results were verified by gas chromatography coupled to negative chemical ionization quadrupole time-of-flight high-resolution mass spectrometry. This work not only offers a new promising tool for SCCP studies, but also further demonstrates the promise of graphene as a new generation of MALDI matrix. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Birth of a Canon: The Historiography of Early Republican Educational Thought. Historiographical Essay.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moroney, Siobhan

    1999-01-01

    Focuses on Allen O. Hansen's "Liberalism and American Education in the Eighteenth Century" and Frederick Rudolph's "Essays on Education in the Early Republic." Explores the influence of Hansen and Rudolph on other works of educational thought. Contends that a more accurate picture of the early republic is needed. (CMK)

  14. Time perspective in hereditary cancer: psychometric properties of a short form of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory in a community and clinical sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wakefield, Claire E; Homewood, Judi; Taylor, Alan; Mahmut, Mehmet; Meiser, Bettina

    2010-10-01

    We aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a 25-item short form of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory in a community sample (N = 276) and in individuals with a strong family history of cancer, considering genetic testing for cancer risk (N = 338). In the community sample, individuals with high past-negative or present-fatalistic scores had higher levels of distress, as measured by depression, anxiety, and aggression. Similarly, in the patient sample, past-negative time perspective was positively correlated with distress, uncertainty, and postdecision regret when making a decision about genetic testing. Past-negative-oriented individuals were also more likely to be undecided about, or against, genetic testing. Hedonism was associated with being less likely to read the educational materials they received at their clinic, and fatalism was associated with having lower knowledge levels about genetic testing. The assessment of time perspective in individuals at increased risk of cancer can provide valuable clinical insights. However, further investigation of the psychometric properties of the short form of this scale is warranted, as it did not meet the currently accepted criteria for psychometric validation studies.

  15. Accounting for the income of non-renewable resources - Four essays on new theoretical approaches

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wei, Taoyuan

    2009-01-15

    Non-renewable resources are widely extracted and used in today's global economy. On the one hand, the use of these resources generates huge cash flows that can be used for current consumption. On the other hand, the extraction of these resources implies less wealth of these natural resources in the future. To compensate for this wealth decrease, we have to accumulate other kinds of real wealth, like man-made capital, human capital, and renewable resources. The wealth accumulation can be achieved by activities of investments. Reasonable financial support for the investments should come from cash flows related to non-renewable resources. Hence, cash flows related to non-renewable resources should be divided for two basic purposes: current consumption and savings to support activities of investments. The trade-off between current consumption and savings invokes a fundamental question: how much of the cash flows can we use for current consumption without impoverishing the future? Following the literature line from Hicks (1946, Chapter 14) via Samuelson (1961) to Sefton and Weale (2006), in the first essay of this dissertation, Geir Asheim and I develop a theory of sectoral income. The theory can be applied to estimate income at a sectoral level. By this notion of sectoral income, we can answer the fundamental question concerning the division of the cash flows generated by non-renewable resources into consumption and savings. In particular, by applying the new theory in this dissertation, I provide a new method for estimating real income generated by non-renewable resources. The new method has at least two advantages when compared with the wealth-based method, which is a commonly applied method in practical resource accounting. By the wealth-based method, sectoral income is associated with the interest on the sector's wealth, where the wealth is estimated as the present value of cash flows generated from the sector (see, e.g., Aslaksen et al., 1990, and Brekke

  16. Intraventricular mass lesions at magnetic resonance imaging: iconographic essay - part 2

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Castro, Felipe Damasio de; Reis, Fabiano; Guerra, Jose Guilherme Giocondo, E-mail: fdamasiocastro@gmail.com [Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Campinas, SP (Brazil)

    2014-07-15

    The present essay is illustrated with magnetic resonance images obtained at the authors’ institution over the past 15 years and discusses the main imaging findings of intraventricular tumor-like lesions (colloid cyst, oligodendroglioma, astroblastoma, lipoma, cavernoma) and of inflammatory/infectious lesions (neurocysticercosis and an atypical presentation of neurohistoplasmosis). Such lesions represent a subgroup of intracranial lesions with unique characteristics and some imaging patterns that may facilitate the differential diagnosis. (author)

  17. Jon Elster's Securities against Misrule: Juries, Assemblies, Elections: A Review Essay

    OpenAIRE

    David Austen-Smith

    2015-01-01

    The standard economic approach to designing institutions for collective decision making recognizes individuals' strategically rational motivations for misrepresentation and asks how best, given an objective function, to design a set of incentives and constraints to internalize or negate such motivations. Securities Against Misrule offers, in the author's phrase, an "essay in persuasion" to the effect that such an approach is fundamentally misguided. Instead, Elster argues for a behavioral app...

  18. Jeremy Bentham's essay on "Paederasty". Part 2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crompton, L

    1978-01-01

    This is Part 2 of a transcription of Bentham's manuscript essay on "Paederasty" (1785), Part 1 of which appeared in Vol. 3, No. 4. In Part 1 Bentham argued for the decriminalization of sodomy and opposed the theories of Montesquieu and Voltaire as to its social dangers. In Part 2 Bentham speculates on its causes and alleges that the real reason such behavior is so severely punished is an irrational "antipathy" to pleasure generally and to sexual pleasure in particular. He discusses the danger of blackmail and false accusations and the punishment of lesbian acts, bestiality, and masturbation. Some miscellaneous related notes by Bentham are appended: these deal with religious fears based on the destruction of Sodom, the threat to population, the harshness of English naval law, and other topics.

  19. Three essays in labour economics and the economics of education

    OpenAIRE

    Javdani Haji, Mohsen

    2012-01-01

    This thesis consists of three empirical essays. The first chapter is focused on the economics of gender, and the other two chapters are focused on the economics of education. A common theme in all these three chapters is studying the outcomes of disadvantaged groups in society, with an eye to policy interventions that could improve these outcomes. The first chapter examines whether women face a glass ceiling in the labour market, which would imply that they are under-represented in high wag...

  20. Short Review

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lynnerup, Niels; Rühli, Frank

    2015-01-01

    modality in ancient mummy research. The aim of this short review is to address the advantages and pitfalls of this particular technique for such unique samples. We recommend that when results of X-ray examination of mummies are presented, the specific recording data should be listed, and any given finds...

  1. Latin America: Essays Interpretating Colonial Legacy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María Pia López

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available A large part of the Latin–American literature of the 19th and 20th century tried to deal with the national question intertwining different dimensions: the weight of colonial legacy, the cultural peculiarity of the nation and the inner relations between social classes and ethnic groups. Thinking the nation implied, in any case, to think the difference and the conflict with others, as well as the inner conflict and the logic of local colonialism. Analyzing some of these essays that played a central role in such process of recasting the origin of the nation, the author moves around three main axes: the formulation of dualist writings (colonial/national; white /indigenous; civilization/wilderness, the issue of language (the language inherited from the colonial experience versus the multilingual nature of indigenous Latin American societies, and the hypothesis about the birth of the nation – appointed to different groups – and its normal functioning as legitimization of the order sprung from independences.

  2. "ESSAY ON CI" BY LI QINGZHAO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Dashchenko

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available The article presents the first Russian translation of "Essay on Ci" with detailed comments. It was written by the outstanding Chinese poetess Li Qingzhao and considered to be the first theoretical treatise dedicated to genre ci. The article revealed that the poetess used three strategies to make a genre demarcation: to legitimise, dichotomise and historicise. To legitimise means to justify that ci is a genre of poetry by identifying the same traits with official poetry shi (e.g. using the classical quotations and allusions. To dichotomise is to determine a core element of genre and oppose it to the other element identifying the similar genre (e.g. music separates ci from shi. To historicise is to develop or discover the unique historical past (e.g. the source of ci is in antiquity. The article also examined the strategy to invent classics: Li Qingzhao wrote the apophatic history of genre ci pointing not to the merits but weaknesses of her predecessors.

  3. The Apprentice Researcher: Using Undergraduate Researchers' Personal Essays to Shape Instruction and Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonnet, Jennifer L.; Cordell, Sigrid Anderson; Cordell, Jeffrey; Duque, Gabriel J.; MacKintosh, Pamela J.; Peters, Amanda

    2013-01-01

    Little is known about the intellectual journey of advanced undergraduates engaged in the research process. Moreover, few studies of this population of library users include students' personal essays as a point of analysis in their scholarly pursuits. To gain insights into the research trajectory of apprentice researchers at the University of…

  4. [Analysis of short-chain chlorinated paraffins in sediment samples from the mouth of the Daliao River by HRGC/ECNI-LRMS].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Yuan; Wang, Cheng; Zhang, Hai-jun; Zou, Li-li; Tian, Yu-zeng; Chen, Ji-ping

    2010-08-01

    An analytical method for quantifying short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) by high-resolution gas chromatography/electron capture negative ion low-resolution mass spectrometry (HRGC/ECNI-LRMS) was presented. The cleanup procedure with an acid silica gel column and activated neutral alumina column was optimized to remove the interferences. As illustration of the application of the method to environmental samples, it is found that lower chlorinated C10 and C11 compounds were the main SCCPs compounds in six sediment samples from the mouth of the Daliao River. The concentrations of SCCPs in sediments were determined to be in the range of 64.9-407.0 ng/g and showed a decreasing tendency from the shore to the remote location.

  5. Et essay om konkurrenceevnens mangfoldige rødder

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Kurt

    2012-01-01

    Konkurrenceevnen dukker jævnligt op i den politiske og økonomiske debat. Spørger man til, hvad det er for en størrelse, får man et mere eller mindre kompliceret indeks, der viser hvordan valutakurs og nominalløn har udviklet sig over en periode i forhold til vore samhandelspartnere. Det er...... ændringen i vor konkurrenceevne, der finder udtryk, ikke begrebet som sådant. I dette lille essay anlægges en bred teorihistorisk vinkel med henblik på at få begrebet som sådant indkredset. Dets eklektiske natur afskærer os dog fra at angive en mere præcis definition....

  6. Ten mathematical essays on approximation in analysis and topology

    CERN Document Server

    López-Gómez, J; Ruiz del Portal, F R

    2005-01-01

    This book collects 10 mathematical essays on approximation in Analysis and Topology by some of the most influent mathematicians of the last third of the 20th Century. Besides the papers contain the very ultimate results in each of their respective fields, many of them also include a series of historical remarks about the state of mathematics at the time they found their most celebrated results, as well as some of their personal circumstances originating them, which makes particularly attractive the book for all scientist interested in these fields, from beginners to experts. These gem pieces

  7. Review Essay: Controlled Openness

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andreas Wenninger

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available The book reviewed here contains a written form of Niklas LUHMANN’s last lecture, delivered in winter term 1992/1993 at Bielefeld University, where he was professor for sociology from 1968 to 1993. A more comprehensive and systematic publication titled "Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft" was not published until 1997. In comparison to this and to other publications the present one provides an insight into the modality of the theoretical practice of LUHMANN. My review-essay follows up that point and reminds us that LUHMANN worked out his theory of society in view of a sociological problem he had conceived. He accused sociology of accumulating knowledge in a confusing way by empirical social research. His endeavour, in contrast, was to enable research within a consistent theoretical frame that was nevertheless open to expansive explorations. LUHMANN tries to achieve consistency through the reciprocal adjustment of his terms and his theoretical components, which should enable the construction of problems for comparison within global society. This means that his approach stays open for an empirical reality that remains to be explored because the theory of society does not deliver terms to categorize empirical reality. Instead, terms are conceptualized as distinctions with the function to construct problems that instruct observations and make them amenable to theorization. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0803237

  8. Material Teaching Aids: Enhancement Tool for Teaching Essay Writing in Secondary Schools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fidelia, Okonkwo Adaobi

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of material teaching aids as enhancement tool for teaching essay writing in secondary schools in Ebonyi State. A 4-point Likert-scale questionnaire was used as the instrument. A trial test was conducted and tested for reliability and a value of 0.75 was obtained from the test. The instrument was…

  9. Validation of a 16-Item Short Form of the Czech Version of the Experiences in Close Relationships Revised Questionnaire in a Representative Sample

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Kaščáková, N.; Husárová, D.; Hašto, J.; Kolarčik, P.; Poláčková Šolcová, Iva; Madarasová Gecková, A.; Tavel, P.

    2016-01-01

    Roč. 119, č. 3 (2016), s. 804-825 ISSN 0033-2941 Institutional support: RVO:68081740 Keywords : Short form of the ECR-R * Experiences in Close Relationships Revised Questionnaire * validation * attachment anxiety * attachment avoidance * attachment styles * representative sample Subject RIV: AN - Psychology Impact factor: 0.629, year: 2016

  10. Magnetic resonance imaging in lower urinary tract endometriosis: iconographic essay

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lima, Claudio Marcio Amaral de Oliveira; Coutinho, Elisa Pompeu Dias; Ribeiro, Erica Barreiros; Domingues, Marisa Nassar Aidar; Junqueira, Flavia Pegado; Coutinho Junior, Antonio Carlos

    2009-01-01

    Endometriosis is defined as the presence of functional endometrial tissue outside the endometrial cavity and myometrium. Although this is a frequent disease with multifactorial causes, involvement of the lower urinary tract is rare. Magnetic resonance imaging is highly sensitive, specific and accurate in the diagnosis of endometriosis in the lower urinary tract, especially for allowing the identification of lesions obscured by adhesions or with subperitoneal extension. The present iconographic essay presents the main magnetic resonance imaging findings of the lower urinary tract involvement by endometriosis. (author)

  11. Taking Stock, Placing Orders: A Historiographic Essay on the Business History of the Newspaper.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Carol; Dyer, Carolyn Stewart

    This historiographic essay discusses and seeks to begin to address the need for a business history of the newspaper. The paper's first section clarifies the terms "business history,""economic history,""political history," and "history of economics," (which the paper suggests have been used interchangeably in…

  12. Enrique Díaz and Present Phpotographies (From Graphic Notes to Photo-essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rebeca Monroy Nasr

    1998-10-01

    Full Text Available With "Enrique Díaz and Present Phpotographies (From Graphic Notes to Photo-essays ", the author presents part of our photo­graphic history, as well as some aspects of its development as a form of journalism and of art. She rescues the figure of Enrique Díaz Reyna as representative of the union of graphic journalists, due to his technical, formal and conceptual traits, all of them tools with which he opened important paths and innovative graphical and aesthetic proposals. This essay presents some aspects of the graphic journalist's work in Mexico City, from the twenties to the forties. As a guide to the photographer's extensi­ve work, the author reviews some of the proposals he made as his work became more mature: first, the graphic note, later, recrea­ting the photo-reportage, and finally, exploring with photoessays. Thus, attention is centered particularly on Díaz Reyna's visual language, where the signs of a distinctive modernity appro­priate of his time allow us to understand a substantial part of the transition towards a contemporary and  truly national photo-journalism.

  13. eGrader, A Software Application that Automatically Scores Student Essays: with a Postscript on Ethical Complexities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roxanne Byrne

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Online and traditional teachers face several instructional challenges with regard to assessing student learning. This paper focuses on a software application that automatically scores student essay. The first part gives a brief overview of three commercial automated essay scoring systems. Then it describes the technical aspects of the machine grader developed by the authors, including an assessment of its performance. Although the statistical results were significant in finding a strong correlation between human and machine scorers and the other measures, follow-up non-quantitative evaluations led the researchers to discontinue using the eGrader. They concluded that while the eGrader's ability to measure objective evaluation criteria was successful, measuring subjective ideas proved to more complex and problematic.

  14. A Theoretical Essay on the Theory of Priming in the context of Sport Marks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fabio Henrique Galvão

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available This essay aims to confirm some theoretical statements about the theory of priming, using the sports context . Priming is the activation of the internal structures of knowledge through an external stimulus, without any awareness on the part of the individual. For example, consumers exposed to low price brands tend to spend less on consumption situations when compared to consumers exposed to prestige brands . Regarding trademarks, it is proposed that they tend to function as priming tools if they have the ability to anthropomorphizing. Still regarding to brands, aspects such as prior relationship or past experiences can influence the results obtained. As for priming stimuli, issues such as exposure time and involvement with the stimulus may suggest different results, although the amount of exposed brands in a short period of time can confront meanings and modify the triggering of actions. The choice of sports brands was due to its ability to absorb different meanings found in sports, making possible for brands trigger not necessarily related to the features found in the same behaviors. Where brands influence the self-confidence and hence the propensity to risk in subsequent decisions. Such research propositions aim of contributing to the enrichment of the theory of priming in general and especially provide new resources for marketers build their strategies for brand-equity.

  15. Essays in Education, Crime, and Job Displacement

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bennett, Patrick

    , Crime, and Job Displacement”, analyzes the determinants and social implications of these three factors. While independent, each essay within this thesis examines the impact of factors such as education, in terms of reduced crime, job loss, in terms of increased crime, and discrimination, in terms of its......With a limited budget and resources, governments must decide how to allocate funds across a variety of factors which benefit society such as education, crime deterrence, and public safety. Each increase in spending on one area comes with the knowledge that this money cannot be spent on social...... problems in another area. As such, externalities and unexpected spillover effects impact the costs and benefits of public spending to society and may have large and meaningful implications on how to most effectively allocate resources across a multitude of outcomes. For example, an increase in education...

  16. Factors Influencing Student Preference When Comparing Handwriting and Typing for Essay Style Examinations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mogey, Nora; Fluck, Andrew

    2015-01-01

    It seems anachronistic that we expect students to handwrite essay examinations when almost all their other work is mediated by computer. Two universities, one in the UK and one in Australia, are exploring the use of computers in free text response examinations. This paper compares both the attitudes and the behaviours of their students concerning…

  17. [The old man and the I sea U : Essay on faith, fate and evidence - after the manner of Hemingway].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lewandowski, K; Bartlett, R H

    2017-01-01

    Robert Bartlett, emeritus Professor of surgery at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA, transformed classical works of world literature (Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol, Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland) into teaching aids for advanced training in intensive care medicine. He recently turned his hand to the well-known work of Ernest Hemingway: the Nobel Prize winning novel The Old Man and the Sea. Subsequent to Robert Bartlett's essay this article provides background information and comments on the current problems in modern intensive care medicine addressed in his essay.

  18. Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain: Humboldt and the history of Mexico

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luiz Estevam O. Fernandes

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract In this paper we discuss how Alexander von Humboldt conceived a past to New Spain in his Political Essay on New Spain (1811 and how this text was, in turn, appropriated by the Mexican historiography during the 19th century. In order to do so, we analyze how the Prussian drew from American sources, particularly from the text of the Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero, written shortly before. We also study Humboldt’s conceptions of text and of history, highlighting the place of the indigenous in the composition of his reasoning. Finally, we give examples of how the Mexican nationalist historiography read and reinterpreted the Political Essay. Resumen En este artículo se discute cómo Alexander von Humboldt concibió un pasado a la Nueva España en su Ensayo político sobre el reino de la Nueva España (1811 y cómo este texto, a su vez, fue apropiado por la historiografía mexicana durante el siglo XIX. Para ello, se analiza cómo el prusiano se ha valido de fuentes americanas, sobre todo a partir del texto del jesuita Francisco Javier Clavijero, escrito poco antes. También estudiamos las concepciones de texto y de la historia de Humboldt, destacando el lugar de los indígenas en la composición de su razonamiento. Por último, damos ejemplos de cómo la historiografía nacionalista mexicana leyó y reinterpretó el Ensayo político. Résumé Cet article explique comment Alexander von Humboldt a conçu une passé pour la Nouvelle-Espagne dans son Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne (1811 et la façon que ce texte, à son tour, a été approprié par l’historiographie mexicaine au cours du XIXe siècle. Ainsi, nous analysons comment le prussien a utilisé des sources américaines, en particulier le texte du jésuite Francisco Javier Clavijero, écrit un peu de temps avant. Nous étudions également les conceptions de texte et de l’histoire de Humboldt, en soulignant la place des indigènes dans la composition de son

  19. Form and Ethos of Labor: Essay on the Reformulation of an Ideology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maurilio Lima Botelho

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This essay explores the changes in the so-called ideology of labor, from the classic Protestant work ethic, passing through the hedonism of consumer society to the current reformulation of this ideology in a society in crisis. It emphasizes that the modifications occur both in the form and content of this ideology, which stimulates an analysis of its relationship with social reality.

  20. Essays in theoretical physics in honour of Dirk Ter Haar

    CERN Document Server

    Parry, W E

    2013-01-01

    Essays in Theoretical Physics: In Honour of Dirk ter Haar is devoted to Dirk ter Haar, detailing the breadth of Dirk's interest in physics. The book contains 15 chapters, with some chapters elucidating stellar dynamics with non-classical integrals; a mean-field treatment of charge density waves in a strong magnetic field; electrodynamics of two-dimensional (surface) superconductors; and the Bethe Ansatz and exact solutions of the Kondo and related magnetic impurity models. Other chapters focus on probing the interiors of neutron stars; macroscopic quantum tunneling; unitary transformation meth

  1. The Role of Genre-Based Activities in the Writing of Argumentative Essays in EFL

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chala Bejarano Pedro Antonio

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available This article presents the findings of an action research project conducted with a group of pre-service teachers of a program in modern languages at a Colombian university. The study intended to go beyond an emphasis on linguistic and textual features in English as a foreign language argumentative essays by using a set of genre-based activities and the understanding of writing as a situated social practice. Data were gathered through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, class recordings, and students’ artifacts. The results showed that genre-based activities supported the participants throughout the experience and boosted their confidence, resulting in a positive attitude towards essay writing. The study highlights the importance of dialogic interaction to provide scaffolding opportunities, of understanding writing as a process, and of the use of samples and explicit instruction to facilitate writing.Este artículo presenta los hallazgos de una investigación-acción realizada con un grupo de estudiantes de la licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas de una universidad colombiana. El estudio buscaba ir más allá del énfasis en las características lingüísticas y textuales en la escritura de ensayos argumentativos en inglés como lengua extranjera, mediante un conjunto de actividades basadas en géneros y comprendiendo la escritura como una práctica social situada. Los datos se obtuvieron a través de cuestionarios, entrevistas semiestructuradas, grabaciones de clase y artefactos de los estudiantes. Los resultados muestran que las actividades basadas en la enseñanza de géneros proporcionan apoyo a los participantes durante la experiencia investigativa y aumentan su confianza y actitud positiva hacia la escritura de ensayos. El estudio resalta la importancia de la interacción dialógica para ofrecer oportunidades de andamiaje, la escritura como proceso y el uso de muestras e instrucción explícita para facilitar la escritura.

  2. Typing Compared with Handwriting for Essay Examinations at University: Letting the Students Choose

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mogey, Nora; Paterson, Jessie; Burk, John; Purcell, Michael

    2010-01-01

    Students at the University of Edinburgh do almost all their work on computers, but at the end of the semester they are examined by handwritten essays. Intuitively it would be appealing to allow students the choice of handwriting or typing, but this raises a concern that perhaps this might not be "fair"--that the choice a student makes,…

  3. From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prensky, Marc

    2012-01-01

    What can you learn on a cell phone? Almost anything! How does that concept fit with our traditional system of education? It doesn't. Best-selling author and futurist Marc Prensky's book of essays challenges educators to "reboot" and make the changes necessary to prepare students for 21st century careers. His "bottom-up" vision is based on…

  4. Unidirectionality Between Borderline Personality Disorder Traits and Psychopathology in a Residential Addictions Sample: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Webber, Troy A; Kiselica, Andrew M; Arango, Alejandra; Rojas, Elizabeth; Neale, Michael C; Bornovalova, Marina A

    2015-12-01

    Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a barrier to treatment, yet the relationship between BPD features and other psychopathology symptoms in residential addictions treatment samples is understudied. Using a sample of adults enrolled in a residential drug treatment facility measured at baseline and 2-3 month follow-up, the authors examined the prospective relationship between BPD features and five indices of psychopathology: depression, anxiety, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, and psychoticism, as well as psychopathology global severity. There was no effect of time on any of the forms of psychopathology, but females reported higher levels of BPD features, anxiety symptoms, and interpersonal sensitivity than males. A series of latent change score models indicated that BPD features predicted increases in all psychopathology scales at follow-up, while the reverse was not true. These results suggest that targeting BPD features in residents of drug treatment facilities may reduce the emergence of new psychopathology in the short term.

  5. Blazing the trail essays by leading women in science

    CERN Document Server

    Ideal, Emma

    2013-01-01

    Name a famous scientist. Got one? Now name a famous physicist. Ok, now name a famous female physicist. Ok, now name a famous living female physicist. Stumped? In Blazing the Trail: Essays by Leading Women in Science, 35 highly successful physicists, engineers, and chemists share their personal histories, their passion for discovery, and their secrets for success with the next generation. Essayists candidly recount their experiences – both positive and negative – with an uplifting tone, focusing on lessons learned along the way. The combination of personal stories and advice sends a powerful message to all young women considering scientific careers: I did it, so can you. Here’s how.

  6. Short Note An integrated remote sampling approach for aquatic ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    A sampling method and apparatus for collecting meaningful and quantifiable samples of aquatic macroinvertebrates, and the macrophytes they are associated with, are presented. Where physical danger from wildlife is a significant factor, especially in Africa, this apparatus offers some safety in that it can be operated from a ...

  7. Reconciling the Chinese Financial Development with its Economic Growth: A Discursive Essay

    OpenAIRE

    Maswana, Jean-Claude

    2005-01-01

    China‘s strong economic performance and its financial development outcomes are extremely difficult to reconcile with the dominant verdict that its financial system is seriously inefficient. Using an evolutionary perspective as a metaphor, this essay offered suggestions that adaptive efficiency criteria may help solve the apparent puzzle. An adaptive efficiency criterion offers conceptual as well as methodological approaches to resolving this puzzle and contradiction. The essay‘s discussions r...

  8. Mathematical statistics essays on history and methodology

    CERN Document Server

    Pfanzagl, Johann

    2017-01-01

    This book presents a detailed description of the development of statistical theory. In the mid twentieth century, the development of mathematical statistics underwent an enduring change, due to the advent of more refined mathematical tools. New concepts like sufficiency, superefficiency, adaptivity etc. motivated scholars to reflect upon the interpretation of mathematical concepts in terms of their real-world relevance. Questions concerning the optimality of estimators, for instance, had remained unanswered for decades, because a meaningful concept of optimality (based on the regularity of the estimators, the representation of their limit distribution and assertions about their concentration by means of Anderson’s Theorem) was not yet available. The rapidly developing asymptotic theory provided approximate answers to questions for which non-asymptotic theory had found no satisfying solutions. In four engaging essays, this book presents a detailed description of how the use of mathematical methods stimulated...

  9. A Window to the Past: What an Essay Contest Reveals about Early American Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Justice, Benjamin

    2015-01-01

    In 1795 America's premier scholarly association, the American Philosophical Society (APS), posed the following question: [Write] an essay on a system of liberal education, and literary instruction, adapted to the genius of the government, and best calculated to promote the general welfare of the United States; comprehending, also, a plan for…

  10. Physical theory and its interpretation essays in honor of Jeffrey Bub

    CERN Document Server

    Pitowsky, Itamar; Pitowsky, Itamar

    2006-01-01

    The essays in this volume were written by leading researchers on classical mechanics, statistical mechanics, quantum theory and relativity. The papers cover a number of central topics in the foundations of physics, including the role of symmetry principles in classical and quantum physics (papers by Butterfield and by Healey), Einstein's hole argument in general relativity (Korte), quantum mechanics and special relativity (Hemmo and Berkovitz, Brown and Timpson), quantum correlations (Glymour, Redei), quantum logic (Demopoulos, Isham, Stairs), and quantum probability and information (Gudder, P

  11. Microbiological oxidative dissolution of a complex mineral sample containing pyrite (FeS2), pyrrotite (Fe1-xS) and molybdenite (MoS2)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Francisco Junior, Wilmo E.; Bevilaqua, Denise; Garcia Junior, Oswaldo

    2007-01-01

    This work aims to study the oxidation of a complex molybdenite mineral which contains pyrite and pyrrotite, by Acidithiobacillus ferroxidans. This study was performed by respirometric essays and bioleaching in shake flasks. Respirometric essays yielded the kinetics of mineral oxidation. The findings showed that sulfide oxidation followed classical Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Bioleaching in shake flasks allowed evaluation of chemical and mineralogical changes resulting from sulfide oxidation. The results demonstrated that pyrrotite and pyrite were completely oxidized in A. ferrooxidans cultures whereas molybdenite was not consumed. These data indicated that molybdenite was the most recalcitrant sulfide in the sample. (author)

  12. Intracranial involvement in plasmacytomas and multiple myeloma: a pictorial essay

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cerase, Alfonso; Gennari, Paola; Monti, Lucia; Venturi, Carlo [Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Senese, Unit of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Neuroradiology, and InterDepartmental Center of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Policlinico ' Santa Maria alle Scotte' , Siena (Italy); Tarantino, Annachiara; Muccio, Carmine Franco [Azienda Ospedaliera ' G. Rummo' , Unit of Neuroradiology, Department of Neurosciences, Benevento (Italy); Gozzetti, Alessandro [University of Siena, Unit of Hematology and Transplants, Policlinico ' Santa Maria alle Scotte' , Siena (Italy); Di Blasi, Arturo [Azienda Ospedaliera ' G. Rummo' , Unit of Pathology, Department of Oncology, Benevento (Italy)

    2008-08-15

    The purpose of this pictorial essay is to increase awareness of the clinical presentation, neuroradiological findings, treatment options, and neuroradiological follow-up of plasmacytomas and multiple myeloma with intracranial growth. This pictorial essay reviews the clinical features and neuroradiological findings in seven patients (four women, three men; age range at diagnosis 62-82 years) followed in two institutions. Six patients, one with IgG-{kappa} plasmacytoma, and five with IgG-{kappa}(n=3), IgG-{lambda}(n=1), and nonsecretory (n=1) multiple myeloma, had been seen over a period of 9 years in one institution, and the other patient with IgG-{kappa} plasmacytoma had been seen over a period of 3.5 years in the other. Intracranial involvement is rare, most frequently resulting from osseous lesions in the cranial vault, skull base, nose, or paranasal sinuses. Primary dural or leptomeningeal involvement is rarer. Some typical findings of a dural and/or osseous plasmacytoma include iso- to hyperdensity on CT scan, T1 equal to high signal intensity and T2 markedly hypointense signal on MRI, and high vascularity possibly documented on intraarterial digital subtraction angiography. However, the neuroradiological findings generally lack specificity, since they are generally no different from those of meningioma, metastasis, lymphoma, dural sarcoma, plasma cell granuloma, infectious meningitis, and leptomeningeal carcinomatosis. The spectrum of clinical and neuroradiological evaluation shows that intracranial involvement from plasmacytoma and multiple myeloma must be taken into account in the differential diagnosis of cranial osseous and meningeal disease. (orig.)

  13. A Flipped Writing Classroom: Effects on EFL Learners’ Argumentative Essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatemeh Soltanpour

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available According to the literature, flipped teaching is a relatively new pedagogical approach in which the typical activities of classroom lectures followed by homework in common teaching practice are reversed in order, and most often integrated or supplemented with some types of instructional materials, such as instructional videos or PowerPoint files. This experimental study, using a pre-test-treatment-posttest-delayed posttest design, was aimed at investigating the effect of flipped instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ quality of argumentative essays. The participants were 55 students, who were assigned to two groups: the flipped classroom (FC and the traditional classroom (TC. Each group received 3 sessions of treatment. First, whether there was any significant difference between the FC and TC in the overall quality of the essays was investigated. The FC group significantly outperformed the TC one. Then, whether the difference between the groups varied over time was explored, and it was revealed that the FC was still significantly superior over the TC. Next, whether there would be any significant change in the FC in the long run was examined, and no significant change was seen. The promising results found in FC group can be attributed to not only the flipped instruction but also the process of actively engaging the learners in their learning in addition to incorporating different techniques, such as the video screencasting, collaborative writing, as well as in-class teacher-learner interaction and negotiation because it is argued that the crucial point in flipped instruction is how teachers best use in-class-time with students.

  14. The Effect of Individualized Technology-Mediated Feedback on EFL Learners’ Argumentative Essays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatemeh Soltanpour

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available This quantitative quasi-experimental study, which followed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design, was aimed at investigating the effect of individualized technology-mediated feedback (henceforth, ITMF on the overall quality of Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative essays. The effect of ITMF, as the experimental treatment, was compared with the common written corrective feedback (henceforth, CWCF strategies as the control treatment. 57 learners, studying at general EFL courses at upper-intermediate level, formed the participants. They were assigned to two groups: ITMF and CWCF, which, in this study, is meant as the pen-and-paper form of direct and indirect feedback. Each group received six sessions of treatment. The writing tasks and tests were all of argumentative type. First, whether there was any significant difference between the ITMF and CWCF in the overall quality of the essays was investigated. The ITMF group significantly outperformed the CWCF one. Then, whether the difference between the groups varied over time was explored, and it was revealed that the ITMF was still significantly superior over the CWCF. Next, whether there would be any significant change in the ITMF in the long term was examined, and no change was seen. The study supports the advocates of screencasting feedback, revision and teacher-learner negotiation following the feedback.

  15. Dream homes and dead ends in the city: a photo essay experiment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fast, Danya

    2017-09-01

    Research focused on the relationship between place and health demonstrates that it is complex and shifting, as overlapping social, historical, institutional and political and economic processes continually transform the landscapes in which lived experiences are embedded. Understanding this relationship requires knowledge of the situated meanings and local worlds that ethnographic methods are well suited to investigate. However, even conventional ethnographic methods can be inadequate to capture the embodied, lived experience of place - experiences in which the sensory and inner processes of memory and imagination are often privileged. Accessing these experiences and processes can require more experimental methodological approaches. In this article, I present work from a series of photo essays created between 2011 and 2016 by 15 young people who inhabit the social, spatial and economic margins of Vancouver, Canada, and discuss some of the challenges and opportunities presented by this methodology. Created over 5 years, and broadly focused on how they understood, experienced and navigated their 'place' in the city in the midst of poverty, addiction, violence and physical and mental health crises, the photo essays young people produced are embedded with personal biographies and trajectories, as well as shared experiences of geography, precarity and possibility in Vancouver. © 2017 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness.

  16. Statistical and Measurement Properties of Features Used in Essay Assessment. Research Report. ETS RR-04-21

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haberman, Shelby J.

    2004-01-01

    Statistical and measurement properties are examined for features used in essay assessment to determine the generalizability of the features across populations, prompts, and individuals. Data are employed from TOEFL® and GMAT® examinations and from writing for Criterion?.

  17. Review Essay: "Personal Relations" as a Sociological Category?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rainer Schützeichel

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available This review essay discusses the question raised by the handbook "Personal Relations": whether and to what extent personal relations can be understood as a fundamental sociological category, one that is uniform and covers social relations such as pair relationships, brother-sister and parent-child relationships, family relations, friendships, neighbourhoods or informal working groups. It examines the different criteria which—according to the publishers—plead for establishing personal relations as a joint structural form. However, it also considers further aspects, such as the ways in which these forms of personal relations differ from other social relations, and raises the question of whether these differences can only be reconstructed through the means of an a-historical, systematic comparison of social relations—as suggested by the handbook. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1003187

  18. Imaging Findings of Scrotal Tumors in Children: A Pictorial Essay

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Myung Hee [Kang-Dong Hospital, Busan (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Jee Eun [Gachon University, Gil Hospital, Incheon (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Ji Hye [Sungkyunkwan University, Samsung Medical Center, Changwon (Korea, Republic of); Yang, Dal Mo [Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

    2011-12-15

    The diagnosis of scrotal tumors in children can be challenging because of the rarity, vague symptoms, and varied imaging features of the tumors. The pathology and frequency of scrotal tumors that occur in children are different from tumors that arise in adults. In this pictorial essay, we illustrate the imaging findings of scrotal tumors in children with pathological correlations. In addition, we present the clinical manifestations that are valuable for a differential diagnosis. Familiarity with the imaging findings and clinical manifestations of pediatric scrotal tumors may be helpful in making an accurate diagnosis and providing proper patient management

  19. The Weinberg-Witten theorem on massless particles: an essay

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Loebbert, F.

    2008-01-01

    In this essay we deal with the Weinberg-Witten theorem which imposes limitations on massless particles. First we motivate a classification of massless particles given by the Poincare group as the symmetry group of Minkowski spacetime. We then use the fundamental structure of the background in the form of Poincare covariance to derive restrictions on charged massless particles known as the Weinberg-Witten theorem. We address possible misunderstandings in the proof of this theorem motivated by several papers on this topic. In the last section the consequences of the theorem are discussed. We treat it in the context of known particles and as a constraint for emergent theories. (Abstract Copyright [2008], Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

  20. On Emotions, Knowledge and Educational Institutions: An Explorative Essay

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas Karlsohn

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available In this essay I formulate some reflections around the theme feelings and education.1 I will outline some essential features of the research and will argue that a historical approach to the subject will contribute by adding nuance to and complementing the often one-sided and misleading discussions that have marked the debate both within and outside of academia. In a subsequent part of the text I will concretise my reasoning by discussing one specific phenomenon from the past. I have chosen the example of love and will discuss the function it serves in higher education. The focus of the discussion will alternate between the Swedish context and international perspectives.

  1. Edgeware Security Risk Management: A Three Essay Thesis on Cloud, Virtualization and Wireless Grid Vulnerabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooks, Tyson T.

    2013-01-01

    This thesis identifies three essays which contribute to the foundational understanding of the vulnerabilities and risk towards potentially implementing wireless grid Edgeware technology in a virtualized cloud environment. Since communication networks and devices are subject to becoming the target of exploitation by hackers (e.g. individuals who…

  2. Christ, the Spirit and the Community of God: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zwiep, A.W.

    2010-01-01

    This volume collects text-critical, exegetical and biblical-theological essays on the Acts of the Apostles, dealing primarily with the opening chapters of Acts in the wider context of first-century Christianity and its Umwelt. The articles include treatments of the ascension and exaltation of Jesus

  3. Effects of Analytical and Holistic Scoring Patterns on Scorer Reliability in Biology Essay Tests

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ebuoh, Casmir N.

    2018-01-01

    Literature revealed that the patterns/methods of scoring essay tests had been criticized for not being reliable and this unreliability is more likely to be more in internal examinations than in the external examinations. The purpose of this study is to find out the effects of analytical and holistic scoring patterns on scorer reliability in…

  4. Embracing equifinality with efficiency: Limits of Acceptability sampling using the DREAM(LOA) algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vrugt, Jasper A.; Beven, Keith J.

    2018-04-01

    This essay illustrates some recent developments to the DiffeRential Evolution Adaptive Metropolis (DREAM) MATLAB toolbox of Vrugt (2016) to delineate and sample the behavioural solution space of set-theoretic likelihood functions used within the GLUE (Limits of Acceptability) framework (Beven and Binley, 1992, 2014; Beven and Freer, 2001; Beven, 2006). This work builds on the DREAM(ABC) algorithm of Sadegh and Vrugt (2014) and enhances significantly the accuracy and CPU-efficiency of Bayesian inference with GLUE. In particular it is shown how lack of adequate sampling in the model space might lead to unjustified model rejection.

  5. What are the constituents of matter? an essay concerning the ontological side of science

    CERN Document Server

    Kaufman, Alfred

    2016-01-01

    This essay seeks to understand just what it is that modern science tells us about nature. For the longest time the story told by science appeared to be fully reflective of our common experience: nature was discovered as a collection of reciprocally influencing objects governed by laws which were consistent with that experience. And then, about a hundred years ago, the story suddenly became obscure. Science introduced into nature quantum objects which were supposed to look nothing like anything we had ever seen before and the laws governing them no longer appeared to make much sense to us. Thereafter, what science told us about nature was no longer quite as clear. This shift in the story is conspicuous and bespeaks of an earlier moment in the development of science when the project might have inadvertently taken a step which would eventually make her strange. The essay suggests that the scientific community had in fact made a fateful decision which inevitably led it to the strangeness of quantum mechanics and ...

  6. Criterion validity of a Wechsler-III scale short form in a sample of Brazilian Elderly

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eliane Ferreira Carvalho Banhato

    Full Text Available Abstract Although a normative process, changes in cognitive functioning vary among older adults. The differential diagnosis between normal and pathological aging must be made early using psychometrically adequate measures. Objectives: To assess the evidence of criterion validity of a Short Form (SF of the Wechsler-III Scale containing eight subtests (SF8 by determining its sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and cut-off points for Brazilian elderly from different age groups. Methods: 168 individuals, aged 60 years or above, living in the community or in an institution, were assigned to case and control groups, and investigated according to age range. Measures included a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE, Verbal Fluency Test, Clock-Drawing Test and the SF8. Results: More than two thirds of the sample was women (73.8%, mean age was 74.5 years (SD=8.9, mean education was 6.2 years (SD=4.8 and 40.5% were widows/widowers. In the total sample, the best cut-off point for the SF8 was 142 while cut offs among individuals aged 60 to 69 years, 70 to 79 years, and more than 80 years were 160, 129 and 129, respectively. Conclusions: The results demonstrated the importance of different cut-off points for different age ranges. Sensitivity and specificity values of the SF8 were sufficiently high to warrant the use of the SF8 as an instrument to identify cognitive impairment in the elderly.

  7. Criterion validity of a Wechsler-III Scale Short Form in a sample of brazilian elderly.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banhato, Eliane Ferreira Carvalho; Leite, Isabel Cristina Gonçalves; Guedes, Danielle Viveiros; Chaoubah, Alfredo

    2010-01-01

    Although a normative process, changes in cognitive functioning vary among older adults. The differential diagnosis between normal and pathological aging must be made early using psychometrically adequate measures. To assess the evidence of criterion validity of a Short Form (SF) of the Wechsler-III Scale containing eight subtests (SF8) by determining its sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and cut-off points for Brazilian elderly from different age groups. 168 individuals, aged 60 years or above, living in the community or in an institution, were assigned to case and control groups, and investigated according to age range. Measures included a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Verbal Fluency Test, Clock-Drawing Test and the SF8. More than two thirds of the sample was women (73.8%), mean age was 74.5 years (SD=8.9), mean education was 6.2 years (SD=4.8) and 40.5% were widows/widowers. In the total sample, the best cut-off point for the SF8 was 142 while cut offs among individuals aged 60 to 69 years, 70 to 79 years, and more than 80 years were 160, 129 and 129, respectively. The results demonstrated the importance of different cut-off points for different age ranges. Sensitivity and specificity values of the SF8 were sufficiently high to warrant the use of the SF8 as an instrument to identify cognitive impairment in the elderly.

  8. Comparison of SHOX and associated elements duplications distribution between patients (Lėri-Weill dyschondrosteosis/idiopathic short stature) and population sample.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirschfeldova, Katerina; Solc, Roman

    2017-09-05

    The effect of heterozygous duplications of SHOX and associated elements on Lėri-Weill dyschondrosteosis (LWD) and idiopathic short stature (ISS) development is less distinct when compared to reciprocal deletions. The aim of our study was to compare frequency and distribution of duplications within SHOX and associated elements between population sample and LWD (ISS) patients. A preliminary analysis conducted on Czech population sample of 250 individuals compared to our previously reported sample of 352 ISS/LWD Czech patients indicated that rather than the difference in frequency of duplications it is the difference in their distribution. Particularly, there was an increased frequency of duplications residing to the CNE-9 enhancer in our LWD/ISS sample. To see whether the obtained data are consistent across published studies we made a literature survey to get published cases with SHOX or associated elements duplication and formed the merged LWD, the merged ISS, and the merged population samples. Relative frequency of particular region duplication in each of those merged samples were calculated. There was a significant difference in the relative frequency of CNE-9 enhancer duplications (11 vs. 3) and complete SHOX (exon1-6b) duplications (4 vs. 24) (p-value 0.0139 and p-value 0.000014, respectively) between the merged LWD sample and the merged population sample. We thus propose that partial SHOX duplications and small duplications encompassing CNE-9 enhancer could be highly penetrant alleles associated with ISS and LWD development. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. A Short Measure of the Revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory - RSQ17.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Čolović, Petar; Smederevac, Snežana; Oljača, Milan; Nikolašević, Željka; Mitrović, Dušanka

    2018-04-03

    The need for a research and practical tool, such as a short, reliable, and valid personality assessment test, suggests researchers to create shortened versions of original instruments. Reinforcement sensitivity questionnaire (RSQ) was created in line with some basic premises of revised Reinforcement sensitivity theory, which proposes three motivational and emotional systems: Behavioral inhibition system (BIS), responsible for scanning environment for potential threats, Behavioral activation system (BAS), responsible for aproaching behavior, and the Fight/Flight/Freeze system (FFFS), responsible for behavior in the present threat. RSQ comprises five scales: BIS, BAS, Fight, Flight, and Freeze. The aim of this study was to develop a short version of RSQ, which would be beneficial to both research and practical purposes. Item response theory analyses were used for item selection. The study comprised two samples of participants, whereby Sample 1 (N = 837, 34.6% male, aged 18 - 82, M = 31.63, SD = 13.54) served as the derivation sample, while Sample 2 (818 participants, 43.6% male, 18-75 years, M = 29.65, SD = 12.52) served as validation sample. Factorial validity of the short RSQ was examined on both Sample 1 and Sample 2. Convergent and divergent validity of the short RSQ was examined using RST-PQ, Jackson-5, BIS/BAS scales, and Big Five Inventory. The results point to satisfactory internal consistency, factorial validity, and construct validity of the short RSQ, suggesting that it is an adequate measure for research settings or other contexts which require the use of short personality questionnaires.

  10. Computer-based testing of the modified essay question: the Singapore experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Erle Chuen-Hian; Seet, Raymond Chee-Seong; Oh, Vernon M S; Chia, Boon-Lock; Aw, Marion; Quak, Seng-Hock; Ong, Benjamin K C

    2007-11-01

    The modified essay question (MEQ), featuring an evolving case scenario, tests a candidate's problem-solving and reasoning ability, rather than mere factual recall. Although it is traditionally conducted as a pen-and-paper examination, our university has run the MEQ using computer-based testing (CBT) since 2003. We describe our experience with running the MEQ examination using the IVLE, or integrated virtual learning environment (https://ivle.nus.edu.sg), provide a blueprint for universities intending to conduct computer-based testing of the MEQ, and detail how our MEQ examination has evolved since its inception. An MEQ committee, comprising specialists in key disciplines from the departments of Medicine and Paediatrics, was formed. We utilized the IVLE, developed for our university in 1998, as the online platform on which we ran the MEQ. We calculated the number of man-hours (academic and support staff) required to run the MEQ examination, using either a computer-based or pen-and-paper format. With the support of our university's information technology (IT) specialists, we have successfully run the MEQ examination online, twice a year, since 2003. Initially, we conducted the examination with short-answer questions only, but have since expanded the MEQ examination to include multiple-choice and extended matching questions. A total of 1268 man-hours was spent in preparing for, and running, the MEQ examination using CBT, compared to 236.5 man-hours to run it using a pen-and-paper format. Despite being more labour-intensive, our students and staff prefer CBT to the pen-and-paper format. The MEQ can be conducted using a computer-based testing scenario, which offers several advantages over a pen-and-paper format. We hope to increase the number of questions and incorporate audio and video files, featuring clinical vignettes, to the MEQ examination in the near future.

  11. Trends of recent coal science. Extracted from essays presented at 1989-ICCS; Saikin no sekitan kagaku no doko. 1989 ICCS no ronbun happyo yori

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1990-03-01

    The 5th IEA (International Energy Agency) International Conference on Coal Science (1989-ICCS) was held in Tokyo in October 1989. A number of essays relative to the basics and applications of the coal science were presented at the event, and recent trends of the coal science have been extracted from these essays and complied into this survey report. In the field of basic coal reaction, it is stated that basic studies relating to the coal structure, physical properties, and chemistry are necessary for the future coal science and that it will be very difficult to construct a database covering various types of coals conserved under different circumstances. In the field of basics of coal combustion and gasification, essays are introduced, titled 'Gasification reactivity and coal structure' and 'Role of catalysts in gasification reaction.' Furthermore, future trends of the science are predicted from the viewpoint of 'Problems of global environment and research on coal gasification.' In the field of coal liquefaction, essays are introduced which discuss the improvement of the coal process, enhancement of cost effectiveness, and higher efficiency, and point to the subjects of research in the future. (NEDO)

  12. Trends of recent coal science. Extracted from essays presented at 1989-ICCS; Saikin no sekitan kagaku no doko. 1989 ICCS no ronbun happyo yori

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1990-03-01

    The 5th IEA (International Energy Agency) International Conference on Coal Science (1989-ICCS) was held in Tokyo in October 1989. A number of essays relative to the basics and applications of the coal science were presented at the event, and recent trends of the coal science have been extracted from these essays and complied into this survey report. In the field of basic coal reaction, it is stated that basic studies relating to the coal structure, physical properties, and chemistry are necessary for the future coal science and that it will be very difficult to construct a database covering various types of coals conserved under different circumstances. In the field of basics of coal combustion and gasification, essays are introduced, titled 'Gasification reactivity and coal structure' and 'Role of catalysts in gasification reaction.' Furthermore, future trends of the science are predicted from the viewpoint of 'Problems of global environment and research on coal gasification.' In the field of coal liquefaction, essays are introduced which discuss the improvement of the coal process, enhancement of cost effectiveness, and higher efficiency, and point to the subjects of research in the future. (NEDO)

  13. Decision-Making Capacity and Unusual Beliefs: Two Contentious Cases : Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law John McPhee (Law) Student Essay Prize 2016.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hyslop, Brent

    2017-09-01

    Decision-making capacity is a vital concept in law, ethics, and clinical practice. Two legal cases where capacity literally had life and death significance are NHS Trust v Ms T [2004] and Kings College Hospital v C [2015]. These cases share another feature: unusual beliefs. This essay will critically assess the concept of capacity, particularly in relation to the unusual beliefs in these cases. Firstly, the interface between capacity and unusual beliefs will be examined. This will show that the "using and weighing of information" is the pivotal element in assessment. Next, this essay will explore the relationship between capacity assessment and a decision's "rationality." Then, in light of these findings, the essay will appraise the judgments in NHS v T and Kings v C, and consider these judgments' implications. More broadly, this essay asks: Does capacity assessment examine only the decision-making process (as the law states), or is it also influenced by a decision's rationality? If influenced by rationality, capacity assessment has the potential to become "a search and disable policy aimed at those who are differently orientated in the human life-world" (Gillett 2012, 233). In contentious cases like these, this potential deserves attention.

  14. A Corpus-based Study of EFL Learners’ Errors in IELTS Essay Writing

    OpenAIRE

    Hoda Divsar; Robab Heydari

    2017-01-01

    The present study analyzed different types of errors in the EFL learners’ IELTS essays. In order to determine the major types of errors, a corpus of 70 IELTS examinees’ writings were collected, and their errors were extracted and categorized qualitatively. Errors were categorized based on a researcher-developed error-coding scheme into 13 aspects. Based on the descriptive statistical analyses, the frequency of each error type was calculated and the commonest errors committed by the EFL learne...

  15. Thinking computers and virtual persons essays on the intentionality of machines

    CERN Document Server

    Dietrich, Eric

    1994-01-01

    Thinking Computers and Virtual Persons: Essays on the Intentionality of Machines explains how computations are meaningful and how computers can be cognitive agents like humans. This book focuses on the concept that cognition is computation.Organized into four parts encompassing 13 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the analogy between intentionality and phlogiston, the 17th-century principle of burning. This text then examines the objection to computationalism that it cannot prevent arbitrary attributions of content to the various data structures and representations involved in a c

  16. Corrigendum to “Relative humidity effects on water vapour fluxes measured with closed-path eddy-covariance systems with short sampling lines” [Agric. Forest Meteorol. 165 (2012) 53–63

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fratini, Gerardo; Ibrom, Andreas; Arriga, Nicola

    2012-01-01

    It has been formerly recognised that increasing relative humidity in the sampling line of closed-path eddy-covariance systems leads to increasing attenuation of water vapour turbulent fluctuations, resulting in strong latent heat flux losses. This occurrence has been analyzed for very long (50 m...... from eddy-covariance systems featuring short (4 m) and very short (1 m) sampling lines running at the same clover field and show that relative humidity effects persist also for these setups, and should not be neglected. Starting from the work of Ibrom and co-workers, we propose a mixed method...... and correction method proposed here is deemed applicable to closed-path systems featuring a broad range of sampling lines, and indeed applicable also to passive gases as a special case. The methods described in this paper are incorporated, as processing options, in the free and open-source eddy...

  17. A language that forgot itself (Essay on the curious non-existence of German as a recognized minority language in today’s Poland

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomasz Kamusella

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available A language that forgot itself  (Essay on the curious non-existence of German as a recognized minority language in today’s Poland This essay draws on my almost three decades worth of research on the multiethnic and multilingual history of Upper Silesia during the last two centuries, when various ethnolinguistic nationalisms have radically altered the ethnic, political, demographic and linguistic shape of the region. I focus on the German minority that was recognized in Poland in the early 1990s. This recognition was extended to the German language. However, though in official statistics there are hundreds of schools with German, and bilingual signage amply dots the Upper Silesian landscape, neither in the region nor elsewhere in Poland is there a single, however small, locality where German would be the language of everyday communication. With this essay I attempt to explicate this irony of official recognition on the one hand, and the tacitly enforced non-existence on the ground, on the other hand.

  18. Will the Real Franz Rosenzweig Please Stand Up?: Two Reflections on Two Educational Essays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levenson, Alan; Schein, Jeffrey

    2010-01-01

    The views of Jewish education articulated by Rosenzweig in his essays "It is Time" and in "The Opening of the Lehrhaus" are quite different. So different, in fact, that an account of how one mind can produce such different accounts is necessary. Following the lead of a 1950's popular television quiz show, the authors ask "Will the Real Franz…

  19. Representing Sikhism: essays in memory of the Irish scholar Max Arthur Macauliffe

    OpenAIRE

    Shackle, Christopher; Bocking, Brian

    2017-01-01

    This is an introduction, by the guest editors, to the special issue of JISASR (Vol 4, 2017) entitled 'Representing Sikhism: Essays in Memory of the Irish Scholar Max Arthur Macauliffe'. The genesis of this special issue lies in pioneering work on Macauliffe's Irish identity and personal and scholarly life undertaken by Professor Tadhg Foley (Galway). The active interest and support of members of the Sikh community in Ireland led to a conference, hosted by the Study of Religions Department at ...

  20. This Bridge Called My Leadership: An Essay on Black Women as Bridge Leaders in Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Horsford, Sonya Douglass

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of this essay is to contextualize the existing research literature on leadership for diversity, equity, and social justice in education with "bridge leadership" as historically practiced by Black women leaders in the USA. Its primary aim is to demonstrate how the intersection of race and gender as experienced by the Black…