Digital Commons Network^™

Geospatial Data Handling For Web-Based And Mobile Applications, James Carswell

Articles

One of the main bottlenecks for web-based GIS usability is in the transmission and handling of the vast amounts of geospatial data involved. The shear volume of raster, vector, attribute, and other data to be analysed, queried, transmitted and displayed over the WWW in real-time is prohibited by connection speeds. In this paper we introduce e-Spatial technology, a fully integrated open standard web-based solution to manage multiple spatial relationships directly in an Oracle Spatial database and to deploy in real-time spatially enabled (or standard) applications completely independent of data volume. Indeed, no application code is ever installed on the client …

Corporate Governance And Executive Remuneration: Rediscovering Managerial Positional Conflict, Jennifer Hill, Charles M. Yablon

Articles

The article critiques the assumption that performance-based executive remuneration aligns managerial and shareholder interests, arguing that executives' positional power allows them to exploit such systems, leading to excessive pay and corporate malfeasance. It highlights how this conflict of interest contributed to major corporate collapses like Enron and One.Tel, emphasizing the need for reforms beyond current governance mechanisms.

The 2001 Superoutburst Of Wz Sagittae, Joseph Patterson, Gianluca Masi, Michael Richmond, Stacey Davis, Tracy Davis, Et Al.

Articles

We report the results of a worldwide campaign to observe WZ Sagittae during its 2001 superoutburst. After a 23-year slumber at V=15.5, the star rose within 2 days to a peak brightness of 8.2, and showed a main eruption lasting 25 days. The return to quiescence was punctuated by 12 small eruptions, of ~1 mag amplitude and 2 day recurrence time; these “echo outbursts” are of uncertain origin, but somewhat resemble the normal outbursts of dwarf novae. After 52 days, the star began a slow decline to quiescence. Periodic waves in the light curve closely followed the pattern seen in …

Conversion Of Aniline To Azobenzene At Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes: A Possible Case Of A Nanodimensional Reaction, M. Croston, J. Langston, Gerald A. Takacs, Terence C. Morrill, Massoud Miri, K.S.V. Santhanam, Pulickel Ajayan

Articles

Aniline is oxidized to nitrosobenzene as the initial product, which undergoes further oxidation to nitrobenzene. The nitrosobenzene formation is catalyzed by functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNT) followed by a coupling reaction between nitrosobenzene and aniline to produce azobenzene. This coupling requires close proximity of the reactants. It proceeds rapidly resulting in the UV-VIS absorption spectrum showing maxima at 327 nm and 425 nm. The nitrosobenzene yield in the presence of CNTs is controlled by the amount present in the medium. As the reaction is not catalyzed by unfunctionalized CNTs or graphitic particles, the uniqueness of the functionalized multiwalled CNTs in …

Speckle Observations Of Binary Stars With The Wiyn Telescope. Ii. Relative Astrometry Measures During 1998-2000, Elliott P. Horch, Sarah Robinson, Reed D. Meyer, William F. Van Altena, Zoran Ninkov, Albert Piterman

Articles

Five hundred twelve relative astrometry measures are presented for 253 double stars, including 53 double stars discovered by Hipparcos. In 15 cases, relative astrometry is reported for the first time for newly confirmed pairs. In addition, 20 high-quality nondetections of companions are reported for stars suspected of being nonsingle by Hipparcos. Observations were taken using a fast-readout CCD camera system at the WIYN 3.5 m telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona. In comparing these measures with ephemeris predictions for binary stars with very well known orbits, we find that the measurement precision is better than 3 mas in separation and 1° …

Marxism And The Continuing Irrelevance Of Normative Theory (Reviewing G. A. Cohen, If You're An Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? (2000)), Brian Leiter

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No abstract provided.

Encouraging Race-Based Advocacy In Legal Services Practice, Jonel Newman

Articles

Every legal services program has a waiting room, some newly furnished, others with old sofas and tattered chairs. The families, children, and elderly sitting in these waiting rooms consistently are disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities. Despite this constant reminder that those seeking legal assistance for their perceived wrongs are disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities, legal services programs are bringing fewer and fewer affirmative challenges that incorporate race-based antidiscrimination claims.
/="/"> In this article we explore possible reasons for this lack of affirmative race- and national-origin-based discrimination claims and suggest some ideas for preserving or restarting this type of advocacy, ideas …

How Underlying Patient Beliefs Can Affect Physician-Patient Communicaion About Prostate-Specific Antigen Testing, Michael H. Farrell, Margaret Ann Murphy, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

Routine cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is controversial, and practice guidelines recommend that men be counseled about its risks and benefits. OBJECTIVE. To evaluate the process of decision making as men react to and use information after PSA counseling. DESIGN. Written surveys and semistructured qualitative interviews before and after a neutral PSA counseling intervention. PARTICIPANTS. Men 40 to 65 years of age in southeastern Michigan were recruited until thematic saturation—that is, the point at which no new themes emerged in interviews (n = 40). RESULTS. In a paper survey, 37 of 40 participants (93%) said that they interpreted the …

Lvdelta Is A Mesoderm-Inducing Signal In The Sea Urchin Embryo And Can Endow Blastomeres With Organizer-Like Properties, Hyla Sweet, Michael Gehring, Charles Ettensohn

Articles

Signals from micromere descendants play a critical role in patterning the early sea urchin embryo. Previous work demonstrated a link between the induction of mesoderm by micromere descendants and the Notch signaling pathway. In this study, we demonstrate that these micromere descendants express LvDelta, a ligand for the Notch receptor. LvDelta is expressed by micromere descendants during the blastula stage, a time when signaling has been shown to occur. By a combination of embryo microsurgery, mRNA injection and antisense morpholino experiments, we show that expression of LvDelta by micromere descendants is both necessary and sufficient for the development of two …

A Survey Of Four Contemporary Sound Artists, Mark Garry

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No abstract provided.

Searching For The Irish Soul, Eamon Maher

Articles

Material reproduced by kind permission of Reality

Reviving Tocqueville's America: The Rehnquist Court's Jurisprudence Of Social Discovery, John O. Mcginnis

Articles

This Article offers a retrospective on the Rehnquist Court. It argues that the Rehnquist Court has been pursuing a coherent jurisprudence that invigorates decentralization and the private ordering of social norms that Alexis De Tocqueville celebrated in Democracy in America as being the essence of the social order generated by our original Constitution. In four disparate areas-federalism, freedom of association, the religion clauses, and the balance of power between juries and judges-the Court is helping sustain a civil order that bubbles up from state governments or from citizens voluntarily gathered together or randomly selected. The Article is the first to …

The Perception Of Risk, Cass R. Sunstein

Articles

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Analysis Of The Association Between Ceo Compensation And Firm Performance: A Relative Excess Value Ratio Approach, Joohun Kang, Khondkar Karim, Robert Rutledge

Articles

This study examines the effect of several factors causally associated with CEO compensation on firm performance. Previous studies of the association between CEO compensation and firm perforamnce lacked sufficient use of control variables in the examination of this association. This study used a comprehensive measure of firm performance (the relative excess value ratio) that has not previously been used in this context. The results indicate that: (i) short-term CEO compensation has a stronger positive association with firm performance (as measured by the relative excess value ratio) than long-term CEO compensation; (ii) market-based long-term CEO compensation has a stronger positive association …

Calibration History Of Landsat Thermal Data, Erin O'Donnell, John Schott, Nina Raqueno

Articles

This research studied the calibration of the thermal band (band 6) of the Landsat 5 satellite. The Landsat system of instruments are land observing satellites intended for long-term studies of the earth. Landsat 5 has been in use since 1984 and is still active. Until recently there has not been a rigorous study of the performance of its thermal band. The users of this thermal data had been using the data without knowing the status of the instrument. Over the years the instrument has had the potential to drift in calibration, especially since the instrument has surpassed its expected lifetime. …

Measuring The Dimensions Of Quality In Higher Education, Stanley Widrick, A.Erhan Mergen, Delvin Grant

Articles

This paper deals with measuring the three quality dimensions (quality of design, quality of conformance and quality of performance) in higher education. The proposed framework discussed in this paper builds on the model developed by Mergen et al. (2000, Total Quality Management, 11, pp. 345-352). It discusses a set of measurement parameters to be used in evaluating the quality of research and curriculum development and the tools/techniques necessary for evaluating them. Two examples are discussed of how Rochester Institute of Technology has used this approach to plan and implement a new MS degree and a new research reward system.

Nonlinear Dynamics Of Modulation Formats For 40 Gb/S Transmission On Standard Single-Mode Fiber And Dispersion-Managed Fiber, Andrey Kanaev, Gregory Luther, Vassilios Kovanis

Articles

The nonlinear properties of NRZ, RZ50, RZ33, CSRZ, and DPSK in 40 Gbit/s 1000 km single fiber and DMF systems are analysed. We find that DPSK provides 1.3 dBQ nonlinear tolerance advantage over RZ in both optical links. We show that RZ formats tolerate 2 dBm higher power per channel than NRZ, further increasing their advantage in linear receiver sensitivity. We find that smaller duty cycle formats exhibit better performance due to suppression of sXPM and sFWM and CSRZ nonlinear tolerance to sFWM is enhanced due to the intermittent phase of the signal. In addition, we determine linear cross-talk penalties …

Supermassive Black Holes, Laura Ferrarese, David Merritt

Articles

After a brief historical introduction, we summarize current efforts and accomplishments in the study of supermassive black holes.

The Future Of Hydrogen Fueling Systems For Transportation: An Application Of Perspective-Based Scenario Analysis Using The Analytic Hierarchy Process, James Winebrake, Brian Creswick

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No abstract provided.

Controlling Air Pollution From Passenger Ferries: Cost-Effectiveness Of Seven Technological Options, Alexander Farrell, James Corbett, James Winebrake

Articles

Continued interest in improving air quality in the United States along with renewed interest in the expansion of urban passenger ferry service has created concern about air pollution from ferry vessels. This paper presents a methodology for estimating the air pollution emissions from passenger ferries and the costs of emissions control strategies. The methodology is used to estimate the emissions and costs of retrofitting or re-powering ferries with seven technological options (combinations of propulsion and emission control systems) onto three vessels currently in service in San Francisco Bay. The technologies include improved engine design, cleaner fuels (including natural gas), and …

A Computationally Efficient Approach To Indoor/Outdoor Scene Classification, Navid Serrano, Andreas Savakis, Jiebo Luo

Articles

Prior research in scene classification has shown that high-level information can be inferred from low-level image features. Classification rates of roughly 90% have been reported using low-level features to predict indoor scenes vs. outdoor scenes. However, the high classification rates are often achieved by using computationally expensive, high-dimensional feature sets, thus limiting the practical implementation of such systems. We show that a more computationally efficient approach to indoor/outdoor classification can yield classification rates comparable to the best methods reported in the literature. A low complexity, low-dimensional feature set is used in conjunction with a two-stage support vector machine classification scheme …

Evaluating Hypothetical Spectral Sensitivities With Quality Factors, Shuxue Quan, Noboru Ohta

Articles

It is well known that the spectral sensitivities (SS)for color imaging devices should satisfy the Luther condition that requires SS to be linear combinations of the CIE color matching functions.In practice,it is difficult to construct an SS exactly to meet this condition.Some quality factors such as q-factor for single SS by Neugebauer and µ -factor for a set of SS by Vora et al.were introduced in order to describe the deviation of SS from their nearest color mixture curves.In this article,a simple method is presented to implement an evaluation platform for the above two quality factors.A series of hypothetical spectral …

Quality Management In Us Higher Education, Delvin Grant, A. Erhan Mergen, Stanley Widrick

Articles

The paper uses a quality management framework to analyze quality management approaches that have been implemented in institutions of higher education in the USA. The framework is comprised of three parameters, which are quality of design, quality of conformance and quality of performance. It turned out that only one of the nine articles that were examined dealt explicitly with quality of performance issues.

Sowing The Seeds Of Quality: Quality At The Sorce, A. Erhan Mergen, William Stevenson

Articles

Quality at the source is one of the key principles of today's quality philosophies. It promotes an approach of 'right from the start' rather than 'detect and correct', and it has served business and industry quite well. It can also serve higher education just as well. In this paper, we will discuss the application of this principle to college-level education. In particular, we will explain how this principle can be applied in education, discuss the value of doing so, suggest some goals of applying this, describe how it is being applied at Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Business, and …

An Association Between Disclosure Level And Information Quality: Voluntary Management Earnings Forecasts, Robert Rutledge, Hark-Ppim Yhim, Khondkar Karim

Articles

This study investigates the empirical association between manager's information advantages and disclosure quality choice in the context of management earnings forecasts (MEF). The main hypothesis is that managers' information advantages determine four classes of forecast pattern: no disclosure, qualitative disclosure (open-ended interval estimate or general impression), range (close interval estimate) forecasts, and point estimate. In this study, "information quality" refers to the perceived precision of manager's private information signals, which alter the market's beliefs about a firm's future earnings distribution. Several factors are hypothesized to influence the cross-sectional differences in firm characteristics that determine the information quality including earnings predictability, …

Debt Covenant Violation And The Value Relevance Of Accounting Information, William Cready, Khondkar Karim, Steve Lim

Articles

This study documents that investors exercise their liquidation option on firms facing less severe financial distress than bankruptcy filings or negative earnings. Our sample is 124 firms which service their first time violation of debt covenants. We find that the valuation shift from earnings to book value of equity in the violation manifestation period is reversed in the post-violation recovery period. This suggests that the valuation distortion in the pre-violation period is temporary rather than permanent.

Variation Charts For Multivariate Processes, William Levinson, Donald Holmes, A. Erhan Mergen

Articles

Hotelling's T2 is customarily used as the control chart for multivariate SPC analysis. This chart responds to changes in both the mean values and the covariance matrix of the responses. In this article, we propose the use of a chart that concentrates on changes in the covariance matrix. The use of this covariance chart in concert with the T2 chart enables the user to better determine whether T2 points out of control are due to changes in mean values or due to changes in the covariance matrix. Using this chart in conjunction with T2 thus furnishes a suite of tools …

80:80 Office Furniture System Designed By John Walsh For Tangent Furniture, 2002, John Walsh

Articles

80:80 was developed against the background of a changing work environment. Advances in technology meant that work became mobile, the breaking down of walls and cubicles created large open spaces allowing for a movement towards collaborative work and “New Ways of Working”.

80:80 is an office furniture system designed in this context, to provide a foundation for new, flexible ways of working. In particular, the delineators that define territory, such as legs, vertical supports, fixed side screens, were removed or minimised to create an uninterrupted worksurface span, allowing for a flexible space where users can annex as much space as …

How To Successfully Create And Sustain A Vibrant Apics Student Chapter, Jack Cook

Articles

Starting a successful student chapter is not easy. It requires the right mix of support from the parent chapter, academic liaison, faculty advisor, college administration, and students. Most APICS student chapters are struggling with few (less than 10) student members and even fewer activities that encourage student membership as well as ties with local APICS chapters. It is possible to create and sustain a vibrant student chapter given these tried and tested guidelines provided in this paper.

Recent Trends In Global And Irish Tourism, Kevin Griffin

Articles

2001 will long be remembered as one of the most difficult years for tourism in Ireland. The outbreak of Food and Mouth disease in the first half of the year was seen as a major blow to the industry, with many businesses suffering from the resultant restrictions on travel. These problems were further increased by the global effects of the economic slow-down in the USA. As the sector began to recover and was shaping up for a healthy Autumn, the terrorist attacks of September 11 devastated the industry globally, with knock–on effects which are only now beginning to be assessed. …