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2011

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Longevity Risk Management In Singapore's National Pension System, Joelle H. Y. Fong, Olivia S. Mitchell, Benedict S. K. Koh Dec 2011

Longevity Risk Management In Singapore's National Pension System, Joelle H. Y. Fong, Olivia S. Mitchell, Benedict S. K. Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although annuities are a theoretically appealing way to manage longevity risk, in the real world relatively few consumers purchase them at retirement. To counteract the possibility of retirees outliving their assets, Singapore’s Central Provident Fund, a national defined contribution pension scheme, has recently mandated annuitization of workers’ retirement assets. More significantly, the government has entered the insurance market as a public sector provider for such annuities. This article evaluates the money’s worth of life annuities and discusses the impact of the government mandate and its role as an annuity provider on the insurance market.

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Social Networks And The Desire To Save Face: A Case From Singapore, Michael A. Netzley, Akanksha Rath Dec 2011

Social Networks And The Desire To Save Face: A Case From Singapore, Michael A. Netzley, Akanksha Rath

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

For five years, corporate communication undergraduates have maintained a wiki as a final course and community service project. Using Web 2.0 platforms to crowdsource and curate content, they learn to employ online communications for work purposes. When the course was launched in 2007, the dominant social media narrative invited educators to embrace a technological optimism with sub-themes of open communication, sharing, and co-creation. By 2011, student feedback had compelled the instructor to consider the limits of technological optimism and revise the course. Specifically, Singaporean students have displayed a need to save face online, which has led to a localized teaching …

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Highly Conductive Carbon Nanotube Fibers For Biomedical Applications, Vijoya Sa Dec 2011

Highly Conductive Carbon Nanotube Fibers For Biomedical Applications, Vijoya Sa

All Dissertations

We developed a wet spinning process for the formation of polymeric fibers with high loading of single walled carbon nanotubes. The dissertation consists of five chapters. In the first chapter, the research goals were formulated and the art and technologies of fiber spinning from carbon nanotubes were critically analyzed. The next three chapters report the original results. Last chapter summarizes all the findings.
In the second chapter, we describe a surfactant based method of stabilization of carbon nanotube dispersions. The conditions of stability of nanotube dispersions in aqueous solutions of sodium dodecyl sulfate were analyzed. Using surface tension isotherms, the …

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Fatty Acids And Lipogenesis In Ruminant Adipocytes, Taber Burns Dec 2011

Fatty Acids And Lipogenesis In Ruminant Adipocytes, Taber Burns

All Dissertations

Obsesity, the excess deposition of white adipose tissue, is a growing problem in the U.S. and other developed countries. Formerly thought to be inert, adipose tissue is now recognized as a dynamic endocrine organ with its secretion of adipokines and a newly proposed class hormone class 'lipokine'. Adipocytes are the functional unit of adipose tissue and can influence the tissue through hyperplasic and hypertrophic growth. In order to investigate the mechanisms involved in adipogenesis and lipogenesis of adipose tissue, stromal vascular cultures were isolated from adipose tissue of finishing cattle for use in experiments.
There is a positive relationship between …

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Time-Interval Analysis For Radiation Monitoring, Peng Luo Dec 2011

Time-Interval Analysis For Radiation Monitoring, Peng Luo

All Dissertations

On-line radiation monitoring is essential to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management Science Program for assessing the impact of contaminated media at DOE sites. The goal of on-line radiation monitoring is to quickly detect small or abrupt changes in activity levels in the presence of a significant ambient background. The focus of this research is on developing effective statistical algorithms to meet the goal of on-line monitoring based on time-interval (time-difference between two consecutive radiation pulses) data. Compared to the more commonly used count data which are registered in a fixed count time, time-interval data possess the potential …

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Electrical Coupling Between Micropatterned Cardiomyocytes And Stem Cells, Zhen Ma Dec 2011

Electrical Coupling Between Micropatterned Cardiomyocytes And Stem Cells, Zhen Ma

All Dissertations

To understand how stem cells functionally couple with native cardiomyocytes is crucial for cell-based therapies to restore the loss of cardiomyocytes that occurs during heart infarction and other cardiac diseases. Due to the complexity of the in vivo environment, our knowledge of cell coupling is heavily dependent on cell-culture models. However, conventional in vitro studies involve undefined cell shapes and random length of cell-cell contacts in addition to the presence of multiple homotypic and heterotypic contacts between interacting cells. Thus, it has not been feasible to study electrical coupling corresponding to isolated specific types of cell contact modes.
To address …

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Development Of A Dynamic In Vitro Model Of A Stented Blood Vessel To Evaluate The Effects Of Stent Strut Material Selection And Surface Coating On Smooth Muscle Cell Response, Bradley Winn Dec 2011

Development Of A Dynamic In Vitro Model Of A Stented Blood Vessel To Evaluate The Effects Of Stent Strut Material Selection And Surface Coating On Smooth Muscle Cell Response, Bradley Winn

All Dissertations

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in The United States and Europe, accounting for approximately half of all deaths. The most common form of cardiovascular disease is atherosclerosis, which is characterized by the formation of fatty atheromatous plaques that can grow to occlude the vessel lumen, thus causing ischemia distal to the occlusion. This is commonly treated using balloon angioplasty, which is usually done in conjunction with the deployment of a stent. Stent deployment helps hold the vessel open following the local injury caused by balloon inflation and prevents elastic recoil and subsequent negative remodeling. Stenting has been …

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The Toxicity Of Carbon Nanotubes To Daphnia Magna, Aaron Edgington Dec 2011

The Toxicity Of Carbon Nanotubes To Daphnia Magna, Aaron Edgington

All Dissertations

A particle is classified as nano in size if it has at least one dimension less than 100 nm which gives them chemical and physical characteristics that are different from the bulk material. Over the last twenty years nanotechnology has exploded as an industry. It has been estimated that there are 1000 consumer products on the market today that contain nanomaterials and 2 million jobs worldwide will be devoted directly to nanotechnology research, development, and product manufacturing by 2015. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be visualized as sheets of graphene rolled into a cylinder. Carbon nanotubes small diameter (nanometer scale) and …

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Automated Digital Machining For Parallel Processors, Joshua Tarbutton Dec 2011

Automated Digital Machining For Parallel Processors, Joshua Tarbutton

All Dissertations

When a process engineer creates a tool path a number of fixed decisions are made that inevitably produce sub-optimal results. This is because it is impossible to process all of the tradeoffs before generating the tool path. The research presents a methodology to support a process engineers attempt to generate optimal tool paths by performing automated digital machining and analysis. This methodology automatically generates and evaluates tool paths based on parallel processing of digital part models and generalized cutting geometry. Digital part models are created by voxelizing STL files and the resulting digital part surfaces are obtained based on casting …

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Light-Emitting Nanocomposites And Novel Amorphous Polymers For Optical Applications, Kyle Gipson Dec 2011

Light-Emitting Nanocomposites And Novel Amorphous Polymers For Optical Applications, Kyle Gipson

All Dissertations

Polymeric optical materials generally are comprised of amorphous polymers that are transparent in at visible wavelengths but exhibit strong absorption bands in the near-infrared making them less useful for many optical applications. Attenuation, which is the absorption per unit length, largely results from the high vibrational energy associated with carbon-hydrogen bonds contained in the polymer backbone. Attenuation can be mitigated by optical amplification utilizing light emitting additives. Investigated in this dissertation are synthesis techniques for the fabrication of light-emitting polymer nanocomposites and their resultant thermal and rheological characteristics for potential use as polymer optical fibers or films.
Inorganic nanocrystals doped …

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Does Faith Matter? A Comparison Of Faith-Based And Secular International Nongovernmental Organizations Engaged In Humanitarian Assistance, Jill Mcleigh Dec 2011

Does Faith Matter? A Comparison Of Faith-Based And Secular International Nongovernmental Organizations Engaged In Humanitarian Assistance, Jill Mcleigh

All Dissertations

Over the past three decades, there has been a significant increase in international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) participating in humanitarian assistance, and thus, an increase in the study of these organizations. In part because of former President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative, interest in a particular subset of INGOs - religious INGOs (ROs) - has been on the rise. Among the gaps in this literature is a quantitative approach to understanding the types of activities and funding opportunities INGOs pursue based on whether they are religious and what makes an organization religious. To address these omissions, this dissertation examines the religious …

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Putting Partnership At The Centre Of Teachers' Professional Learning In Rural And Regional Contexts: Evidence From Case Study Projects In Tasmania, Sue Stack, Kim Beswick, Natalie Brown, Helen Bound, John Kenny, Joan Abbott-Chapman Dec 2011

Putting Partnership At The Centre Of Teachers' Professional Learning In Rural And Regional Contexts: Evidence From Case Study Projects In Tasmania, Sue Stack, Kim Beswick, Natalie Brown, Helen Bound, John Kenny, Joan Abbott-Chapman

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper presents a professional learning (PL) model that emerged from the authors’ involvement with PL processes in several rural and remote schools in the state of Tasmania. As is the case for rural areas generally, young people in rural areas of Tasmania have lower retention rates to Year 12 and lower participation rates in higher education than their urban peers. Schools in these regions typically have less experienced staff, higher staff turnover and reduced access to professional networks compared with urban schools. Four case studies are presented to illustrate the experiences that lead to the partnership model of PL …

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Sex, Privacy And Public Health In A Casual Encounters Culture, Mary D. Fan Dec 2011

Sex, Privacy And Public Health In A Casual Encounters Culture, Mary D. Fan

Articles

The regulation of sex and disease is a cultural and political flashpoint and recurring challenge that law's antiquated arsenal has been hard- pressed to effectively address. Compelling data demonstrate the need for attention—for example, one in four women aged fourteen to nineteen is infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease ("STD"); managing STDs costs an estimated $15.9 billion annually; and syphilis, once near eradication, is on the rise again, as are the rates of HIV diagnosis among people aged fifteen to twenty-four. Public health officials on the front lines have called for paradigm changes to tackle the enormous challenge. …

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Characterization Of Palmitic Acid Induced Lipotoxicity In Schwann Cells, Amelia Padilla Dec 2011

Characterization Of Palmitic Acid Induced Lipotoxicity In Schwann Cells, Amelia Padilla

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Lipotoxicity is a response to lipid overload that has been associated with cellular dysfunction leading to cellular death. The mechanism of lipotoxicity and its impact on the nervous system is critical as it can lead to debilitating neurological conditions. This study examines key cellular events induced by palmitic acid lipotoxicity (PA-LTx) in Schwann cells cultured in euglycemic and hyperglycemic conditions. The data show that immortalized Schwann cell (iSC), as well as primary Schwann cell (pSC) cultures exposed to elevated levels of PA induced an apoptotic cell death that is dose and time-dependent. The earliest indication of cellular dysfunction was a …

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Living Cities: The Integration Initiative In Cleveland, Ohio - Greater University Circle Community Wealth Building Initiative: Year One Formative And Summative Evaluation Report, Ziona Austrian, Kathryn W. Hexter, Candi Clouse, Matt Hrubey Dec 2011

Living Cities: The Integration Initiative In Cleveland, Ohio - Greater University Circle Community Wealth Building Initiative: Year One Formative And Summative Evaluation Report, Ziona Austrian, Kathryn W. Hexter, Candi Clouse, Matt Hrubey

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

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Lanthorn, Vol. 46, No. 28, December 1, 2011, Grand Valley State University Dec 2011

Lanthorn, Vol. 46, No. 28, December 1, 2011, Grand Valley State University

Volume 46, July 14, 2011 - June 18, 2012

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

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Montana Kaimin, December 1, 2011, Students Of The University Of Montana, Missoula Dec 2011

Montana Kaimin, December 1, 2011, Students Of The University Of Montana, Missoula

Montana Kaimin, 1898-present

Student newspaper of the University of Montana, Missoula.

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Thermal Conductivity Enhancement In Nanofluids -Mathematical Model, Anand Natchimuthu Chinnaraj Dec 2011

Thermal Conductivity Enhancement In Nanofluids -Mathematical Model, Anand Natchimuthu Chinnaraj

Theses

The study on developing a mathematical model for thermal conductivity enhancement in nanofluids was based on formation of nanoparticles into nanoclusters, nanolayer thickness, Brownian motion and volume fraction of nanoclusters. An equation for the thermal conductivity of nanofluids was developed. The expression developed successfully explained the enhanced thermal conductivity of nanofluids and led to some important conclusions. It was found that in this study the nanoparticles tend to form nanoclusters and the volume fraction of the nanoclusters and the trapped fluid in the nanocluster was contributing to the overall thermal conductivity enhancement. Various types of cluster formation was analyzed and …

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Social Responsibility, Views From Small And Medium Us Private Business Ceo/Owners, Joseph C. Thornton Dec 2011

Social Responsibility, Views From Small And Medium Us Private Business Ceo/Owners, Joseph C. Thornton

Student Scholarship

Social responsibility (SR) is a topic of considerable interest to large and multinational companies--but less is known about the extent to which it is embraced by smaller organizations which constitute 99% of US firms. Most of the scant research on social responsibility and SMEs derives from Europe and demonstrates that SMEs understand and enact social responsibility differently than large companies. To address a gap in the literature about US SMEs we conducted interviews with owners/CEOs of private manufacturing firms in four regions of the US to determine how they understand and to what extent they embrace social responsibility as a …

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Successful Alignment Of Mba Curriculum: A Product Of Attentional Change, Laurie A. Branch Dec 2011

Successful Alignment Of Mba Curriculum: A Product Of Attentional Change, Laurie A. Branch

Student Scholarship

This study examines the factors influencing business schools' decision to materially change their full-time MBA curriculum. Our qualitative study is based on 29 interviews with faculty and administrators at 14 business schools and one industry expert. We identify four domains--Constituents, Context, Constraints and Genuine Identity--which business schools consider when exploring a potential curricular change. We present a Model of Successful Curricular Change that recognizes attention to these inputs, in terms of both focus and capacity, affects the type of change the organization pursues. This model also takes into account the mediating effect of faculty tolerance for the discomfort on curricular …

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Crisis Management Strategy Conceptual Framing According To The Islamic Perspective, Eythar Abdulhadi Al Feehan Dec 2011

Crisis Management Strategy Conceptual Framing According To The Islamic Perspective, Eythar Abdulhadi Al Feehan

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

The research concern about the conceptual framework of crisis in the strategic view has become to mean opportunity to change not threat only. The research explains the multi stages of crisis & its characteristics that are difference from catastrophe and disaster. We rely on two criteria of classification of crisis (predictability & influence possibilities). Also there are sub crises with the main crisis; the important one is the Maida Crisis which is related with the informational dimension & the Psychological Crisis which is related with the Human dimension or the victim management. The current research aimed to develop crises management …

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An Analysis Of The Dynamic Properties Of The American Depositary Receipt Cross Market Premium, Jorge Vidal Dec 2011

An Analysis Of The Dynamic Properties Of The American Depositary Receipt Cross Market Premium, Jorge Vidal

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The American Depositary Receipt (ADR) cross-market premium is studied over a 20 year period. The dynamic properties of the cross-market premium are studied for the first time in a nonlinear smooth error correction framework using a smooth transition error correction model (STECM) and compared against a linear model and two other nonlinear model specifications. The results indicate the ADR cross-market premium is more appropriately estimated when the nonlinearity, smooth transition, and cointegration properties present in the premium are estimated simultaneously with a STECM. The estimates of the STECM indicate arbitrage opportunities in the ADR market are rare and dissipate quickly. …

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The Mexican Identity And Music: Audioscapes And The Transnational Death Metal Band Brujeria, Michael D. Mena Dec 2011

The Mexican Identity And Music: Audioscapes And The Transnational Death Metal Band Brujeria, Michael D. Mena

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The California-based Mexican-American “activist” metal band Brujeria, uses a powerful, yet conflicting, blend of nihilism, anarchism, and racism with a dose of hyper-patriotism in its attempt to convey the voice of oppressed Mexicans on both sides of the border. While it is uncertain whether or not Brujeria is intentionally political, their live performances and song lyrics are highly critical of both the U.S. and Mexico regarding immigration policy, border-crossing, and other issues which have resonated among an international audience. In this paper I explore the conflicting notions of space, performativity, binationality and U.S. Mexico relations within the context of Brujeria …

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Review Of Richard Junger's Becoming The Second City: Chicago’S Mass News Media, 1833-1898, John J. Pauly Dec 2011

Review Of Richard Junger's Becoming The Second City: Chicago’S Mass News Media, 1833-1898, John J. Pauly

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

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Surfactant Induced Reservoir Wettability Alteration: Recent Theoretical And Experimental Advances In Enhanced Oil Recovery, Yefei Wang, Huaimin Xu, Weizhao Yu, Baojun Bai, Xinwang Song, Jichao Zhang Dec 2011

Surfactant Induced Reservoir Wettability Alteration: Recent Theoretical And Experimental Advances In Enhanced Oil Recovery, Yefei Wang, Huaimin Xu, Weizhao Yu, Baojun Bai, Xinwang Song, Jichao Zhang

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Reservoir wettability plays an important role in various oil recovery processes. The origin and evolution of reservoir wettability were critically reviewed to better understand the complexity of wettability due to interactions in crude oil-brine-rock system, with introduction of different wetting states and their influence on fluid distribution in pore spaces. The effect of wettability on oil recovery of waterflooding was then summarized from past and recent research to emphasize the importance of wettability in oil displacement by brine. The mechanism of wettability alteration by different surfactants in both carbonate and sandstone reservoirs was analyzed, concerning their distinct surface chemistry, and …

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The Role Of Eddies Inside Pores In The Transition From Darcy To Forchheimer Flows, Kuldeep Chaudhary, M. Bayani Cardenas, Wen Deng, Philip C. Bennett Dec 2011

The Role Of Eddies Inside Pores In The Transition From Darcy To Forchheimer Flows, Kuldeep Chaudhary, M. Bayani Cardenas, Wen Deng, Philip C. Bennett

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We studied the role of intra-pore eddies, from viscous to inertial flows, in modifying continuum-scale flow inside pores. Flow regimes spanning Reynolds Number Re ∼ 0 to 1350 are divided into three zones - one zone follows Darcy flow, and the other two zones describe non-Darcy or Forchheimer flow. During viscous flows, i.e., Re < 1, stationary eddies occupy about 1/5 of the pore volume. Eddies grow when Re > 1, and their growth leads to the deviation from Darcy's law and the emergence of Forchheimer flow manifested as a characteristic reduction in the apparent hydraulic conductivity Ka. The reduction in Ka is due to the narrowing of the flow channel which is …

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December 1, 2011, The Daily Mississippian Dec 2011

December 1, 2011, The Daily Mississippian

Daily Mississippian (all digitized issues)

No abstract provided.

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A Comparison Of Internet Marketing Methods Utilized By Higher Education Institutions, Joseph Clayton Mccoy Dec 2011

A Comparison Of Internet Marketing Methods Utilized By Higher Education Institutions, Joseph Clayton Mccoy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Use of Internet marketing techniques in higher education to attract prospective students is relatively new. While the research is recent, there are several studies that identify what is most valuable to students seeking information on college web sites. Higher education is now facing increasing competition from for-profit schools and reduced funding from typical sources. This study examines how two different Carnegie classifications use Internet marketing techniques and identifies if there is a difference in how much they use these techniques. Content techniques and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques were examined for 56 higher education institutions in this study. Of the …

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Single Mothers In College: The Effect Of Selected Variables, Rickey Booker Dec 2011

Single Mothers In College: The Effect Of Selected Variables, Rickey Booker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Single parent mothers who are currently in poverty may find it difficult to find routes out of poverty and/or even to enrolling in college. Little empirical research has been conducted on low-income single parent mothers who attempt to enroll, persist and graduate college. The current research has shown that single parents are at a high risk of dropping out of college because of many barriers including poverty related issues. This study examined women who had at least one child or dependent, were in poverty, and were first time beginners in college. The purpose for conducting this study was to identify …

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Fathers And Their Views On Discussing Sex And Sexuality With Their Daughters, Kindann M. Stone Dec 2011

Fathers And Their Views On Discussing Sex And Sexuality With Their Daughters, Kindann M. Stone

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research project was to identify characteristics and perceptions of fathers associated with discussions about sex and sexuality with their daughters. Parental communication, education, and value sharing reduces the risk of STD's and teen pregnancy. Participants were fathers (N=108) who were recruited by their daughters who were attending a Southeastern University. Demographics were utilized and researcher developed modified scales used in previous studies (citation). The newly developed scales were the Sexual Knowledge Inventory (SKI), Value of Self-Efficacy of Sexuality Communication (VSESC), Safe Sex of Self Efficacy of Sexuality Communication (SSSESC), Father's Role as Sex Educators Outcome Expectancy …

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