Desperate housewives: An analysis of the characterisations of female gamblers portrayed in gambling movies in Hong Kong

This article examines portrayals of female gamblers in recent Hong Kong movies. The authors report that the depiction of female gamblers is very different from that of male gamblers in the movies made in the same period. Whereas the male gamblers are pitching a lonely and desperate battle against the evil opponent, the female gamblers portrayed in the movies are housewives or small-time players who gamble only for their personal gain. A general negative overtone in portrayals of female gamblers was interpreted as a reflection of the traditional view that discourages women from gambling. The shift of gambling themes in the Hong Kong movies has been identified to reflect the most salient concerns among Hong Kong residents. Such changes are attributed to particular social and cultural changes in the community

Local structure and dynamics in colloidal fluids and gels

Gels in soft-matter systems are an important nonergodic state of matter. We study a colloid-polymer mixture which is quenched by increasing the polymer concentration, from a fluid to a gel. Using confocal microscopy, we study both the static structure and dynamics in three dimensions (3D). Between the dynamically arrested gel and ergodic fluid comprised of isolated particles we find an intermediate 'cluster fluid' state, where the 'bonds' between the colloidal particles have a finite lifetime. The local dynamics are reminiscent of a fluid, while the local structure is almost identical to that of the gel. Simultaneous real-time local structural analysis and particle tracking in 3D at the single-particle level yields the following interesting information. Particles in the clusters move in a highly correlated manner, but, at the same time, exhibit significant dynamical heterogeneity, reflecting the enhanced mobility near the free surface. Deeper quenching eventually leads to a gel state where the 'bond' lifetime exceeds that of the experiment, although the local structure is almost identical to that of the 'cluster fluid'.Comment: 6 page

Possible horizontal transfer of two subclasses of Mutator-like elements within Poaceae

Dissertação de mestrado em Gestão da Formação e Administração Educacional (Organizações Educativas e Gestão Escolar), apresentada à Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de CoimbraA presente dissertação é resultado de uma investigação realizada num Agrupamento de Escolas na zona Centro que obteve uma melhoria entre o primeiro e o segundo ciclo de avaliação externa de escolas. Centra-se na liderança praticada nas organizações escolares e na relação entre a melhoria das escolas com o Programa de Avaliação Externa de Escolas, com vista a compreender o papel das lideranças na melhoria de uma organização. A avaliação externa de escolas tem-se tornado indispensável para a criação de mecanismos de regulação que, de forma integrada com o processo de autoavaliação realizado pelas escolas desenvolvem novas práticas e, consequentemente, implementam processos de melhoria, visíveis pelas tomadas de decisão dos líderes das escolas. Com vista a verificar o que as lideranças do agrupamento têm feito para melhorar os resultados dos alunos, a prestação do serviço educativo e a capacidade de autoavaliação e melhoria desde a primeira avaliação externa, optámos pela metodologia de estudo de caso, procurando conjugar técnicas de natureza quantitativa e qualitativa. Neste sentido, recorremos à análise dos documentos estruturantes do Agrupamento de Escolas (Projeto Educativo, Regulamento Interno, Plano Anual de Atividades, Plano de Melhoria, Relatórios de Avaliação externa e Contraditório), à realização de entrevistas com o Diretor e com a Coordenadora da Equipa de Autoavaliação e, por fim, à elaboração e administração de um questionário para conhecer as perspetivas dos docentes sobre o funcionamento e o desempenho do Agrupamento de Escolas, bem como sobre as mudanças ocorridas na sequência da avaliação externa de escolas (AEE). Este estudo salienta que o papel de uma liderança efetiva e reconhecida é parte fundamental no desenvolvimento de uma organização e que a Avaliação Externa de Escolas é sentida e vivenciada pela organização em estudo, e ao ser conjugada com os dispositivos de reflexão interna e de autoavaliação, incentiva ao aperfeiçoamento dos planos de melhoria, encaminhando o Agrupamento para a melhoria contínua da qualidade do seu serviço educativo.The following dissertation is the result of an investigation in a School’s Division from center area of Portugal that has improved consederably its results in the first and second level of the External Evaluation of Schools. Its main focus is on the leadership of the Schools Organizations and the relationship between the Schools Improvement and the External Evaluation Program from Schools, taking in consideration the role of leadership in the improvement of an Organization. The external evaluation of schools has become, without doubt, necessary to create regulamentation mechanisms in order that schools could develop new cope ways and therefore, to implement and establish netter working processes, acknowledged by the schools chairmen and directors. With the main interes of checking the School’s Division’s Leadership and their work to improve the capability of self-evaluation, we opted to user a methodological study over quality and quantity. In this matter we chose to study and analyse the School’s Division documents, such as Educative Projects, Internal Regulation, Activities Annual Planification, Effort Planification and External Evaluation Reports. We also took action in interviewing School Directors, the self-evaluation Team Coordinator and foremost to create and practice a questionnaire to acknowledge the teacher’s perspectives about School’s Division maintenance and development, as well as the School’s External Evaluation . This study case empathizes the role of an effective and recognised leadership. It’s essential and crucial to the welfare and development of an organisation and the External School’s Evaluation is taken in great consideration by our study case. Moreover, dued to the self-evaluation system and combined with internal reflection devices it enhances the leadership’s accuracy in the quality improvement.La dissertation suivante est le résultat d'une investigation réalisée sur un ensemble d'écoles de la région centre du pays dont on a observé une amélioration entre le premier et le second cycle de l'évaluation externe des écoles. Elle porte sur la direction des organisations scolaires et le lien avec l'amélioration apportée aux écoles participant au programme d'évaluation externe des écoles. Elle vise ainsi à comprendre le rôle des directions dans la progression d'une institution. L'évaluation externe des écoles est devenue indispensable à la création de mécanismes de régulation, qui, intégrés au processus d'auto évaluation réalisée par l’école, permettent de développer de nouvelles méthodes. C'est ainsi par conséquent que sont mis en place des systèmes d'amélioration, rendus visibles grâce aux prises de décision des responsables désignés de l’établissement scolaire. Dans le but de vérifier la stratégie adoptée par les directions dans l’amélioration des résultats scolaire des élèves, la qualité du service éducatif et la capacité d’auto-évaluation depuis la première évaluation externe, nous choisirons de présenter ce travail à travers une étude de cas, cherchant ainsi à concilier des méthodes à la fois quantitative et qualitative. Ainsi, nous avons recours à une analyse de documents d’ordre organisationnel de l’ensemble scolaire (projet éducatif, règlement intérieur, plan annuel d’activités, plan d’amélioration, comptes rendus de l’évaluation externe et contradictoire), à la réalisation de rencontres avec le directeur et la coordinatrice de l’équipe d’autoévaluation et, enfin, à l’élaboration d’un questionnaire visant à connaitre les projets à venir dans le futur fonctionnement et l’investissement de l’ensemble d’écoles, tout comme dans les changements réalisés dans la séquence d’évaluation externe des écoles. Cette étude démontre que, le rôle d’une direction effective et reconnue est fondamentale dans le développement d’une organisation; et que l’évaluation externe des écoles prend tout son sens dans l’ensemble d’étude. De plus, l’ajout des dispositifs de réflexion interne et d’autoévaluation, facilite grandement le perfectionnement des plans d’amélioration, permettant ainsi l’amélioration constante et continue de la qualité du service éducatif de cet ensemble scolaire

Detecting Spin-Polarized Currents in Ballistic Nanostructures

We demonstrate a mesoscopic spin polarizer/analyzer system that allows the spin polarization of current from a quantum point contact in an in-plane magnetic field to be measured. A transverse focusing geometry is used to couple current from an emitter point contact into a collector point contact. At large in-plane fields, with the point contacts biased to transmit only a single spin (g < e^2/h), the voltage across the collector depends on the spin polarization of the current incident on it. Spin polarizations of greater than 80% are found for both emitter and collector at 300mK and 7T in-plane field.Comment: related papers at http://marcuslab.harvard.ed

Sign-changing tower of bubbles for a sinh-Poisson equation with asymmetric exponents

Motivated by the statistical mechanics description of stationary 2D-turbulence, for a sinh-Poisson type equation with asymmetric nonlinearity, we construct a concentrating solution sequence in the form of a tower of singular Liouville bubbles, each of which has a different degeneracy exponent. The asymmetry parameter $\gamma\in(0,1]$ corresponds to the ratio between the intensity of the negatively rotating vortices and the intensity of the positively rotating vortices. Our solutions correspond to a superposition of highly concentrated vortex configurations of alternating orientation; they extend in a nontrivial way some known results for $\gamma=1$. Thus, by analyzing the case $\gamma\neq1$ we emphasize specific properties of the physically relevant parameter $\gamma$ in the vortex concentration phenomena

Polyhedral colloidal `rocks': low-dimensional networks

We introduce a model system of anisotropic colloidal `rocks'. Due to their shape, the bonding introduced via non-absorbing polymers is profoundly different from spherical particles: bonds between rocks are rigid against rotation, leading to strong frustration. We develop a geometric model which captures the essence of the rocks. Experiments and simulations show that the colloid geometry leads to structures of low fractal dimension. This is in stark contrast to gels of spheres, whose rigidity results from locally dense regions. At high density the rocks form a quasi one-component glass

Off-diagonal Wave Function Monte Carlo Studies of Hubbard Model I

We propose a Monte Carlo method, which is a hybrid method of the quantum Monte Carlo method and variational Monte Carlo theory, to study the Hubbard model. The theory is based on the off-diagonal and the Gutzwiller type correlation factors which are taken into account by a Monte Carlo algorithm. In the 4x4 system our method is able to reproduce the exact results obtained by the diagonalization. An application is given to investigate the half-filled band case of two-dimensional square lattice. The energy is favorably compared with quantum Monte Carlo data.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Antisymmetrization of a Mean Field Calculation of the T-Matrix

The usual definition of the prior(post) interaction $V(V^\prime )$ between projectile and target (resp. ejectile and residual target) being contradictory with full antisymmetrization between nucleons, an explicit antisymmetrization projector ${\cal A}$ must be included in the definition of the transition operator, $T\equiv V^\prime{\cal A}+V^\prime{\cal A}GV.$ We derive the suitably antisymmetrized mean field equations leading to a non perturbative estimate of $T$. The theory is illustrated by a calculation of forward $\alpha$-$\alpha$ scattering, making use of self consistent symmetries.Comment: 30 pages, no figures, plain TeX, SPHT/93/14