The ideal of the trifocal variety

Techniques from representation theory, symbolic computational algebra, and numerical algebraic geometry are used to find the minimal generators of the ideal of the trifocal variety. An effective test for determining whether a given tensor is a trifocal tensor is also given

Race, class, and community in a southern forest-dependent region

Based on a Community and Environment in Rural America survey, this brief looks at four counties in Alabama. It finds blacks and whites have different outcomes in the community, despite expectations of regional stability and greater equality. Though they reported similar rates of social mobility, African Americans in the Black Belt of Alabama are disproportionately poorer and employed in lower-skill jobs than whites

What determines private school choice? a comparison between the UK and Australia

This paper compares patterns of private school attendance in the UK and Australia. About 6.5% of school children in the UK attend a private school, while 33% do so in Australia. We use comparable household panel data from the two countries to model attendance at a private school at age 15 or 16 as a function of household income and other child and parental characteristics. As one might expect, we observe a strong effect of household income on private school attendance. The addition of other household characteristics reduces this income elasticity, and reveals a strong degree of intergenerational transmission in both countries, with children being 8 percentage points more likely to attend a private school if one of their parents attended one in the UK, and anywhere up to 20 percentage points more likely in Australia. The analysis also reveals significant effects of parental education level, political preferences, religious background and the number of siblings on private school attendance.

The effect of immersion and presence in a virtual reality public speaking task

Three virtual environments (with varying immersive features) of a small teaching classroom with an audience were tested to determine whether higher graphical fidelity (Immersion) improved public speaking anxiety after participating in a mock public speaking task. The UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist (UMACL) was administered from the perspective that participants were going to complete a public speaking task in the immediate future and the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) were taken before and after along with the iGroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ). By manipulating technical quantitative elements of Virtual Environment construction, dimensions of presence significantly differed between conditions. Public speaking anxiety did not improve after participating in the task and increased immersion did not significantly reduce fear of public speaking within one session. Participants in all conditions however experienced a positive mood shift after participating in the public speaking task

Factors affecting purchase of online music in Australia

Digital Music is purchased online by an increasing number of consumers and looks set to grow. The purpose of this research is to provide an explanation of factors influencing purchase intention of the Australian consumer of online music. Such a study will help practitioners and marketing managers of online music to better develop market strategies. This research will draw upon the theoretical underpinnings of the Value Intention Framework adapted by Chu and Lu (2007) to examine the willingness of consumers purchasing online music. This model has been previously used to identify consumers in other geographic locations, for example Taiwan, but has not been tested in the Australian context. This research will be undertaken to fulfil the gap identified through previous researchers by examining a model of online music purchase behaviour in the Australian context. The findings will identify whether the perceived value of online music is a significant factor in predicting the purchaser intention of buying online music in Australia. It will also identify whether perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice effects consumers perceived value.The results of this study will facilitate understanding of what encourages and impedes the purchase intention of consumers of online music in Australia. It will afford each player within the Digital Music Value Chain a greater understanding of how to improve the purchase intentions of online music customers in Australia

Exploring the Relative Importance of Factors That Influence Student-Athletes’ School-Choice Decisions: A Case Study of One Canadian University

Understanding salient factors influencing student-athletes’ decisions to attend particular university institutions is of crucial importance to scholars and athletic administrators. Consequently, our research was concerned with two separate but interrelated substantive and methodological objectives: i) to gain insights into the relative importance of 12 school choice decision-making factors influencing Canadian student-athletes; and ii) to explore the efficacy of a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) method for analyzing data in the context of the current investigation. Specifically, we employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to better understand the relative importance of school choice decision factors. The results of the AHP analysis on Canadian student-athletes’ school choice decisionmaking showed that having the desired academic program was the most important influence. This item was almost twice as important as the reputation of the school, and over twice as important as scholarship value, athletic facilities, chance to win, and reputation of the head coach. Of the 12 factors considered, these six had the greatest influence on student-athletes’ decision-making. Implications of our findings for research and recruitment efforts are discussed