Central limit theorems for random evolutions

AbstractA product formula for linear operators is used to get a central limit theorem for products of dependent random linear and nonlinear operators on Rd driven by a continuous time Markov chain

The Florida Railroad after the Civil War

David Levy Yulee was the most enthusiastic of the early railroad promoters in Florida. On January 8, 1853, he incorporated the Florida Railroad to construct a line from the Atlantic Ocean to a point on the Gulf of Mexico south of the mouth of the Suwannee River. The charter was amended by the legislature in 1855, and the company was authorized to build from Amelia Island on the east coast to Tampa Bay on the Gulf of Mexico with a branch line to Cedar Key. In addition the company was authorized to own and operate steam vessels on Florida’s rivers. Yulee’s dream was to construct a railroad across Florida and to establish a steamship line from Cedar Key to other Gulf ports, Central America, and the Caribbean islands. He believed it would be cheaper for the shipper to use ships and the railroad, even if it entailed loading and unloading at each end of the line, than to brave the waters of the Florida Straits. Also Yulee hoped to attract to the state immigrants interested in producing vegetables. Their products could be carried by the railroad to Fernandina where fast steamships would transport them to northern markets

Plant\u27s Lieutenants

Henry Bradley Plant, native of Connecticut and owner of the Southern Express Company, successfully developed a rail network from the Georgia line to Charlotte Harbor. One of his lines was the first to reach the small, backwater village of Tampa where he built the lavish Tampa Bay Hotel in 1891. He also bought or constructed hotels in Port Tampa, Beleair, Punta Gorda, Ocala, Kissimmee, and Winter Park. He established a steamship line to Havana, Cuba, with stops at various ports along the West coast of Florida and at Key West, and his riverboats operated on the St. Johns, the Apalachicola, and the Chattahoochee. Plant did all this between 1879 when he purchased his first railroad and 1899 when he died. In addition, his companies owned large tracts of land received from the state, and his express company shipped Florida products to northern markets. Few men have been more intimately connected with the economic development of Florida, and none was more important to the area west of the St. Johns River and south to Punta Gorda on the lower Gulf coast during the latter part of the nineteenth century than Henry Plant

Henry Bradley Plant and Florida

Florida was a fertile field for developers during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Lumbermen were at work in the northern part of the state; the citrus industry was in its infancy; phosphate mining was just beginning; and northern vacationers and some invalids were discovering the restorative powers of Florida’s climate. Railroads were needed to serve and to further develop these diverse interests. Many men dreamed of building a network of rails in the state, and some began the project. Most failed, although a few succeeded. Henry Bradley Plant was one of the more successful. He constructed railroads, hotels, and steamship lines, and in the process served the various business enterprises in the state while earning a respectable profit for himself

Deaths Exceed Births in Most of Europe, But Not in the United States

In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson, Layton Fields, and Dudley Poston, Jr. present important new findings about the diminishing number of births compared to deaths in Europe and the United States from their recent article in Population and Development Review. Their research focuses on the prevalence and dynamics of natural decrease in subareas of Europe and the United States in the first decade of the twenty-first century using counties (United States) or county-equivalents (Europe). The authors report that 58 percent of the 1,391 counties of Europe had more deaths than births during that period compared to just 28 percent of the 3,137 U.S. counties. Natural decrease is more widespread in Europe because its population is older, fertility rates are lower, and there are fewer women of child-bearing age. Natural decrease is a major policy concern because it drains the demographic resilience from a region, diminishing its economic viability and competitiveness. The implications of the recent European immigrant surge for natural decrease are uncertain, but the authors’ analysis suggests that natural decrease is likely to remain widespread in Europe for the foreseeable future

On a class of temporally non-homogeneous Markov processes and their relationship to infinite particle gases.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mathematics. Thesis. 1966. Ph.D.Bibliography: leaf 66.Ph.D

High-power broadband laser source tunable from 3.0 um to 4.4 um based on a femtosecond Yb:fiber oscillator

We describe a tunable broadband mid-infrared laser source based on difference-frequency mixing of a 100 MHz femtosecond Yb:fiber laser oscillator and a Raman-shifted soliton generated with the same laser. The resulting light is tunable over 3.0 um to 4.4 um, with a FWHM bandwidth of 170 nm and maximum average output power up to 125 mW. The noise and coherence properties of this source are also investigated and described.Comment: To appear in Optics Letter

Strategic formulation processes : an institutional perspective

My research addresses the question of 'how does the institutional context impact on the individual framing of strategic issues'. These early stages of decision making represent an important area of study, setting the foundations for the latter stages of decision-making. I show that although both the problem formulation and strategic issue diagnosis literatures have increased our understanding of these formative stages, neither has adequately addressed how 'institutional forces' impact on the individual framing of strategic issues. My research applies an institutional perspective, drawing on Barley ;Tolbert (1997) and their work on 'scripted behaviours' to address this. Institutionalists highlight the institutional context, represented by powerful social and symbolic forces that influence organisations, their practices and behaviours of individual actors through the enactment of scripts. A naturalistic approach, incorporating the use of semi-structured interviews was applied. Respondents were drawn from two universities: Alpha ;Beta, possessing membership of multiple institutions: academia and law, academia and accountancy. So, the research sought to understand the role of multiple institutions on the framing of strategic issues. It was established that scripts are widely shared within the institutional settings, playing a pivotal role in the framing of strategic issues (representative of top-down institutional processes being at play) but do not operate in isolation. I draw on the work of Bartunek (1984) to further ground the second inter-related concept described in my thesis as 'meanings'. These enable respondents to interpret institutionally defined scripts, indicative of bottom-up institutional processes also being at play. Several contributions are made, firstly to the strategic issue and problem formulation literatures and secondly to the institutional literature by focusing on micro-institutional processes.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Men’s Perspectives of a Gender-Sensitized Health Promotion Program Targeting Healthy Eating, Active Living, and Social Connectedness

© The Author(s) 2018. Men in high income countries have poorer dietary habits and higher rates of overweight and obesity than women. A major challenge with engaging men in health promotion is the perception that attention to one’s health runs counter to masculine identities. Contemporary health promotion programs are believed to hold little “manly” appeal and often fail to engage and retain men. The HAT TRICK program was designed to engage men with their health by delivering an intervention in collaboration with a semi-professional ice hockey team. The program included 12 weekly sessions promoting healthy eating, active living, and social connectedness among men. Gender-sensitized elements were reflected in the program design, setting, content, and delivery. Semistructured telephone interviews were conducted with 23 men to explore perspectives of their participation in the gender-sensitized intervention. Participants were white (100%) with a mean age of 53 years (SD ± 9.9), Body Mass Index (BMI) of 37 kg/m2 (SD ± 6.8), and waist circumference of 127 centimeters (SD ± 14.5). Inductive thematic analysis revealed three overarching themes, including: (a) Harnessing nostalgia for past masculinities: “Closet athletes from 30 years ago,” (2) Offsetting resistance to change with sensible health advice: “Don’t give up drinking beer, just have less,” and (3) Gendered social spaces for doing health: “A night out with the guys,” The findings support the value of gender-sensitized approaches to men’s health promotion. Further research is needed to identify which gender-sensitized elements are critical to engaging men in healthy lifestyle changes