A descriptive study of self-perceived functional roles and attitudes of a sample population of community college development officers in relation to selected performance indicators of successful implementers of planned change.

Until this dissertation, no research had investigated the use by community college development officers of specific skills that have been identified in the literature as significant in the successful implementation of planned change. Yet, community college development officers write proposals and case statements that secure tangible resources to support initiatives which may alter or significantly change practices of selective programs or campus systems. Maximization of grant resources allocated to improve community college practices might be achieved more readily if the writers of grant proposals use proven techniques for diffusing the innovations they propose into community colleges. A job analysis survey was conducted to capture information from 300 randomly-selected community college development officers as to their relative use of specific skills that have been identified within the literature review as skills used by successful implementers of planned change. Analysis of the findings was conducted in relation to selected demographic subfields of the responders to determine whether gender, specific professional experiences, professional training, campus size or location, or years of professional experience in community college development statistically correlate to the use of the skills that are examined in the study. The research supports the hypothesis that development officers who raise funds through grant writing engage more frequently in change facilitation activities than those who develop resources through solicitation of the private sector. The research also provides evidence that there are differences between the change facilitation activities performed by development officers practicing at early stages within their careers and those with more than ten years of experience

Kikuyu grass planting by machine

The value of Kikuyu grass as a pasture plant is known to most dairy-farmers. It is deep-rooting and capable of good autumn, late spring and—in summer moist areas all-year-round production. It is valuable on sandy soils even in the drier dairying districts, is palatable to stock and can withstand heavy grazing

Isothermic surfaces and conservation laws

For CMC surfaces in $3$-dimensional space forms, we relate the moment class of Korevaar--Kusner--Solomon to a second cohomology class arising from the integrable systems theory of isothermic surfaces. In addition, we show that both classes have a variational origin as Noether currents

Audit of a clinical guideline for neonatal hypoglycaemia screening

NHRMC Early Career Fellowship #511481RMT was supported by NHRMC Grant #63300

The Kawasaki identity and the fluctuation theorem

In this paper we show that the Fluctuation Theorem of Evans and Searles [D. J. Evans, D. J. Searles, Phys. Rev. E 50, 1645 (1994)] implies that the Kawasaki function is unity for all time t. We confirm this relationship using experimental data obtained using optical tweezers, and show that the Kawasaki function is a valuable diagnostic tool

Employee Stock Ownership and Financial Performance in European Countries: The Moderating Effects of Uncertainty Avoidance and Social Trust

This study investigates how the effect of employee stock ownership on financial performance may hinge on the diverse cultural and societal contexts of European countries. Based on agency and national culture theories, we hypothesize that the positive relationship between employee stock ownership and return on assets (ROA) is stronger in those nations with lower uncertainty avoidance and higher social trust. Using a multisource, time‐lagged, large‐scale dataset of 1,741 firms from 21 countries in Europe, our multilevel, random coefficient modeling analysis found evidence for these hypotheses, suggesting that uncertainty avoidance and social trust serve as important contextual cues in predicting the linkage between employee stock ownership and financial performance. Our supplemental analysis with distinction between the managerial and nonmanagerial employee stock ownership further indicates managerial employee stock ownership has a direct positive effect on ROA. Although nonmanagerial employee stock ownership had a nonsignificant association with ROA, the relationship was positive and significant when uncertainty avoidance was low and social trust was high. This research contributes to the existing literature by illuminating some of the contextual influences altering the effectiveness of employee stock ownership. Our findings also offer practical suggestions for effectively using employee stock ownership

Reversibility in nonequilibrium trajectories of an optically trapped particle

The measure of irreversibility as the dissipation function that serves as the quantitative argument in the fluctuation theorem (FT) was investigated. The FT describes the system's thermodynamic irreversibility developed in time from a completely thermodynamically reversibble system at short times to a thermodynamically irreversible one at infinitely long times. It was observed that the ensemble average of ωt was positive definite irrespective of the system for which it was constructed. It was found that the different expressions for ωt can arise in stochastic and deterministic systems

Simulating growth, development, and yield of tillering pearl millet I. Leaf area profiles on main shoots and tillers

Pearl millet (Pennisteum americanum L.) is an essential crop in farming systems of the dry areas of the semi-arid tropics and its tillering habit is an important adaptive feature. This is the first paper in a series aiming at developing and validating a pearl millet simulation model that recognises tillers as functional entities, analogous to intercrops. The objective of this paper is to quantify the effects of total leaf number per axis (TLN), cultivar, plant density and axis number on parameters that are used to simulate potential leaf area per plant. Four cultivars with different phenology and tillering habit were grown under well-watered and well-fertilised conditions at two locations in India, covering a range of daylengths and plant densities. For selected plants, the area of fully expanded leaves was measured non-destructively. A bell-shaped function adequately described the relationship between individual leaf area and leaf position on an axis. Its shape was determined by the position (X0) and area (Y0) of the largest leaf and by the breadth and skewness of the leaf area profile curve. TLN affected all four parameters, although the association with Y0 was weak. Cultivar only affected Y0, suggesting that parameterising new cultivars is straightforward. The observed density effect confirmed that competition for light between axes started during stem elongation. The results highlighted the consistent differences between leaf area profiles of main shoots and tillers. For a high-tillering crop like pearl millet, modelling leaf area dynamics through individual leaves is justified, as this approach can potentially deal with cultivar and environmental effects on tillering