The Travel Behavior and Needs of the Poor: A Study of Welfare Recipients in Fresno County, California, MTI Report 01-23

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 fundamentally transformed the provision of social assistance in the United States. Gone is Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a program that entitled needy families with children to an array of benefits and public services. In its place is Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), a program that abolishes federal entitlements, provides flexible block grants to the states, mandates tough new work requirements, and imposes a five-year lifetime limit on the receipt of public assistance. Current welfare programs mandate employment for most recipients and offer temporary financial aid and short-term employment assistance to help recipients transition into the labor market. As a result of this fundamental restructuring of the U.S. welfare system, millions of welfare recipients are required to enter the paid labor market. Public agencies must establish programs to transition recipients into the labor market or risk dramatic increases in poverty rates. A growing number of studies suggest that reliable transportation-whether automobiles or public transit-is essential to linking welfare participants to employment opportunities. The purpose of this study is to: Understand the travel behavior of welfare participants; Examine strategies by which welfare participants overcome their transportation barriers; Identify the transportation needs of welfare participants living in the Central Valley; Examine the relationship between access to reliable transportation and employment status; and Develop a set of policy and planning recommendations to improve the transportation options of welfare recipients and other low-wage workers living in smaller, more rural, metropolitan areas

Progress in Top Quark Physics

Experimental measurements of the properties of the top quark have improved and will continue to improve significantly, with the excellent operation of the CDF and D0 experiments and the Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ collider at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. All of the final state experimental signatures from top quark production and decay are being analysed to test if this most massive quark is sensitive to new physics beyond the standard model. So far, observations are consistent with the standard model. New techniques have dramatically improved the precision of the top quark mass measurement to 1.7% and set the stage for a sub-1% measurement by 2008. This improved knowledge of the top quark mass sharpens the standard model prediction for the mass of the undiscovered Higgs boson, with implications for Higgs studies at the future LHC and ILC.Comment: 11 pages. Conference proceedings for PANIC05, Particles and Nuclei International Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 24-28, 200

Maximizing Beneficence and Autonomy: Ethical Support for the Use of Non-Pharmacological Methods for Managing Dental Anxiety

This article examines advantages associated with nonpharmacological behavioral management techniques and suggests that there are benefits to their use (such as achieving a more lasting solution to the problem of dental anxiety) that are not realized with medication-based interventions. Analyses that use Kantian and existential viewpoints for exploring the use of medication versus behavioral interventions for managing life problems yield parallel conclusions: there are advantages gained by using behavioral interventions that are not always associated with medicationbased interventions. These analyses, taken together with an understanding of the psychology of dental anxiety management, suggest that using nonpharmacological techniques for the management of dental anxiety can maximize adherence-to the ethical principles of beneficence and patient autonomy. The authors discuss the barriers that make nonpharmacological interventions for anxiety management difficult for dentists to routinely use, and suggest that additional training in these methods and increased collaboration with mental health professionals are needed for dentists

Measuring the mode volume of plasmonic nanocavities using coupled optical emitters

Metallic optical systems can confine light to deep sub-wavelength dimensions, but verifying the level of confinement at these length scales typically requires specialized techniques and equipment for probing the near-field of the structure. We experimentally measured the confinement of a metal-based optical cavity by using the cavity modes themselves as a sensitive probe of the cavity characteristics. By perturbing the cavity modes with conformal dielectric layers of sub-nm thickness using atomic layer deposition, we find the exponential decay length of the modes to be less than 5% of the free-space wavelength (\lambda) and the mode volume to be of order \lambda^3/1000. These results provide experimental confirmation of the deep sub-wavelength confinement capabilities of metal-based optical cavities.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

The Effects of Auditor Tenure on Fraud and Its Detection

We examine the strategic effects of auditor tenure on the auditor's testing strategy and the manager's inclination to commit fraud. Most empirical studies conclude that longer tenure improves audit quality. Proponents of restricting tenure argue that longer tenure impairs auditor independence and a "fresh look" from a new auditor results in higher audit quality. Validating this argument requires testing whether the observed difference in audit quality between a continuing auditor and a change in auditors is less than the theoretically expected difference in audit quality without impairment. Our findings provide the guidance necessary for developing such tests. Our results show that audit risk (the probability that fraud exists and goes undetected) is lower in both periods for the continuing auditor than with a change in auditors. More importantly, we show that across both periods, expected undetected fraud is lower for the continuing auditor than with a change in auditors

Organisational Design for Co-Management : Comparing Four Committees in Nunavik

Le Rapport Brundtland a souligné l’importance des arrangements institutionnels pour résoudre les problèmes liés à la gestion des ressources naturelles. Pour les autochtones, les arrangements de cogestion représentent une façon de participer à la gestion des ressources fauniques et à la protection environnementale. La Convention de la Baie-James et du Nord québécois, signée en 1975, créa plusieurs comités de cogestion ayant pour objet l’environnement et les ressources fauniques. Cet article examine la littérature sur la cogestion et en dégage trois principes généraux. Plus particulièrement, ces principes interrogent la capacité des comités de cogestion de s’adapter aux nouvelles demandes et défis environnementaux, d’influencer les décisions des autorités gouvernementales et de représenter la culture et les valeurs autochtones. Chacun des comités de cogestion créés par la Convention est évalué suivant cette grille.The Brundtland Report focused on the importance of institutional arrangements in solving pressing resource problems. Co-management arrangements have been an important avenue for Aboriginals to participate in the management of country foods, and the environments that support them. The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, signed in 1975, created several co-management bodies that focus on environments and wildlife. This paper draws on the extensive body of literature on co-management to develop three principles to evaluate these arrangements. These principles have to do with the ability of committees to adapt to changing environments and demands, their effectiveness in influencing government decision-making, and their ability to represent Aboriginal cultures and values. Each of the co-management bodies created by the Agreement is evaluated according to these criteria