The Nimbus 7 LIMS (Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere) water vapor measurements

Earth orbital instruments, designed to measure the vertical and spatial distribution of atmospheric water vapor is discussed. Specifically, the operation of the Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS) experiment is examined. The LIMS is a six channel limb scanning radiometer that was launched aboard Nimbus 7 in 1978. Profiles of stratospheric and mesospheric temperature, water vapor, and various other constituents were obtained by inverting the LIMS radiance measurements. This same technique was used in 1981 to analyze the data returned from another limb scanning radiometer aboard the Solar Mesosphere Explorer

A study of the student need for guidance in a private school

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

The Development of a Policy and Procedure Manual for the Walthill Public School System

Many traditional patterns and relationships in education have been altered during the past decade, as we have tried to adjudt to the tremendous changes of our times. School boards face mounting problems and changing relationships that involve the teacher, non-certified staff, administrator, and the school board cause growing concern. Under present conditions the distance between the board of education and the teaching and non-certified staff seems to be increasing

Isospin Asymmetry in Nuclei, Neutron Stars, and Heavy-Ion Collisions

The roles of isospin asymmetry in nuclei and neutron stars are investigated using a range of potential and field-theoretical models of nucleonic matter. The parameters of these models are fixed by fitting the properties of homogeneous bulk matter and closed-shell nuclei. We discuss and unravel the causes of correlations among the neutron skin thickness in heavy nuclei, the pressure of beta-equilibrated matter at a density of 0.1 fm$^{-3}$, and the radii of moderate mass neutron stars. The influence of symmetry energy on observables in heavy-ion collisions is summarized.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; Proceedings for the 21st Winter Workshop on Nuclear Dynamics, Breckenridge, Colorado, February 5-12, 2005; To appear in Heavy Ion Physic

College Readiness Beliefs and Behaviors of Adolescents in a Pre-College Access Program: An Extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Higher education policy-makers, practitioners and researchers increasingly seek to better understand interventions that reduce opportunity gaps faced by minority and low-income students across the PK-20 pipeline. Going beyond evaluation studies, this theory-driven dissertation provides new insight into key connections between social-cognitive motivation, active program participation and successful college readiness behaviors in the GEAR UP intervention. Extending the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), these connections are investigated in three studies that focus on self-regulated learning behaviors critical for college preparation and readiness among low-income students. The first study examined the relationship between key TPB student strengths – attitudes, control beliefs, subjective norms and intentions – and GEAR UP participation. The second study investigated the reciprocal relationship between students’ GEAR UP participation and subsequent self-regulated learning attitudes, beliefs, norms and intentions. The third study explored whether systematic barriers (low parental education) moderated the association between TPB motivational strengths and GEAR UP participation. Structural equation analysis of longitudinal (two-wave) panel survey data from a predominantly African American 8th and 9th grade sample provided several key findings. The first study revealed that strong control beliefs motivated active participation in GEAR UP. As hypothesized, behavioral intentions mediated this control belief-active participation relationship. The second study found a surprising inverse relationship between students’ active participation and subsequent attitudes toward self-regulated learning. This unexpected finding suggests that active GEAR UP college readiness activities (rigorous course and test preparations) exacerbate distressful orientations (attitudes) toward competitive self-regulated learning behaviors. The third study revealed that higher expectations of significant others (teachers, counselors, parents) increased active participation in GEAR UP for the lower-SES students but decreased active participation for higher-SES students. Overall, this TPB extension provides a better understanding of how low-income students translate social-cognitive motivational beliefs into self-regulated learning behavioral processes that promote college preparation and readiness. Findings suggest that successful pipeline interventions must pay greater attention to the social-psychological strengths that students bring to program settings, how such strengths effect and are effected by active program participation, and how these reciprocal relationships may differ for low-income students faced with systemic barriers. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications.PhDHigher EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116736/1/jmelli_1.pd

Survey of vector-like fermion extensions of the Standard Model and their phenomenological implications

With the renewed interest in vector-like fermion extensions of the Standard Model, we present here a study of multiple vector-like theories and their phenomenological implications. Our focus is mostly on minimal flavor conserving theories that couple the vector-like fermions to the SM gauge fields and mix only weakly with SM fermions so as to avoid flavor problems. We present calculations for precision electroweak and vector-like state decays, which are needed to investigate compatibility with currently known data. We investigate the impact of vector-like fermions on Higgs boson production and decay, including loop contributions, in a wide variety of vector-like extensions and their parameter spaces.Comment: 43 pages, 17 figures; v2: text modified to improve readability, references added, journal versio

Improving IS Service Quality

The growth of end-user computing has led to an awareness of the need to evaluate the quality of services provided by the information systems function. This paper discusses the two primary schools of thought or approaches concerning service quality. While the disconfirmation-based approach conceptualizes service quality as “similar to an attitude, the performance-based approach conceptualizes service quality as “attitude-based.” The literature concerning the application of both service quality approaches in an IS context are discussed and analyzed. Special attention is paid to the service orientation of IS employees as they relate to IS users. Prescriptions for improvements to the quality of IS service are suggested in four management areas: 1) service orientation of IS providers, 2) training/education of IS providers and IS users, 3) reward system for IS employees, and 4) linking IT strategy to business strategy. Lastly, SERVQUAL and SERVPERF are discussed as two quantitative measures of IS service quality

Toward understanding ambulatory activity decline in Parkinson disease

BACKGROUND: Declining ambulatory activity represents an important facet of disablement in Parkinson disease (PD). OBJECTIVE: The primary study aim was to compare the 2-year trajectory of ambulatory activity decline with concurrently evolving facets of disability in a small cohort of people with PD. The secondary aim was to identify baseline variables associated with ambulatory activity at 1- and 2-year follow-up assessments. DESIGN: This was a prospective, longitudinal cohort study. METHODS: Seventeen people with PD (Hoehn and Yahr stages 1-3) were recruited from 2 outpatient settings. Ambulatory activity data were collected at baseline and at 1- and 2-year annual assessments. Motor, mood, balance, gait, upper extremity function, quality of life, self-efficacy, and levodopa equivalent daily dose data and data on activities of daily living also were collected. RESULTS: Participants displayed significant 1- and 2-year declines in the amount and intensity of ambulatory activity concurrently with increasing levodopa equivalent daily dose. Worsening motor symptoms and slowing of gait were apparent only after 2 years. Concurrent changes in the remaining clinical variables were not observed. Baseline ambulatory activity and physical performance variables had the strongest relationships with 1- and 2-year mean daily steps. LIMITATIONS: The sample was small and homogeneous. CONCLUSIONS: Future research that combines ambulatory activity monitoring with a broader and more balanced array of measures would further illuminate the dynamic interactions among evolving facets of disablement and help determine the extent to which sustained patterns of recommended daily physical activity might slow the rate of disablement in PD.This study was funded primarily by the Davis Phinney Foundation and the Parkinson Disease Foundation. Additional funding was provided by Boston University Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (K12 HD043444), the National Institutes of Health (R01NS077959), the Utah Chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA), the Greater St Louis Chapter of the APDA, and the APDA Center for Advanced PD Research at Washington University. (Davis Phinney Foundation; Parkinson Disease Foundation; K12 HD043444 - Boston University Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health; R01NS077959 - National Institutes of Health; Utah Chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA); Greater St Louis Chapter of the APDA; APDA Center for Advanced PD Research at Washington University

Circles, columns and screenings: mapping the institutional, discursive, physical and gendered spaces of film criticism in 1940s London

This article revisits the period considered within ‘The Quality Film Adventure: British Critics and the Cinema 1942-1948’, mapping the professional cultures, working contexts and industry relationships that underpinned the aesthetic judgements and collective directions which John Ellis has observed within the critics published writings. Drawing on the records of the Critics’ Circle, Dilys Powell’s papers and Kinematograph Weekly, it explores the evolution of increasingly organised professional cultures of film criticism and film publicity, arguing that the material conditions imposed by war caused tensions between them to escalate. In the context of two major challenges to critical integrity and practice – the evidence given by British producer R.J. Minney in front of the 1948 Royal Commission on the Press and an ongoing libel case between a BBC critic and MGM – the different spaces of hospitality and film promotion became highly contested sites. This article focuses on the ways in which these spaces were characterised, used, and policed. It finds that the value and purpose of press screenings were hotly disputed and observes the way the advancement of women within one sector (film criticism) but not the other (film publicity) created particular difficulties, as key female critics avoided the more compromised masculine spaces of publicity, making them harder for publicists to reach and fuelling trade resentment. More broadly, the article asserts the need to consider film critics as geographically and culturally located audiences, who experience films as ‘professional’ viewers within extended and embodied cultures of habitual professional practice and physical space