The Celebrity Factor: An Evaluation of the Effect Celebrity Provenance at Auction

The effect of celebrity provenance on value of fine art and design is a recent phenomenon that can be explained by unpacking the changing profile of collectors, the rise of the digital age and contemporary fascination with celebrity. Understanding these changes will shed light on different factors that contribute to the premium often associated with celebrity sales. Although research has been done before on this topic before, the research neglects to look at the auction house as a factor in understanding the effects of celebrity provenance. By evaluating the celebrity, and the auction houses, relationship to the works of art and design will help determine what specific qualities and factors contribute to the objects perceived value. Using two celebrity auctions as cases, I will offer explanations on why there are disproportionate effects on objects at singleseller celebrity auctions

Fighting Cybercrime After \u3cem\u3eUnited States v. Jones\u3c/em\u3e

In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus on the technologies that make collecting and aggregating large quantities of information possible. In those efforts, we focused on reasonable expectations held by “the people” that they will not be subjected to broad and indiscriminate surveillance. These expectations are anchored in Founding-era concerns about the capacity for unfettered search powers to promote an authoritarian surveillance state. Although we also readily acknowledged that there are legitimate and competing governmental and law enforcement interests at stake in the deployment and use of surveillance technologies that implicate reasonable interests in quantitative privacy, we did little more. In this Article, we begin to address that omission by focusing on the legitimate governmental and law enforcement interests at stake in preventing, detecting, and prosecuting cyber-harassment and healthcare fraud

Better Together? Combining Cover Crop Mulches, Organic Herbicides, and Weed Seed Biological Control in Reduced-Tillage Crop Systems

Weed management in organic agriculture is one of the greatest challenges farmers face and many rely heavily on mechanical tactics that are labor-intensive and negatively impact the environment. Although more complex, farmers could integrate various cultural, chemical, and biological weed management tools to potentially reduce the need for tillage. A weed management system that incorporates the use of cover crop mulch could suppress weeds and promote weed seed predation services by granivorous insects. Since cover crops decompose as the season progresses, precise applications of organic herbicides could extend weed management towards the end of the season. In our studies, we compare various cover crop mulch treatments to organic herbicide treatments to examine potential synergies between tools, as well as potential non-target effects of organic herbicides on beneficial insects and weed seed biocontrol. We also evaluate the herbicide efficacy of capric and caprylic acid (CCA) compared to conventional herbicides, weeds of different height and species, and at varying pH and concentration. We found that CCA is most effective on weeds \u3c10cm and a lower water carrier pH can increase efficacy. Overall, our work has demonstrated that organic herbicides may be a viable supplemental tool with limited non-target effects, and that combined with other cultural and biological tools may enhance weed control and yield, while reducing soil-borne pathogen abundance and the need for tillage

The Relationship Between College Football Expenditures and On-Field Success

College football has remained at the top of the college sports world for quite some time, as it has continuously generated more revenue than other collegiate sports. Therefore, many universities dump large amounts of funding into their football program hoping it will translate into on-field success, and in turn, increased revenues. This study was conducted to analyze the relationship between a university’s football expenditures and the team’s number of wins within that year. Ultimately, we wished to determine if increased funding for a university’s football program would lead to an increase in that team’s season win total. We believed that if a statistically insignificant relationship was determined between the two variables, it could be in the best interest of some universities to explore other avenues when seeking better performance out of the football program. For the sake of this study, college football expenditures will be defined as operating expenses in the regression model. The model built in this study was estimated using ordinary least squares methodology. After running a series of regressions, we concluded that there was a statistically insignificant relationship between college football expenditures and the team’s win total for a given year. However, we did determine that a university’s ability to recruit and the wins from the previous year were better overall predictors of wins for a given season. Multicollinearity was present within the estimated regression model, so any conclusions drawn from this study should be done with caution

It Takes a Community: On-Time Graduation for At-Risk Youth

Cultivating Youth is an at-risk student community agency and organization collaboration that provides opportunities to 1) attend leadership training and college level classes, 2) retrieve and receive duel credits to achieve graduation, and 3) directly apply learned life-skills and workforce preparation to applied experiences while building self- esteem. It is a full circle approach to improve quality of life

Mapping Gettysburg: Baltimore Street in 1910

In 1910, the town of Gettysburg was a thriving, bustling place. The Civil War was long over, and the town had begun to profit from tourists who wished to see the site of the famous battle. Business boomed. Merchants moved in and out of buildings and young families set up housekeeping in their own homes, raising their children and getting off to a running start in their chosen professions. There were cars in the streets next to the old horse-drawn buggies and electricity had begun to replace the gas lamps and candles of the Victorian era. For all that the town was growing rapidly, however, it was still subject to turn of the century problems. Tuberculosis was still widespread and killed many people every year - indeed, lung diseases in general seem to have plagued the country. Kidney disease was another concern, as were rats and other pests. On the whole, Gettysburg was a town in transition -not yet firmly in the twentieth century, but no longer a part of the nineteenth century either. [excerpt

Learning Together: Cohort-Based Capacity Building and the Ripple Effects of Collaboration

Foundations frequently commission evaluations and are the primary audiences for findings. Grantee organizations, however, often don’t see the results, or they find in them limited value and relevance to their own work. Funders like the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation are quietly disrupting this status quo by exploring ways to fully engage grantees, co-funders, technical consultants, and evaluators in collective learning and reflection. The foundation’s comprehensive, cohort-based capacity-building program, PropelNext, was designed to enhance the performance of promising nonprofits that serve America’s disadvantaged youth. With a combination of financial support, individualized coaching, and peer-learning sessions, grantees engage in a test-and-learn cycle to promote a culture of learning and continuous improvement. This article explores what collaborative learning looks like in the PropelNext context and how foundations can “practice what they preach” by modeling a reflective practice, sharing what they’re learning, and supporting evaluations that surface information that is useful to everyone. It also discusses findings related to collaborative learning for both a regionally based and a nationally based cohort. Finally, it highlights specific strategies and tools to promote collaborative learning and to leverage peer networks in ways that can accelerate change, strengthen funder-grantee interactions, and advance the field

Dichlorido{[(diphenyl­phosphino)meth­yl]bis­(2-methyl­phen­yl)phosphine-κ2 P,P′}palladium(II)

In the title compound, [PdCl2(C27H26P2)] or PdCl2[(C6H5)2PCH2P(C6H4CH3)2], the palladium center has a distorted square-planar geometry. There are two crystallographically independent mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit. The dihedral angle between the PdP2 and PdCl2 planes is 2.95 (4)° in one independent mol­ecule and 5.15 (4)° in the other. The P—Pd—P and P—C—P bond angles are significantly distorted because of the small bite angle of the chelating (bis­phosphino)methane ligand. The steric demands of the substituted rings in the mixed ligand cause a slight elongation of the Pd—P(C6H4CH3)2 bond relative to the Pd—P(C6H5)2 bond. In one molecule the tolyl ring shows positional disorder in a 0.58 (2):0.42 (2) ratio, in the other molecule the phenyl ring shows positional disorder in a 0.838 (9):0.162 (9) ratio

Pathways to Wellbeing, Social Cohesion, Skill Development, and Participation in Disadvantaged Communities: Royal Botanic Garden Sydney's Master Gardener Volunteer Program

The Master Gardener Volunteer Program led by Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust. The catalyst for the inception of the Master Gardener Volunteer Program (MGVP) in Sydney arose when Philip Pettitt (the then Community Greening Coordinator) travelled to the United States to attend the Botanic Gardens Conservation International Conference in 2015 and was inspired by the Brooklyn Urban Gardener Course operating in New York and Brooklyn. Upon his return, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust (RBGDT) piloted three short courses in 2016 funded by the Office of Environment and Heritage. Further funding was received from the Department of Social Services Resilient Communities Fund in 2018 to expand the MGVP for a period of three years. This study focuses on the delivery of the MGVP at 17 sites in New South Wales, Australia. These include: Liverpool, Curran, Central Coast, Wollongong, Riverwood, Mt Annan, Auburn, Sydney, Eden, Newcastle, Miller, Telopea, Willmott, Bega, Warrigal, Yallah, and Nowra. The overarching objectives of this research were to investigate the Master Gardener Volunteers’ self-reported changes to wellbeing, social cohesion, skill development, and participation as they engage over time in the MGVP; and identify the reported strengths of the program delivery and areas for improvement