Decompositions of factor codes and embeddings between shift spaces with unequal entropies

Given a factor code between sofic shifts X and Y, there is a family of decompositions of the original code into factor codes such that the entropies of the intermediate subshifts arising from the decompositions are dense in the interval from the entropy of Y to that of X. Furthermore, if X is of finite type, we can choose those intermediate subshifts as shifts of finite type. In the second part of the paper, given an embedding from a shift space to an irreducible sofic shift, we characterize the set of the entropies of the intermediate subshifts arising from the decompositions of the given embedding into embeddings.Comment: 14pages, 2 figures; v2) minor revision. to appear in Ergodic Theory Dynamical System

Exploring the Correlates of the Financial Health of Arts Nonprofit Organizations

This dissertation focuses on how different resource streams that are extracted from a nonprofit’s environment can impact their financial health. More specifically, I explore the main research question: what are the correlates of arts nonprofits’ financial health? I conduct statistical analyses of original survey data, financial information, and socio-economic data from 2008 to 2013 to test the hypotheses that aligning benefits provided with appropriate revenue sources, supportive socio-economic environments, and collaboration are positively related to financial health, calculated as six measures of long, short, and current-term financial health. Findings indicate that arts nonprofits that matched their benefits with corresponding revenue sources only had higher financial health outcomes when the definition of mixed nonprofits is relaxed. Private arts nonprofits with private funding did have higher equity ratios, although public arts nonprofits with public support had lower equity ratios and change in months of liquidity. Population size and minority residents in a county are negatively associated with months of liquidity. Finally, collaborating arts nonprofits and those that shared financial resources to a greater extent had better financial health outcomes for select measures, although the number of partnerships is not always positively associated with financial health benefits. Results suggest financial health at different time periods have different drivers, and that public and private arts nonprofits have financial health drivers as well. Nonprofit practitioners should examine their portfolio of benefits and revenue, as well as identify current, short, and long-term goals to understand how benefit-revenue alignment, location, and collaboration can impact financial health

Prosodic Analysis of Wh-indeterminate Questions in L2 Korean

Wh-indeterminate questions, particularly wh-questions and yes-no questions, in Korean are ambiguous due to the limited morpho-syntactic markers in the sentence. The absence of these markers leaves two questions syntactically identical, leading to lexical ambiguity. The disambiguation of these two questions relies primarily on prosodic cues. Drawing from previous studies in the L1 Korean context, this study examines the intonation patterns of English learners of Korean in producing and perceiving wh-questions and yes-no questions and explores if there is any sign of L1 influence from English. Five English learners of Korean, who received formal instruction in Korean at a U.S. university, completed a production and perception test that consisted of 10 dialogues featuring ambiguous wh-indeterminate questions. Their speech was analyzed for prosodic features, such as pitch range, boundary tone, and accentual phrasing. The findings revealed that there was a significant variability in prosodic elements, with language proficiency markedly affecting pitch range. However, no consistent relationship was found among learners regarding accentual phrasing. The results of the study suggest that there is a complex interplay between proficiency and target-like prosody in second language acquisition

Various combinations of fibers and anodized aluminum

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Trust your instincts:The relationship between intuitive decision making and happiness

Epstein (1994; 2003) proposed that there are two cognitive information processing systems that operate in parallel: the intuitive thinking style and the rational thinking style. Decisional fit occurs when the preferred thinking style is applied to making a decision and research has shown that this fit increases the value of the outcome of a decision. Additionally, decisional fit leads to less regret, even when post hoc evaluations show the decision to be incorrect. It has not yet been determined whether decisional fit correlates with greater happiness and hence, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the difference between styles of thinking, styles of decision making and the impact of decisional fit on happiness scores. Individual differences in thinking and decision style were measured using an online interactive questionnaire (N = 100), and an ANOVA, hierarchical multiple regression, and a series of t-tests, were used to investigate the relationship between thinking style, decision style, decisional fit, and happiness, thereby addressing a gap in the existing literature. The major findings from the current study show that intuitive thinking has a strong positive correlation with happiness; that intuitive thinkers are more likely to utilize intuitive decisional style, than rational thinkers; and that when both rational and intuitive thinkers experienced decisional fit, higher ratings of happiness were reported. Explanations and recommendations for future studies are outlined in the discussion

Hodge ideals and spectrum of isolated hypersurface singularities

We introduce Hodge ideal spectrum for isolated hypersurface singularities to see the difference between the Hodge ideals and the microlocal $V$-filtration modulo the Jacobian ideal. Via the Tjurina subspectrum, we can compare the Hodge ideal spectrum with the Steenbrink spectrum which can be defined by the microlocal $V$-filtration. As a consequence of a formula of Mustata and Popa, these two spectra coincide in the weighted homogeneous case. We prove sufficient conditions for their coincidence and non-coincidence in some non-weighted-homogeneous cases where the defining function is semi-weighted-homogeneous or with non-degenerate Newton boundary in most cases. We also show that the convenience condition can be avoided in a formula of Zhang for the non-degenerate case, and present an example where the Hodge ideals are not weakly decreasing even modulo the Jacobian ideal.Comment: 29 page