Organizing digital music for use: an examination of personal music collections

Current research on music information retrieval and music digital libraries focuses on providing access to huge, public music collections. In this paper we consider a different, but related, problem: supporting an individual in maintaining and using a personal music collection. We analyze organization and access techniques used to manage personal music collections (primarily CDs and MP3 files), and from these behaviors, to suggest user behaviors that should be supported in a personal music digital library (that is, a digital library of an individual's personal music collection)

Required Rates of Return for Corporate Investment Appraisal in the Presence of Growth Opportunities

Traditional methods of estimating required rates of return overstate hurdle rates in the presence of growth opportunities. We attempt to quantify this effect by developing a simple model which: (i) identifies those companies that have valuable growth opportunities; (ii) splits the value of shares into 'assets-in-place' and 'growth opportunities'; and (iii) splits the equity β into β for 'assets-in-place' and 'growth opportunities'. We find growth opportunities for UK companies over the 1990–2004 period to average 33% of equity value. Incorporating the effect of growth opportunities, the average cost of capital for investment purposes falls by 1.1 percentage points

The impact and outcomes of the implementation of the Wakefield Birth Centre

In today’s western society childbirth takes place mainly in hospital settings and is under the control of doctors (Kirkham, 2003). More recently there have been concerns about increasingly high caesarean section rates (ref), the decreasing number of practising midwives (Ball et al. 2002) and the worryingly small number of women experiencing a natural birth (Page, 2003). Maternity services at The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust provide for a social, cultural and ethnically diverse community and manage 3,600 births per year. Following reconfiguration in February 2002, including the relocation of hospital maternity services, the trust decided to implement some of the Department of Health’s Action Plan and open a standalone Birth Centre in Wakefield. Birth centres are facilities that provide individualised and family centred maternity care, with an emphasis on skilled, sensitive and respectful midwifery care. They provide a relaxed and informal environment where women are encouraged to labour at their own pace. Birth Centres seek to promote physiological childbirth by recognising, respecting and safeguarding normal birth processes. This philosophy enables women and their families to experience a positive start to parenthood (Shallow, 2001, Kirkham, 2003). Midwives are also able to practise “real midwifery” (Kirkham, 2003, p.14). The overall aim of this research was therefore to evaluate the impact and outcomes of the implementation of the Wakefield Birth Centre. The research was funded by the Centre for Health and Social Care Research (CHSCR) at the University of Huddersfield. Ethical advice was sought through School Research and Ethics Panel (SREP) at the university of Huddersfield and ethical approval was granted by the Local Research Ethics Committee (LREC) and the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust Research and Development

Creation of a Diabetic Health Literacy Program

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Digital libraries for creative communities

Digital library technologies have a great deal to offer to creative, design communities. They can enable large collections of text, images, music, video and other information objects to be organised and accessed in interesting and diverse ways. Ordinary people—people not traditionally viewed as 'creators' or 'designers'—can now conceive, assemble, build, and disseminate new information collections. This paper explores the development rationale behind the Greenstone digital library technology. We also examine three examples of creative new techniques for accessing and presenting information in digital libraries and stress the importance of tailoring information access to support the requirements of the users and application area

Identity Crisis: Understanding How American Males’ Self-Perception and Experiences Impact Their Educational Attainment

If you google African American males, the top results include the following words and phrases: poverty, incarceration, locked out of employment, struggle in the classroom, and high school incompletion. Likewise, research continues to show that disadvantages in education and in African American communities are responsible for many Black males’ poor academic achievement and social outcomes. However, there is one key element missing from majority of the research on Black males, their perspectives. This dissertation addresses how the personal and educational experiences of low-income African American males, who dropped out of school, influenced their self-perceptions and decision regarding their educational attainment. It brings awareness to conditions that have historically affected how Black males perceived themselves and their lack of educational attainment. Three major themes emerged from data collection: parental interaction, school climate and culture, and limited resources and opportunities for educational and social advancement