Book Review - The Black Swan (Random House, New York, 2007, 366 pages (hardback) ISBN 978-1-4000-6351-2)

‘Before the discovery of Australia’, the book commences, ‘people in the Old World were convinced that all swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence’. The purpose of this book is to reinforce to those of us who are quantitative in our professions that sometimes a single point of data is all that is needed to disprove a long held theory – and remind us that a sample of any number of white swans does not prove the absence of black ones. ... James Dick

School/Business Partnerships

Business involvement in Nebraska schools has increased in recent years. This chapter compares types of school/business partnerships, explores their applications, and identifies models appropriate to Nebraska school districts and communities

Exploring the Potential of the Web-Based Virtual World of Second Life to Improve Substance Abuse Treatment Outcomes

Provides an overview of Second Life, an Internet-based virtual world, and summarizes discussions among addiction recovery experts about integrating virtual reality into behavioral treatment as a way to teach patients new responses to real environments

Storage dynamics in hydropedological units control hillslope connectivity, runoff generation, and the evolution of catchment transit time distributions

Acknowledgments We thank the European Research Council (ERC; project GA 335910 VEWA) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; project NE/K000268/1) for funding. We would like to thank Konrad Piegat for invaluable help with the fieldwork. Iain Malcolm and staff at Marine Scotland (Pitlochry) are also thanked for the provision of data from the AWS. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Mapping expert perspectives of the aviation sector

Aviation globally is characterised by significant change and consequently the future of the sector has always been difficult to predict. This study adopts a systemic approach based on findings from exploratory interviews with UK aviation academics to: determine the roles of stakeholders in the air transport system; report the current issues facing the sector; explore how these issues interact and impact on the stakeholders in the system; and speculate on the future implications. Six core stakeholders are identified: airlines, airports, consumers, manufacturers, governing institutions and interest groups. Nine core issues are reported, namely: local environment, climate change, peak oil, the state of the economy, social norms, demographics, disruptive events, national (or international) regulations and capacity. A matrix of interactions and their impacts and implications for managing the aviation system is then presented

Life cycle cost based program decisions

The following subject areas are covered: background (space propulsion facility assessment team final report); changes (Advanced Launch System, National Aerospace Plane, and space exploration initiative); life cycle cost analysis rationale; and recommendation to panel

Cockpit Ocular Recording System (CORS)

The overall goal was the development of a Cockpit Ocular Recording System (CORS). Four tasks were used: (1) the development of the system; (2) the experimentation and improvement of the system; (3) demonstrations of the working system; and (4) system documentation. Overall, the prototype represents a workable and flexibly designed CORS system. For the most part, the hardware use for the prototype system is off-the-shelf. All of the following software was developed specifically: (1) setup software that the user specifies the cockpit configuration and identifies possible areas in which the pilot will look; (2) sensing software which integrates the 60 Hz data from the oculometer and heat orientation sensing unit; (3) processing software which applies a spatiotemporal filter to the lookpoint data to determine fixation/dwell positions; (4) data recording output routines; and (5) playback software which allows the user to retrieve and analyze the data. Several experiments were performed to verify the system accuracy and quantify system deficiencies. These tests resulted in recommendations for any future system that might be constructed

Memorial of the Applicant

TesisCon los objetivos fijados para esta investigación en ESTUDIANTES DEL INSTITUTO DE EDUCACION SUPERIOR TECNOLOGICO PUBLICO SANTOS VILLALOBOS HUAMÁN, Se formaron dos grupos de 10 estudiantes cada uno; el grupo A (Grupo Control), no se le administró el paquete instruccional de educación ambiental basado en los siete saberes de la educación para el futuro y al grupo B (Grupo Experimental), se le administró a cada estudiante el paquete instruccional; antes de empezar el trabajo y al final del mismo se le aplicó una prueba objetiva de 40 peguntas en la escala vigesimal de cero a veinte. El efecto del estímulo; (el paquete instruccional) se midió según el calificativo alcanzado. Para la recolección de datos del proceso se utilizaron hojas de registro, de participación en el desarrollo del curso de educación ambiental, de asistencia a las evaluaciones y de intervenciones destacadas. Se generaron tablas y gráficos en la hoja de cálculo Excel del Microsoft Office 2007, El tratamiento estadístico de los datos fue realizado con la prueba del ANOVA utilizando el paquete computacional SPSS (Paquete Estadístico para las Ciencias Sociales). Se concluyo que: 1. Los módulos Educación ambiental en la educación intercultural y Los siete saberes de Edgar Morin, administrados a estudiantes de las especialidades de enfermería técnica, producción agropecuaria y de administración de empresas del Instituto de Educación Superior Tecnológico Público “Santos Villalobos Huamán permitió determinar la alta eficiencia de las estrategias didácticas para la total comprensión de la educación ambiental y de Los Siete Saberes de Edgar Morín.2. Los resultados de las evaluaciones en el pre test y post test en el grupo control no mostraron diferencia estadística significativa. 3. Los resultados de las investigaciones pre test y post test en el grupo experimental si mostraron diferencias estadísticas significativas y 17,6 para el saber uno; 19,6 para el saber dos; 18 para el saber cuatro; 15,2 para el saber cinco; 19,6 para el saber seis y 17,2 para el saber siete. 4. En el grupo experimental para Educación Ambiental en escala vigesimal la mayor nota fue de 14 mientras que en el post test del grupo control fue 13,6