An Examination of Mississippi Gulf Coast Casino Management Styles with Implications for Employee Turnover

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of casino employees on management styles and the relationship of these perceptions on the employee turnover rate. The sample consisted of a balanced representation of supervisory and nonsupervisory employees. Supervisors tended to perceive themselves and their managerial style in a much move favorable light than did their employees. Future research should continue to address issues of employee retention in the casino industry and adopt strategies that can retain valuable employees while reducing employee turnover costs. Human resource development processes should support managerial styles that facilitate collaborative decision making and participative learning opportunities throughout the organization

Modeling and Simulation of Thermo-Fluid-Electrochemical Ion Flow in Biological Channels

In this article we address the study of ion charge transport in the biological channels separating the intra and extracellular regions of a cell. The focus of the investigation is devoted to including thermal driving forces in the well-known velocity-extended Poisson-Nernst-Planck (vPNP) electrodiffusion model. Two extensions of the vPNP system are proposed: the velocity-extended Thermo-Hydrodynamic model (vTHD) and the velocity-extended Electro-Thermal model (vET). Both formulations are based on the principles of conservation of mass, momentum and energy, and collapse into the vPNP model under thermodynamical equilibrium conditions. Upon introducing a suitable one-dimensional geometrical representation of the channel, we discuss appropriate boundary conditions that depend only on effectively accessible measurable quantities. Then, we describe the novel models, the solution map used to iteratively solve them, and the mixed-hybrid flux-conservative stabilized finite element scheme used to discretize the linearized equations. Finally, we successfully apply our computational algorithms to the simulation of two different realistic biological channels: 1) the Gramicidin-A channel considered in~\cite{JeromeBPJ}; and 2) the bipolar nanofluidic diode considered in~\cite{Siwy7}

Energy Models for One-Carrier Transport in Semiconductor Devices

Moment models of carrier transport, derived from the Boltzmann equation, made possible the simulation of certain key effects through such realistic assumptions as energy dependent mobility functions. This type of global dependence permits the observation of velocity overshoot in the vicinity of device junctions, not discerned via classical drift-diffusion models, which are primarily local in nature. It was found that a critical role is played in the hydrodynamic model by the heat conduction term. When ignored, the overshoot is inappropriately damped. When the standard choice of the Wiedemann-Franz law is made for the conductivity, spurious overshoot is observed. Agreement with Monte-Carlo simulation in this regime required empirical modification of this law, or nonstandard choices. Simulations of the hydrodynamic model in one and two dimensions, as well as simulations of a newly developed energy model, the RT model, are presented. The RT model, intermediate between the hydrodynamic and drift-diffusion model, was developed to eliminate the parabolic energy band and Maxwellian distribution assumptions, and to reduce the spurious overshoot with physically consistent assumptions. The algorithms employed for both models are the essentially non-oscillatory shock capturing algorithms. Some mathematical results are presented and contrasted with the highly developed state of the drift-diffusion model

Differential Conductance Measurements of MgB2-Based Josephson Junctions Below 1 Kelvin

Magnesium diboride has many intriguing characteristics, including its relatively high critical temperature and two-band nature. Most prior studies of MgB2 thin film Josephson junctions have been conducted above 2 Kelvin. We report results of sub-1 Kelvin experiments of MgB2/insulator/Pb junctions whose a-b plane is exposed for electron tunneling. By measuring differential conductance at low temperature, new details in the structure of the sigma- and pi-band gaps are observed in this data, consistent with theoretical predictions.Comment: ASC 2010 Conferenc

Linkages between U.S Cross-border Portfolio Equity Flows and Equity Markets

There is an ongoing debate over the role that equity markets play in determining and influencing international equity flows. The first chapter of this dissertation describes the large portfolio equity flows into China and India, in order to understand the buying behavior of US investors. The rapid growth of the Chinese and Indian economies, coupled with the recent development and liberalization of their financial markets has attracted significant portfolio investment from U.S. investors. It is commonly assumed that domestic investors have an informational advantage over foreign investors; however, some recent empirical literature has questioned this assumption. Essay one dissects the nature of the relationship between foreign equity flows, equity returns, and related variables. The results of my empirical investigation provides evidence that U.S. institutional investors are making investment decisions based on long-run determinants of value rather than responding to price signals or ‘chasing returns\u27. I anticipate that the strong relationship between equity flows and fundamentals will strengthen as information asymmetries decline and US investors continue to develop more sophisticated methods of assessing underlying value in China and India. The second essay of this dissertation explores a new panel data set based on US gross cross-border equity flows to 20 industrialized nations combined with measures of market valuation for the period of 1977-2005. Empirical evidence of imperfect integration across world equity markets indicates that valuation matters. Consistent with relative value trading as a determinant of equity flow patterns, I find that equity flows decrease sharply with host-country market valuations—in particular the component of valuation that is forecasted to revert the following year. I also find that equity flows increase sharply with US equity market valuations. These results suggest the existence of a valuation channel for cross-border equity flows. The findings of this chapter show that US investors are informed about both domestic markets and foreign markets. Peripheral findings of this essay confirm the findings of other researches, but with a longer sample period. Consistent with existing literature, I find a negative influence of interest rates spreads, and information asymmetries on cross-border trade in equities