Self-Evaluation of Black and White College Students

A major issue in the social psychology of race relations has been the axiom that blacks tend to manifest lower self-esteem than whites.[1] Much of the empirical support for this hypothesis came from studies demonstrating that blacks are stigmatized and subjected to a variety of unpleasant and derogatory experiences.[2] However, these studies are limited in two respects: first, by their use of small, nonrepresentative samples (primarily nursery school and kindergarten children) and second, by their reliance upon inferential (semi-projective) measures of self-esteem.[3

LINKING LAND QUALITY, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY, AND FOOD SECURITY

Land quality and land degradation affect agricultural productivity, but quantifying these relationships has been difficult. Data are limited, and impacts are sensitive to the choices that farmers make. Summarizing new research by economists, soil scientists, and geographers, this report explores the extent to which land quality and land degradation affect agricultural productivity, how farmers' responses to land degradation are influenced by economic, environmental, and institutional factors, and whether land degradation poses a threat to productivity growth and food security. Results suggest that land degradation does not threaten food security at the global scale, but does pose problems in areas where soils are fragile, property rights are insecure, and farmers have limited access to information and markets.Land quality, land degradation, soil erosion, agricultural productivity, food security, Food Security and Poverty, Land Economics/Use, Productivity Analysis,

Admiralty Litigation In Perpetuum: The Continuing Saga of Package Litigation and Third World Delivery Problems

Certain admiralty cargo issues are litigated frequently, often in search of a magical test which will preclude all further litigation. Three such issues are package limitations, the burden of proving the condition and quantity of cargo stowed within containers, and the point at which the ocean carrier delivers cargo at discharge and thus completes its duties under the contract of carriage. Despite the frequency with which these issues have been litigated, significant disagreement remains among the circuit courts as to their proper resolution. This article will examine the current state of judicial uncertainty in these areas and the indications given by the courts as the positions most likely to be adopted in the future

Tools for monitoring and controlling distributed applications

The Meta system is a UNIX-based toolkit that assists in the construction of reliable reactive systems, such as distributed monitoring and debugging systems, tool integration systems and reliable distributed applications. Meta provides mechanisms for instrumenting a distributed application and the environment in which it executes, and Meta supplies a service that can be used to monitor and control such an instrumented application. The Meta toolkit is built on top of the ISIS toolkit; they can be used together in order to build fault-tolerant and adaptive, distributed applications

Decay of Z into Three Pseudoscalar Bosons

We consider the decay of the $Z$ boson into three pseudoscalar bosons in a general two-Higgs-doublet model. Assuming $m_A$ to be very small, and that of the two physical neutral scalar bosons $h_1$ and $h_2$, $A$ only couples to $Z$ through $h_1$, we find the $Z \to A A A$ branching fraction to be negligible for moderate values of $\tan \beta \equiv v_2/v_1$, if there is no $\lambda_5 (\Phi_1^\dagger \Phi_2)^2 + h.c.$ term in the Higgs potential; otherwise there is no absolute bound but very large quartic couplings (beyond the validity of perturbation theory) are needed for it to be observable.Comment: 8 pages including 1 fi