Essential Immigration Policy Reform: Reinventing the National Interest Waiver

Reasoned immigration policy has the power to positively influence the economy by supporting innovation, creating jobs, and advancing research and development; one such device to accomplish such economic goals is utilizing the National Interest Waiver (NIW). Under section 203(b)(2)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), congress provided a path to a green card for non-citizens with advanced degrees or exceptional ability without employer sponsorship if their admission is in the national interest: This is known as the National Interest Waiver. This paper aims to discover the best ways to clarify the NIWs standards in its adjudication and to explore how employing the NIW will lead to economic benefits in its invocation. In 2014, the former United States Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, directed the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to clarify standards for issuing the NIW with the “aim to promote its greater use for the benefit of the U.S. economy.” This has yet to be done as the data suggests that the NIW remains an underutilized tool to promote research and development in the U.S. This paper argues that a calculated immigration policy that puts the NIW to greater use will advance the economy for the benefit of all Americans. Immigration policy is a highly polarizing topic in today’s political climate. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the NIW is widely accepted among different political groups, and this could be a productive start to comprehensive immigration reform

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702: The Good, The Bad, and a Proposal to Make it Less Ugly

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) has been controversial since its inception. Created to allow intelligence collection against targeted foreign persons, electronic surveillance under Section 702 casts a wide net, often capturing communications sent to or by United States persons. Opponents point to the invasion of privacy such collection presents, and to the well-documented abuse and biased use of Section 702 data against U.S. citizens. This Note argues that despite this, Section 702 is a vital tool in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking and the case against Section 702 is weaker than it appears. This Note offers a minor revision to Section 702 that would address many of the privacy concerns found in Section 702 while preserving the ability of the intelligence agencies to effectively use the collected data

Karel Husa\u27s Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Concert Band: a Performer\u27s Analysis.

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Concert Band by Karel Husa is regarded as one of the great wind concertos of the 20th century. It is an atonal composition with an unusual and complex rhythmic language. In and of itself analysis is a creative and intellectual endeavor. It also can give the performer a deeper understanding of the piece so that he or she can give a better performance. This paper is the first analysis of Husa\u27s concerto to use Allen Forte\u27s set theory method of melodic and harmonic analysis. The rhythm analysis is unique in that it recognizes the philosophical nature of Husa\u27s rhythmic ideas and his intent to compose with a new means of rhythmic expression, namely a dialectic approach to meter and pulse. There is a push and pull against an often underlying and obscured pulse and meter. Rhythmic ideas are not always grouped in a regularly recurring strong-weak beat pattern of traditional meter. Melodic and harmonic analysis using set theory has revealed that pitch material is unified by set class 4-5 (0126) from the opening motive presented in the Prologue. Changes in pitch collections both melodically and harmonically correspond with changes in rhythm, dynamic, and orchestration and often help to articulate the form

The Effect of Different Monetary Regimes on Cointegration of the Term Structure: Evidence for Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom

This thesis examines monthly eurodeposit rates for the short-end of term structure as a cointegrated system of the term structure of interest rates, for Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kindom during the period 1975-1990. The countries monetary regimes are examined in order to find sample periods that reflect changes in policies, in order to determine if the policies affect the cointegration results. The cointegration testing procedure of Johansen and Juselius is employed. The results found support for the expectation theory of the term structure when the countries focus on exchange rate or interest rates, and rejects the expectation theory when the focus is placed upon targeting a monetary aggregate

Ground Penetrating Radar Investigations on the Relationship between Horizontal Sub-wavelength ‘Thin-layer’ Bedrock Fractures and Reflection Amplitudes

Several theoretical equations that predict sub-wavelength ‘thin-layer’ reflection amplitudes are compared to the results of a series of controlled ground penetrating radar surveys using 1 GHz transducers over a physical model of a horizontal bedrock fracture. Two large plastic (UHMW-PE) blocks, separated by one or more stacked inserts (polyethylene; ~0.1 mm thick) for a total of 101 surveys, generate a modeled fracture with an aperture ranging from 0-300 mm. All existing theoretical reflection coefficient equations fail to predict observed reflection amplitude oscillations in the data when the fracture aperture is less than 1/48 of a wavelength. The only theoretical formulation to properly predict any significant aspect of the fracture EM reflectivity is the Widess equation; however, the best fit only occurs where aperture sizes are less than 1/16, not 1/8 of the wavelength as predicted. Thermal expansion and temperature fluctuations do not sufficiently account for the oscillations. The influence of salinity on a water-filled sub-wavelength constant aperture (5 mm) fracture using 1 GHz antennas is also investigated. Results indicate that at this frequency, the reflection amplitude has a slight negative correlation with changes in salinity from 0-5700 mS/m

Positive about parents

Paper presented to the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care Annual Conference, 2009: 'Seeing the whole picture: working in partnership to enhance the lives of children looked after away from home

Increasing leaf hydraulic conductance with transpiration rate minimizes the water potential drawdown from stem to leaf.

Leaf hydraulic conductance (k leaf) is a central element in the regulation of leaf water balance but the properties of k leaf remain uncertain. Here, the evidence for the following two models for k leaf in well-hydrated plants is evaluated: (i) k leaf is constant or (ii) k leaf increases as transpiration rate (E) increases. The difference between stem and leaf water potential (ΔΨstem-leaf), stomatal conductance (g s), k leaf, and E over a diurnal cycle for three angiosperm and gymnosperm tree species growing in a common garden, and for Helianthus annuus plants grown under sub-ambient, ambient, and elevated atmospheric CO₂ concentration were evaluated. Results show that for well-watered plants k leaf is positively dependent on E. Here, this property is termed the dynamic conductance, k leaf(E), which incorporates the inherent k leaf at zero E, which is distinguished as the static conductance, k leaf(0). Growth under different CO₂ concentrations maintained the same relationship between k leaf and E, resulting in similar k leaf(0), while operating along different regions of the curve owing to the influence of CO₂ on g s. The positive relationship between k leaf and E minimized variation in ΔΨstem-leaf. This enables leaves to minimize variation in Ψleaf and maximize g s and CO₂ assimilation rate over the diurnal course of evaporative demand

What Does That Mean? Investigating Obfuscation and Readability Cues as Indicators of Deception in Fraudulent Financial Reports

Building on theories of obfuscation and deception from accounting and communication literature, we examined 202 fraudulent and non-fraudulent 10-Ks by focusing on 25 linguistic cues. Our findings suggest that authors of fraudulent 10-Ks chose more complex words, signaling words of achievement and cause, and qualifying conjunctions. We found that truthful 10-Ks displayed more present tense verbs and were easier to read as indicated by the FRE readability measure. Those who construct 10-Ks may choose to deceive strategically by hiding bad news in more complicated content while trumpeting good news and achievements

Rates of climatic niche evolution are correlated with species richness in a large and ecologically diverse radiation of songbirds

By employing a recently inferred phylogeny and museum occurrence records, we examine the relationship of ecological niche evolution to diversification in the largest family of songbirds, the tanagers (Thraupidae). We test whether differences in species numbers in the major clades of tanagers can be explained by differences in rate of climatic niche evolution. We develop a methodological pipeline to process and filter occurrence records. We find that, of the ecological variables examined, clade richness is higher in clades with higher climatic niche rate, and that this rate is also greater for clades that occupy a greater extent of climatic space. Additionally, we find that more speciose clades contain species with narrower niche breadths, suggesting that clades in which species are more successful at diversifying across climatic gradients have greater potential for speciation or are more buffered from the risk of extinction.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111277/1/ele12422.pd