CAN STRUCTURAL CHANGE EXPLAIN THE DECREASE IN RETURNS TO TECHNICAL ANALYSIS?

Practioners Abstract: Returns to managed futures funds and Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs) have decreased dramatically during the last several years. Since these funds overwhelmingly use technical analysis, this research examines futures prices to determine if there is evidence of a structural change in futures price movements that could explain the reduction in fund returns. Bootstrap tests are used to test significance of a change in statistics related to daily returns, close-to-open changes, breakaway gaps, and serial correlation. Results indicate that several statistics have changed across a broad range of commodities indicating futures price fluctuations have changed. The lower price volatility, decreased price reaction time, and decreased serial correlation may partly explain the lower returns from technical analysis.Marketing,

Microcomputer Software for Kindergarten and Early Childhood Education

Effective microcomputer software resources tor early childhood education are available, but the intormationneeded to locate them and put them to work is not readily accessible to the majority of early childhood teachers. This study identifies and evaluates sources of information on microcomputer software and provides a partial listing of appropriate software which is ava1lable, along with partial listings ot courseware publishers and publications carrying information onm1crocomputer software. Criteria tor self-evaluation of courseware are suggested and recommendations are made tor insuring accessibility of resources to teachers within a school system

Modelling of inhomogeneous magnetic fields in electromagnetic devices

Modelling complex electromagnetic devices incorporating inhomogeneous magnetic fields typically requires computationally intensive solutions based on numerical methods. Simple magnetic path problems are often solved using less computationally intensive analytical techniques such as equivalent circuit approximations. Deciding upon which model to use depends on device complexity and involves a tradeoff between accuracy and computational efficiency. By expanding upon existing magnetic circuit theory, considering stored magnetic energy and vector analysis, it is possible to use magnetic circuit analysis to accurately model complex electromagnetic devices. The focus on energy facilitates the ability to incorporate inhomogeneous magnetic fields into magnetic circuit analysis that would traditionally require the use of numerical methods. This thesis derives closed form equations to describe electromagnetic device characteristics for a toroid, solenoid and a case study induction machine. By considering stored magnetic field energy, this approach allows the relationship between electrical, magnetic and kinetic energy to be quantified and analyzed in ways that allows improved accuracy compared with conventional magnetic circuit modeling methods. This thesis also provides insights into how geometric parameters impact energy transfer and operational characteristics of electromagnetic devices

Beyond "It Gets Better:" utilizing seminary student affairs professionals to support millennial seminarians through crises of faith

Seminarians’ existential crises of faith are often-experienced but little-studied. Through surveys of Millennial MDiv students (n=30) and seminary Student Affairs and Student Services Professionals (SASSPs) (n=44), this study suggests crises of faith are fundamental to MDiv students’ spiritual formation, mirroring the pattern of Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory model (TLT). TLT also undergirds secular Student Affairs, where SASSPs regularly provide co-curricular “student learning” support. This study recommends training seminary SASSPs to be similarly-utilized within theological education, which would require resources for professional development from both their institutions and the Association of Theological Schools. Implications for multi-cultural theological education are also discussed

Prioritising the care of critically ill children: a pilot study using SCREEN reduces clinic waiting times

Objective In low-resource settings, childhood mortality secondary to delays in triage and treatment remains high. This paper seeks to evaluate the impact of the novel Sick Children Require Emergency Evaluation Now (SCREEN) tool on the waiting times of critically ill children who present for care to primary healthcare clinics in Cape Town, South Africa. Methods We used a pre/postevaluation study design to calculate the median waiting times of all children who presented to four randomly chosen clinics for 5 days before, and 5 days after, the implementation of SCREEN. Findings The SCREEN programme resulted in statistical and clinically significant reductions in waiting times for children with critical illness to see a professional nurse (2 hours 45 min to 1 hour 12 min; p<0.001). There was also a statistically significant reduction in the proportion of children who left without being seen by a professional nurse (25.8% to 18.48%; p<0.001). Conclusions SCREEN is a novel programme that uses readily available laypersons, trained to make a subjective assessment of children arriving at primary healthcare centres, and provides a low cost, simple methodology to prioritise children and reduce waiting times in low-resource healthcare clinics

Knowledge management sans frontières

Knowledge management is a topic that crosses borders of various kinds, such as those between departments, between organisations or between countries. In this paper we will consider various issues relating to knowledge management, in the context where more than one department/organisation/country is involved. To do this, we place an emphasis on knowledge management as a process, rather than as an organisational system or, worse, as a piece of technology. This process involves trust, negotiation—and indeed some technological support. In this paper we wish to introduce the concept of ‘triangles of trust’, and to focus on where ‘the top meets the bottom’ in terms of knowledge management and organisational learning. Partial examples will be offered in support of our views, but no full and complete examples—knowledge management simply is not well enough understood or documented for that yet. Our overall conclusion is that there is no one best way to “do” knowledge management, but there are principles that ought to be applied

Brief Studies

The Lutheran Church as Evaluated by a Searcher An Outsider Comes in and Looks Bac