Information Systems in Non-Profit Organizations: Enhancing Performance Through Online Help

The purpose of this dissertation is to focus attention on the problems which non-profit organizations face in dealing with employee dissatisfaction and turnover among clerical staff whose principal responsibility is data entry. To address the problem, a presentation on the background, a discussion of the managerial and information systems implications, and an end-user needs assessment culminated in the development of an online help system for an IDM AS/400-based membership management package. The system enables the data entry staff to easily locate the answers to most of their commonly asked questions without leaving their workstation, thus reducing the need for as well as the cost of attendance at formal training programs. It also serves to improve the self-esteem of these employees, as they gain confidence in being able to address their own problems rather than continually calling the information systems department or asking their supervisor for assistance

High value timber composite panels from hardwood plantation thinnings.

Identifying processing strategies and products that suit young plantation hardwoods has proved challenging with low product recoveries and/or unmarketable products being the outcome of many trials. The production of rotary veneer has been demonstrated as an effective method for converting plantation hardwood trees. Across nine processing studies that included six different plantation species (Dunn’s white gum, spotted gum, Gympie messmate, spotted gum hybrid, red mahogany and western white gum), simple spindleless lathe technology was used to process 914 veneer billets totally 37.4 m3

High value timber composite panels from hardwood plantation thinnings.

Identifying processing strategies and products that suit young plantation hardwoods has proved challenging with low product recoveries and/or unmarketable products being the outcome of many trials. The production of rotary veneer has been demonstrated as an effective method for converting plantation hardwood trees. Across nine processing studies that included six different plantation species (Dunn’s white gum, spotted gum, Gympie messmate, spotted gum hybrid, red mahogany and western white gum), simple spindleless lathe technology was used to process 914 veneer billets totally 37.4 m3

Book Reviews

Science of Legal Method. Select Essays by Various Authors. Translation by Ernest Bruncken, Washington, D. C. and Layton B. Register of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. With Introductions by Henry N. Sheldon, Former justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and by John W. Salmond, Solicitor General of New Zealand. Boston: The Boston Book Company, I917; pp. lxxxvi, 593

Note and Comment

Epithetical Jurisprudence and the Annexation of Fixtures - If we begin with all the facts of a controversy and proceed inductively to determine the rights of the parties litigant, we thus arrive at a jurisprudence of rights, whereas, if we reason deductively from a rule, a definition, or a maxim of law to its application in the facts of our case, we can at best attain only a jurisprudence of rules, which has been so aptly characterized as an epithetical jurisprudence. The subject of fixtures is one in which we have great difficulty in applying the inductive method because the courts have been slower in approaching the subject scientifically in this field of the law than in others

Content wizard: Concept-based recommender system for instructors of programming courses

Authoring an adaptive educational system is a complex process that involves allocating a large range of educational content within a fixed sequence of units. In this paper, we describe Content Wizard, a concept-based recommender system for recommending learning materials that meet the instructor's pedagogical goals during the creation of an online programming course. Here, the instructors are asked to provide a set of code examples that jointly re.ect the learning goals that are associated with each course unit. The Wizard is built on top of our course-authoring tool, and it helps to decrease the time instructors spend on the task and to maintain the coherence of the sequential structure of the course. It also provides instructors with additional information to identify content that might be not appropriate for the unit they are creating. We conducted an o.- line study with data collected from an introductory Java course previously taught at the University of Pittsburgh in order to evaluate both the practicality and effectiveness of the system. We found that the proposed recommendation's performance is relatively close to the teacher's expectation in creating a computer-based adaptive course

Book Reviews

It was peculiarly fortunate for the cause of the American Revolution that the sympathies of the French people and the policies of the French foreign office which knew no diplomatic methods save those of secret diplomacy, were for once heartily in accord in support of the American revolutionists. Professor Corwin in this book deals entirely with the complicated and obscure political plots and counter-plots which eventually led France to espouse openly the cause of the revolting colonies. The whole question of the timely aid France gave to America has, of course, a very particular value at the present time when this country is preparing to repay the debt we have owed France for so long. That the.author does not deal with the social conditions and the sympathic temper of the French people, which in a real sense underlay the action of France, but confines himself wholly to hante politique does not in any sense take away from the value of his work. He reveals a new side to this very interesting phase in our contest for independence, at least one that will be new to those who are not deeply read in American history. The tendency heretofore has been to emphasize the popular and moral support of the French people and to overlook the political reasons which led to the action of the king and his ministers. The author has throughout relied upon the monumental researches of Doniol and has carefully fortified every point by copious references and quotations

Recent Legal Literature

Noyes: American Railroad Rates; Meyer: Railway Legislation in the United States; Diccy: Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century; Page: Law of Contracts; Camp: The Encyclopaedia of Evidence; Clement: Fire Insurance as a Void Conttract and as Affected by Construction and Waiver of Estoppel, including miscellaneous provisions and an analysis and comparison of the various standard forms, all reduced to rules with the relevant statutory provisions of all the states. Volume II.; Woodruff: A Selection of Cases on Domestic Relations and the Law of Persons; Kinkead: Jurisprudence Law and Ethics; Schouler: Law of the Domestic Relations Embracing Husband and Wife, Parent and Child, Fuardian and Ward, Infancy and Master and Servant; Hoyt (ed.): Report of the Colorado Bar Association. Volume 8