Evaluation of interim sessions in state legislatures

Various authors have analyzed the work of state legislatures during the regular session; however, there is a noticeable void in the study of the functionality of the legislative process during the interim session. The interim session refers to the time span between regular legislative sessions, which varies in duration dependent on the state. It should not be deducted that the lack of research devoted to the interim session evaluation is because the legislative workload is dormant during this period. The findings of this paper support the concept that interim session activity merits evaluation since it is a contributing factor to the cyclical nature of the complete legislative process. Furthermore, the output from the interim session workload comprises a component of the legislative measures evaluated and passed by the legislative body during regular sessions. While this paper assumes the interim session activity serves a functional purpose, it begs the question of how the importance of the interim session can be understood without evaluating the functionality of the legislative activity that transpires during the interim, or the output of productivity derived from these meetings. The scope of this study, therefore, analyzes the activity of the interim session to establish an enhanced understanding of the process, decision making authority, and productivity of the work that is processed during the interim session. The primary research questions asked in the study are: How do state legislatures process their work during the interim? Furthermore, is the functionality of the interim workload utilized efficiently to produce an output of legislative measures that have a high passage rate? This study completes a fifty state comparative evaluation of the functionality of processing work during the interim. Initially determined is how legislatures structure their work during the interim by evaluating those attributes thought to contribute to the functionality of the process. Including variables related to session length and number of legislators will assist in the determination if any variation exists among the states\u27 interim processes. Secondly, the study evaluates the productivity of interim sessions through a case study on the five biennial state legislatures. The productivity of the interim session\u27s activity is evaluated by tracking the frequency of the interim committee meetings, output of recommendations by each committee that are introduced as legislative measures the succeeding regular session, and passage rate of those measures in comparison to non-interim derived legislation. Due to the dearth of prior research, the approach to this paper will be largely exploratory and explanatory; and hence is inductive

Multiple occupancy: A cause for concern

Abstract Not Provided

Numerical investigation into the combustion behavior of an inlet-fueled thermal-compression-like scramjet

A numerical study on the combustion behavior of an inlet-fueled three-dimensional nonuniform-compression scramjet is presented. This paper is an extension to previous work on the combustion processes in a premixed three-dimensional nonuniform-compression scramjet, where thermal compression was shown to enhance combustion. This paper demonstrates how thermal compression can be used in a generic scramjet configuration with a realistic fuel-injection method to enhance performance at high flight Mach numbers. Such a scramjet offers an extra degree of freedom in the design process of fixed-geometry scramjets that must operate over a range of flight Mach numbers. In this study, how the combustion processes are affected is investigated, with the added realism of inlet porthole fuel injection. Ignition is established from within a shock-induced boundary-layer separation at the entrance to the combustor. Radicals that form upstream of the combustor within the inlet, from the injection method, enhance combustion. Coupling of the inlet-induced spanwise gradients and thermal compression improves combustion. The results highlight that, although the fuel-injection method imparts local changes to the flow structures, the global flow behavior does not change compared to previous premixed results. This combustion behavior will be reproduced when using other fueling methods that deliver partially premixed fuel and air to the combustor entrance

Population Genetic Structure and Species Delimitation of a Widespread, Neotropical Dwarf Gecko

Amazonia harbors the greatest biological diversity on Earth. One trend that spans Amazonian taxa is that most taxonomic groups either exhibit broad geographic ranges or small restricted ranges. This is likely because many traits that determine a species range size, such as dispersal ability or body size, are autocorrelated. As such, it is rare to find groups that exhibit both large and small ranges. Once identified, however, these groups provide a powerful system for isolating specific traits that influence species distributions. One group of terrestrial vertebrates, gecko lizards, tends to exhibit small geographic ranges. Despite one exception, this applies to the Neotropical dwarf geckos of the genus Gonatodes. This exception, Gonatodes humeralis, has a geographic distribution almost 1,000,000 km2 larger than the combined ranges of its 30 congeners. As the smallest member of its genus and a gecko lizard more generally, G. humeralis is an unlikely candidate to be a wide-ranged Amazonian taxon. To test whether or not G. humeralis is one or more species, we generated molecular genetic data using restriction-site associated sequencing (RADseq) and traditional Sanger methods for samples from across its range and conducted a phylogeographic study. We conclude that G. humeralis is, in fact, a single species across its contiguous range in South America. Thus, Gonatodes is a unique clade among Neotropical taxa, containing both wide-ranged and range-restricted taxa, which provides empiricists with a powerful model system to correlate complex species traits and distributions. Additionally, we provide evidence to support species-level divergence of the allopatric population from Trinidad and we resurrect the name Gonatodes ferrugineus from synonymy for this population

The Continuum of Lens through Which Teachers View Cultural Differences: How Perceptions Impact Pedagogy

This paper describes a study conducted in a school district that experienced a significant shift in student demographics. As this shift parallels a national increase of immigrants in public schools, the study explored teachers’ perceptions of students’ cultural differences and how these differences impact their own pedagogy. The authors propose a Cultural Lens Continuum as a metaphorical heuristic structure for making meaning of the differing participating teachers’ views (i.e., microscopic, telescopic, panoramic, and holographic). This continuum aligns with existing research on culturally relevant pedagogy, in that the type of lens one possesses indicates the level of responsiveness to and adoption of culturally relevant pedagogy

For an Environmental Ethnography in Human and Physical Geography: Reenvisioning the Impacts and Opportunities of El Ni\uf1o in Peru

\ua9 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.In 2017 El Ni\uf1o Costero devastated the northern coast of Peru. This article seeks to learn from this experience for future large central and eastern Pacific-driven El Ni\uf1o events. It directs attention away from dominant disaster narratives to reflect on the opportunities that El Ni\uf1o rains have generated for desert livelihoods over time. We make a call for and set out the key elements of a historical geographical ethnography approach in environmental geography, which, as well as examining climate dimensions (paleoclimatology, dendrochronological, and atmospheric changes) of El Ni\uf1o, also aims to consider its impacts on the livelihoods and management strategies of desert communities over time. We take as a starting point the responses of people who themselves come directly into contact with environmental change, yet whose agency and experiences are often marginal in knowledge production about El Ni\uf1o. Responding to recent calls for qualitative geography researchers to be more explicit about how data are collected and analyzed, we explain how and why it is important to compare stakeholder interviews and climate records with newspaper archives and community memories of the 1983 and 1998 El Ni\uf1o events. We illustrate that for desert populations in northern Peru, El Ni\uf1o can represent abundance as well as disaster and make visible their role in managing change after El Ni\uf1o flooding

Exploring Health-Promoting Attributes of Plant Proteins as a Functional Ingredient for the Food Sector : A Systematic Review of Human Interventional Studies

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Mentoring of Dental and Dental Hygiene Faculty: A Case Study

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153712/1/jddj002203372011753tb05042x.pd

For an environmental ethnography in human and physical geography : re-envisioning the impacts and opportunities of El Niño in Peru

Funding: This work was supported by the Royal Society under Grant RG120575; the Natural and Environmental Research Council under Grant NE/R004528/1; the Scottish Funding Council under Grant SGS0-XFC090; and The Arts and Humanities Research Council under Grant AH/T004444/1AH.In 2017 El Niño Costero devastated the northern coast of Peru. This article seeks to learn from this experience for future large central and eastern Pacific-driven El Niño events. It directs attention away from dominant disaster narratives to reflect on the opportunities that El Niño rains have generated for desert livelihoods over time. We make a call for and set out the key elements of a historical geographical ethnography approach in environmental geography, which, as well as examining climate dimensions (paleoclimatology, dendrochronological, and atmospheric changes) of El Niño, also aims to consider its impacts on the livelihoods and management strategies of desert communities over time. We take as a starting point the responses of people who themselves come directly into contact with environmental change, yet whose agency and experiences are often marginal in knowledge production about El Niño. Responding to recent calls for qualitative geography researchers to be more explicit about how data are collected and analyzed, we explain how and why it is important to compare stakeholder interviews and climate records with newspaper archives and community memories of the 1983 and 1998 El Niño events. We illustrate that for desert populations in northern Peru, El Niño can represent abundance as well as disaster and make visible their role in managing change after El Niño flooding.Peer reviewe