No One Does Christmas Better

Postcard from Rhiannon Mathisen, during the Linfield College Semester Abroad Program at the University of Nottingham in Englan

Know all men by these presents: bonds, localism and politics in early Republican Mississippi

This article examines local politics in Mississippi during the early to mid-nineteenth century, by examining the bonds that officeholders were required to post to hold their positions in county government. The article argues that while states like Mississippi remain at the forefront of the history of American mass democracy, the existence of this election ritual paints a complicated picture of political practice. By requiring officeholders to post hundreds and even thousands of dollars to hold office, and by requiring that political friends vouch for them with their money and their reputations, bonds dampened democratic elections at every turn. In so doing, bonds suggest just some of the ways in which Americans practiced a much more complex politics than current paradigms allow

Clear Visual Separation of Temporal Event Sequences

Extracting and visualizing informative insights from temporal event sequences becomes increasingly difficult when data volume and variety increase. Besides dealing with high event type cardinality and many distinct sequences, it can be difficult to tell whether it is appropriate to combine multiple events into one or utilize additional information about event attributes. Existing approaches often make use of frequent sequential patterns extracted from the dataset, however, these patterns are limited in terms of interpretability and utility. In addition, it is difficult to assess the role of absolute and relative time when using pattern mining techniques. In this paper, we present methods that addresses these challenges by automatically learning composite events which enables better aggregation of multiple event sequences. By leveraging event sequence outcomes, we present appropriate linked visualizations that allow domain experts to identify critical flows, to assess validity and to understand the role of time. Furthermore, we explore information gain and visual complexity metrics to identify the most relevant visual patterns. We compare composite event learning with two approaches for extracting event patterns using real world company event data from an ongoing project with the Danish Business Authority.Comment: In Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE Symposium on Visualization in Data Science (VDS), 201

Video feedback in higher education - a contribution to improving the quality of written feedback

The purpose of this article is to promote the significance of feedback regarding students’ working with written texts in higher education and to point out how technology can develop the quality and form of teachers’ feedback. The results of studies and tests completed in eight separate subject areas demonstrate that video feedback simplifies and increases the efficiency of responding to students’ work, as it allows the opportunity to achieve increased levels of precision and quality in the feedback process. Students emphasize their learning dividend and the inspiration they experience from working with this format. They actively use their teacher’s comments and acquire a stronger emotional bond with him/her as well

Болезни поджелудочной железы

ДЕТИ, СЛУЖБЫ ОХРАНЫ ЗДОРОВЬЯПОДЖЕЛУДОЧНОЙ ЖЕЛЕЗЫ БОЛЕЗН

An in situ XAS study of the cobalt rhenium catalyst for ammonia synthesis

A cobalt rhenium catalyst active for ammonia synthesis at 400 °C and ambient pressure was studied using in situ XAS to elucidate the reducibility and local environment of the two metals during reaction conditions. The ammonia reactivity is greatly affected by the gas mixture used in the pre-treatment step. Following H2/Ar pre-treatment, a subsequent 20 min induction period is also observed before ammonia production occurs whereas ammonia production commences immediately following comparable H2/N2 pre-treatment. In situ XAS at the Co K-edge and Re LIII-edge show that cobalt initiates reduction, undergoing reduction between 225 and 300 °C, whereas reduction of rhenium starts at 300 °C. The reduction of rhenium is near complete below 400 °C, as also confirmed by H2-TPR measurements. A synergistic co-metal effect is observed for the cobalt rhenium system, as complete reduction of both cobalt and rhenium independently requires higher temperatures. The phases present in the cobalt rhenium catalyst during ammonia production following both pre-treatments are largely bimetallic Co–Re phases, and also monometallic Co and Re phases. The presence of nitrogen during the reduction step strongly promotes mixing of the two metals, and the bimetallic Co–Re phase is believed to be a pre-requisite for activity

Post IPO performance of private equity backed entities: empirical evidence of the Nordic market

Initial public offering of private equity backed entities has been a remarkably popular topic among financial scholars. The allure of growth potential and sophisticated corporate structures has gain private equity backed entities a special place in initial public offering theory. Underpricing and underperformance have been central topics on this research. Financial literature has proposed information asymmetries as the central theory explaining these phenomena. Empirical evidence has shown certification as a mechanism to ameliorate information asymmetry. Further research has confirmed the certification power of private equity sponsors by reducing the underpricing and underperformance of sponsored entities. However, there is evidence that suggests different levels of certification among two different classes of private equity backed firms, buyouts and venture capital firms. Based on information asymmetry theory and value adding mechanisms models, we contend that the certification power of buyout and venture capital firms will differ ultimately reflecting on different degrees of underpricing and underperformance. Using standard methodologies we test the different levels of underpricing and underperformance among buyout and venture capital backed firms. We construct a Nordic sample of private equity sponsored entities that became public within a time horizon of ten years between 1998 and 2008. The results show that for the first day of trading venture capital backed firms are overpriced by 1,1%, while buyouts backed firms show underpricing of 8,4%. Concordantly, in the long run venture capital backed firms tend to over perform buyout sponsored entities by an average of 1,3% per month. While underperformance results are in line with prior empirical evidence the underpricing findings seem to be contradictive. Our results pose additional questions regarding the certifying ability of private equity sponsors in addition to the specific characteristic of the Nordic Markets