Assessing Undergraduate Business Degree Outcomes: A Comparison Of Two Universities

The importance of outcomes assessment has produced innovative course developments and resulted in enhanced Capstone educational experiences for undergraduate students at both universities.  This collaborative paper compares the evolution and outcomes assessment of the Capstone business course as a fundamental component of the business curriculum, discusses initiatives to provide even greater educational opportunities for students, assessing effectively over the continuum, and keeping the courses current to the university and business environments

What Should A BBA Graduate Be Able To Do?: These Competencies Are Essential

University Schools of Business Administration are continually responding to the demands of stakeholders concerning the quality of the education embodied in the Bachelor of Business Administration degree.  This collaborative paper discusses the competencies that are considered essential from the viewpoint of four stakeholders:  accrediting agencies, faculty/administration, employers, and students/graduates.  The authors present and support their views on competencies—identifying, achieving, assessing, and maintaining currency—in preparing future business leaders.&nbsp

Belief revision in a micro-social network:Modeling sensitivity to statistical dependencies in social learning

In both professional domains and everyday life, people mustintegrate their own experience with reports from social networkpeers to form and update their beliefs. It is therefore importantto understand to what extent people accommodate the statis-tical dependencies that give rise to correlated belief reportsin social networks. We investigate adults’ ability to integratesocial evidence appropriately in a political scenario, varyingthe dependence between the sources of network peers’ beliefs.Using a novel interface that allows participants to express theirprobabilistic beliefs visually, we compare participants against anormative Bayesian standard. We find that they distinguish thevalue of evidence from dependent versus independent sources,but that they also treated social sources as substantially weakerevidence than direct experience. The value of our elicitationmethodology and the implications of our results for modelinghuman-like belief revision in social networks are discussed

Instrumental evidence of normal mode rock slope vibration

A unique field experiment was performed to constrain the seismic response of a large, potentially unstable rock slope in the southern Swiss Alps. Small-aperture seismic arrays were deployed to record ambient vibrations both inside and outside of the mapped instability boundary. The recordings were analysed by means of the high-resolution f-k method, site-to-reference spectral ratios and time-frequency dependent polarization analysis. All three methods indicated that the wavefield within the potentially unstable rock mass is dominated by normal mode motion (standing waves) rather than horizontal propagation of seismic waves. Both fundamental frequency and relative amplification could be recovered from ambient noise data. The observed amplification is strongly directional, and the maximum amplification is oriented perpendicular to open tension cracks mapped at the ground surface. Our results highlight site response characteristics relevant for analysis of earthquake-triggered rock slope failure

Ambient vibration analysis of an unstable mountain slope

A field experiment with small aperture seismic arrays was performed on the unstable rock slope above the village of Randa in the southern Swiss Alps. The aim of this experiment was to constrain the seismic response of a potential future rockslide using ambient vibration recordings. Weak seismic events were identified on the recordings and site-to-reference spectral ratios were calculated using a reference site located on the stable part of the slope. Spectral ratios of up to 30 were observed at sites located within the unstable portion of the slope. A strong variation of spectral ratios with azimuth indicates a directional site effect. Neither amplification nor directionality were observed at sites located in the stable part of the slope. Furthermore, time-frequency polarization analysis of the ambient noise was performed to provide robust estimates of frequency dependent directions of the maximum polarization. It was found that the unstable part of the slope vibrates within a narrow range of directions (130 ± 10°) for the frequency range centred around 5 Hz. The polarization directions estimated from ambient seismic vibrations are in good agreement with the deformation directions obtained by geodetic and in situ measurements. No directionality of ambient vibrations was observed at sites within the stable part of the slop

Coralline alga reveals first marine record of subarctic North Pacific climate change

While recent changes in subarctic North Pacific climate had dramatic effects on ecosystems and fishery yields, past climate dynamics and teleconnection patterns are poorly understood due to the absence of century-long high-resolution marine records. We present the first 117-year long annually resolved marine climate history from the western Bering Sea/Aleutian Island region using information contained in the calcitic skeleton of the long-lived crustose coralline red alga Clathromorphum nereostratum, a previously unused climate archive. The skeletal δ18O-time series indicates significant warming and/or freshening of surface waters after the middle of the 20th century. Furthermore, the time series is spatiotemporally correlated with Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and tropical El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices. Even though the western Bering Sea/Aleutian Island region is believed to be outside the area of significant marine response to ENSO, we propose that an ENSO signal is transmitted via the Alaskan Stream from the Eastern North Pacific, a region of known ENSO teleconnections

Anomalously large measured thermoelectric power factor in Sr1−x_{1-x}Lax_xTiO3_3 thin films due to SrTiO3_3 substrate reduction

We report the observation that thermoelectric thin-films of La-doped SrTiO3 grown on SrTiO3 substrates yield anomalously high values of thermopower to give extraordinary values of power factor at 300K. Thin-films of Sr0.98La0.02TiO3, grown via pulsed laser deposition at low temperature and low pressure (450C, 10-7Torr), do not yield similarly high values when grown on other substrates. The thin-film growth induces oxygen reduction in the SrTiO3 crystals, doping the substrate n-type. It is found that the backside resistance of the SrTiO3 substrates is as low (~12ohm/square) as it is on the film-side after film growth.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, pdf forma

First-order flow equations for extremal black holes in very special geometry

We construct interpolating solutions describing single-center static extremal non-supersymmetric black holes in four-dimensional N=2 supergravity theories with cubic prepotentials. To this end, we derive and solve first-order flow equations for rotating electrically charged extremal black holes in a Taub-NUT geometry in five dimensions. We then use the connection between five- and four-dimensional extremal black holes to obtain four-dimensional flow equations and we give the corresponding solutions.Comment: 21 pages. v2: Summary section adde

The Magic Number Problem for Subregular Language Families

We investigate the magic number problem, that is, the question whether there exists a minimal n-state nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) whose equivalent minimal deterministic finite automaton (DFA) has alpha states, for all n and alpha satisfying n less or equal to alpha less or equal to exp(2,n). A number alpha not satisfying this condition is called a magic number (for n). It was shown in [11] that no magic numbers exist for general regular languages, while in [5] trivial and non-trivial magic numbers for unary regular languages were identified. We obtain similar results for automata accepting subregular languages like, for example, combinational languages, star-free, prefix-, suffix-, and infix-closed languages, and prefix-, suffix-, and infix-free languages, showing that there are only trivial magic numbers, when they exist. For finite languages we obtain some partial results showing that certain numbers are non-magic.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127

Geospatial big data and cartography : research challenges and opportunities for making maps that matter

Geospatial big data present a new set of challenges and opportunities for cartographic researchers in technical, methodological, and artistic realms. New computational and technical paradigms for cartography are accompanying the rise of geospatial big data. Additionally, the art and science of cartography needs to focus its contemporary efforts on work that connects to outside disciplines and is grounded in problems that are important to humankind and its sustainability. Following the development of position papers and a collaborative workshop to craft consensus around key topics, this article presents a new cartographic research agenda focused on making maps that matter using geospatial big data. This agenda provides both long-term challenges that require significant attention as well as short-term opportunities that we believe could be addressed in more concentrated studies.PostprintPeer reviewe