The transitioning process: A qualitative case study of international swimming and diving student-athletes competing in the NCAA

Prior studies examining international student-athletes’ transition experiences to life on American colleges campuses have generally focused on outcomes related to their recruiting experience and change adaptation. Few studies included the adjustment process and challenges faced by the individuals. The primary purpose of this case study was to add to the existing literature by expanding on the psychological transition process of international swimming and diving student-athletes experience after joining an American intercollegiate athletics team. Utilizing Bridges (1986) model, the present study employed semi-structured interviews amongst 10 international student-athletes from a large NCAA Division I university. A thematic analysis revealed seven major themes, which were: realization that change was necessary, reflecting on the decision, language barrier, education system, cultural adjustment and valuable lessons,international bond, and words of wisdom. The findings suggested transition is a multi-stage process that occurs throughout student-athletes’ experiences on campus.   Key words: college athletics, international student-athletes, transitioning proces

Thermo-mechanical Simulations Confirm: Temperature-dependent Mudrock Properties are Nice to have in Far-field Environmental Assessments of Underground Coal Gasification

AbstractCoupled thermo-mechanical simulations were carried out to quantify permeability changes in representative coal measure strata surrounding an underground coal gasification (UCG) reactor. Comparing temperature-dependent and -independent rock properties applied in our simulations, notable differences in rock failure behavior, but only insignificant differences in spatial permeability development are observed. Hence, temperature-dependent parameters are required for simulations of the close reactor vicinity, while far-field models can be sufficiently determined by temperature-independent parameters. Considering our findings in the large-scale assessment of potential environmental impacts of UCG, representative coupled simulations based on complex thermo-hydro-mechanical and regional-scale models become computationally feasible

Finding Harmony Amidst Disagreement Over Extradition, Jurisdiction, the Role of Human Rights, and Issues of Extraterritoriality Under International Criminal Law

This Article examines extradition and jurisdiction over extraterritorial crime, focusing on the relationship between jurisdiction and extradition in the broader context of human rights law. The authors challenge what they argue are chimerical, although strongly held beliefs in the incompatibility of European and United States criminal justice systems and extradition practices. They argue that cooperation in matters of international criminal law may be enhanced, while protection of human rights is promoted. The authors establish this possibility by breaking down the barriers to understanding that stem from the divergent European versus Anglo-American modes of analysis

Efficiently Computing Directed Minimum Spanning Trees

Computing a directed minimum spanning tree, called arborescence, is a fundamental algorithmic problem, although not as common as its undirected counterpart. In 1967, Edmonds discussed an elegant solution. It was refined to run in $O(\min(n^2, m\log n))$ by Tarjan which is optimal for very dense and very sparse graphs. Gabow et al.~gave a version of Edmonds' algorithm that runs in $O(n\log n + m)$, thus asymptotically beating the Tarjan variant in the regime between sparse and dense. Despite the attention the problem received theoretically, there exists, to the best of our knowledge, no empirical evaluation of either of these algorithms. In fact, the version by Gabow et al.~has never been implemented and, aside from coding competitions, all readily available Tarjan implementations run in $O(n^2)$. In this paper, we provide the first implementation of the version by Gabow et al.~as well as five variants of Tarjan's version with different underlying data structures. We evaluate these algorithms and existing solvers on a large set of real-world and random graphs

Exceptio spolii Illustrissimo Principi Ernesto Joanni Curlandiae et Semigalliae Duci, ejusq Consiliariis Supremis opposita a Generosa Nobilitate Curlandiae

TÜR-i eksemplari R Est.A-14256 (konvoluut) 22. alligaathttp://tartu.ester.ee/record=b2410570~S1*es

The Merits and Perils of Intra-Party Democracy: Assessing the Effects of Party Reform in Germany, France and the United Kingdom

Over the past decades, European democracies have experienced diminishing trust in their political representative institutions leading to a decline in party membership as well as both reduced electoral turnout and overall political participation (Van Biezen et al., 2012). In response, many European parties began reforming themselves allowing for the direct participation of party members or even non-members in various intra-party arenas, such as leadership selections through primaries. Parties claim that such reforms increase intra-party democracy (IPD) by making internal organisation more inclusive and by providing all party members or even non-members with decision-making power perilously reserved to the party elites (Hazan and Rahat, 2010). However, the positive effect of increased IPD on membership is highly contested and surprisingly few relevant empirical and comparative studies exist. The central research question of this thesis is what are the (different) consequences of adopting different types of primary rules for party members? Hence, my aim is to examine whether the introduction of primaries is in fact as negative for party members as outlined by Katz and Mair (1994), Lefebvre (2011) or Hopkin (2001) or, alternatively, whether it represents a chance to revitalize parties as membership organizations (Macpherson, 1977; Ware, 1979; Bille, 2001). Primaries are defined as selection process for party leaders and candidates in which the final vote rests with either party members in closed primaries, or loosely defined group of party supporters or the wider electorate, open primaries. Thus, introducing a primary leads to a change in the level of intra-party democracy, as it shifts power from a more exclusive selectorate to either of the two selectorates outlined above. While this project focuses on primaries that select top-executive candidates, the theory and conceptual framework developed can be applied to primaries more broadly. The general argument put forward is that to capture the differentiated effects of party primaries we have to study the interplay between the rules determining who can vote (selectorate) and who can run (candidacy requirements) in primaries. This thesis answers its central research question by developing a conceptual framework that combines these two dimensions for party primaries that select the party leader in public office. First, it outlines the underlying logic of the conceptual framework that links the two dimensions and then provides a theoretical discussion of its consequences for party members looking specifically at the interaction between the two. To assess the consequences of different primary reforms, the thesis focuses on four dimensions of party membership: the party membership level, the turnout in primaries, the quality of membership and the attitude towards the leadership. This perspective highlights that different combinations of selection rules and candidacy requirements in primaries result in four distinct types of intra-party democracy from the perception of party members. In turn, these types lead party members to respond in a distinct fashion. Using a mixed-method case study approach, the second part of the thesis tests the theoretical framework for various Western European parties. The analysis will mainly use primary and secondary document analysis as well as new and existing survey data complemented by qualitative in-depth membership surveys. The main conclusion is that only some combinations of primary rules can lead to a positive effect for members while others do not. For example, closed primaries with open candidacy requirements will lead to more active participation of members, while open primaries with open candidacy requirements will reduce membership participation considerably.Strategic (Departmental) Ph.D. Studentship, College of Social Science and International Studies for the Department of Politics (2013-2016

Regulator scheme dependence of the chiral phase transition at high densities

A common feature of recent functional renormalization group investigations of effective low-energy QCD is the appearance of a back-bending behavior of the chiral phase transition line at low temperatures together with a negative entropy density in the symmetric regime. The regulator scheme dependence of this phenomenon and the necessary modifications at finite densities are analyzed within a two-flavor quark-meson model. The flows at finite densities for three different regulators of three- or four-dimensional momenta are confronted to each other. It is found that the back-bending behavior and the negative entropy density can be traced back to the explicit momentum dependence of the regulator shape function. While it persists for the often-used three-dimensional flat regulator, it vanishes for Callan-Symanzik type regulators. This points to truncation artifacts in the lowest order of the derivative expansion. A careful theoretical as well as numerical exploration is given.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, to be published in PR

Mechanosensitive Self-Replication Driven by Self-Organization

Self-replicating molecules are likely to have played an important role in the origin of life, and a small number of fully synthetic self-replicators have already been described. Yet it remains an open question which factors most effectively bias the replication toward the far-from-equilibrium distributions characterizing even simple organisms. We report here two self-replicating peptide-derived macrocycles that emerge from a small dynamic combinatorial library and compete for a common feedstock. Replication is driven by nanostructure formation, resulting from the assembly of the peptides into fibers held together by β sheets. Which of the two replicators becomes dominant is influenced by whether the sample is shaken or stirred. These results establish that mechanical forces can act as a selection pressure in the competition between replicators and can determine the outcome of a covalent synthesis.