Corporate governance : where do Tenth District community banks stand?

Troubles at publicly traded companies have led to the passage of recently enacted laws that add more rigor and formality to the corporate governance process. Most of these reform proposals and new laws focus on protecting investors in publicly traded firms. Relatively few Tenth District community banks, however, are publicly traded or are subject to new laws that would require them to change their corporate governance practices. Indeed, many are small in asset size, family-owned, closely held, and owner-managed. Given these characteristics, the governance process at community banks tends to be less formal and structured than requirements for publicly traded companies. What then has been the impact of corporate governance reform on community banks? Have community banks perceived benefits from the practices recommended by proponents of a more formal governance process? Although not required to do so, have community banks adopted any of the practices required of publicly traded companies? To answer these questions, the analysis in this article used information obtained from 26 governance questions included in the 2004 Tenth District Community Bank Survey. These questions dealt with matters that receive attention by good governance proponents, including board size, composition, committee structure, compensation, succession planning, director assessments, and other governance matters. Because ownership structure and size can influence the governance process, the analysis divided the survey data by family- and non-family-ownership, and within these ownership categories smaller and larger banks (assets less than $150 million, assets greater than$150 million). The conclusions drawn from the analysis are that Tenth District community banks have adopted many principles advocated by strong governance proponents. However, larger and more complex organizations are more likely to have adopted recommended governance principles. Further, non-family-owned organizations, regardless of size, proportionately engage in more of recommended practices than do family-owned organizations.Corporate governance ; Federal Reserve District, 10th ; Community banks ; Bank directors ; Bank management

Enhancing the performance of Decoupled Software Pipeline through Backward Slicing

The rapidly increasing number of cores available in multicore processors does not necessarily lead directly to a commensurate increase in performance: programs written in conventional languages, such as C, need careful restructuring, preferably automatically, before the benefits can be observed in improved run-times. Even then, much depends upon the intrinsic capacity of the original program for concurrent execution. The subject of this paper is the performance gains from the combined effect of the complementary techniques of the Decoupled Software Pipeline (DSWP) and (backward) slicing. DSWP extracts threadlevel parallelism from the body of a loop by breaking it into stages which are then executed pipeline style: in effect cutting across the control chain. Slicing, on the other hand, cuts the program along the control chain, teasing out finer threads that depend on different variables (or locations). parts that depend on different variables. The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that the application of DSWP, followed by slicing offers notable improvements over DSWP alone, especially when there is a loop-carried dependence that prevents the application of the simpler DOALL optimization. Experimental results show an improvement of a factor of ?1.6 for DSWP + slicing over DSWP alone and a factor of ?2.4 for DSWP + slicing over the original sequential code

Normative Practical Reasoning via Argumentation and Dialogue

Postprin

Structure and possible function of vocalizations of captive red-legged seriemas (Cariama cristata)

Very little is known about red-legged seriema (Cariama cristata) vocalizations and behavior. The focus of my research was to analyze the structure of red-legged seriema primary calls and to begin to test hypotheses related to their function. Captive red-legged seriema behavior, both vocal and non-vocal, was recorded at 7 institutions located in the United States from May 2007 through November 2008. To test whether calls serve a predator alarm function, seriemas were presented with a large stuffed dog, representing a predator stimulus, and 2 control stimuli, a large, stuffed penguin and a large, flowering potted plant. Baseline recordings with no manipulations were also made throughout the day, during the course of the study. All recordings of seriema vocalizations were assessed using sound analysis software to generate sound spectrograms for comparison. I identified three different note types within the seriema primary call: upsweep notes (U), ladder notes (L), and two-part notes (T). Each call begins with a set of U notes that increase in rate and lead into the main part of the call, which is made of L and T notes. Each note type was assessed for duration, frequency, energy, and entropy measurements. These measurements were reduced using factor analysis into two relevant factors. There were substantial differences across individuals for note type acoustic structure. Group differences in note types, including sex, location, and age, were not found. When presented with the dog model, vocal responses were given by only 3 individuals. Overall, it may be possible to identify individual seriemas by analyzing the structure of their primary call, which may allow researchers to identify individuals without physical markers

A preferred vision for administering secondary schools : a reflective essay

The education system in the United States is changing rapidly. The role of teachers, administrators, parents and the community within this system should also change. This paper will examine my philosophy, experiences, preparation for leadership, and vision for creating a positive future for this nation through better education for our children

The Effect of Hemodynamic Force on the Maturation of Blood Vessels during Embryogenesis

Throughout embryonic development, blood vessels are derived from endothelial cells by way of vasculogenesis. During angiogenesis, vessels remodel to form a hierarchy of large-diameter arteries that branch into small-diameter capillaries. In this maturation, vessels respond to unidentified signaling events to become surrounded with an outer layer of vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMCs). This results in arteries that have a thick vSMC layer, veins that have a thin vSMC layer, and capillaries that have a very thin or absent vSMC layer. What remains to be determined is the cause of the thicker layer of vSMCs around proximal arteries. Previous studies have implicated that mechanical forces provided by blood flow control the growth of arteries over capillaries. I hypothesize that these mechanical forces also determine the extent of vSMC coverage. To test this, I compared the extent of vSMC in arteries of normal-flow mouse embryos (wild type) with those in reduced-flow embryos (Myl7 [-/-] mutant). I observed less vSMC coverage in the proximal arteries from reduced-flow embryos versus normal-flow embryos. With immunostaining and confocal imaging, I determined that the amount of vSMCs did not differ between reduced-flow and normal-flow tissues. Reduced-flow tissues exhibit a failure of the vSMCs to migrate away from capillaries towards proximal arteries, and a failure to surround the arteries. My findings provide evidence that hemodynamic force is required for vSMC recruitment, but not for vSMC differentiation or proliferation

Effects of childcare on parents' attitudes and behaviors in shaping their child's food habits

textThe purpose of this study was to determine whether parents of children who attend childcare centers have different attitudes and behaviors toward shaping their child's eating habits than parents of children who stay at home, and whether these attitudes and behaviors affect their child's dietary intake and weight. Fifty parents of 3- to 5-year-old children who attended childcare centers and fifty parents of 3- to 5-year-old children who stayed at home in Central Texas participated in the study. Parents completed questionnaires designed to measure the factors they considered when choosing food for their child, and their perceived influence on, satisfaction with, responsibility for, and control over their child's eating habits. After receiving training and measuring utensils, parents completed 3-day dietary records for their child. A researcher recorded the children's food intake when they were at the childcare center. Children's height and weight were measured, and body mass index was plotted on the CDC BMIfor- age growth charts (2000). Twelve percent of childcare children were obese compared to 2 percent of stay-at-home children (p<0.05). Children in childcare consumed more energy, vegetables, fat, saturated fat, and sweetened beverages than stay-at-home children (p<0.05), mostly due to consumption at the center. Both groups met requirements for all food groups and nutrients except grains, vegetables, and vitamin E. Their diets were too high in fat, contributing 32 percent of total energy. There was no evidence that parents of children in childcare felt less responsible for, less influential on, more satisfied with, or exerted less control over their child's diet than stay-at-home parents. Parents of childcare children believed that they and the childcare center shared responsibility for their child's nutrition. They felt that time was a more important factor in choosing food for their child than did stay-at-home parents. Parents who perceived lack of time to be an obstacle had children who consumed less energy, iron, and fat during the evening hours. Parents of overweight children felt more influential on and were more satisfied with their child's diets than parents of normal weight children. No other parental attitudes were predictive of children's food intake or weight status.Nutritional Science