Youth-initiatives : learn to earn

In early 2001, the Citizens League Board of Directors established a committee to examine the alarmingly low high school graduation rate of students in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul school systems. The report, A Failing Grade for School Completion, "We Must Increase School Completion in Minneapolis and Saint Paul" states: Statewide school completion rates remain high in Minnesota; however our core cities continue to lose an unacceptable proportion of students, especially students of color, before graduation. People without a high school education are unlikely to earn a family living wage. An economy short on labor cannot afford to leave anyone behind. The youth that disappear from our schools can show up in the criminal justice and social service systems (Chadwick & Wray, 2001). A follow-up report discovered Minnesota has an increasing percentage of minority and low income students with inadequate or uneven educational achievement in high school. Over 30 percent of high school graduates needed remedial classes to begin post-secondary education and in the past ten years, the percentage of higher education graduates has dropped by 7 percent (Citizens League, 2004). How can this be occurring in a state where almost 90 percent of the population is a high school graduate (U S Census Bureau 2000)? Why are we failing our inner-city minority and immigrant students, who represent a rapidly growing portion of the population? Why are thirty-four percent of Minneapolis youth not graduating from high school in four years? Why are 37 to 70 percent of the students who do graduate, taking remedial college classes (McKinsey & Company, Inc, 2007, p. 4)? Apparently, Minneapolis is not the only city or state facing this dilemma. In 2005, nearly 20 percent of Black Americans, 18 years and older had not completed high school, compared to 11 percent of White youth, ages 18 years and older (U. S. Census Bureau, 2005). Why is a rich nation, such as ours, failing this generation of low-income, minority and immigrant kids? In the Twin Cities, hundreds and maybe thousands of organizations--foundations, governments, schools, faith-based organizations, non-profit and for-profit groups--are working to reverse this trend. My Master's Project contributed to this larger effort. It built upon the notion that knowledge is power by supplying a critical and often missing component of power, information. More specifically, I conducted a survey that found that many people were unaware of the Minneapolis Teen Job Fair, already in its third year; and I did other research that revealed that most households and even some city staff were unaware of several key summer youth education and employment opportunities. This led me to assist selected Minneapolis nonprofits working with teens by providing them with summer youth employment information. (Author abstract)Palenius, C. (2009). Youth-initiatives: learn to earn. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen

Selection of plastics mechanics suppliers for terminal products : electronics manufacturing services company perspective

Siirretty Doriast

Forward premium puzzle and firm-Level idiosyncratic volatility

Objective of the study: In this paper, I study the effects of funding constraints with respect to the uncovered interest parity (UIP) violations, i.e. the excess returns emerging from the traditional carry strategies. More specifically, I examine the impact of the realized firm-level idiosyncratic aggregate average uncertainty in the United States (U.S.) economy as well as the realized firm-level idiosyncratic average uncertainty in the U.S. financial sector on carry trade excess returns. Moreover, I conduct a sub-period analysis with respect to the surge in the amount of speculative capital since early 2000 and the financialization in order to understand how sensitive the speculative community is to the unexpected changes in systemic risk. Finally, in addition to contributing to existing research and opening new avenues for future research, I re-examine and confirm existing literature on the uncovered interest parity (UIP) violations, the role of learning in the forward premium puzzle, and the linkage between currency carry trades and currency crash risk. Date and methodology: The data set consists of daily spot and forward rates for 9 currencies with respect to the USD dollar from January 1996 to February 2014. In addition, I collect daily data for all listed U.S. stocks and their daily returns from CRSP for the same period in order to construct the idiosyncratic firm-level risk metrics. To test the hypotheses, I estimate several multivariate OLS regressions with varying specifications and perform numerous robustness checks. Findings of the study: The multivariate model based upon the idiosyncratic financial sector uncertainty is statistically significant and explains 14.3% of the excess return variability of the High-minus-Low (HML3) portfolios that comprise a long position in the top three currencies and a short position in the bottom three currencies. The funding model consists of two independent explanatory variables that are both related to the realized idiosyncratic average firm-level uncertainty in the U.S. financial sector: a contemporaneous change and a 6-month moving average. Moreover, a multivariate funding model based upon the conventional TED spread, a typical measure of funding constraints, and the idiosyncratic banking sector uncertainty explains 21.4% of the High-minus-Low (HML3) excess return variability. The marginal contribution of the latter is statistically significant once I take into account the loss in degrees of freedom. Additionally, a single explanatory variable that proxies the effects of unexpected funding shocks, a normalized specification, explains 11.4% of the High-minus-Low (HML3) excess return variability for the full period from 1996 to 2013. In comparison, the contemporaneous TED spread explains 11.0% of the variation for the same period. The correlation coefficient among the two is 0.56. Furthermore, the explanatory power of the normalized specification increases from 11.4% to 22.0% in a multi-dimensional setting

Seksuaalinen väkivalta, sukupuoli ja aggressio itsepuolustusoppaissa

Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan seksuaalisen väkivallan, sukupuolen ja aggression ilmenemistä naisille suunnatuissa itsepuolustusoppaissa. Seksuaalisesta väkivallasta on aiempaa tutkimusta ja ilmiön määrittely vaihtelee eri tutkimuksissa. Tässä tutkimuksessa seksuaaliseksi väkivallaksi määritellään seksuaalinen ahdistelu ja raiskaus. Sukupuolta puolestaan tarkastellaan binäärisesti ja aggressiota sukupuolittuneesti. Aggressio määritellään tutkimuksessa toimintana, jolla tuotetaan vahinkoa tilanteen toisille osapuolille tai osapuolelle. Itsepuolustustilanteessa vahinkoa voi aiheuttaa sekä hyökkääjä että puolustautuja. Tutkimuksen yhtenä tavoitteena seksuaalisen väkivallan, sukupuolen ja aggression tarkastelun ohessa on tuottaa tietoa sukupuolen ja valtarakenteiden vaikutuksista naisen edellytyksiin toimia itsepuolustustilanteessa. Seksuaalinen väkivalta kohdistuu tilastollisesti erityisesti naisiin, jonka vuoksi tutkimusaineistona käytetään naisille suunnattuja itsepuolustusoppaita ja niiden seksuaalista väkivaltaa käsitteleviä osioita. Osioista tarkastellaan seksuaaliseen väkivaltaan, sukupuoleen ja aggressioon liittyviä teemoja. Itsepuolustusoppaat mahdollistavat tutkimuksessa seksuaalisen väkivallan tarkastelun seksuaalisen väkivallan kokijan toimijuuden kautta uhriposition sijaan. Tutkimuksen luonteen ja tutkimusaineiston vuoksi analyysimenetelmänä tutkimuksessa käytetään sisällönanalyysia. Tutkimuksen perusteella on havaittavissa, että aggressiota käsitellään itsepuolustusoppaissa sukupuolittuneesti. Aggressio esitetään itsepuolustusoppaissa tärkeänä tekijänä seksuaalista väkivaltaa vastaan sekä naisen selviytymistä edistävänä asiana itsepuolustustilanteessa. Sukupuolittuneet valtarakenteet saattavat vaikuttaa naisen edellytyksiin olla aggressiivinen, sillä aggressiivisuus on sallittua yhteiskunnassamme eri tavalla miehille kuin naisille. Tutkimuksen teoriatausta tukee itsepuolustusoppaissa esitettyä ajatusta siitä, että sosiaalisesti tarkasteltuna miehiä saatetaan jopa kannustaa aggressiivisuuteen ja naisilta vaaditaan aggressiivisuuden tukahduttamista. Tämän tutkimuksen perusteella seksuaalinen väkivalta näyttäytyy itsepuolustusoppaissa ilmiönä, johon vaikuttaa merkittävästi sukupuoli ja valtarakenteet. Seksuaalista väkivaltaa käsitellään tutkimusaineistossa miehen tapana kontrolloida naista tai miehen omakohtaisen oikeutuksen kautta vaatia naiselta seksiä ilman naisen suostumusta

Luonteenvahvuuksien yksilöllinen ja kollektiivinen merkitys asiantuntijatiimille

Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa käsitellään luonteenvahvuuksien yksilöllisiä ja kollektiivisia merkityksiä asiantuntijatiimille. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on selvittää, mitä luonteenvahvuuksia asiantuntijatiimissä esiintyy ja minkälaisia merkityksiä ne saavat yksilöllisesti sekä kollektiivisesti. Tutkimuksen aikaisempi tutkimusaineisto koostuu hyveistä ja luonteenvahvuuksista positiivisen psykologian viitekehyksen mukaisesti. Ja kohdennetumpana viitekehyksenä on käytetty VIA-luonteenvahvuusmittaristoa. Tutkimus on laadullinen tutkimus, jonka aineisto analysoitiin IPA:n avulla. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu VIA-luonteenvahvuusmittariston tuloksista sekä ryhmähaastattelusta saadusta aineistosta. Tutkimus tehtiin seitsemän henkilön asiantuntijatiimille, joka koostuu esihenkilöstä ja kuudesta asiatuntijasta. VIA-luonteenvahvuusmittarin avulla tiimin vahvuuksista korostui neljä vahvuutta rehellisyys, ystävällisyys, reiluus ja huumori. Lisäksi asiantuntijatiimi määritteli itsellensä omat vahvuudet, jotka ovat asiantuntijuus, huumori ja turvallinen ilmapiiri. Luonteenvahvuudet ilmenivät tutkimuksessa yksilöllisesti ja kollektiivisesti erilaisten merkitysten kautta. Rehellisyys näkyi yksilöllisesti siloitellun totuuden ja aidon oman itsen kautta. Kollektiivisessa näkökulmassa painottui kehittyminen sekä luottamus ja rohkeus. Yksilöllisesti ystävällisyydessä korostui roolit ja ystävällinen käytös. Puolestaan kollektiivisesti se nähtiin rehellisyytenä sekä aaltona, joka leviää ympäristöön. Reiluus nousi esille siinä, että jokaiselle tulisi antaa mahdollisuus. Kollektiivisesta näkökulmasta tarkasteltaessa korostui se, ettei toisia kohtaan saa olla epäreilu, vaikka toinen olisi. Yksilöllisesti huumori koettiin elinehtona, joka auttaa selviytymään vaikeistakin tilanteista. Puolestaan kollektiivisesti tiimissä korostui muodostunut työhuumori. Tutkimuksen tulokset antavat tiimille työkaluja toimintaan sekä toiminnan kehittämiseen. Lisäksi tutkimus sanoittaa aikaisempia tutkimuksia sekä tutkimuksen avulla pystyttiin haastamaan Seligmanin ja Peterssonin sekä heidän tutkimusryhmänsä luomaa luonteenvahvuusmittaristoa, sillä tutkimuksen myötä mittaristosta löytyi päällekkäisyyksi

TOLERANCIA A SALINIDAD EN PLANTAS CULTIVADAS: UNA VISIÓN AGRONÓMICA

Stress, both biotic and abiotic, negatively affects the growth of plants. Particularly, salinity stress decreases the productivity of agricultural crops, and consequently the profitability of the affected production units. The excess of salinity causes ionic and osmotic stress and there have been considerable advances in the understanding of the biochemical, physiological and molecular processes that activate plants in the presence of salt. In this review, the response of plants to abiotic stress caused by salts and the importance of tolerance is analyzed from an agronomic perspective.El estrés tanto de naturaleza biótica como abiótica, afecta negativamente el crecimiento de las plantas. Particularmente, el estrés por salinidad disminuye la productividad de los cultivos agrícolas, y en consecuencia la rentabilidad de las unidades de producción afectadas. El exceso de salinidad provoca estrés iónico y osmótico y ha habido avances considerables en el entendimiento de los procesos bioquímicos, fisiológicos y moleculares que activan las plantas en presencia de sal. En esta revisión, se analiza la respuesta de las plantas al estrés abiótico ocasionado por sales y la importancia de la tolerancia desde una perspectiva agronómica

The Amazon River Basin as an Analog for the Pre-Ice Age Bell River Basin of North America

The pre-ice age Bell River basin of North America was comparable in size to the modern day Amazon basin of South America. In Miocene time, it drained most of Canada and one third of the North American continent before being defeated by tectonics, volcanism, and glaciation. Beginning about 2.5 million years ago, continental glaciers re-routed the paths of the tributaries in Canada, leaving behind only traces of this once massive river basin in headwater valleys in the Rocky Mountains and in a giant river delta in the Labrador Sea. The contemporary Amazon River basin provides an analog for estimating fluvial parameters of the ancient Bell River system. Both systems had headwaters in high mountains and canyons, then drained across flat, continental-scale basins, and emptied into the Atlantic Ocean through broad continental rift zones. Both have large deltas and long submarine turbidity channels. Comparing the Amazon\u27s delta, tributaries, stream gradients, and sediment loads to the remnants of the Bell River system could support a model for pre-ice age North American drainage. This could then augment studies of tectonic displacements in the western interior, for example, uplift of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, effects of Yellowstone volcanism, and faulting in the Great Basin

Climacteric fruit ripening: Ethylene-dependent and independent regulation of ripening pathways in melon fruit

Cantaloupe melons have a typical climacteric behaviour with ethylene playing a major role in the regulation of the ripening process and affecting the ripening rate. Crossing of Cantaloupe Charentais melon with a non-climacteric melon indicated that the climacteric character is genetically dominant and conferred by two duplicated loci only. However, other experiments made by crossing two non-climacteric melons have generated climacteric fruit, indicating that different and complex genetic regulation exists for the climacteric character. Suppression of ethylene production by antisense ACC oxidase RNA in Charentais melon has shown that, while many ripening pathways were regulated by ethylene (synthesis of aroma volatiles, respiratory climacteric and degreening of the rind), some were ethylene-independent (initiation of climacteric, sugar accumulation, loss of acidity and coloration of the pulp). Softening of the flesh comprised both ethylene-dependent and independent components that were correlated with differential regulation of cell wall degrading genes. These results indicate that climacteric (ethylene-dependent) and non-climacteric (ethylene-independent) regulation coexist during climacteric fruit ripening. In addition, ethylenesuppressed melons allowed demonstrating that the various ethylene-dependent events exhibited differential sensitivity to ethylene and that ethylene was promoting sensitivity to chilling injury. Throughout this review, the data generated with melon are compared with those obtained with tomato and other fruit

HYPERFINE-STRUCTURE IN THE 6SNH (1 = 5) RYDBERG SERIES OF BARIUM

The hyperfine structure in the odd-parity 6snh (9 ≤ n ≤ 40) Rydberg series of barium has been investigated, using a single cw ring dye laser and a beam of neutral atoms in the metastable 5

Ripening-related cDNAs in guava fruit (Psidium guajava L.). Characterization and expression analysis

"En este estudio se presentan los análisis bioinformáticos y de la expresión de cuatro clonas de ADNc que codifican para una poligalacturonasa (PG), para ácido 1-aminociclopropano-1-carboxílico oxidasa (ACCo), y para dos α-expansinas (a-Exp) en guayaba (Psidium guajava L.). Mediante RT-PCR se obtuvo un fragmento parcial de 301 pb (PgPGl) correspondiente a una PG que se expresa a partir de fruto maduro, uno de 320 pb (PgACOl) para una ACCo de fruto sobremaduro, y dos para α-expansinas: uno de 466 pb (PgEXP2) de fruto sobremaduro y otro de 362 pb (PgEXP3) de pedúnculo. El análisis bioinformático de los ADNc mostró que codifican para proteínas putativas con una alta homología con proteínas relacionadas. La secuencia de aminoácidos de la proteína parcial PgPG1 contiene regiones características y conservadas de las PGs en plantas superiores y está relacionada con la maduración de frutos; PgACO1 mostró características presentes en todas las ACCo y está relacionada con la maduración; PgEXP2 y PgEXP3 contienen parte de los dos dominios presentes de las expansinas, y están agrupadas filogenéticamente con las α-expansinas. Los estudios de expresión mediante Dot Blot mostraron que el gen PgPGl fue visible en todos los estadios de maduración del fruto, con mayor intensidad durante el estadio maduro; el gen PgACO1 fue visible en los cinco estadios de maduración del fruto y presentó su expresión más alta durante el estadio de transición, cuando comienza el cambio de color verde al amarillo (estos dos genes muestran comportamientos similares a los reportados en frutos climatéricos); en PgEXP2 la expresión génica se detectó en todos los tejidos, con un incremento a partir del estadio verde 2 al sobremaduro, similar al comportamiento reportado en frutos no climatéricos; para PgEXP3 la expresión fue visible en cuatro estadios de maduración del fruto y en pedúnculo, con mayor intensidad en el estadio maduro que en todos los demás.""Bioinformatics analysis and gene expression studies of four clones of guava cDNA encoding for a polygalacturonase (PG), an acid 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate oxidase (ACCo), and two α-expansins (a-Exp) in guava (Psidium guajava L.), is presented here. Using RT-PCR, a partial cDNA fragment of 301 bp (PgPGl) was associated to a PG from mature fruit, one of 320 bp (PgACOl) for an ACCo in overriped fruit, and two fragments for α-expansins: a 466 bp (PgEXP2) of overripe fruit and a 362 bp of peduncle (PgEXP3). cDNA analysis showed that these fragments encode putative proteins with high homology with related proteins. The aminoacid sequence of PgPG1 contains particular features and conserved regions of the PGs in higher plants and is related to fruit ripening; PgACO1 showed features present in all the ACCo and is related to fruit maturation; PgEXP2 and PgEXP3 partially contain two domains present in expansins; and they are phylogenetically grouped with α-expansins. Dot Blot expression studies showed that gene PgPGl was visible in all stages of fruit ripening, with higher intensity during mature stage. Gene PgACOl was visible in the five stages of fruit ripening, and was highest during the transition stage (these two genes displayed behaviors similar to those reported in climacteric fruits); PgEXP2 gene expression was detected in all tissues, with an increase from the Green Stage 2 to Overripe Stage 1, as it has been reported in non-climacteric fruits; for PgEXP3 the expression was visible in four stages of fruit ripening and at peduncle, with highest intensity at the mature stage.