Crossroads to the 21 st Century: The Evolution of Ethnic Studies at Bowling Green University

At Bowling Green State University\u27s Fourth Annual Ethnic Studies Conference, scholar Dr. James A. Banks observed that Bowling Green State University is soon to become the only institution of higher education in the United States to institute a university-wide requirement in cultural diversity. The implementation of this landmark requirement demonstrates the depth and vigor of the commitment to excellence and equity in education held by the University\u27s Department of Ethnic Studies

Rural-Urban Student Differences on the Strong Interest Inventory for a Career Counseling Center Sample

The purpose of\u27 his study was to explore whether differences existed between rural and urban students’ responses on the Strong Interest Inventory (SII). The subjects for this study were 665 students who had taken the SII as part of career counseling services received at the University of North Dakota. The subjects were classified as either rural or urban based on the population of their hometown. The rural and urban groups’ scores were compared on the SII General Occupational Theme (RIASEC), Academic Comfort and Introversion/Extroversion scales, the Iachan index of congruence between RIASEC scores and college major, measures of indifference in responding, and profile differentiation. No mean differences between rural and urban subjects were detected on any of the comparisons. The study also examined whether cumulative grade point average (GPA) could be predicted by factors including Academic Comfort, gender, being from a rural/urban environment, and ACT composite scores. Results indicated that when ACT scores are included in the prediction equation, the effects of rural/urban disappear. Rural-urban status and gender were not found to moderate the relationship between Academic Comfort scores and GPA

Theoretical study of the charge transport through C60-based single-molecule junctions

We present a theoretical study of the conductance and thermopower of single-molecule junctions based on C60 and C60-terminated molecules. We first analyze the transport properties of gold-C60-gold junctions and show that these junctions can be highly conductive (with conductances above 0.1G0, where G0 is the quantum of conductance). Moreover, we find that the thermopower in these junctions is negative due to the fact that the LUMO dominates the charge transport, and its magnitude can reach several tens of micro-V/K, depending on the contact geometry. On the other hand, we study the suitability of C60 as an anchoring group in single-molecule junctions. For this purpose, we analyze the transport through several dumbbell derivatives using C60 as anchors, and we compare the results with those obtained with thiol and amine groups. Our results show that the conductance of C60-terminated molecules is rather sensitive to the binding geometry. Moreover, the conductance of the molecules is typically reduced by the presence of the C60 anchors, which in turn makes the junctions more sensitive to the functionalization of the molecular core with appropriate side groups.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Effect of Application of Farmyard Manure to Ley on Forage Yield and Quality of Grass Silage

A two-year field trial was performed on ley near Uppsala, Sweden, with the following treatments (3 plots/treatment): A, no manure or fertiliser; B, manure applied in Oct.; C, manure applied in Oct. followed by rolling plots in May; D, manure applied in May; E, mineral fertiliser only. Apart from cattle manure, plots allocated to treatments B, C and D received the same amount of mineral nutrients as treatment E. The objective of this experiment was to get an indication of how different times of manure application (before or after the growth period) affected forage yields and the quality of the resulting silage. Annual forage yields (2 cuts/year) did not differ significantly in either year among treatments that received manure. Only the unfertilised control treatment (A) had a significantly lower yield. No differences were found between treatments that received only mineral fertilisers (E) or mineral fertilisers and manure (B, C and D). The 1998 ensiling experiment resulted in a very low overall silage quality, indicated by excessive formation of ammonia and very high counts of Clostridium spores (\u3e 106 cfu/g silage). In 1999, the best silage, with the lowest counts of Clostridium spores (\u3c 50 cfu/g), was produced from plots, which received manure in Oct. and were rolled in May (C). The same treatment without rolling in May (B) resulted in silage with a significantly higher pH, more butyric acid, and more Clostridium spores (\u3e 105 cfu/g). Other silage from manured plots, particularly that made from unchopped forage, also had high counts of Clostridium spores

Financial Incentives and Drug Spending in Managed Care

Pharmaceutical costs have been rising dramatically since 1995, growing 16.6% in 1998 alone. This rate of increase is more than four times that of all health care spending. Employers, managed care organizations and consumers are looking anew for ways to stem these rising costs, without denying patients effective care. Therefore, this Issue Brief is especially timely because it investigates how patient copayments and financial incentives for physicians affect drug spending in managed care

Ab-initio study of the thermopower of biphenyl-based single-molecule junctions

Employing ab-initio electronic structure calculations combined with the non-equilibrium Green's function technique, we study the dependence of the thermopower Q on the conformation in biphenyl-based single-molecule junctions. For the series of experimentally available biphenyl molecules, alkyl side chains allow us to gradually adjust the torsion angle \phi\ between the two phenyl rings from 0 to 90{\deg} and to control in this way the degree of \pi-electron conjugation. Studying different anchoring groups and binding positions, our theory predicts that the absolute values of the thermopower decrease slightly towards larger torsion angles, following an a+b*cos^{2}\phi\ dependence. The anchoring group determines the sign of Q and a,b, simultaneously. Sulfur and amine groups give rise to Q,a,b>0, while for cyano Q,a,b<0. The different binding positions can lead to substantial variations of the thermopower mostly due to changes in the alignment of the frontier molecular orbital levels and the Fermi energy. We explain our ab-initio results in terms of a \pi-orbital tight-binding model and a minimal two-level model, which describes the pair of hybridizing frontier orbital states on the two phenyl rings. The variations of the thermopower with \phi\ seem to be within experimental resolution.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figues, 3 table