Teaching smoking refusal skills to adolescents

This study examined the effects of a smoking prevention program on the acquisition of refusal skills in junior high school students. Sixty-three seventh graders were randomly assigned to a refusal skill training group (N=29) or a no treatment control group (N=34). Students\u27 refusal skill performance was assessed pre and post training. Assessment consisted of a peer trainer offering the student a cigarette while being videotaped. The smoking refusal skill was broken down into 5 component parts: (1) eye contact; (2) upright posture; (3) voice intonation; (4) response to approach; (5) reason for refusal. Results showed significant improvement for both the training and control groups. However, a significant training by pre-post assessment interaction was also found, F (1,61) = 10.37, p \u3c .01, which indicates that students who received training demonstrated more proficiency in refusal performance after training than those who did not. A generalization probe in the natural environment conducted seven weeks after training showed no differences between the two groups

Getting to the (Non) Point: Private Governance as a Solution to Nonpoint Source Pollution

Chances are that today you have already unwittingly advanced the slow but steady demise of America\u27s freshwater supply. The sausage and egg biscuit you ate for breakfast, the half-empty bottle of Drano you dumped into your backyard, and the quick trip to the grocery store-these seemingly innocent actions each significantly degrade American watersheds.\u27 In response to this systemic and persistent assault on water quality, Congress enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. More commonly known as the Clean Water Act ( CWA ), this legislation attempted to take an aggressive and comprehensive approach to improving water quality. To achieve its sweeping goal of restoring [ing] and maintain[ing] the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation\u27s waters, the CWA established a bifurcated regulatory scheme. The first prong of the this scheme prohibits the discharge of any pollutant into navigable waters from any point source. Like the drain-cleaning chemical you dumped into your backyard, a point source is any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, including but not limited to any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, or vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be discharged. This program is complicated but effective

Agencies Running from Agency Discretion

Discretion is the root source of administrative agency power and influence, but exercising discretion often requires agencies to undergo costly and time-consuming predecision assessment programs, such as under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Many federal agencies thus have argued strenuously, and counter-intuitively, that they do not have discretion over particular actions so as to avoid such predecision requirements. Interest group litigation challenging such agency moves has led to a new wave of jurisprudence exploring the dimensions of agency discretion. The emerging body of case law provides one of the most robust, focused judicial examinations of the nature and scope of agency discretion available in modern administrative law, but agency discretion aversion and the concerns it raises have gone largely unaddressed in legal scholarship. And yet the discretion aversion syndrome is primed only to expand as climate change implicates a broadening span of agency programs as having environmental impacts. This Article is the first to comprehensively describe and assess the discretion aversion trend and to extract what it has to say not only about agencies, courts, and statutes, but also about agency discretion in general. Part I describes the origins and features of the ESA and NEPA assessment programs leading to agency discretion aversion. Part II identifies the strategies agencies use to escape the ESA and NEPA assessment programs by disclaiming discretion. Part III probes institutional concerns for agencies, courts, and the statutes that arise from the discretion aversion syndrome, including agency gaming behavior, judicial conflicts regarding when nondiscretion exists, and compromised statutory purposes. Before turning to solutions, Part IV steps back to assess what questions the ESA and NEPA nondiscretion case law raises for the conceptualization of agency discretion writ large, identifying discretion’s “negative space” as the source of tension between agencies and courts. Part V then circles back to reexamine the ESA and NEPA nondiscretion doctrines, evaluating alternative measures to deflate agencies’ discretion aversion impulse while promoting the statutes’ purposes. We conclude that the most effective reform will be to eliminate discretion as the litmus test for the ESA and NEPA, replacing it with criteria more responsive to the statutes’ twin purposes of improving agency decisions and providing information to other political institutions and the public

Quantitative electron phase imaging with high sensitivity and an unlimited field of view

As it passes through a sample, an electron beam scatters, producing an exit wavefront rich in information. A range of material properties, from electric and magnetic field strengths to specimen thickness, strain maps and mean inner potentials, can be extrapolated from its phase and mapped at the nanoscale. Unfortunately, the phase signal is not straightforward to obtain. It is most commonly measured using off-axis electron holography, but this is experimentally challenging, places constraints on the sample and has a limited field of view. Here we report an alternative method that avoids these limitations and is easily implemented on an unmodified transmission electron microscope (TEM) operating in the familiar selected area diffraction mode. We use ptychography, an imaging technique popular amongst the X-ray microscopy community; recent advances in reconstruction algorithms now reveal its potential as a tool for highly sensitive, quantitative electron phase imaging

Studien über substitutionsinduzierte Modifikationen der ternären Verbindung Ce3Pd4Si4 in magnetischen Feldern

Abweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des VerfassersZsfassung in dt. SpracheStark korrelierte Elektronensysteme können ungewöhnliche physikalische Eigenschaften bei tiefen Temperaturen zeigen. Die Präsenz magnetischer Momente von 4f-Elektronen in Cer-basierten intermetallischen Verbindungen kann über ein Wechselspiel des Kondoeffekts mit der RKKY-Wechselwirkung zum Auftreten von Grundzuständen wie magnetischer Ordnung oder unkonventioneller Supraleitung führen. Auch kristallelektrische Felder spielen bei dieser Art von Systemen eine große Rolle. Externe Parameter wie zum Beispiel Magnetfelder können das Tieftemperaturverhalten dieser Verbindungen modifizieren. In dieser Diplomarbeit wurde das ternäre System Ce_3Pd_4Si_4 in Hinblick auf seine physikalischen Eigenschaften untersucht. Das Ziel war, herauszufinden, welchen Veränderungen das System unterliegt, wenn eine der Komponenten durch ein Element derselben Gruppe des Periodensystems ersetzt wird. Insgesamt wurden sechs verwertbare Proben hergestellt, zwei in denen Silizium in verschiedenen stöchiometrischen Verhältnissen durch Germanium ersetzt wurde und vier bei denen das Übergangselement Nickel Palladium ersetzte. An diesen Proben wurde mit einer Vierpunktmethode der spezifische Widerstand ermittelt. Dieses geschah in einem Temperaturbereich von 0.4 bis 300 Kelvin, wobei auch in extern erzeugten Magnetfeldern mit einer Stärke von bis zu 12 Tesla gemessen wurde. Um einen genaueren Einblick in die magnetischen Eigenschaften der Materialien zu erhalten, wurden außerdem Messungen der magnetischen Suszeptibilität bzw. der Magnetisierung in Abhängigkeit von Feld und Temperatur durchgeführt, wobei eine Variable stets konstant gehalten wurde. Messungen der Wärmekapazität des Materials rundeten die Untersuchungen ab. Diese wurden ebenfalls bei tiefen Temperaturen und in Anwesenheit externer Magnetfelder durchgeführt. Im Rahmen der Auswertung der Daten konnte herausgefunden werden, dass die Proben der Si-Ge Substitutionsreihe Kondogitter-Verhalten in Anwesenheit einer Kristallfeldaufspaltung zeigen. Schon die kleinste Substitutionsrate führte zum Auftreten eines magnetischen Phasenübergangs innerhalb des Messbereichs in einen antiferromagnetischen Grundzustand. Dieser wurde bei der Ausgangsverbindung Ce_3Pd_4Si_4 nicht beobachtet. In Ce_3Pd_4Si_2.8Ge_1.2 wurden sogar zwei magnetische Phasenübergänge gefunden. Das Ersetzen von Silizium durch Germanium bewirkt des Weiteren eine Vergrößerung der Gitterparameter und damit der Einheitszelle, was mit einem Abfallen von sogenanntem chemischen Druck einhergeht. Die vier Proben der Pd-Ni Substitutionsreihe zeichneten sich vor allem durch die Veränderung ihrer magnetischen Eigenschaften aus. Bei niedrigeren Substitutionsraten wurde, wie auch in der Germaniumreihe, Kondo-Gitterverhalten und ein antiferromagnetischer Grundzustand beobachtet. Jedoch zeigten sich bei höheren Substitutionsraten diverse Veränderungen, unter anderem eine Verschiebung des Maximums des spezifischen Widerstandes von 5 K zu 60 K. Gleichzeitig sanken sowohl die Werte des Magnetowiderstandes als auch der magnetischen Entropie um eine Größenordnung. Die hier erzielten Ergebnisse sind auch deshalb hervorzuheben, da sie zeigen, dass die Substitution eines nichtmagnetischen Elements in einer Verbindung deren magnetische Eigenschaften sehr wohl fundamental verändern kann.Strongly correlated electron systems are known to exhibit a variety of extraordinary low temperature properties. The presence of 4f-electrons in cerium-based intermetallics leads to an interplay of RKKY interactions and the Kondo effect accompanied by the occurence of ground states like magnetic order or even superconductivity. Moreover, crystalline electric field effects play an important role for the behaviour of these compounds. External parameters like magnetic fields may strongly modify the system's properties at low temperatures. In this diploma thesis, the ternary system Ce_3Pd_4Si_4 has been studied as regards its physical properties. The aim of this diploma thesis was to describe which modifications occur in the aforementioned system, when one of the components is replaced by an element of the same group in the periodic table. Therefore, six specimen were prepared; two where silicon was substituted by germanium in different stoichimetric ratios and four where nickel replaced palladium. Resistivity measurements were performed using a four-point sensing method in the low temperature region (0.4 -300 K), inter alia in the presence of external magnetic fields up to 12 T. The magnetic susceptibility was measured in terms of the temperature-dependent and the field-dependent magnetisation. Additionally, heat capacity measurements were carried out in order to particularise the physical behaviour in line with the theoretical models. Subsequent analysis revealed for the Si-Ge substitution series Kondo lattice behaviour in the presence of crystalline electric field splitting. Yet the smallest substitution rate caused a transition into an antiferromagnetic groundstate in the measurement range, which wasn't observed in initial Ce_3Pd_4Si_4. In Ce_3Pd_4Si_2.8Ge_1.2, even two magnetic phase transitions were spotted. The volume of the unit cell increases, as silicon is exchanged for germanium, thus a release of chemical pressure is eminent. The four specimen of the Pd-Ni substitution series exhibit a strange and unexpected modification of magnetic properties. While lower substitution rates yield as well the appearance of an antiferromagnetic ground state, the Kondo behaviour changes drastically for higher substitutions. A shift of the resistivity maximum from temperatures around 5 K to 60 K is accompanied by a drop of the magnetoresistivity and the magnetic entropy by one order of magnitude. These findings are considerable, as they prove the fact that the substitution of a non-magnetic host material in a compound can modify magnetic properties remarkably.8

Das Krankenhaus im Spannungsfeld technischer Entwicklung: die Einfuehrung von Krankenhausinformationssystemen

Available from Bibliothek des Instituts fuer Weltwirtschaft, ZBW, Duesternbrook Weg 120, D-24105 Kiel A 203116 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Big holy dog: The wolf in North American literature

Big Holy Dog examines the full range of North American prose “wolf stories,” including children\u27s literature; novels and short fiction; oral narratives of the Pawnee, Kwaikutl, Micmac, and several other tribes; essays; and biological reports. European influences on Euro-North American narratives, from Norse cosmogonic myths to medieval European legends, receive some attention. A large section is devoted to wolf biology and ethology as these studies have helped shape North American storytelling about the wolf. It applies its own structural model, the Überwolf, to the texts in question. The model is divided into the “Corporeal Wolf” (efforts to represent real wolves), and the “Ghost Wolf” (representations of imagined wolves). While the Corporeal Wolf indicates a writer\u27s attempt at moral neutrality, the Ghost Wolf may be benevolent, malevolent, or some combination of the two. Hybridization, taxonomy, postcolonialism, and social constructionism, and especially ecological criticism, are all considered in the project. Close readings are given to works by Jack London and Cormac McCarthy. Appendices are devoted to wolf stories in the Arthurian cycle, the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction program, and ideas for an undergraduate course on wolves and wolf stories. The dissertation is partly designed to extend the work of such writers as Barry Lopez, whose Of Wolves and Men largely inspired its creation, and partly to aid those who are working to preserve the habitat and livelihood of Canis lupus against the incursions of the destructive reader

Phase retrieval for object and probe in the optical near-field

Softcover, 17x24Lensless, holographic X-ray microscopy is a non-invasive imaging technique that provides resolution on the nanometer scale. Therefore, a divergent, coherent and especially clean wave front impinging on the sample is needed. Yet, focusing X-rays by even the most advanced X-ray mirrors causes so called figure errors of high spatial frequency content. The results are strongly deteriorated intensity profiles that are often even more pronounced than the holographic image of the sample itself. A common strategy to compensate these figure errors is to divide the hologram by the pure intensity profile of the beam (the so called flat field). However, this division is only valid in the limiting case of an illumination focused down to a point source. In reality, as a consequence of a fi nite spot size, one has to accept a loss in resolution when performing the flat field correction. An approach different from the described straightforward procedure is necessary. Here, the simultaneous reconstruction of object and probe is proposed using holograms which were not flat field corrected before phase retrieval. To this end, a method has been developed that allows simultaneously reconstructing object and probe in amplitude and phase from holographic intensity recordings. The experimental way of proceeding was mainly inspired by well-established holographic full-field X-ray imaging techniques that require holograms defocused to different degrees. Consequently, the conclusion seems reasonable that diversity in the optical near-field arises mainly from variation of the propagation distance of light. This so called longitudinal diversity is used to properly phase the transmission function of the sample of interest. The algorithmic strategy of simultaneous phase retrieval for object and probe draws on far-field ptychography where lateral translations of the sample create diverse diffraction patterns. In view of the need for longitudinal diversity realized by shifts of the sample along the optical axis, ptychography has been generalized and adapted for the optical near-field. Hence, translations of the sample in all three dimensions of space need to be exploited to collect enough information about object and probe such that both can be reconstructed simultaneously in amplitude and phase. Concepts have been put into practice by simulations as well as by experiments with coherent visible light and hard X-rays from synchrotron sources. The presented approach offers the opportunity to perform high resolution imaging, to be extended to tomography and to be adapted to super-resolution experiments

Search engine optimization : a new literacy practice

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technical practice of modifying a website to receive higher rankings on search engines such as Google. Computer programmers carefully place keywords within content of frequently updated websites such as blogs, social networks\u27 discussion boards, and company profile sites so the site will appear at a higher ranking on search engines and capture potential consumers\u27 attention. Search engines frequently change the algorithms that scan websites and display them on search results listings, meaning the writers and computer programmers who focus on this optimization must constantly adjust their tactics for new rhetorical situations. This technical writing focuses not only on content and keyword count but essentially the goal of constantly drawing attention to the information they produce and exchange. Following this conception of literacy, Search Engine Optimization writing as a literacy practice includes technical programming skills to create web content. This content is intended to reach a human audience but is mediated by the technical knowledge of search engine algorithms. New literacy practices describe not only new technical genres but reflect that the process of creating such genres and the social motives for creation are non-traditional or new. SEO writing involves new technical writing skills and styles of writing, as well as a new purpose, not just selling products or achieving recognition, but gaining the attention of search engines that often control web users access to information. Exploring the literacy practice of such writing will demonstrate how technical and professional communicators have adapted to new genres and rhetorical situations in a digital landscape

Search engine optimization: a new literacy practice

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technical practice of modifying a website to receive higher rankings on search engines such as Google. Computer programmers carefully place keywords within content of frequently updated websites such as blogs, social networks\u27 discussion boards, and company profile sites so the site will appear at a higher ranking on search engines and capture potential consumers\u27 attention. Search engines frequently change the algorithms that scan websites and display them on search results listings, meaning the writers and computer programmers who focus on this optimization must constantly adjust their tactics for new rhetorical situations. This technical writing focuses not only on content and keyword count but essentially the goal of constantly drawing attention to the information they produce and exchange. Following this conception of literacy, Search Engine Optimization writing as a literacy practice includes technical programming skills to create web content. This content is intended to reach a human audience but is mediated by the technical knowledge of search engine algorithms. New literacy practices describe not only new technical genres but reflect that the process of creating such genres and the social motives for creation are non-traditional or new. SEO writing involves new technical writing skills and styles of writing, as well as a new purpose, not just selling products or achieving recognition, but gaining the attention of search engines that often control web users access to information. Exploring the literacy practice of such writing will demonstrate how technical and professional communicators have adapted to new genres and rhetorical situations in a digital landscape