Style Makes the Writing: Expanding Considerations of Style in the Writing Center

As a pedagogical tool, “style” in writing center lore has been cast as a lower-order concern. This marginalization stems not only from the difficulty of defining the word itself, but also from a persistent belief that “style” exists in a vacuum separate from “content,” “development,” and grammar, thus being of secondary importance to tutors and administrators. In this article, Edward Santos Garza challenges this clinical framework, arguing that style, a vital, permeating force, has much to offer those in writing center work. He positions style as a tool to help WC visitors more fully discuss, assess, and strengthen themselves as writers. Asserting that style is equally valuable for thinking about writing with regard to identity, Garza envisions how WC staff could productively foreground it in sessions and training. [Style] pervades the whole being. The administrator with a sense for style hates waste; the engineer with a sense for style economises his material; the artisan with a sense for style prefers good work. Style is the ultimate morality of mind. (12) — Alfred North Whitehead “The Aims of Education"University Writing Cente

Preserving the validity of the Two-Higgs Doublet Model up to the Planck scale

We examine the constraints on the two Higgs doublet model (2HDM) due to the stability of the scalar potential and absence of Landau poles at energy scales below the Planck scale. We employ the most general 2HDM that incorporates an approximately Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson with a flavor aligned Yukawa sector to eliminate potential tree-level Higgs-mediated flavor changing neutral currents. Using basis independent techniques, we exhibit robust regimes of the 2HDM parameter space with a 125 GeV SM-like Higgs boson that is stable and perturbative up to the Planck scale. Implications for the heavy scalar spectrum are exhibited.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables (Version 3: typographical error in eq. (A.28) corrected

Graphs of Transportation Polytopes

This paper discusses properties of the graphs of 2-way and 3-way transportation polytopes, in particular, their possible numbers of vertices and their diameters. Our main results include a quadratic bound on the diameter of axial 3-way transportation polytopes and a catalogue of non-degenerate transportation polytopes of small sizes. The catalogue disproves five conjectures about these polyhedra stated in the monograph by Yemelichev et al. (1984). It also allowed us to discover some new results. For example, we prove that the number of vertices of an $m\times n$ transportation polytope is a multiple of the greatest common divisor of $m$ and $n$.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures. Final version. Improvements to the exposition of several lemmas and the upper bound in Theorem 1.1 is improved by a factor of tw

Estimating Inflation-at-Risk (IaR) using Extreme Value Theory (EVT)

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has the primary responsibility of maintaining stable prices conducive to a balanced and sustainable economic growth. The year 2008 posed a challenge to the BSP’s monetary policy making as inflation hit an official 17-year high of 12.5 percent in August after 10 months of continuous acceleration. The alarming double-digit inflation rate was attributed to rising fuel and food prices, particularly the price of rice. A high inflation rate has impact on poverty since inflation affects the poor more than the rich. From a macroeconomic perspective, high level of inflation is not conducive to economic growth. This paper proposes a method of estimating Inflation-at-Risk (IaR) similar to the Value-at-Risk (VaR) used to estimate risk in the financial market. The IaR represents the maximum inflation over a target horizon for a given low pre-specified probability. It can serve as an early warning system that can be used by the BSP to identify whether the level of inflation is extreme enough to be considered an imminent threat to its inflation objective. The extreme value theory (EVT), which deals with the frequency and magnitude of very low probability events, is used as the basis for building a model in estimating the IaR. The estimates of the IaR using the peaks-over-threshold (POT) model suggest that the while the inflation rate experienced in 2008 can not be considered as an extreme value, it was very near the estimated 90 percent IaR.Inflation-at-Risk (IaR), Extreme Value Theory (EVT), Peaks-over-Threshold (POT)

Factors Affecting Consumer Satisfaction to Online Shopping

Most companies are expanding their network through an online platform. Under various scenarios (e.g. pandemic situations), market vendors should be versatile and adaptable to different types of distribution channels. This paper described the factors affecting consumer satisfaction to online shopping such as reliability and responsiveness, assurance and empathy, and tangibility. This paper determined the significant difference between the sex of respondents and the factors affecting consumer satisfaction to online shopping. This paper used a descriptive method, a total of 487 online consumers (219 Male and 268 Female) within Cabanatuan City were involved in this study using adopted questionnaire with adopted likert-scale responses. Based on the gathered data, the researchers drew four conclusions. First, the respondents have a strong degree of confidence in their respective website/application for online shopping. Hence, it is recommended that owners of online shopping website/application should work on improving their order cancelation and returns. Second, the respondents trusted online shopping websites/applications because of their marketing tactics, such as word of mouth, to boost their credibility. Hence, it is highly suggested that the owners of online shopping website/application should track the problems involving product delivery. Third, respondents have been literate in using and searching online shopping websites/applications. Hence, it is recommended that the owners of the online shopping website/application continuously improve their system to keep their consumers satisfied. Finally, the null hypothesis is retained. It implies that sex does not affect the consumer satisfaction to online shopping factors. Thus, it is suggested to look for other variables that may affect consumer satisfaction

Evaluation of Computerized information systems of small business Organizations

Computer is an important tool in which business organizations use in financial reporting and operational methods to obtain data recording systems as well as computer literacy is treated as an important asset in the modern business world. The study described the computer literacy of Small business staff and owners, the level of usefulness and seriousness of problems encountered in using computers. Further, the study determined the significant difference among the level of literacy, usefulness and seriousness of problems encountered by small business staff and owners in using computers. Rejecting the hypothesis, there is significant difference on the responses of Small business staff and Small business owners as to literacy, usefulness, and seriousness of problems being encountered by respondents in performing their work with the use of computer. Based on the findings, the extent of literacy on computer especially on the context of information systems that are present in the computer is very much literate. The level of usefulness of computer especially on the information systems in making financial reports according to the response of Small business staff is moderately useful. While for Small business owners, it is very much useful. The respondents commonly experience problems with their advancement using computerized information system. It implies that there are no serious problems being encountered by respondents in dealing with the aid of computer. The researcher recommends that Small business organizations (SBOs) should develop a different approach especially designed for the respondents. This could be done in coordination to multi-agency to provide adequate knowledge in utilizing the information systems that are being installed in the computer