A search in the COS-B data base for correlated time variability in regions containing objects of interest

As is well known, association of the gamma-ray sources with celestial objects is, in general, difficult on a pure positional basis, while correlated time variability could obviously provide such proof. This technique can be employed on regions of the gamma-ray sky containing interesting objects of known variability at some wavelength even in the absence of a recognized gamma-ray excess with the aim to extract a weak but predictable signal from the surrounding noise. This technique is applied here on a longer variability time scale, generally of the order of days. Photons coming from the sky regions centered on the various celestial objects considered were selected with energies 100 MeV and with arrival directions within an energy-dependent area of radius of approx 6 deg at 100 MeV. In order to construct a time profile of such photons, their arrival times were grouped in bins of dimensions defined by the available photons number and by the value of the period searched for

Nga iwi o Ngapuhi membership system: relationship management and relational design

This paper reviews a capstone project undertaken by Auckland University of Technology (AUT) students to develop a tribal membership register for Te Runanga a Iwi o Ngapuhi. The initial scope of the project incorporated a database to record details of people, land, and their common history. As the project unfolded complex issues related to land, genealogical and historical relationships had to be addressed. The paper discusses the relationship between the clients and developers and the partnership model that was adopted. Research conducted to develop a suitable data model uncovered the GENTECH genealogical data model originated by genealogists in Texas. This model was adapted for this project to suit the unique needs of Maori. The paper describes the initial implementation of an online membership register and concludes with a critique of this model proposing further extensions to address the interactions between people, land and history

Motivation, Optimal Experience and Flow in First Year Computing Science

We examine the concept of motivation from the perspective of Self Determination Theory and give a brief overview of relevant results. We also consider the optimal state known as "Flow" and give an account of its conceptualisation in the theory due to Csikszentmihalyi. After discussion of ways in which these concepts can be measured, we describe a set of preliminary studies that investigate motivation and flow in the context of a first year computing class. We analyse student responses to enquiries about perceptions of motivation and flow experiences and look at links between them. We also discuss intrinsic motivation within the subject

Motivation, optimal experience and flow in first year computing science.

We examine the concept of motivation from the perspective of Self Determination Theory and give a brief overview of relevant results. We also consider the optimal state known as Flow and give an account of its conceptualisation in the theory due to Csikszentmihalyi. After discussion of ways in which these concepts can be measured, we describe a set of preliminary studies that investigate motivation and flow in the context of a first year computing class. We analyse student responses to enquiries about perceptions of motivation and flow experiences and look at links between them. We also discuss intrinsic motivation within the subject

Reliably Classifying Novice Programmer Exam Responses using the SOLO Taxonomy

Abstract: Past papers of the BRACElet project have described an approach to teaching and assessing students where the students are presented with short pieces of code, and are instructed to explain, in plain English, what the code does. The student responses to these types of questions can be analysed according to the SOLO taxonomy. Some students display an understanding of the code as a single, functional whole, while other students cannot âsee the forest for the treesâ . However, classifying student responses into the taxonomy is not always straightforward. This paper analyses the reliability of the SOLO taxonomy as a means of categorising student responses. The paper derives an augmented set of SOLO categories for application to the programming domain, and proposes a set of guidelines for researchers to use

A Lexical Database of Portuguese Multiword Expressions

This presentation focuses on an ongoing project which aims at the creation of a large lexical database of Portuguese multiword (MW) units, automatically extracted through the analysis of a balanced 50 million word corpus, statistically interpreted with lexical association measures and validated by hand. This database covers different types of MW units, like named entities, and lexical associations ranging from sets of favoured co-occurring forms with high corpus frequency and low cohesion to strongly lexicalized expressions with no, or minimum, variation. This new resource has a two-fold objective: to be an important research tool which supports the development of collocation typologies and their integration in a larger theory of MW units; to be of major help in developing and evaluating language processing tools able of dealing with MW expressions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Common Era sea-level budgets along the U.S. Atlantic coast

Sea-level budgets account for the contributions of processes driving sea-level change, but are predominantly focused on global-mean sea level and limited to the 20th and 21st centuries. Here we estimate site-specific sea-level budgets along the U.S. Atlantic coast during the Common Era (0-2000 CE) by separating relative sea-level (RSL) records into process-related signals on different spatial scales. Regional-scale, temporally linear processes driven by glacial isostatic adjustment dominate RSL change and exhibit a spatial gradient, with fastest rates of rise in southern New Jersey (1.6 ± 0.02 mm yr-1). Regional and local, temporally non-linear processes, such as ocean/atmosphere dynamics and groundwater withdrawal, contributed between -0.3 and 0.4 mm yr-1 over centennial timescales. The most significant change in the budgets is the increasing influence of the common global signal due to ice melt and thermal expansion since 1800 CE, which became a dominant contributor to RSL with a 20th century rate of 1.3 ± 0.1 mm yr-1

Understanding the UK hospital supply chain in an era of patient choice

Author Posting © Westburn Publishers Ltd, 2011. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copy-edit version of an article which has been published in its definitive form in the Journal of Marketing Management, and has been posted by permission of Westburn Publishers Ltd for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Journal of Marketing Management, 27(3-4), 401 - 423, doi:10.1080/0267257X.2011.547084 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2011.547084The purpose of this paper is to investigate the UK hospital supply chain in light of recent government policy reform where patients will have, inter alia, greater choice of hospital for elective surgery. Subsequently, the hospital system should become far more competitive with supply chains having to react to these changes as patient demand becomes less predictable. Using a qualitative case study methodology, hospital managers are interviewed on a range of issues. Views on the development of the hospital supply chain in different phases are derived, and are used to develop a map of the current hospital chain. The findings show hospital managers anticipating some significant changes to the hospital supply chain and its workings as Patient Choice expands. The research also maps the various aspects of the hospital supply chain as it moves through different operational phases and highlights underlying challenges and complexities. The hospital supply chain, as discussed and mapped in this research, is original work given there are no examples in the literature that provide holistic representations of hospital activity. At the end, specific recommendations are provided that will be of interest to service to managers, researchers, and policymakers

Gluon mass generation in the PT-BFM scheme

In this article we study the general structure and special properties of the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the gluon propagator constructed with the pinch technique, together with the question of how to obtain infrared finite solutions, associated with the generation of an effective gluon mass. Exploiting the known all-order correspondence between the pinch technique and the background field method, we demonstrate that, contrary to the standard formulation, the non-perturbative gluon self-energy is transverse order-by-order in the dressed loop expansion, and separately for gluonic and ghost contributions. We next present a comprehensive review of several subtle issues relevant to the search of infrared finite solutions, paying particular attention to the role of the seagull graph in enforcing transversality, the necessity of introducing massless poles in the three-gluon vertex, and the incorporation of the correct renormalization group properties. In addition, we present a method for regulating the seagull-type contributions based on dimensional regularization; its applicability depends crucially on the asymptotic behavior of the solutions in the deep ultraviolet, and in particular on the anomalous dimension of the dynamically generated gluon mass. A linearized version of the truncated Schwinger-Dyson equation is derived, using a vertex that satisfies the required Ward identity and contains massless poles belonging to different Lorentz structures. The resulting integral equation is then solved numerically, the infrared and ultraviolet properties of the obtained solutions are examined in detail, and the allowed range for the effective gluon mass is determined. Various open questions and possible connections with different approaches in the literature are discussed.Comment: 54 pages, 24 figure

Community Justice and Public Safety: Assessing Criminal Justice Policy Through the Lens of the Social Contract

A reconceptualization of the idea of “community justice” is framed in the logic of the social contract and emphasizes the responsibility of the justice system for the provision of public safety. First, we illustrate the ways in which the criminal justice system has hindered the efforts of community residents to participate in the production of public safety by disrupting informal social networks. Then we turn to an examination of the compositional dynamics of California prison populations over time to demonstrate that the American justice system has failed to meet their obligations to provide public safety by incapacitating dangerous offenders. We argue that these policy failures represent a breach of the social contract and advocate for more effective collaboration between communities and the formal criminal justice system so that all parties can fulfill their obligations under the contract