Photography, tragedy and Osama bin Laden: looking at the enemy

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/criq.1219

Playing the field: the responses of elite, girls-only secondary schools to the shifting landscape of an increasingly globalised, post-apartheid South Africa

This study investigates the responses of elite, girls-only secondary schools in Cape Town to the shifting landscape of an increasingly globalised, post-apartheid South Africa, from the perspective of their principals. It sketches the shifts due to neoliberal globalisation and the socio-political changes of the post-apartheid dispensation, and argues that South African schools face the enormously complex task of navigating the impact of these forces from these two, often contradictory, fields on a daily basis. The study draws extensively upon Pierre Bourdieu's notions of habitus, field and capital for the analysis of the qualitative research data gathered by means of semi-structured interviews. The dissertation firstly examines what the field looks and feels like for the six elite schools included in this study from the perspectives of their principals, with a specific focus on the impact of the dual forces identified above as experienced by these schools. Because of the particular position that these privileged, well-resourced schools occupy within the field, they are potentially well-placed to play the field in powerful ways, and thus possibly influence the field in their own right, as well as produce students with the appropriate symbolic and cultural capital to be effective future players in this increasingly globalised, post-apartheid world. This concept of being effective players (for both schools and individuals) draws upon Bourdieu's analogy of the field as a game. If the field, as a structural social space, is compared to a game, those who embody the habitus of the field and posses the appropriate symbolic and cultural capital for that field are best placed to be effective players. They possess, as it were, a seemingly instinctive 'feel for the game' (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 62). This study examines the nature of the habitus of the schools in this study and the advantages that those who enter these schools already possessing this habitus have by being able to embody the regularities of the game. From an analysis of the research data it is clear that the primary concern of all of the interviewees is their students. Collectively the principals viewed many aspects of the changes upon the field as presenting exciting opportunities for their students. These opportunities included the formation of new types of networks as a form of social capital, as well as the ability both to imagine and experience a world beyond South Africa's borders as a result of the ascendancy in technology and the emergence of the knowledge economy. However, there are clear pressures on both schools and students that need to be carefully managed and contained. The common themes that emerged were: market-related issues of financial sustainability;; various challenges presented by the number and nature of the curricula implemented since 1994;; heightened parental expectations;; a general disintegration of the traditional, stabilising role played by families;; and a significant rise in stress levels amongst teenagers, resulting in an increase in phenomena such as cyber-bullying and teenage depression. This study found that the common strategies adopted by these schools to equip their students with the appropriate symbolic and cultural capital to maximise the opportunities and manage these and other pressures included: having high expectations of students;; the instilling of a strong work ethic;; the development of inter- and intra-personal social skills;; an emphasis on the growth of leaders and leadership skills;; a focus on traditional values in a changing world;; and the encouragement of 'giving back' to society by means of involvement in community partnerships. There was also strong agreement that the girls-only feature of these schools could work to the benefit of their students in terms of instilling capital. These, then, are the ways in which these elite schools are 'playing the field'

Trends in the Health of Older Californians: Data From the 2001, 2003 and 2005 California Health Interview Surveys

Analyzes trends in the health status and use of preventive services among Californians age 65 and over by race/ethnicity, insurance type, and region. Reports rises in doctor visits and in cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and other illnesses

-- something more exactly related then a fixion : Lady Mary Sidney Wroth\u27s Urania and Jacobean religio-political controversy

The Sidney family has long been recognized for its literary endeavors and for its involvement in the religio-political debates of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Studies of Mary Sidney Wroth, however, have cast only sidelong glances at the religio- political level of Wroth\u27s The Countess of Montgomery\u27s Urania (1621). This dissertation examines how Wroth, within the boundaries of Urania, investigates her own questions and convictions regarding the religio-political debates of Jacobean England. Wroth witnessed King James\u27s attempts to promote the unification of Christian Europe through pacific negotiation and strategic marriage alliances. Ultimately, the goal of a unified Christian Europe was one shared by Wroth and King James; however, the two did not agree on the best means of achieving such union. Thus I suggest that Wroth constructed Urania as the narrative site in which to engage imaginatively and freely with her own religio-political opinions. In this study, Wroth\u27s Urania is reevaluated as the Sidney family challenge to James\u27s failed attempts to unify Christian Europe. The dissertation suggests that, in order to issue this challenge, Wroth focuses the heart of Urania on the mythic goal of a restored Holy Roman Empire. Looking back to the irenic court of Emperor Maximilian II (ruled 1564-1576), Wroth explores the emperor\u27s attempts to create a unified empire and tests his policies and those of James through her own fictional emperor, Amphilanthus. Simultaneously, Wroth tests the religio-political ideals she viewed as potential alternatives to the previously failed policies of both Maximilian and James. Specifically, this study evaluates the tenets of Protestant resistance theory and monarchomachist intervention that Urania appears to privilege. Further, it examines the neostoicism of Justus Lipsius and how its advocation of Constancy and world citizenship also figure into Wroth\u27s formula for a successfully united Christian Europe

Compelling Project Management

Successfully delivering a project, task, or even a group decision requires effective collaboration skills, and the great thing about skills is that they can be learned. With collaboration, you can effectively lead a team toward decision making and deliver results. In this session, we will analyze different methods of collaboration to help you build this skill and make you a more persuasive and compelling project manager

Comparison of Post-injection Site Pain Between Technetium Sulfur Colloid and Technetium Tilmanocept in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy.

BackgroundNo prior studies have examined injection pain associated with Technetium-99m Tilmanocept (TcTM).MethodsThis was a randomized, double-blinded study comparing postinjection site pain between filtered Technetium Sulfur Colloid (fTcSC) and TcTM in breast cancer lymphoscintigraphy. Pain was evaluated with a visual analogue scale (VAS) (0-100 mm) and the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ). The primary endpoint was mean difference in VAS scores at 1-min postinjection between fTcSC and TcTM. Secondary endpoints included a comparison of SF-MPQ scores between the groups at 5 min postinjection and construction of a linear mixed effects model to evaluate the changes in pain during the 5-min postinjection period.ResultsFifty-two patients underwent injection (27-fTcSC, 25-TcTM). At 1-min postinjection, patients who received fTcSC experienced a mean change in pain of 16.8 mm (standard deviation (SD) 19.5) compared with 0.2 mm (SD 7.3) in TcTM (p = 0.0002). At 5 min postinjection, the mean total score on the SF-MPQ was 2.8 (SD 3.0) for fTcSC versus 2.1 (SD 2.5) for TcTM (p = 0.36). In the mixed effects model, injection agent (p < 0.001), time (p < 0.001) and their interaction (p < 0.001) were associated with change in pain during the 5-min postinjection period. The model found fTcSC resulted in significantly more pain of 15.2 mm (p < 0.001), 11.3 mm (p = 0.001), and 7.5 mm (p = 0.013) at 1, 2, and 3 min postinjection, respectively.ConclusionsInjection with fTcSC causes significantly more pain during the first 3 min postinjection compared with TcTM in women undergoing lymphoscintigraphy for breast cancer

Estimation of Employee Stock Option Exercise Rates

This paper is the first to perform a comprehensive estimation of employee stock option exercise behavior and option cost to firms. We develop a GMM-based methodology, robust to heteroskedasticity and correlation across exercises, for estimating the rate of voluntary option exercise as a function of the stock price path and of various firm and option holder characteristics. We use it to estimate an exercise function from a sample of 870,624 employee-option grants at 47 publicly-traded firms between 1980-2005, finding that volatility has a counterintuitive effect, and that men exercise faster than women. We also estimate the rate of employment termination, which determines forfeitures, cancellations, and forced exercises. We use the estimated exercise and termination functions in a simulation based valuation model to analyze the effect of different firm and option holder characteristics on option value, and show that the true value of these options can differ substantially from values calculated using the usual FASB approximation

Estimation of Employee Stock Option Exercise Rates and Firm Cost: Methodology

Investors have become increasingly concerned about the cost of executive stock options to shareholders. Because executives face hedging constraints, standard option theory does not apply.The valuation problem reduces to accurately characterizing the option payoff. This paper develops a methodology for estimating option exercise and cancellation rates as a function of the stock price path, time to expiration, and firm and option holder characteristics. Our estimation accounts for correlation between exercises by the same executive. Valuation proceeds by using the estimated exercise rate function to describe the option’s expected payoff along each stock price path and then computing the present value of the payoff. The estimation of empirical exercise rates also allows us to test the predictions of theoretical models of option exercise behavior. The paper not only illustrates an ideal valuation method for a large dataset, but also shows how to evaluate the usefulness of some of the approximations proposed in the literature