Word-serial reader for network devices having limited display capabilities

A method and apparatus for presenting information using an electronic display. Information stored in a source format is retrieved from a source device. The information is converted the source format to a uniform serial stream format. The converted information is presented on the display by sequentially flashing words on the display while presenting static elements to help a user navigate through the information.Published versio

Economics as a conceptual resource for the study of public management

Four related bodies of knowledge inform the study and practice of public management. Broadest in scope is knowledge about the political processes that place demands, provide opportunities, and impose constraints on public managers. Next broadest in scope is policy analysis, which provides the conceptual foundations and craft skills for determining what government should do and how it should be done. Organizational design, a subset of policy analysis, gives insight into how the public sector can be organized to facilitate the effective delivery of goods and services. Narrowest in scope, but most directly relevant to the practice of management, is knowledge about how to carry out executive functions skillfully within existing organizational designs. We take the latter two bodies of knowledge, organizational design and executive function, as the core of the craft and science of public management. In this essay we consider what the discipline of economics offers for research on the core of public management

The On-Orbit Performance of the CALIOP Lidar on CALIPSO

CALIPSO is a joint NASA - CNES satellite currently in its third year of operation in low earth orbit. The satellite is making optical measurements of the Earth s atmosphere to help quantify the impact of aerosols and clouds on the Earth s radiation budget. To do this, it carries three instruments: CALIOP, a two-wavelength polarization-sensitive elastic backscatter lidar; the IIR a three band thermal imaging radiometer; and the WFC a visible single-band imager. CALIOP utilizes a Nd:YAG laser which incorporates a harmonic crystal to provide laser light at both 1064 nm and 532 nm. This beam is expanded and transmitted into the atmosphere at near nadir. The laser light scattered from clouds and aerosols back to the satellite, along with any solar background light, is collected by a one meter diameter beryllium telescope. The captured light is separated into its two wavelengths and optically filtered. The 1064 nm component is detected with an avalanche photodiode, while the 532 nm component is further resolved into two linear polarization components which are then detected by matching photomultiplier tubes. This presentation will describe the lidar and give examples of its on-orbit performance

Internationalisation at Home in Finnish Higher Education Institutions and Research Institutes

This study on the current status of internationalisation at home was carried out for the Ministry of Education and Culture by the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, which is based at the University of Jyväskylä. The study was commissioned using the streamlined procedure for small-scale public procurement. The purpose of the study was to investigate how much attention had been paid to internationalisation at home in institutions of higher education and research and to ways in which related practices had been implemented. The research data was collected via an online questionnaire and interviews conducted at various institutions. On the basis of the data, there are clear differences within and between higher education institutions in terms of familiarity with the concept of internationalisation at home and the importance assigned to it, the extent to which equality had been achieved in student participation, and the roles of international staff and students. The researchers identified a number of promising practices as well as some challenges to language policy. Integrating internationalisation at home with established strategies and procedures calls for a holistic approach that covers everything from the national level to that of the individual student. The report sets out recommendations for action to be taken at various levels (nationwide, in institutions of higher education, in faculties and departments, in teaching and administration, and among students). These include the following: - including indicators of internationalisation at home in agreements on performance targets; - promoting internationalisation at home, cross-cultural competence and language skills among teachers and administrators; - refining intercultural teaching methods and evaluating skills; - including intercultural skills and internationalisation at home in personal study plans

Testing for Budget Constraint Effects in a National Advisory Referendum Survey on the Kyoto Protocol

In contrast to providing standard reminders about remembering household budgets, does asking survey respondents about their discretionary income and its use affect their voting responses in a national advisory referendum survey? We explore this question using U.S. household data from a unique set of multi-mode random samples (telephone and Internet surveys), and an advisory referendum concerning the Kyoto Protocol. The contingent valuation method is applied to estimate household willingness to pay (WTP) for a split-sample treatment: respondents who only received a standard reminder of household budgets (control group) versus respondents who received two mental accounting-type questions on discretionary income and its uses (treatment group). Results indicate that the treatment significantly influences voting responses and lowers estimated household WTP.budget constraint, contingent valuation, Kyoto Protocol, mental accounts, referendum, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Continuum Model of Helium Desorption Kinetics

Helium desorption is treated in a model where the film is assumed to have the thermodynamic properties of bulk liquid and the vapor is described by kinetic theory. Equations for energy and mass conservation determine the dynamics of the system. The model resolves some puzzling features of a number of experiments, and predicts a thermally activated desorption time constant in reasonable agreement with experiment, without adjustable parameters

Exploring the Beta Model Using Proportional Budget Information in a Contingent Valuation Study

Using a set of random telephone and Internet (web-based) survey samples for a national advisory referendum, we implement Beta models to handle proportional budget information, and allow for consistency in modeling assumptions and the calculation of estimated willingness to pay (WTP). Results indicate significant budget constraint effects and demonstrate the potential for Beta models in handling mental-accounting type information.Beta model

Improving STEM Education in Research: Preliminary Report on the Development of a Computer-Assisted Student-Mentor Research Community

Research education in STEM disciplines currently suffers from 1) The inability to feasibly collect highly detailed data on both the student’s and mentor’s activities; 2) The lack of tools to assist students and mentors in organizing and managing their research activities and environments; and 3) The inability to correlate a student’s assessment results with their actual research activities. Together these three problems act to impede both the improvement and educational quality of student research experiences. We propose a computer-assisted student-mentor research community as a solution to these problems. Within this community setting, students and their mentors are provided tools to make their work easier, much like a word processor makes writing a letter easier. Through their use of these tools, details of student-mentor activities are automatically recorded in a relational database, without burdening users with the responsibility of archiving data. Equally important, student assessments of outcome can be directly related to student activity, allowing educators to identify practices resulting in successful research experiences. Community tools also facilitate the use of labor-intensive teaching laboratories involving real inquiry-based research. The community structure has the added benefit of allowing students to see, communicate and interact more freely with other students and their projects, thus enriching the student’s research experience. We provide herein a preliminary report on the development and testing of a prototype, student-mentor research community, and present its tools, an assessment of student interest in participating in the community, and discuss its further development into a nationally-available student-mentor research community