Exploring How School Choice Affects the Distribution of Educational Resources in Ramsey County Minnesota

This study investigated how school choice affects resource distributions, mainly the socio-economic status of students, and the potential impact this has on equity in Minnesota’s education system. The literature review outlines the origins and history of school choice and discusses court cases related to school choice in Minnesota. The literature review explores the benefits of competition in an educational marketplace and also examines how school choice sorts students. Additionally, the literature review considers the importance of socio-economic status to educational outcomes. The research methodology was quantitative and involved graphing the distribution of socio-economic status as measured by the percentage of free and reduced lunch within the three public school types (magnet, charter, and neighborhood). The study found that neighborhood schools had relatively uniform distributions while magnet and charter schools had relatively skewed distributions. The study found that charter schools in particular had a large number of schools with high concentrations of free and reduced lunch-eligible students

The Effects of Styrene-Butadiene Latex Binder on the Properties of a Coated Sheet

The objective of this thesis proposal is to determine the effect of a varying latex binder on the physical and optical characteristics of a coated sheet with different binder addition levels. A total of nine separate coating formulations were made up of three different styrene to butadiene ratios and three different binder addition levels. The optical properties that were tested include opacity, brightness, paper gloss, and K&N ink absorption. The adhesive properties were evaluated by testing the physical properties of pick strength, abrasion resistance, and wet rub. The porosity and roughness characteristics were also tested. One liter of each coating formulation was made and ran on the CLC laboratory coater. A fifty pound basis weight base sheet was used. The parameters such as coat weight, percent solids, low shear viscosity, pH, pigment, and drying conditions were held constant at values to ensure good runnability on the CLC and resembling those most commonly used within the industry. The focus of this thesis topic being the binder variable, more specifically styrene-butadiene latex. The latex was obtained from the Dow chemical company at three different styrene to butadiene ratios within each latex. One formulation contained Dow 617 latex (hard} with a styrene/butadiene ratio of 1.9 and a glass transitional temperature (Tg) of 18 C. The second formulation contained Dow 620 latex (typical) with a styrene/butadiene ratio of 1.7 and a Tg of 12 C. The final formulation contained Dow 679 latex (soft) with a styrene/butadiene ratio of 1.3 and a Tg of -10 C. The amount of latex binder based on dry pigment became another variable. One coating formulation contained the typical 12% binder, one was lower approximately containing 8% binder, and the other was above the typical at 18% binder based on dry pigment. By altering the latex binder, the properties of the coating formulation itself alters. Certain properties such as film formation, glass transitional temperature, coalescence, and pigment to binder interactions all vary by changing the amount and type of latex. It can be concluded that the hard latex at a lower binder level is desired to achieve optimum optical characteristics while soft latex at a high binder level is desired for optimum binding strength characteristics. A compromise between the two must be achieved while making the proper coating formulation

A Study on the Acceptance of ECM Systems

The present paper summarizes selected results of the first au-thor‟s Master‟s thesis for the student track at the 10th Interna-tional Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik in Zurich, Switzer-land. The thesis was co-supervised by the second and the third author. Building upon the technology acceptance model (TAM), the assignment was to investigate factors impacting on end users‟ acceptance of enterprise content management (ECM) systems. The study suggests twenty-two factors at the enterprise, process, technology, and content level that can influence ECM success. The results are grounded in both a systematic review of the lite-rature on ECM, including related fields such as document man-agement and records management, and an analysis of qualitative data collected from five ECM-adopting organizations. It is hoped that the findings will inform future Information Systems (IS) research on ECM acceptance. Practitioners can use the results in the process of planning and conducting their own ECM projects

Modeling and analyzing visualization post-processing over distance

Stockpile stewardship requires a high-end computing capacity complemented with a balance of memory capacity and bandwidth, interconnect bandwidth, local and global disk capacity and bandwidth, network bandwidth, and archival capacity and bandwidth. This appendix will provide a detailed analysis that will identify technical issues arising from various user interactions with a computer with a peak capacity of 10 TFLOPs and with 5TB of memory

Wiltzius and van Saarloos reply

FWN – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

Screening of Hydrodynamic Interactions in Semidilute Polymer Solutions: A Computer Simulation Study

We study single-chain motion in semidilute solutions of polymers of length N = 1000 with excluded-volume and hydrodynamic interactions by a novel algorithm. The crossover length of the transition from Zimm (short lengths and times) to Rouse dynamics (larger scales) is proportional to the static screening length. The crossover time is the corresponding Zimm time. Our data indicate Zimm behavior at large lengths but short times. There is no hydrodynamic screening until the chains feel constraints, after which they resist the flow: "Incomplete screening" occurs in the time domain.Comment: 3 figure

Structural basis for inhibition of the epidermal growth factor receptor by cetuximab

SummaryRecent structural studies of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family extracellular regions have identified an unexpected mechanism for ligand-induced receptor dimerization that has important implications for activation and inhibition of these receptors. Here we describe the 2.8 Å resolution X-ray crystal structure of the antigen binding (Fab) fragment from cetuximab (Erbitux), an inhibitory anti-EGFR antibody, in complex with the soluble extracellular region of EGFR (sEGFR). The sEGFR is in the characteristic “autoinhibited” or “tethered” inactive configuration. Cetuximab interacts exclusively with domain III of sEGFR, partially occluding the ligand binding region on this domain and sterically preventing the receptor from adopting the extended conformation required for dimerization. We suggest that both these effects contribute to potent inhibition of EGFR activation

The architecture of amyloid-like peptide fibrils revealed by X-ray scattering, diffraction and electron microscopy

Structural analysis of protein fibrillation is inherently challenging. Given the crucial role of fibrils in amyloid diseases, method advancement is urgently needed. A hybrid modelling approach is presented enabling detailed analysis of a highly ordered and hierarchically organized fibril of the GNNQQNY peptide fragment of a yeast prion protein. Data from small-angle X-ray solution scattering, fibre diffraction and electron microscopy are combined with existing high-resolution X-ray crystallographic structures to investigate the fibrillation process and the hierarchical fibril structure of the peptide fragment. The elongation of these fibrils proceeds without the accumulation of any detectable amount of intermediate oligomeric species, as is otherwise reported for, for example, glucagon, insulin and [alpha]-synuclein. Ribbons constituted of linearly arranged protofilaments are formed. An additional hierarchical layer is generated via the pairing of ribbons during fibril maturation. Based on the complementary data, a quasi-atomic resolution model of the protofilament peptide arrangement is suggested. The peptide structure appears in a [beta]-sheet arrangement reminiscent of the [beta]-zipper structures evident from high-resolution crystal structures, with specific differences in the relative peptide orientation. The complexity of protein fibrillation and structure emphasizes the need to use multiple complementary methods

Effects of Pore Walls and Randomness on Phase Transitions in Porous Media

We study spin models within the mean field approximation to elucidate the topology of the phase diagrams of systems modeling the liquid-vapor transition and the separation of He$^3$--He$^4$ mixtures in periodic porous media. These topologies are found to be identical to those of the corresponding random field and random anisotropy spin systems with a bimodal distribution of the randomness. Our results suggest that the presence of walls (periodic or otherwise) are a key factor determining the nature of the phase diagram in porous media.Comment: REVTeX, 11 eps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.