Researching the Laws of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

Roger Williams is generally recognized as the founder of Rhode Island. Although his settlement of Providence in 1636 was not the first or only settlement in the area, he was able to open the whole region to English settlement. Due to his friendship with local Indians and knowledge of their language he obtained land from the Indians and assisted other settlers in doing the same. When Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 because of his rejection of Puritanism, his friend, Governor John Winthrop, suggested that he start a new settlement at Narragansett Bay. Founders of other early settlements also migrated from the Massachusetts colony seeking religious freedom. Rhode Island began as four separate towns, which were not incorporated until a joint government was formed in 1647, under the “Incorporation of Providence Plantations,” or Charter of 1644. Until the granting of that charter, Rhode Island had no authority to exist as an English colony. The official name of the state remains today “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Rhode Island refers to Aquidneck Island, the location of the present-day towns of Portsmouth, Middletown, and Newport. According to Howard Chapin’s Documentary History of Rhode Island, “the earliest appearance of the name Rhode Island as the designation of the island of Aquidneck is in a letter from Roger Williams to Deputy Governor John Winthrop ... which from its context was evidently written in the spring of 1637.” As described below, the Island was one of the first areas in the Colony to be settled. Providence Plantations refers to early settlements at the northern end of the Narragansett Bay, in Providence and the surrounding area. The word plantation has the meaning of a settlement in a new country or region: colony. Parts II, III, and IV of this paper consist of bibliographic essays covering three main periods in the early development of the Colonial government and legal institutions of Rhode Island: 1636-1647, the formation of the four original towns and their consolidation under a Parliamentary Patent, or Charter; 1647-1663, government under the Code of 1647 and the issuance of a Royal Charter; and 1663-1776, governance under the Royal Charter and the deterioration of relations with the monarchy leading to a declaration of independence. While the history of Rhode Island is fascinating, only the bare essentials are provided in this article, sufficient to explain the background and context in which legal institutions developed in the Colony. Part V deals with legislative documents and includes a bibliographic listing of important legislative documents of the colonial period. Part VI addresses the early development of Rhode Island’s court system, and includes a bibliographic listing of both primary and secondary sources on the history of the courts. The conclusion provides a list of additional sources for researching the history, government, and laws of colonial Rhode Island, including archival collections in the state

A successful intervention program for high ability minority students

Among professional occupations in the United States, non-Asian minorities are least represented in science and engineering fields. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that over the next decade, civilian employment of scientists and engineers has the potential to grow by 40 percent. Furthermore, projections for the year 2000 indicate that 100,000 fewer B.S. and B.A. degrees will be awarded than were awarded in 1984. The latter projection takes into consideration the overall declining proportion of all 18 year old college students. Within this shrinking pool of 18 year old potential college students will be an increasing proportion of Blacks and Hispanics. In order to change the educational patterns for minority youth, an intense look at the factors that affect the science and mathematics performance of minorities. Furthermore, the work of programs that are successful at producing minority scientists and engineers must be examined and documented with the intent of replicating these programs. The fundamental concern at this time appears to be the quality of precollege experience because research has shown that lack of precollege preparation is the single most important cause of underrepresentation of minorities in science and engineering careers. For many years, intervention programs have attempted to improve the quality of the minority precollege experience by latter year intervention in grades eleven and twelve. Later efforts, such as this one, have concentrated on earlier years. The effectiveness of intervention programs is widely accepted but not rigorously documented. The mechanisms these programs have developed need to be identified and their potential for broader use evaluated. The ultimate goal of such studies would be to provide the different educational communities with a set of proven cost-effective state of the art mechanisms designed to increase participation and success of minority students in science and mathematics-related courses. One such intervention program is the Saturday Academy program for high ability minority students in the Washington, D.C. area. A description of the Saturday Academy is provided with the intent of making it available to personnel who are considering the development of similar projects. The effect of participation in the program on high school graduate rates, college enrollment, and choice of quantitative major is examined

Determining Market Perceptions on Contamination of Residential Property Buyers using Contingent Valuation Surveys

This study reports on the results of several residential contingent valuation (CV) studies conducted throughout the US. Over the past several years CV has often been used to illustrate potential residential buyer bid prices for contaminated real property. The data set for this study contains 1,115 telephone interviews and examines the consistency of the results for residential property affected by a Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) in different markets in eight states, controlling for income, age, education, local market type, and other demographic factors. Negative discounts associated with a LUST for marginal bidders in the top half of the market were quite consistent across states, varying from ?25% to ?33%, with an average of ?31%,. Using ANOVA indicates that bidding patterns from six of the seven states were statistically similar. Male bidders, those over 40 years of age and those with no high school degree were more likely to bid, while those with higher incomes and those bidding on certain, rather than suspected contamination, were less likely to bid. Local market type did not appear to affect bid outcomes. Using the marginal bidder approach, the CV results benchmark reasonably closely to, but still higher than, revealed preference outcomes for residential LUST sites in Ohio.

The Impact of Age on the Value of historic homes in a Nationally Recognized Historic District

This paper uses hedonic modeling to test the effects of age, both actual and effective, on the value of historic properties within a nationally recognized historic district. Findings show that there is a critical point where the value of historic properties is affected by actual age and the depreciation schedule turns upward. Effective age is used to develop a variant of Tobin's Q which provides evidence that inter-district price differentials often attributed to historic designation are at least partially a function of investment differentials between districts.

Regulatory stewardship: voice of the regulator

In 2014 the New Zealand Productivity Commission inquiry on regulatory institutions and practices concluded that ‘The performance of New Zealand’s regulatory system is in need of improvement – in particular around developing and maintaining the capability needed to effectively implement regulation and the need to oversee and manage the overall system’ (Productivity Commission, 2014, p.2). Since then there has been much talk of regulatory stewardship. This article considers what it is and the importance of the role of the regulator in achieving it

BUFFERING AND INSERTING TEXT INPUTS

A text input buffering system stores text input in a buffer for a predetermined period of time. A user may input text in an application, for example, a browser, text editor, etc. If the system receives text input without an initial selection of a text field, the system stores the received text input in the buffer for a predetermined period of time. The system receives a selection of a text field. Further, the system displays a notification in the user interface for inserting the text input into the selected text field. The system inserts the text input into the text field on receiving an affirmative response from the user, else the system deletes the stored text input after the predetermined period of time

Epidemiology and chemical control of Fusarium ear and seedling blight of wheat

The aim of the study was to determine a link between the applications of fungicides, ear blight (caused by Microdochium nivale and Fusarium culmorum), grain quality and the subsequent emergence of infected seed. In order to determine this a series of field and glasshouse trials were carried out. In field situations the pathogen causing ear blight symptoms is often unknown. Azoxystrobin is reported to be less effective against F. culmorum (Dardis & Walsh, 2000) and the results from this study agree with this work. The trials concluded that for chemical control in the field a mixture of the fungicides azoxystrobin and metconazole provided the most significant reduction of ear blight severity and grain infection when compared with the control treatments. The emergence trials concluded that the use of a seed treatment (fludioxonil) can significantly improve the emergence of an infected crop. It is known that M. nivale may be present in a seed crop with the absence of visible symptoms on the seed (Hare et al, 1999). For plots drilled with out a seed treatment, the ones that had received an ear spray of azoxystrobin alone or a mixture of azoxystrobin and metconazole showed a higher percentage emergence regardless of the pathogen. The emergence trials proved the infection of seed can be significantly reduced by the use of ear sprays. If the seed is to be saved on the farm, the use of a seed treatment will improve the emergence of the new crop. Trials on the effect of increasing inoculum load on the symptoms of ear blight and the infection of grain. It was found that increasing the inoculum load for F. culmorum either alone or in a mixture of pathogens gave a reduction in yield and thousand-grain weight but this was not so with M. nivale this agrees with Hare et al,(1999) who studies the relationship between wheat seed weight infected with F. culmorum or M. nivale. When grain form these trial was drilled in the emergence trials it was shown that where the seed contained F. culmorum a significant improvement in emergence was seen when a seed treatment of fludioxonil was used. Glasshouse studies were conducted on point inoculation of ears with pathogens and found that there is a relationship between grain infection and seed weight for F. culmorum but not for M. nivale. Thus, grain weight can not be used on farm as a measure of infection when assessing seed health as M. nivale can be symptomless