2,423 research outputs found
Why Engage? Understanding the Incentive to Build Nonprofit Capacity
The literature regarding nonprofit capacity building is expanding as funders, infrastructure support organizations, researchers, and others interested in strengthening the sector work to develop a better understanding of how to build organizational capacity effectively. In the spirit of this inquiry, The Forbes Funds commissioned Judith Millesen, at the Voinovich Center for Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University, and Angela Bies, at the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University, to examine the incentives associated with engagement in capacity building. Specifically, the research team used organizational theory to frame an examination of the ways in which environmental characteristics, institutional attributes, and financial characteristics relate to the incentive to engage in capacity building
Algebraic Cycles and Local Anomalies in F-Theory
We introduce a set of identities in the cohomology ring of elliptic
fibrations which are equivalent to the cancellation of gauge and mixed
gauge-gravitational anomalies in F-theory compactifications to four and six
dimensions. The identities consist in (co)homological relations between complex
codimension-two cycles. The same set of relations, once evaluated on elliptic
Calabi-Yau three-folds and four-folds, is shown to universally govern the
structure of anomalies and their Green-Schwarz cancellation in six- and
four-dimensional F-theory vacua, respectively. We furthermore conjecture that
these relations hold not only within the cohomology ring, but even at the level
of the Chow ring, i.e. as relations among codimension-two cycles modulo
rational equivalence. We verify this conjecture in non-trivial examples with
Abelian and non-Abelian gauge groups factors. Apart from governing the
structure of local anomalies, the identities in the Chow ring relate different
types of gauge backgrounds on elliptically fibred Calabi-Yau four-folds.Comment: 45 page
A Comparative Analysis of the Capacity-building Industries in Pittsburgh and Central Texas
Five years ago, The Forbes Funds provided support for a new research series exploring challenges and strategic opportunities in nonprofit management in the Pittsburgh region.The intention of this research was to determine what works in strengthening nonprofits' organizational capacity and management abilities, as well as what may be the barriers or service gaps in building nonprofit capacity. As part of this research series, in 2004,The Forbes Funds commissioned Judith L. Millesen, at Ohio University, and Angela L. Bies, at Texas A&M University, to conduct a comprehensive analysis of Pittsburgh's capacity-building "industry." This "Pittsburgh study" offered detailed findings about the degree to which Pittsburgh's "industry of consultants, firms, management support organizations, and academic centers offer accessible, quality services to the 1,600 nonprofit organizations in Allegheny County."1 With ongoing support from The Forbes Funds, Drs. Bies and Millesen also conducted continuing analyses during 2005, which explored the incentive to engage in capacity building (Millesen & Bies, 2005) and the role of 'learning' in building nonprofit performance (Bies & Millesen, 2005).During 2005-06, a replication study was conducted in and around Austin,Texas.2 A key purpose of the study was to help afford a comparative analysis of the nonprofit sectors in two metropolitan regions with differing environments, economies, and capacity-building industries. With support from The Forbes Funds, the Bremer Foundation, and the Minnesota Council on Nonprofits, a third replication study is planned for 2006-07 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.The Texas replication study shared the Pittsburgh study's focus on understanding the characteristics of effective capacity-building initiatives through an examination of a series of questions related to who (the capacity builders) is doing what (the kinds of support services provided) for whom (what types of nonprofits are engaging in capacity-building initiatives) and to what end (whether capacity-building initiatives produce desired organizational change).The core research purpose remained to describe and analyze several aspects of the capacity-building environment, including the quantity, accessibility, and quality of capacity building services, characteristics of effective capacity building, and challenges and barriers to implementing capacity-building interventions. Both the Austin study and the Pittsburgh study offered implications for practice and suggested directions for future research into capacity building's effectiveness and influence in the sector
Gauge Backgrounds and Zero-Mode Counting in F-Theory
Computing the exact spectrum of charged massless matter is a crucial step
towards understanding the effective field theory describing F-theory vacua in
four dimensions. In this work we further develop a coherent framework to
determine the charged massless matter in F-theory compactified on elliptic
fourfolds, and demonstrate its application in a concrete example. The gauge
background is represented, via duality with M-theory, by algebraic cycles
modulo rational equivalence. Intersection theory within the Chow ring allows us
to extract coherent sheaves on the base of the elliptic fibration whose
cohomology groups encode the charged zero-mode spectrum. The dimensions of
these cohomology groups are computed with the help of modern techniques from
algebraic geometry, which we implement in the software gap. We exemplify this
approach in models with an Abelian and non-Abelian gauge group and observe
jumps in the exact massless spectrum as the complex structure moduli are
varied. An extended mathematical appendix gives a self-contained introduction
to the algebro-geometric concepts underlying our framework.Comment: 41 pages + extended appendice
The thermal conductivity reduction in HgTe/CdTe superlattices
The techniques used previously to calculate the three-fold thermal
conductivity reduction due to phonon dispersion in GaAs/AlAs superlattices
(SLs) are applied to HgTe/CdTe SLs. The reduction factor is approximately the
same, indicating that this SL may be applicable both as a photodetector and a
thermoelectric cooler.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; to be published in Journal of Applied Physic
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