Comparative Issues on American and Brazilian Electoral Politics: an Interview with Dr. Royce Carroll.

In this interview, Royce Carroll discusses many differences and similarities concerning American and Brazilian politics.  The issues include electoral system differences, political party discipline, religious vote, media and the like

Unveiling Job Satisfaction: A Comprehensive Study of Teaching Staff at a Sudanese University

The purpose of this study was to assess the level of job satisfaction among teaching staffs at Gezira University, and to analyze gender differences in the level of job satisfaction among the staff of the Gezira University. The study employed survey research approach by using a questionnaire developed from the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and Lester (1987) Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (TJSQ). 209 participants were taken through simple random sampling techniques. The results indicate that the staffs of the Gezira University are satisfied with promotion and supervision and coworkers system. The staffs of the Gezira University demonstrate low level in work itself, pay, and work condition dimensions of job satisfaction. The study found no statistically significant difference between the male and female groups in the level of job satisfaction in the Gezira University. The study also indicates that there is no difference in the level of job satisfaction related to academic rank in the Gezira University. The study recommended that the Gezira University must improve the work condition for the staff by providing work facilities and improving the work environment as whole

Evaluation of cosmic ray rejection algorithms on single-shot exposures

To maximise data output from single-shot astronomical images, the rejection of cosmic rays is important. We present the results of a benchmark trial comparing various cosmic ray rejection algorithms. The procedures assess relative performances and characteristics of the processes in cosmic ray detection, rates of false detections of true objects and the quality of image cleaning and reconstruction. The cosmic ray rejection algorithms developed by Rhoads (2000), van Dokkum (2001), Pych (2004) and the IRAF task xzap by Dickinson are tested using both simulated and real data. It is found that detection efficiency is independent of the density of cosmic rays in an image, being more strongly affected by the density of real objects in the field. As expected, spurious detections and alterations to real data in the cleaning process are also significantly increased by high object densities. We find the Rhoads' linear filtering method to produce the best performance in detection of cosmic ray events, however, the popular van Dokkum algorithm exhibits the highest overall performance in terms of detection and cleaning.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PAS