The effects of phosphorus and sulfur fertilizers on flower production of roses and carnations

Cover title.Includes bibliographical references (p. 100)

Québec's Childcare Universal Low Fees Policy 10 Years After: Effects, Costs and Benefits

More than ten years ago the province of Québec implemented a universal early childhood education and care policy. This paper examines if the two objectives pursued, to increase mothers’ participation in the labour market (balance the needs of workplace and home) and to enhance child development and equality of opportunity for children, were reasonable meet. A non-experimental evaluation framework based on multiple pre- and post-treatment periods is used to estimate the policy effects. First, year after year the number of children and their weekly of hours in childcare have increased. More preschool children are in non-parental childcare at a younger age and the intensity of childcare has increased over the years. Second, the policy has significantly increased the labour force participation and annual weeks worked for mothers with at least a child aged 1 to 4 years compared to mothers in the same situation in the Rest of Canada. Third, the evidence presented show that the policy has not enhanced school readiness or child early literacy skills in general, with negative significant effects on the PPVT scores of children aged 5 and possibly negative for children of age 4. Simulations show the bounds of the public benefits in terms of additional net taxes (income taxes less refundable credits and transfers based on household’s “net” income). Unless one suppose that mothers in the upper part of the earnings distribution are those who returned early to the labour market after giving birth or a maternity leave, and who have worked more weeks, the effect on governments revenues are modest. The main beneficiary of the larger tax base of a higher labour supply of mothers with young children is the federal government which do not support the significant public funding of the program. The policy has some drawbacks in terms of social efficiency and equity. The structure of the program with its very low $7/day fee before taxes creates strong incentives for families to use long hours of daycare for children at a very young age, which may not be the best mechanism for children development. The high transfers in-kind (1.9 billion in 2009) to families using subsidized childcare raise the question of their horizontal and vertical equity. The paper concludes on three modifications to the program that could correct some of its weaknesses.Childcare policy, mother’s labour supply, preschool children and school readiness, treatment effects, natural experiment

An experimental study of the effects of autocratic, student-centered and laissez-faire group leadership on college orientation classes

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this study is to attempt to determine the effect of different types of leadership for freshman orientation groups at Boston University School of Educatio

Novel applications of the Josephson Effect: Ferroelectric Characterisation and Capacitively Shunted Grain Boundary Junctions

This thesis describes applications of the ac Josephson effect. Firstly, results are presented from bicrystal grain boundary YBa2Cu3O7-d junctions shunted with a YBa2Cu3O7-d/SrTiO3/Au multilayer external capacitor, to make a junction with a hysteretic current voltage characteristic operating at high temperatures. A hysteretic junction with a McCumber parameter of 1.01 at 72.3K, with a critical current of 451mA and a resistance of 0.56W was achieved for a junction shunted with a 150mm2 external capacitor with a 50nm SrTiO3 dielectric. The measured capacitance was less than that expected from a calculation of the parallel plate shunt capacitance. The explanation was thermal noise suppression of the hysteresis and the junction saw the shunt capacitor as a distributed impedance rather than a lumped circuit element. It was found during these investigations that the influence of the SrTiO3 substrate on the intrinsic junction capacitance was poorly understood. The permittivity of SrTiO3 is 24000 at 4.2K. A series of YBa2Cu3O7-d Josephson junctions of lengths from 2mm to 20mm was patterned on a SrTiO3 bicrystal and the Fiske resonance dispersion relation was measured. The dispersion relation consisted of two branches, one at low frequencies with a high resonator capacitance per unit length and a high frequency branch with a low resonator capacitance per unit length. This was due to the frequency dependence of the permittivity of bulk SrTiO3, which drops above the soft optic phonon frequency. From the dispersion relation, the permittivity of bulk SrTiO3 was 750 and the soft optic phonon frequency was 145GHz. The ac Josephson effect was exploited to measure the permittivity of thin films of SrTiO3 at microwave frequencies using Josephson junctions coupled to external resonators. The permittivity of 50nm, 100nm and 200nm SrTiO3 films was frequency independent between 100GHz and 900GHz and to decrease with film thickness. The permittivity of the 50nm film was 35 and that of the 200nm film was 187 at 4.2K. The permittivity of the 200nm film was tunable with a dc voltage bias between 245 and 112 at 30K and 116GHz. The grain boundary capacitance was used to probe grain boundary current transport. The capacitance per unit area scaled inversely with resistance area product and increased linearly with critical current density, for undoped and Ca doped YBa2Cu3O7-d grain boundaries on 24° bicrystals. This behaviour could not be explained by tunneling models of grain boundary current transport, and requires current flow over a fraction of the area of the grain boundary.EPSR

Analysis of the guidance services employed in assisting students to select a business curricula

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

A history of the founding and development of Watertown High School, 1853-1903.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Assessment of applicability and transferability of evidence-based antenatal interventions to the Australian indigenous setting

There is a need for public health interventions to be based on the best available evidence. Unfortunately, well-conducted studies from settings similar to that in which an intervention is to be implemented are often not available. Therefore, health practitioners are forced to make judgements about proven effective interventions in one setting and their suitability to make a difference in their own setting. The framework of Wang et al. has been proposed to help with this process. This paper provides a case study on the application of the framework to a decision-making process regarding antenatal care in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Queensland. This method involved undertaking a systematic search of the current available evidence, then conducting a second literature search to determine factors that may affect the applicability and transferability of these interventions into these communities. Finally, in consideration of these factors, clinical judgement decisions on the applicability and transferability of these interventions were made. This method identified several interventions or strategies for which there was evidence of improving antenatal care or outcomes. By using the framework, we concluded that several of these effective interventions would be feasible in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities within Queensland

\u3ci\u3eAfghanistan: a short account of Afghanistan, its history, and our dealings with it \u3c/i\u3e

19th century history of Afghanistan and its foreign relations with Great Britain

The morphology and exine ornamentation of fresh pollen from four dipterocarp species in Sabah

Peer reviewedPublisher PD