Erie County Legislature

New York State County Law allows each county to designate a board of supervisors to supervise the county. However, if the county chooses, it may establish an elected county legislative body to take on the functions, powers, obligations and duties of the board of supervisors. In Erie County this elected legislative body is the Erie County Legislature. The Erie County Legislature serves all of the residents of Erie County. In order to equally represent all residents, the county is broken up into legislative districts that are determined by Census population numbers. Erie County currently consists of 15 legislative districts. In every district, one elected Erie County Legislator represents approximately 62,000 citizens. These legislators “each operate a staffed district office which offers residents a variety of services.

Undergraduate Students’ Perception of the Consequences of Alcohol Consumption

Due to the high-risk outcomes of college drinking, much attention and research has focused on the issues of binge drinking, alcohol overconsumption, and the experience of adverse consequences due to drinking on college campuses. Yet, little research has been conducted regarding how college students perceive the consequences of drinking alcohol. This descriptive study examines students’ perceptions of a number of potential alcohol consequences (e.g., having a hangover, being ticketed or arrested, missing class or an assignment, or getting into a physical fight) and the extent to which they view them as motivators or deterrents to future drinking. An online survey was administered to 324 undergraduates from Butler University to examine these ideas. The survey measured participants’ perception of drinking consequences, social motivations to drink, friends’ support of drinking, alcohol use, and experience of drinking consequences. Survey findings revealed students with strong social motivations to drink and with strong support from friends to drink are more likely to perceive drinking consequences as motivators. Further, the survey demonstrated that students with positive perceptions of drinking consequences have higher levels of alcohol consumption than students who perceive alcohol consequences more negatively. The results from this study have the potential to benefit college administrators and researchers working to deter risky drinking and its potential adverse effects for college students

Open Meetings Law

By law, citizens have the right to attend meetings of public bodies, listen to the debates, and watch the decision-making process in action. These meetings are considered “open meetings.” Article seven of the New York State Public Officers Law is entitled, Open Meetings Law. This law lays out all of the requirements and exemptions for meetings held by public bodies. The Open Meetings Law went into effect in 1977

Public libraries in the social accountability of local administrations

This work represents a first reflection with respect to certain issues such as: - the importance of social reporting, and in particular the use of the social accountability for public libraries Italian in order to communicate more effectively on the outside their values; being generally recognized the effectiveness of the balance for the purposes of reporting, there does not seem to be any reasons why libraries should not take advantage of such an instrument; - a higher visibility of public libraries, perceived not only by the professionals in the industry, but also by the public administrations, in order to make more significant component the local librarian within the administrations of reference, as agency for change in the community and therefore of necessary service; - analysis of best practices to recognized today, in order to highlight the methodologies and the main features of some excellent Italian examples; - Proposal for a methodology of investigation, through which retrieve the information necessary for the preparation of a social accountability, based on standard can also be used in scope librarian, as ISO 2789, 11620, 16489

Modeling Na clusters in Ar matrices

We present a microscopic model for Na clusters embedded in raregas matrices. The valence electrons of the Na cluster are described by time-dependent density-functional theory at the level of the local-density approximation (LDA). Particular attention is paid to the semi-classical picture in terms of Vlasov-LDA. The Na ions and Argon atoms are handled as classical particles whereby the Ar atoms carry two degrees of freedom, position and dipole polarization. The interaction between Na ions and electrons is mediated through local pseudo-potentials. The coupling to the Ar atoms is described by (long-range) polarization potentials and (short-range) repulsive cores. The ingredients are taken from elsewhere developed standards. A final fine-tuning is performed using the NaAr molecule as benchmark. The model is then applied to embedded systems Na8ArN. By close comparison with quantum-mechanical results, we explore the capability of the Vlasov-LDA to describe such embedded clusters. We show that one can obtain a reasonable description by appropriate adjustments in the fine-tuning phase of the model.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Annalen der Physi

Heterodyne Near-Field Scattering

We describe an optical technique based on the statistical analysis of the random intensity distribution due to the interference of the near-field scattered light with the strong transmitted beam. It is shown that, from the study of the two-dimensional power spectrum of the intensity, one derives the scattered intensity as a function of the scattering wave vector. Near-field conditions are specified and discussed. The substantial advantages over traditional scattering technique are pointed out, and is indicated that the technique could be of interest for wave lengths other than visible light.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Soret driven convection in a colloidal solution heated from above at very large solutal Rayleigh number

Convection in a colloidal suspension with a large negative separation ratio is studied experimentally by heating from above. Shadowgraph observation at very large solutal Rayleigh numbers are reported as a function of time. Fast relaxation oscillations are reported for the root mean square value of the shadowgraph intensity. While pure fluids exhibit a transition to turbulent convection for Rayleigh number of about 10^6, stable spoke-pattern planform with up and down columnar flows are observed up to solutal Rayleigh numbers of the order of 10^9. It is suggested that the surprising stability of the planform against turbulence is due to nonlinear focusing arising from the concentration dependence of the diffusion coefficient.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure