From Coherent States In Adjacent Graphene Layers Toward Low-Power Logic Circuits

Colleagues and we recently proposed a new type of transistor, a Bilayer PseudoSpin Field Effect Transistor (BiSFET), based on many-body coherent states in coupled electron and hole layers in graphene. Here we review the basic BiSFET device concept and ongoing efforts to determine how such a device, which would be far from a drop-in replacement for MOSFETs in CMOS logic, could be used for low-power logic operation, and to model the effects of engineerable device parameters on the formation and gating of interlayer coherent state.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

A Survey of Research Productivity in Respiratory Therapy Educational Programs

ABSTRACT RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY IN RESPIRATORY THERAPY DEPARTMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES Issue: There is a need to standardize faculty evaluations across departments, particularly at research intensive universities. To date, there is no such standard to measure research productivity of respiratory therapy (RT) professors and programs in the U.S. This study asked: How is research productivity described in RT? What is the research productivity ranking of researchers? and What is the research productivity ranking of departments? Methods: After IRB approval, 56 B.S./M.S. degree RT programs were surveyed by email. Data were analyzed for descriptive statistics and correlations. Outcomes: Response rate was 52%. Research productivity in RT is best described using H-Index and M quotient. Range of H-Index for professors was 0 to 44 with a mean of 2.37. Outcome variables found to have positive correlation with H-Index were highest degree earned, academic rank, accreditation role, and Carnegie Classification. Mean program H-Index ranged from 0 to 10.17 with a mean of 1.99. Conclusion: A positive relationship exists between H-Index of RT professors and several outcome variables. Faculty and program directors seeking to increase research productivity can by way of changes in hiring practice and furthering faculty development

Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE). The boundary pixel study in Kansas and North Dakota

The author has identified the following significant results. The statistical mapping approach to handling boundary pixels can be used as a standard for objectively comparing the cluster based technique, the maximum likelihood estimate based technique, and multicategory labeling

Collective (In)Action and Corruption: Access to Improved Water and Sanitation

A country’s levels of collective action in the provision of socially desirable goods and services are primarily determined by its level of development, important natural attributes, and its unique institutional characteristics. In general, one can expect that, given a particular set of natural attributes and institutions, the greater a county’s per capita GDP, the more extensive will be its commitment to the provision of goods and services that require collective action. The primary contention of this paper is that one of the most important aspects of institutions that affect socially desirable collective action is the extent of public sector corruption. More specifically, we first develop a theoretical model which explicitly shows the relations between per capita GDP, corruption, and collective action in the form of the provision of improved drinking water and appropriate sanitation facilities. We test our model by analyzing a sample of 77 countries, annually, between 1982 and 2001, for a total sample of 1,519 observations. Relying on a two-way fixed effects estimation strategy, we find that corruption does in fact lead to lower levels of both access to improved drinking water and appropriate sanitation than a given country’s level of per capita GDP and other institutions alone would predict.Collective Action, corruption, institutional variables

From Cholera Outbreaks to Pandemics: The Role of Poverty and Inequality

Cholera and other diarrheal diseases are the second leading cause of death among the poor globally. The tragedy of this statistic is that it need not be the case. Unlike many afflictions, the impact of cholera can be greatly reduced, if not eliminated, through the collective action of clean water services. This begs the question of why such collective action is absent in much of the world. To address this, we first develop a theoretical model which indicates that the required collective action is an increasing function of both a country’s level of income and income equality. We test these predictions by analyzing 1,032 annual observations arising from 17 relatively poor countries between the years 1980 and 2002. The countries come from the Americas, Africa, and Asia. In the first part of the analysis, we find that the collective action of providing clean water is, as predicted, an increasing function of income and equality. Following this, we find that both the numbers of cases and deaths resulting from a given cholera outbreak are strongly and negatively related to the collective action.Cholera, diarrheal diseases, pandemics, per capita income, inequality

Income, Income Inequality and the “Hidden Epidemic” of Traffic Fatalities

Few, if any, epidemics responsible for 20 million severe injuries and/or deaths each year, globally, receive less public attention than do traffic accidents truly making them a “hidden epidemic”. Worse yet, the epidemic is growing as evidenced by World Health Organization data which show deaths from traffic accidents increasing by 20 percent between 1990 and 2002. In this paper we examine how a country’s stage of development and its distribution of income affect its traffic fatality rate. In our theoretical analysis, we show that traffic fatalities should have a nonlinear relationship with a country’s level of per capita income while being a decreasing function of income equality. We test our model’s predictions by evaluating data from 79 countries between 1970 and 2000, taking into account other factors that influence traffic fatalities like the motorization rate, health care networks, education, and alcohol consumption and find strong evidence of the theoretical model’s predictions. Specifically, the empirical results indicate that traffic fatalities are negatively related to income equality throughout its range and also are negatively related to per capita income, above a threshold of about $11,500.Vulnerable road users, traffic safety interventions, per capita income, income inequality

Earthquake fatalities: the interaction of nature and political economy

In our theoretical model, we show that as per capita income decreases and the level of inequality increases, different segments of society are less likely to agree on the distribution of the burden of the necessary collective action, causing the relatively-wealthy simply to self-insure against the disaster while leaving the relatively-poor to its mercy. We then evaluate 269 large earthquakes occurring worldwide (1960-2002), taking into account other factors such as an earthquake's magnitude, depth and proximity to population centers. Using a Negative Binomial estimation strategy with both random and fixed estimators, we find strong evidence of the theoretical model’s predictions.Earthquake, Fatalities, Nature, Political economy