Engaging with books you cannot touch: interactive multimedia to explore library treasures

Interactivity has proved a successful way to engage visitors of science museums. However it is not a common practice when the objects to exhibit are artefacts or, as in the case of this paper, books. A study was set up to investigate the driving criteria for the “The Life and Work of William Butler Yeats” exhibition at the National Library of Ireland and compare those with the visitors’ opinion. Books, notebooks and personal belongings of the poet have been digitized and used to create a rich and varied exhibition that used both interactivity and multimedia. The result of visitors’ survey showed that the variety was a key factor for the success of the exhibition: different people engaged with different contents and different medium to different degrees. The design of the ambience is critical: dim lights and the use of audio as a medium have to be carefully planned to avoid annoying instead of engaging

The Proportion of Females in the Establishment: Discrimination, Preferences and Technology

This paper examines determinants of the proportion of females in the establishment as this variable can affect the male- female wage gap in an important way. Our search for the determinants is guided by two views of the labour market, namely discrimination and coincidence of needs between firms and workers. Results suggest that establishments have higher proportion of females when employment is higher during the school year and employment turnover is higher; the more stable the demand for the output; the higher the proportion of white collar employees; and the smaller the local labour market. This suggests that public policy based on one view of how the labour market works may produce unintended results that will not necessarily improve the welfare of the very groups targeted.Gender Wage Gap, Wage Decomposition Techniques, and Determinants Proportion of Females in the Establishment

Results from the Scottish report card on physical activity for children and youth

The Active Healthy Kids Scotland Report Card aims to consolidate existing evidence, facilitate international comparisons, encourage more evidence-informed physical activity and health policy, and improve surveillance of physical activity. Application of the Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card process and methodology to Scotland, adapted to Scottish circumstances and availability of data. The Active Healthy Kids Scotland Report Card 2013 consists of indicators of 7 Health Behaviors and Outcomes and 3 Influences on Health Behaviors and Outcomes. Grades of F were assigned to Overall Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior (recreational screen time), and Obesity Prevalence. A C was assigned to Active Transportation and a D- was assigned to Diet. Two indicators, Active and Outdoor Play and Organized Sport Participation, could not be graded. Among the Influences, Family Influence received a D, while Perceived Safety, Access, and Availability of Spaces for Physical Activity and the National Policy Environment graded more favorably with a B. The Active Healthy Kids Canada process and methodology was readily generalizable to Scotland. The report card illustrated low habitual physical activity and extremely high levels of screen-based sedentary behavior, and highlighted several opportunities for improved physical activity surveillance and promotion strategies

A survey of thermodynamic properties of the compounds of the element CHNOPS Progress report, 1 Mar. - 30 Jun. 1968

Thermodynamic property data tables for CHNOPS compounds and heats of combustion and formation for organic compounds of biological interes

The Twentieth Century Record of Inequality and Poverty in the United States

When the twentieth century is viewed as a whole, no clear trend in income inequality emerges. Inequality was high and rising during the first three decades and peaked during the Depression. It fell sharply during World War II and remained at the lower level in the 1950s and 1960s. From the 1970s through the mid-1990s inequality steadily increased to levels not seen since World War II, though well below those during the first three decades. The rate of poverty exhibited a long-run downward trend from about 60–70 percent in the earlier years of the century to the 12–14 percent range in recent years, with considerable fluctuation around this secular trend. Changes in inequality were produced largely by demographic and technological changes, the growth and decline of various industries, changes in patterns of international trade, cyclical unemployment, and World War II. The primary drivers of the rate of poverty were economic growth and factors that produced changes in income inequality, particularly demographic change and unemployment. Public policy has reduced the market-generated level of inequality, but since 1950 has had little effect on the trend in inequality. Prior to 1950, the growth of government, and particularly the introduction of a broadly based income tax during World War II, coincided with and partly produced the sharp downward shift in inequality of that era. Government had little effect on poverty rates until 1950. Public income transfer programs have reduced poverty rates appreciably in recent decades. Since World War II, when they have been on a large enough scale to matter, changes in tax and transfer policy have tended to reinforce market-generated trends in inequality and poverty rather than offset them.

From Root to Wing: The Music of Vermont\u27s Ecological Soundscapes

With a rapidly changing climate and mounting environmental crises, we are called to reevaluate and reimagine how we exist in relationship with the rest of the Earth. This thesis explores how we can deepen our relationships with the ecosystems we inhabit by tracing the threads that unite ecology, music, and sound. It is both a research thesis and a creative project that merges the fields of soundscape ecology, ecomusicology, and environmental philosophy with the practices of soundscape recording, soundscape design, and music-making. I spent the last two years studying and recording ecological soundscapes around Vermont. From Root to Wing is a self-produced collection of songs that weave together these soundscapes with original lyrics and instrumentals that celebrate the music of the land, water, and organisms with which we live. Recognizing that we are not the only music-makers of the Earth, this thesis asks: what can collaboration look like between humans, the land, and other species—in music and in life? My work is grounded in a deep love for all living beings and for music’s ability to alchemize sound into emotion, communication, and healing. It is both a personal promise and challenge to envision a better world in the face of climate anxiety

Reading the Gaps: On Women’s Nonfiction and Page Space

Recently, I read Maggie O’Farrell’s book I am I am I am, wherein she writes seventeen different essays, all describing ways she has nearly died. Each essay is named for a part of the body and, in parenthesis, the year the event that nearly killed her occurred. Certain body parts are used more than once (“Lungs,” for example, since there are three occasions when O’Farrell nearly drowned). After reading, I was stuck on the idea that she broke her body up into pieces in order to tell a complete story, that some parts needed to be touched twice, that her whole form was fragmented, and so her book, then, is a reflection of this breaking up. The way O’Farrell moves her body through the world, for better or worse, is represented on the page in pieces, her body chopped up like memories, in order to put forth a cohesive, yet still broken, whole. We call the paragraphs between the beginning and the end of an essay, “body paragraphs,” we call a full text a “body of work,” and Farrell, whose body, in this book, is her work, reminds me of the ways women’s bodies are objectified, sometimes shrunk down, self-conscious, other times magnified, and how the body, like a book told in pieces, reminds us that the whole is the sum of its parts

Proxy Access and Optimal Standardization in Corporate Governance: An Empirical Analysis

According to the conventional wisdom, “one size does not fit all” in corporate governance. Firms are heterogeneous with respect to their governance needs, implying that the optimal corporate governance structure must also vary from firm to firm. This one-size-does-not-fit-all axiom has featured prominently in arguments against numerous corporate law regulatory initiatives, including the SEC’s failed Rule 14a-11—an attempt to impose mandatory, uniform “proxy access” on all public companies—which the D.C. Circuit struck down for inadequate cost–benefit analysis. This Article presents an alternative theory as to the role of standardization in corporate governance—in which investors prefer standardized terms—and empirical evidence that is consistent with this theory. Under my theory, shareholders prefer standardization because they must incur considerable transaction costs to exercise control rights that contain idiosyncratic terms. Standardization reduces these transaction costs. Consistent with this theory, I find that standardization, not heterogeneity, has pervaded the post–Rule 14a-11 private ordering of proxy access. Shareholder proposals and adopted bylaws alike have converged around standardized terms, and regression analysis suggests that this standardization reflects shareholder preferences. Moreover, employing a regression-discontinuity design, I find evidence indicating that markets have generally reacted favorably to the passage of these standardized proposals. However, robustness checks cast some doubt on the internal validity of this regression-discontinuity design, and thus these results should be taken with a grain of salt. My theory and empirical findings have important implications for longstanding normative debates in corporate law. With a proper understanding of the role of standardization in corporate governance, the one-size-fits-all critique—though not baseless—takes on a different meaning. Although lawmakers would still do well to retain a presumption in favor of default rules instead of mandatory rules, the need for heterogeneity does not appear to be as great as some have supposed, and lawmakers may benefit from a greater focus on encouraging optimal standardization instead of optimal heterogeneity. These insights bear both on optimal regulatory design in the abstract and on the wisdom of currently pending federal legislation in a more concrete way