Recovery, Renewal, and Resiliency: Gulf Coast Small Businesses Two Years Later

Presents findings from a survey of small business owners about the state of the local economy immediately following and in the two years since Katrina made landfall

The Four Color Theorem

The history of mathematics is pervaded by problems which can be stated simply, but are difficult and in some cases impossible to prove. The pursuit of solutions to these problems has been an important catalyst in mathematics, aiding the development of many disparate fields. While Fermat’s Last theorem, which states xn + yn = zn has no integer solutions for n \u3e 2 and x, y, z ≠ 0[12] is perhaps the most famous of these problems, the Four Color Theorem proved a challenge to some of the greatest mathematical minds from its conception 1852 until its eventual proof in 1976. The Four Color Theorem was first stated in 1852 by a young English mathematician, Francis Guthrie, who noticed that he could color a map of the counties of England using at most four colors such that no two counties of the same color were touching along a measurable border and from this observation postulated that he could color all maps this way In 1852 there was no formalized field of mathematics which could be drawn on to study the four color theorem, so the first mathematicians to study the four color theorem used two dimensional maps of regions that resemble geographical maps. Using this language a statement of the four color theorem is as follows: for every two dimensional map of regions, the regions of the map can be colored by at most four colors such that no two regions of the same color share a measurable border

Hip Hop Versus Rap: An Ethnography of the Cultural Politics of New Hip Hop Practices

Using field observations, interview narratives, and lyrical analysis, this thesis argues that the increasing presence of hip hop arts in social spheres not popularly associated with hip hop such as community activism, school-based education and theatre is traceable to an intra cultural political struggle I term ‘hip hop versus rap’. Hip hop versus rap opposes the notion of a temporally prior, authentic hip hop culture to its degeneration into commercial and ‘anti-social’ rap music. As a redemptive discourse hip hop versus rap seeks to annex a socially responsible hip hop culture from its popular caricature by culturally exogenous interests. As part of a progressive grassroots, hip hop’s extension into new educational and artistic domains thus marks, at one level, a continuation of longstanding black diaspora struggles around race and cultural cooptation. Correspondingly, a hallmark of its pedagogic practices on the ground is a continuous reflexive commentary on the progressive uses to which hip hop can and should be put. These new hip hop practices, moreover, are philosophically and politically heterogeneous with respect to their sources, motives, and output. Hip hop versus rap can equally serve racial absolutism and mysticism, on the one hand, and, on the other, an avowed commitment to artistic and pedagogic innovation troubling fixed cultural and ethnic borders. Of equal significance, however, hip hop’s ‘communitarian’ ‘grassroots’ turn is also related to emerging forms of municipal and state sponsorship. In conditions of social risk and individualisation youth and educational services are seen as needing as far as possible to be fashioned around the cultural dispositions and preferences of their ‘at-risk’ users - or consumers. This means that another signal feature of hip hop versus rap – particularly as an educational project – is the way in which it marks a convergent point of vernacular cultural politics and histories and historically novel approaches by the state to the support, control and regulation of problem youth

Choix d'un modèle de pyrolyse ménagée du bois à l'échelle de la microparticule en vue de la modélisation macroscopique

Par définition la pyrolyse ménagée du bois est la décomposition physique et chimique de matières organiques sous l'action de la chaleur et en absence d'oxygène. Comprendre ce phénomène passe d'abord par l'identification des mécanismes réactionnels et la détermination des paramètres cinétiques mis en jeu lors de la dégradation thermique du bois et de ses constituants majeurs, c'est-à-dire cellulose, hémicelluloses et lignines. La richesse et la diversité des résultats issus de la littérature spécialisée rendent compte de la difficulté à expliquer ces cinétiques complexes. Cette étude se propose de contribuer de façon innovante au bois traité à haute température en proposant une approche théorique à l'échelle de la microparticule en vue d'une modélisation macroscopique des phénomènes couplés « thermiques, chimiques et physiques ». En restituant les résultats d'une étude bibliographique poussée, nous avons fait le choix de retenir une approche analytique cherchant à séparer les trois composés principaux du bois et à caractériser chacun d'entre eux séparément

the DESIGN DRIVE

A single-source, online database with a unique mode of sharing technical knowledge and theoretical information that engages twenty-first century design education deeply shaped by technology, grounded in instant connection, and populated by wide-ranging digital data to enhance web-based teaching and learning

Sustainable Software Ecosystems for Open Science

Sustainable software ecosystems are difficult to build, and require concerted effort, community norms and collaborations. In science it is especially important to establish communities in which faculty, staff, students and open-source professionals work together and treat software as a first-class product of scientific investigation-just as mathematics is treated in the physical sciences. Kitware has a rich history of establishing collaborative projects in the science, engineering and medical research fields, and continues to work on improving that model as new technologies and approaches become available. This approach closely follows and is enhanced by the movement towards practicing open, reproducible research in the sciences where data, source code, methodology and approach are all available so that complex experiments can be independently reproduced and verified.Comment: Workshop on Sustainable Software: Practices and Experiences, 4 pages, 3 figure

A Chandra ACIS view of the Thermal Composite Supernova Remnant 3C391

We present a 60 ks Chandra ACIS-S observation of the thermal composite supernova remnant 3C391. The southeast-northwest elongated morphology is similar to that previously found in radio and X-ray studies. This observation unveils a highly clumpy structure of the remnant. Detailed spatially resolved spectral analysis for the small-scale features reveals that the interior gas is generally of normal metal abundance and has approached or basically reached ionization equilibrium. The hydrogen column density increases from southeast to northwest. Three mechanisms, radiative rim, thermal conduction, and cloudlet evaporation, may all play roles in the X-ray appearance of 3C391 as a "thermal composite" remnant, but there are difficulties with each of them in explaining some physical properties. Comparatively, the cloudlet evaporation model is favored by the main characteristics such as the highly clumpy structure and the uniform temperature and density distribution over most of the remnant. The directly measured postshock temperature also implies a young age, about 4 kyr, for the remnant. The postshock gas pressure derived from the NE and SW rims, which harbor maser spots, is consistent with the estimate for the maser regions. An unresolved X-ray source is observed on the northwest border and its spectrum is best fitted by a power-law.Comment: aastex, 27 pages (including 4 figures), to appear in the ApJ 1 Dec. 2004, v616 issu

Architecting the Firm: Coherency and Consistency in Managing the Enterprise

International audienceTraditional Enterprise Architecture (EA) practice lacks a clear and effective governance and management layer that is easily understandable and intuitive to senior decision makers with the modern organisation. This paper uses three case studies to demonstrate the relative maturity of different EA practice groups within these organisations to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of a traditional ICT management approach versus those that include EA practice in all levels and domains of management. Concepts of Coherency Management and Pervasiveness will be used to explain the idea of a next Generation of EA practice that permeates all layers of the organisation and no longer remains the domain of technologists but instead influences and informs decision-making at all levels (operational, tactical, managerial / strategic) of the organisation. Conditions of such future EA practices are also discussed