Top 10 Law School Home Pages of 2010

This ranking report attempts to identify the best law school home pages based exclusively on objective criteria. The goal is to assess elements that make websites easier to use for sighted as well as visually-impaired users. Most elements require no special design skills, sophisticated technology or significant expenses. Ranking results in this report represent reasonably relevant elements. In this report, 200 ABA-accredited law school home pages are analyzed and ranked for twenty elements in three broad categories: Design Patterns & Metadata; Accessibility & Validation; and Marketing & Communications. As was the case in 2009, there is still no objective way to account for good taste. For interpreting these results, we don\u27t try to decide if any whole is greater or less than the sum of its parts

Grid generation on surfaces in 3 dimensions

The development of a surface grid generation algorithm was initiated. The basic adaptive movement technique of mean-value-relaxation was extended from the viewpoint of a single coordinate grid over a surface described by a single scalar function to that of a surface more generally defined by vector functions and covered by a collection of smoothly connected grids. Within the multiconnected assemblage, the application of control was examined in several instances

Grid generation for the solution of partial differential equations

A general survey of grid generators is presented with a concern for understanding why grids are necessary, how they are applied, and how they are generated. After an examination of the need for meshes, the overall applications setting is established with a categorization of the various connectivity patterns. This is split between structured grids and unstructured meshes. Altogether, the categorization establishes the foundation upon which grid generation techniques are developed. The two primary categories are algebraic techniques and partial differential equation techniques. These are each split into basic parts, and accordingly are individually examined in some detail. In the process, the interrelations between the various parts are accented. From the established background in the primary techniques, consideration is shifted to the topic of interactive grid generation and then to adaptive meshes. The setting for adaptivity is established with a suitable means to monitor severe solution behavior. Adaptive grids are considered first and are followed by adaptive triangular meshes. Then the consideration shifts to the temporal coupling between grid generators and PDE-solvers. To conclude, a reflection upon the discussion, herein, is given

GridMan: A grid manipulation system

GridMan is an interactive grid manipulation system. It operates on grids to produce new grids which conform to user demands. The input grids are not constrained to come from any particular source. They may be generated by algebraic methods, elliptic methods, hyperbolic methods, parabolic methods, or some combination of methods. The methods are included in the various available structured grid generation codes. These codes perform the basic assembly function for the various elements of the initial grid. For block structured grids, the assembly can be quite complex due to a large number of clock corners, edges, and faces for which various connections and orientations must be properly identified. The grid generation codes are distinguished among themselves by their balance between interactive and automatic actions and by their modest variations in control. The basic form of GridMan provides a much more substantial level of grid control and will take its input from any of the structured grid generation codes. The communication link to the outside codes is a data file which contains the grid or section of grid

Intrinsic adaptive mesh techniques

An alternating direction adaptive grid movement code was developed and a thesis adaptive angular meshes was directed. The alternating direction code was also established on the NASA Langley computer system and is available for use there. In essence, grid points are moved on an abstract surface above physical space by means of alternating coordinate directions. The abstract surface is formed with the salient solution properties if they can be extracted by a priori physical reasoning; or otherwise, in the absence of such reasoning, by the use of error estimates in some chosen norm. Upon formulation, all important driving properties for adaptive purposes are consolidated into one object - the abstract surface. At a basic level, a uniform distribution of surface points is equivalent to gradient resolution. This arises from a projection back down into physical space. At a higher level, a more accurate view of the abstract surface is obtained when changes in surface direction are also resolved. The appropriate measure for direction changes is normal curvature. It is defined as the rate of change of surface tangent planes as a surface coordinate curve is transversed in uniform increments of arc length

Thermal Equilibration and Expansion in Nucleus-Nucleus Collision at the AGS

The rather complete data set of hadron yields from central Si + A collisions at the Brookhaven AGS is used to test whether the system at freeze-out is in thermal and hadro-chemical equilibrium. Rapidity and transverse momentum distributions are discussed with regards to the information they provide on hydrodynamic flow.Comment: 11 pages + 2 uuencoded figure

Validation of the Multilayered Gender Identity Questionnaires

Gender identity shapes the ways transgender adults experience themselves and relate to the world around them. Although research and theory suggest that gender identity is a multidimensional construct, most measures of gender identity have viewed gender as primarily a unitary construct tied to the gender binary. The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Multilayered Gender Identity Questionnaires (MGIQ), a set of measures of gender identity, in a sample of transgender adults. Qualitative data collected through focus groups with transgender adults (N = 7) helped refine and develop these measures. A series of analyses involving a larger sample of transgender adults (N = 521) established the factor structure of the MGIQ. The final MGIQ contained four scales corresponding to different gender identities (Trans, Nonbinary, Unassigned Gender, and Assigned Gender); each scale had three subscales representing the constructs of community, physical identity, and centrality. The current study demonstrated that the finalized MGIQ demonstrates internal consistency, convergent validity with identity labeling, social identification, and involvement in activism, and divergent validity from measures of gender role identification and psychological distress. The MGIQ also demonstrated incremental validity over an existing measure of gender identity in predicting social identification and involvement in activism. The clinical implications of this measure in conceptualization and treatment planning, as well as the types of research questions the MGIQ can be used to address, are also discussed

The path to high status is paved with litter : a netnography of status competition among Litterati.

Within marketing, postmodern perspectives relate conspicuous consumption and status to the realisation of self-identity. The consumption of goods and their symbolic meaning allow an individual to reinforce, create and maintain his or her identity. Notions of conformity and consumption of visible goods could be attributed to social identity theory, where identity shifts from context to context. The consumption or rejection of certain goods thus reinforces an individual’s shifting identity among various contexts, such as home, school or work. It is the view of evolutionary psychology that theories such as social identity theory and consumer culture theory provide a proximal explanation of consumer behaviour, yet beyond these explanations are thought to be universal and ultimate drivers of behaviour. Evolutionary psychology presents cost signalling theory to help explain why individuals compete for status. However, existing evolutionary theories are still incomplete, particularly in explaining the paths in which individuals take to achieve status within a peer group. This research explores how and why people engage in pro-environmental behaviour. A review of the literature indicates that a desire for status is the main underlying driver motivating this type of behaviour, however the literature further indicates that theory on status is still incomplete in terms of understanding the path a person takes to achieve higher status. Therefore the gap this thesis aims to fill is to clarify the path an individual takes to achieve higher status within the context of pro-environmental behaviour. In order to identify how and why people engage in pro-environmental behaviour and strategies for status this research uses netnography to explore hierarchy negotiation within an online community of pro-environmental behaviourists called the Litterati. The Litterati is an Instagram community consisting of over 15,000 members worldwide, whom pick up and photograph litter. The main Litterati site and associated social media pages provide the visible conditions necessary for people to compete for higher status through cost signalling. The research findings are presented as three levels. The first level addressed observed empirical events, consisting of the observed tactics used within the Litterati for gaining status. The observed tactics among the Litterati are the use of visual appeal, time, humour and reciprocity. The next level addresses events, which are not wholly observable. This consists of the themes or patterns arising from the retroductive analysis of the interviews and participant observation and how they relate to status strategies. The main themes that help explain the paths to status are self-efficacy; community; and reciprocity or validation. The third level applies evolutionary theories of status and cost signalling to explain the underlying causes of the observed behaviours. The two strategies for status, Dominance and Prestige are presented as manifestations of the dynamic relationships between each level of the findings. This research contributes to exiting theory by clarifying the path an individual takes to achieve higher status, with the analysis demonstrating that Dominance and Prestige are not as distinct as the extant literature would suggest. Additionally, this research indicates that behaviour online influences behaviour offline provided there is a strong sense of community and feelings of self-efficacy are promoted through social modelling and social persuasion. The sense of validation participants reported through the community membership led to an increase in their uptake of pro-environmental behaviours offline, including changes in their consumption decisions. The wider implications of these findings indicate online communities of ethical consumption, such as the Litterati, promote a feeling of passive activism, where discussion of social change and interaction result in behaviour change

Optical guidance vidicon test program

A laboratory and field test program was conducted to quantify the optical navigation parameters of the Mariner vidicons. A scene simulator and a camera were designed and built for vidicon tests under a wide variety of conditions. Laboratory tests characterized error sources important to the optical navigation process and field tests verified star sensitivity and characterized comet optical guidance parameters. The equipment, tests and data reduction techniques used are described. Key test results are listed. A substantial increase in the understanding of the use of selenium vidicons as detectors for spacecraft optical guidance was achieved, indicating a reduction in residual offset errors by a factor of two to four to the single pixel level

Analysis of strong-interaction dynamic stall for laminar flow on airfoils

A compressible Navier-Stokes solution procedure is applied to the flow about an isolated airfoil. Two major problem areas were investigated. The first area is that of developing a coordinate system and an initial step in this direction has been taken. An airfoil coordinate system obtained from specification of discrete data points developed and the heat conduction equation has been solved in this system. Efforts required to allow the Navier-Stokes equations to be solved in this system are discussed. The second problem area is that of obtaining flow field solutions. Solutions for the flow about a circular cylinder and an isolated airfoil are presented. In the former case, the prediction is shown to be in good agreement with data