Corporate Political Spending: Why Shareholders Must Weigh In

This article focuses upon the growing problem confronting companies and their shareholders: the use of general treasury (i.e., shareholder money) to propagate political agendas which are not only contrary to companies’ policies of employment, but are committed without the input or knowledge of the shareholder, leading to an aura of distrust, alienation, and diminution of both shareholder value and principled leadership

Some Effects of Photoperiod and Cold Storage on Oviposition of the Cereal Leaf Beetle Oulema Melanopus (Coleptera: Chrysomelidae)

An expanded program of research on the cereal leaf beetle, Oulema melanopus (L.), in various north-central states has made it necessary to develop methods of rearing all stages of the beetle for laboratory use. Because the insect survives diapause in the adult state (Castro, 1964 and Connin, et al., 1968) it must presently be stored 10-12 weeks at 38 F before consistent oviposition is obtained. Hoopingarner, et al. \u27(1965) indicated that, while males are sexually mature in the prediapause condition, the female was unwilling to mate until after diapause and was not mature sexually until after mating. More recent work by Bowers and Blickenstaff (1966) and Connin et al. (1967) indicated the possibility of breaking or eliminating diapause with chemicals. However, photoperiod also seemed influential in terminating diapause after varying periods of cold storage. The present paper reports observations on the photoperiodic effects

Fedora Preservation Services - a Working Group Report

A major objective of the Fedora Preservation Services Working Group (WG) is to facilitate the creation of trusted digital repositories. To accomplish this end, the Working Group is specifying the requirements and architecture for services and technologies that can be readily integrated into the Fedora Framework. In the specification process, the WG is focused on the underlying capabilities to support digital object persistence, life cycle management, multidisciplinary collections, and management of the repository environment (e.g. storage, memory, operating system, etc). This presentation will provide a WG progress report with special emphasis on the concept architecture, key features such as event management, and an early view of the development plan. The discussion will also cover how Fedora preservation services relate to PREMIS and the audit checklist for Trusted Digital Repositories

Patterns of Mountain Vegetation Dynamics and their Responses to Environmental Changes in the South Ecuadorian Andes

El sur de los Andes Ecuatorianos alberga una extraordinaria riqueza de especies. Muchos factores ambientales diferentes influyen entre sí en un espacio muy limitado y crean ecosistemas únicos y complejos. Sin embargo, esta área está altamente en peligro debido al creciente impacto humano a través de la intensificación del uso de la tierra y cambio global. Sólo poco se sabe acerca de la historia paleoecológica y dinámica del paisaje de esta zona. Sin embargo, la información acerca del por qué y cómo los ecosistemas han cambiado en el pasado es crucial para el desarrollo de estrategias innovadoras para la conservación y futuras predicciones del clima. En este estudio, presentamos los análisis palinológicos realizados en la región sur de los Andes Ecuatorianos, que ayudan aclarar los patrones y procesos de los ecosistemas presentes y pasados. El estudio paleoecológico de la cuenca volcánica Quimsacocha en la cresta oriental de la Cordillera Occidental revela cambios del clima, la vegetación y del régimen del fuego desde el período del Holoceno temprano. El Holoceno medio fue un período de severos cambios ambientales debido a un clima más seco y supuestamente más cálido en esta área. Durante el Holoceno tardío, varias fases cálidas y frías se indican en el registro. El fuego estuvo presente en la zona desde el Holoceno temprano y puede ser el primer signo del impacto humano. El análisis multivariado combinado con otros núcleos de sedimentos en el sur de los Andes Ecuatorianos reveló acontecimientos, en parte, contrastantes, los cuales supuestamente son debido a la heterogeneidad ambiental de los diferentes sitios. Por otra parte, un estudio de tres años entre la relación lluvia de polen actual – vegetación se llevó a cabo en la región del Parque Nacional Podocarpus, con el fin de comprender los patrones de dispersión de polen de los diferentes tipos de vegetación del bosque premontano, bosque montano bajo, bosque montano alto y páramo para crear una base más sólida para la interpretación de los datos de polen fósil. Una comparación entre la abundancia y los datos de presencia-ausencia a nivel de familia para el polen y la vegetación mostró que los patrones de diversidad, distribución y abundancia tienen una buena correspondencia el uno con el otro en ambos conjuntos de datos. Sin embargo, cantidades variables del polen transportado de larga distancia, la productividad desigual de polen de los diferentes taxones y los sistemas heterogéneos del viento impactan los patrones. Los análisis de las tasas de acumulación de polen indican poca variación interanual pero una alta variación espacial en los datos de polen. La evaluación de los dos diferentes tipos de trampa de polen utilizados con frecuencia en estudios palinológicos tropicales, la trampa Oldfield modificada y la trampa Behling, en comparación con muestras de suelo superficial y una trampa de referencia, mostró que en las muestras de suelo, los taxones con una exina frágil se representan en menor medida que en las trampas. Además, señaló que mientras que en el bosque, todos los tipos de trampas proporcionan resultados similares, la trampa Behling se debe preferir en el páramo, ya que resiste mejor a la alta radiación y periodos de sequía. Todos los análisis amplían el conocimiento preciso y completo de la dinámica de la vegetación de los Andes Tropicales en el espacio y el tiempo.The South Ecuadorian Andes harbour an outstandingly high species-richness. Many different environmental factors influence one another in a most limited space and create unique and complex ecosystems. This area is highly endangered because of growing human impact through the intensification of land-use and global change. Only little is known about palaeoecological history and landscape dynamics of this area. The information about why and how ecosystems changed in the past is crucial for the development of innovative strategies for conservation and future climate predictions. In this study, we present palynological analyses carried out in the southern Ecuadorian Andes region that help to shed light on patterns and processes in present and past ecosystems. A palaeoecological study of the Quimsacocha volcanic basin on the eastern ridge of the western Andean Cordillera reveals climate, vegetation and fire regime changes since the early Holocene period. The mid-Holocene was a period of severe environmental change due to a drier and supposedly warmer climate in this area. During the late Holocene, several warm and cool phases are indicated in the record. Fire was present in the area since the early Holocene and may be a first sign of human impact. Combined multivariate analysis with other cores in the south Ecuadorian Andes revealed partly contrasting developments, which are supposedly due to the environmental heterogeneity of the different sites. Furthermore, a three year study of the modern pollen rain – vegetation relationship was carried out in the Podocarpus National Park region, in order to understand the pollen dispersal patterns of the different vegetation types of premontane forest, lower montane forest, upper montane forest and páramo to create a better basis for interpretation of fossil pollen data. A comparison of abundance and presence-absence data at family level for pollen and vegetation showed that diversity, distribution and abundance patterns correspond well to one another in both datasets. However, varying amounts of long-distance transported pollen, uneven pollen productivity of different taxa and heterogeneous wind systems impact the patterns. Analyses of pollen accumulation rates indicated low inter-annual but high spatial variation in the pollen data. The assessment of two different pollen trap types frequently used in tropical palynological studies, the modified Oldfield trap and the Behling trap, in comparison with surface soil samples and a reference trap, showed that in soil samples, taxa with a fragile exine are represented to a lesser extent than in the traps. Furthermore, it indicated that whereas in the forest, all trap types provide similar results, the Behling trap should be preferred in the páramo, as it better withstands high radiation and dry periods. All analyses add to a precise and comprehensive understanding of vegetation dynamics of the tropical Andes hotspot in space and time

Transition Programs for New High School Students

Students who make the transition from middle school to high school experience academic, procedural, and social changes. These students benefit from support designed to aid them in their transition from middle to high school. In this paper, the author identifies characteristics of students in transition, the transition itself, and successful transition programs. Also, it includes the design of a week long transition program to help ninth grade students make a smoother transition to high school. This program includes academic, procedural, and social components

Environmental Racism with a Faint Green Glow

For the last thirty years, environmental justice, that is, the equitable distribution of environmental pollution among all members of society, has informed environmental decision-making at every level of government. While most Federal agencies responsible for environmental regulation have taken meaningful steps to address the disparate impacts of pollution on low-income communities and communities of color, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission has lagged behind. As a result, low-income communities and communities of color bear the disproportionate burden of nuclear pollution in the United Sates

Exploring Dynamic Compilation and Cross-Layer Object Management Policies for Managed Language Applications

Recent years have witnessed the widespread adoption of managed programming languages that are designed to execute on virtual machines. Virtual machine architectures provide several powerful software engineering advantages over statically compiled binaries, such as portable program representations, additional safety guarantees, automatic memory and thread management, and dynamic program composition, which have largely driven their success. To support and facilitate the use of these features, virtual machines implement a number of services that adaptively manage and optimize application behavior during execution. Such runtime services often require tradeoffs between efficiency and effectiveness, and different policies can have major implications on the system's performance and energy requirements. In this work, we extensively explore policies for the two runtime services that are most important for achieving performance and energy efficiency: dynamic (or Just-In-Time (JIT)) compilation and memory management. First, we examine the properties of single-tier and multi-tier JIT compilation policies in order to find strategies that realize the best program performance for existing and future machines. Our analysis performs hundreds of experiments with different compiler aggressiveness and optimization levels to evaluate the performance impact of varying if and when methods are compiled. We later investigate the issue of how to optimize program regions to maximize performance in JIT compilation environments. For this study, we conduct a thorough analysis of the behavior of optimization phases in our dynamic compiler, and construct a custom experimental framework to determine the performance limits of phase selection during dynamic compilation. Next, we explore innovative memory management strategies to improve energy efficiency in the memory subsystem. We propose and develop a novel cross-layer approach to memory management that integrates information and analysis in the VM with fine-grained management of memory resources in the operating system. Using custom as well as standard benchmark workloads, we perform detailed evaluation that demonstrates the energy-saving potential of our approach. We implement and evaluate all of our studies using the industry-standard Oracle HotSpot Java Virtual Machine to ensure that our conclusions are supported by widely-used, state-of-the-art runtime technology