What do Women Want? Men, Women, and Job Satisfaction in the Public Service

Research in organizational behavior and public administration has long considered differences between men and women at work. Research indicates that men and women often communicate differently, prefer different approaches to organizational structure and design, and view rewards through different lenses. As women become better represented in public organizations, and at higher levels, it becomes even more important to explore sex-based differences. This paper seeks to uncover differences between men and women when it comes to determinants of job satisfaction. We use the existing literature to develop a series of hypotheses about the different factors that predict job satisfaction for the sexes. We test these hypotheses using data from a survey of health and human services managers, finding that there are more commonalities than differences when it comes to what satisfies men and women at work. Working Paper 06-3

Moderate temperature rechargeable sodium batteries

Cells utilizing the organic electrolyte, NaI in triglyme, operated at approx. 130 C with Na(+) - intercalating cathodes. However, their rate and stability were inadequate. NaAlCl4 was found to be a highly useful electrolyte for cell operation at 165-190 C. Na(+) intercalating chalcogenides reacted with NaAlCl4 during cycling to form stable phases. Thus, VS2 became essentially VS2Cl, with reversible capacity of approx 2.8 e(-)/V, and a mid-discharge voltage of approx 2.5V and 100 deep discharge cycles were readily achieved. A positive electrode consisting of VCl3 and S plus NaAlCl4 was subjected to deep-discharge cycles 300 times and it demonstrated identity with the in-situ-formed BSxCly cathode. NiS2 and NiS which are not Na(+)-intercalating structures formed highly reversible electrodes in NaAlCl4. The indicated discharge mechanism implies a theoretical capacity 4e(-)/Ni for NiS2 and 2e(-)/Ni for NiS. The mid-discharge potentials are, respectively, 2.4V and 2.1V. A Na/NiS2 cell cycling at a C/5 rate has exceeded 500 deep discharge cycles with 2.5e(-)/Ni average utilization. A 4 A-hr nominal capacity prototype Na/NiS2 cell was tested at 190 C. It was voluntarily terminated after 80 cycles. Further development, particularly of cathode structure and hardware should produce a battery capable of at least 50-W-hr/lb and more than 1000 cycles

Development of a three-dimensional time-dependent flow field model

A three-dimensional, time-dependent mathematical model to represent Mobile Bay was developed. Computer programs were developed which numerically solve the appropriate conservation equations for predicting bay and estuary flow fields. The model is useful for analyzing the dispersion of sea water into fresh water and the transport of sediment, and for relating field and physical model data

The rise of the Louisville Slugger in the mass market

The following article is a historical case study on the obstacles confronted by Hillerich & Son and the strategies the company employed to survive in a tumultuous industry. Three key marketing strate­gies will be discussed. These key strategies, al­though historical in nature, are still effectively used by manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers in the 1990s. Furthermore, Hillerich & Son\u27s marketing strategies defy the historical production era model. According to the production era model, production was manufacturers\u27 primary concern until 1930. Customer research was inconsequential since demand exceeded supply and competition was scarce within product markets.Hillerich & Son\u27s marketing strategies in the first decade of the 20th century exem­plify that following eras, production (1870-1930), sales (1930-1950), and-marketing (1950s), were not a sequential evolution. Competition in the baseball bat industry was indeed fierce. Consequently, manu­facturers concentrated on the customer to ascertain desired products and product attributes. This case study suggests that marketing has always been an integral part of company strategies. This proposi­tion is exemplified by Hillerich & Son\u27s three key marketing strategies, 1) the 1912 push rule, 2) the 1914 youth market decision, and 3) the 1919 na­tional advertising campaign

Industry segmentation theory and the sport industry: Developing a sport industry segment model

The purpose of this study was to apply industry segmentation theory to the sport industry and to develop a sport industry segment model. Porter\u27s (1985) theory of industry segmentation was applied. Traditional and con­temporary definitions of sport and sport industry as well as lists and descriptions of sport products were used. The results produced three sport industry segments: sport performance, sport production, and sport promotion. In addition, product variety categories and buyer types were identified in each segment

State Differentiation by Transient Truncation in Coupled Threshold Dynamics

Dynamics with a threshold input--output relation commonly exist in gene, signal-transduction, and neural networks. Coupled dynamical systems of such threshold elements are investigated, in an effort to find differentiation of elements induced by the interaction. Through global diffusive coupling, novel states are found to be generated that are not the original attractor of single-element threshold dynamics, but are sustained through the interaction with the elements located at the original attractor. This stabilization of the novel state(s) is not related to symmetry breaking, but is explained as the truncation of transient trajectories to the original attractor due to the coupling. Single-element dynamics with winding transient trajectories located at a low-dimensional manifold and having turning points are shown to be essential to the generation of such novel state(s) in a coupled system. Universality of this mechanism for the novel state generation and its relevance to biological cell differentiation are briefly discussed.Comment: 8 pages. Phys. Rev. E. in pres

Universally Coupled Massive Gravity

We derive Einstein's equations from a linear theory in flat space-time using free-field gauge invariance and universal coupling. The gravitational potential can be either covariant or contravariant and of almost any density weight. We adapt these results to yield universally coupled massive variants of Einstein's equations, yielding two one-parameter families of distinct theories with spin 2 and spin 0. The Freund-Maheshwari-Schonberg theory is therefore not the unique universally coupled massive generalization of Einstein's theory, although it is privileged in some respects. The theories we derive are a subset of those found by Ogievetsky and Polubarinov by other means. The question of positive energy, which continues to be discussed, might be addressed numerically in spherical symmetry. We briefly comment on the issue of causality with two observable metrics and the need for gauge freedom and address some criticisms by Padmanabhan of field derivations of Einstein-like equations along the way.Comment: Introduction notes resemblance between Einstein's discovery process and later field/spin 2 project; matches journal versio

A Parallel Incremental Learning Algorithm for Neural Networks with Fault Tolerance

URL : http://vecpar.fe.up.pt/2008/papers/46.pdfInternational audienceThis paper presents a parallel and fault tolerant version of an incremental learning algorithm for feed-forward neural networks used as function approximators. It has been shown in previous works that our incremental algorithm builds networks of reduced size while providing high quality approximations for real data sets. However, for very large sets, the use of our learning process on a single machine may be quite long and even sometimes impossible, due to memory limitations. The parallel algorithm presented in this paper is usable in any parallel system, and in particular, with large dynamical systems such as clusters and grids in which faults may occur. Finally, the quality and performances (without and with faults) of that algorithm are experimentally evaluated

Universal neural field computation

Turing machines and G\"odel numbers are important pillars of the theory of computation. Thus, any computational architecture needs to show how it could relate to Turing machines and how stable implementations of Turing computation are possible. In this chapter, we implement universal Turing computation in a neural field environment. To this end, we employ the canonical symbologram representation of a Turing machine obtained from a G\"odel encoding of its symbolic repertoire and generalized shifts. The resulting nonlinear dynamical automaton (NDA) is a piecewise affine-linear map acting on the unit square that is partitioned into rectangular domains. Instead of looking at point dynamics in phase space, we then consider functional dynamics of probability distributions functions (p.d.f.s) over phase space. This is generally described by a Frobenius-Perron integral transformation that can be regarded as a neural field equation over the unit square as feature space of a dynamic field theory (DFT). Solving the Frobenius-Perron equation yields that uniform p.d.f.s with rectangular support are mapped onto uniform p.d.f.s with rectangular support, again. We call the resulting representation \emph{dynamic field automaton}.Comment: 21 pages; 6 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1204.546