Expansion tube operating conditions for studying nonequilibrium radiation relevant to Titan Aerocapture

The predictions of nonequilibrium radiation in the shock layer for a Titan aerocapture aeroshell vary significantly amongst Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses and are limited by the physical models of the nonequilibrium flow processes. Of particular interest are nonequilibrium processes associated with the CN molecule which is a strong radiator. It is necessary to have experimental data for these radiating shock layers which will allow for validation of the CFD models. This paper describes the development of a test flow condition for subscale aeroshell models in a superorbital expansion tunnel. We discuss the need for a Titan gas condition that closely simulates the atmospheric composition and present experimental data of the free stream test flow conditions. Furthermore, we present finite-rate CFD calculations of the facility to estimate the remaining free stream conditions, which cannot be directly measured during experiments.

ANÁLISE DAS MUDANÇAS DOS FATORES DETERMINANTES DA ESTRUTURA DE CAPITAL EM FUNÇÃO DO CICLO DE VIDA DAS EMPRESAS BRASILEIRAS SÃO BERNARDO DO CAMPO

As várias teorias acerca da estrutura de capital despertam interesse motivando diversos estudos sobre o assunto sem, no entanto, ter um consenso. Outro tema aparentemente pouco explorado refere-se ao ciclo de vida das empresas e como ele pode influenciar a estrutura de capital. Este estudo teve como objetivo verificar quais determinantes possuem maior relevância no endividamento das empresas e se estes determinantes alteram-se dependendo do ciclo de vida da empresa apoiada pelas teorias Trade Off, Pecking Order e Teoria da Agência. Para alcançar o objetivo deste trabalho foi utilizado análise em painel de efeito fixo sendo a amostra composta por empresas brasileiras de capital aberto, com dados secundários disponíveis na Economática® no período de 2005 a 2013, utilizando-se os setores da BM&FBOVESPA. Como resultado principal destaca-se o mesmo comportamento entre a amostra geral, alto e baixo crescimento pelo endividamento contábil para o determinante Lucratividade apresentando uma relação negativa, e para os determinantes Oportunidade de Crescimento e Tamanho, estes com uma relação positiva. Para os grupos de alto e baixo crescimento alguns determinantes apresentaram resultados diferentes, como a singularidade que resultou significância nestes dois grupos, sendo positiva no baixo crescimento e negativa no alto crescimento, para o valor colateral dos ativos e benefício fiscal não dívida apresentaram significância apenas no grupo de baixo crescimento. Para o endividamento a valor de mercado foi observado significância para o Benefício fiscal não dívida e Singularidade. Este resultado reforça o argumento de que o ciclo de vida influência a estrutura de capital

A cross-national comparison of cultural value orientations of Indian, Polish, Russian and American employees

This study examines the cultural value orientations (VOs) of employees (managerial and non-managerial) working in three categories of organizations (professional, technical and local services) in India, Poland, Russia and the USA. The analysis is conducted at both the national and organizational levels. The paper hypothesizes cultural differences at the country level and cultural similarities among employees working for professional and technical oriented organizations and divergence in the VOs of employees working for local services organizations. It also hypothesizes differences in the VOs of managerial and non-managerial employees in the four countries. The investigation has been conducted with the help of a questionnaire survey of 1,852 respondents. The outcomes of the analysis show that there are both cross-country cultural differences and similarities among the VOs of employees of the four nations. Further, significant cultural convergence emerges in the VOs of employees working for both professional and technical organizations, however, no significant cultural similarities or differences are observed for employees of service-based organizations in the four countries. There are some similarities emerging between managerial employees in the research countries. The research contributes to the fields of cross-cultural management, international management and international human resource management.

A multivariate spatial analysis of vowel formants in American English

This paper presents the results of a multivariate spatial analysis of 38 vowel formant variables in the language of 402 informants from 236 cities from across the contiguous United States, based on the acoustic data from the Atlas of North American English (Labov, Ash & Boberg, 2006). The results of the analysis both confirm and challenge the results of the Atlas. Most notably, while the analysis identifies similar patterns as the Atlas in the West and the Southeast, the analysis finds that the Midwest and the Northeast are distinct dialect regions that are considerably stronger than the traditional Midland and Northern dialect region indentified in the Atlas. The analysis also finds evidence that a western vowel shift is actively shaping the language of the Western United States.

The process of coping in King-Kopetzky Syndrome

Our object was to describe the process of coping in King-Kopetzky syndrome and hypothesise how the process is mediated. We used a qualitative study using open-ended interviews. The data were gathered purposefully from 19 cases in the first phase of the study. Accounts were then compared deductively with six accounts from a previous interview-based study. Maximum contrast was sought in cases and in experience of clinical interventions. Participants were recruited from Hearing Therapy services in Bath and North East Somerset Primary Care Trust and The Welsh Hearing Institute. Interviews were conducted in participants’ homes or clinic setting. Coping was determined by the concept that the individual developed about their hearing difficulties. The process of conceptualizing involves reconciling the symptoms experienced with the information obtained from clinicians. The process is mediated by the context in which hearing difficulties occur and the interventions that are received. Forming a coherent concept of hearing difficulties facilitates coping. Clinicians can assist this process by giving patients with King-Kopetzky Syndrome an explanation of the condition.

The Impact of the Internet in Six Latin American Countries

Access to the Internet has grown exponentially in Latin America over the past decade. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) estimates that in 2009 there were 144.5 million Internet users in South America, 6.4 million in Central America, and 8.2 million in the Caribbean, or a total 159.2 million users in all of Latin America.1 At that time, ITU reported an estimated 31 million Internet users in Mexico, which would bring the overall number of users in Latin America to 190.2 million people. More recent estimates published by Internet World Stats place Internet access currently at an estimated 204.6 million out of a total population of 592.5 million in the region (this figure includes Mexico).2 According to those figures, 34.5 per cent of the Latin American population now enjoys Internet access. In recent years, universal access policies contributed to the vast increase in digital literacy and Internet use in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica. Whereas the latter was the first country in the region to adopt a policy of universal access, the most expansive and successful digital inclusion programs in the region have taken hold in Brazil and Chile. These two countries have allocated considerable resources to the promotion of digital literacy and Internet access among low income and poor populations; in both cases, civil society groups significantly assisted in the promotion of inclusion at the grassroots level. Digital literacy and Internet access have come to represent, particularly in the area of education, a welcome complementary resource for populations chronically underserved in nations with a long-standing record of inadequate public social services. Digital inclusion is vastly expanding throughout the region, thanks to stabilizing economies, increasingly affordable technology, and the rapid growth in the supply of cellular mobile telephony. A recent study by the global advertising agency Razorfish revealed significant shifts in the demographics of digital inclusion in the major economies of South America, where Web access is rapidly increasing amid the lower middle class and the working poor.3 Several researchers have suggested that Internet access will bring about greater civic participation and engagement, although skeptics remain unsure this could happen in Latin America. Yet, there have been some recent instances of political mobilization facilitated through the use of the Web and social media applications, starting in Chile when “smart mobs” nationwide demonstrated against former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet when she failed to enact education reforms in May 2006. The Internet has also been used by marginalized groups and by guerrillas groups to highlight their stories. In sum, Internet access in Latin is no longer a medium restricted to the elite. It is rather a public sphere upon which civil society has staked its claim. Some of the examples noted in this study point toward a developing trend whereby civil society, through online grassroots movements, is able to effectively pressure public officials, instill transparency and demand accountability in government. Access to the Internet has also made it possible for voices on the margins to participate in the conversation in a way that was never previously feasible. 1 International Telecommunications Union [ITU], “Information Technology Public & Report,” accessed May 15, 2011, http://www.itu.int/. 2 Internet World Stats, “Internet Usage Statistics for the Americas,” accessed March 24, 2011, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm 3 J. Crump, “The finch and the fox,” London, UK (2010), http://www.slideshare.net/razorfishmarketing/the-finch-and-the-fox.

A Study of Online Hotel Reservations on Asia Pacific-Based, European-Based, and North American-Based Travel Websites

This paper reports a study that examined hotel reservation services on travel websites. Using a systematic search, 90 travel websites were selected with an equal number of North American-based, European-based, and Asia Pacfic-based websites. These regions represent the areas of the world with the most Internet users. Based on the developed framework of information quality, the contents of the selected travel websites were evaluated. Be empirical results indicated that the travel websites achieved different levels of quality in online information, and that North American-based websites performed significantly better in some attributes.

A comparison study of the English III/American Literature success of African American high school students and that of students whose home language is Haitian Creole

The purpose of the study was to compare the English III success of students whose home language is Haitian Creole (SWHLIHC) with that of the more visible African American high school students in the Miami Dade County Public Schools System, in an effort to offer insight that might assist educators in facilitating the educational success of SWHLIHC in American Literature class.^ The study was guided by two important theories on how students interact with and learn from literature. They are Reader Response Theory which advocates giving students the opportunity to become involved in the literature experience (Rosenblatt, 1995), and Critical Literacy, a theory developed by Paolo Freire and Henry Giroux, which espouses a critical approach to analysis of society that enables people to analyze social problems through lenses that would reveal social inequities and assist in transforming society into a more equitable entity.^ Data for the study: 10th grade reading FCAT scores, English III/American Literature grades, and Promotion to English IV records for the school year 2010-2011 were retrieved from the records division of the Miami Dade County Public Schools System. The study used a quantitative methods approach, the central feature of which was an ex post facto design with hypotheses (Newman, Newman, Brown, & McNeely, 2006). The ex post facto design with hypotheses was chosen because the researcher postulated hypotheses about the relationships that might exist between the performances of SWHLIHC and those of African American students on the three above mentioned variables. This type of design supported the researcher's purpose of comparing these performances.^ One way analysis of variance (ANOVA), two way ANOVAs, and chi square tests were used to examine the two groups' performances on the 10th grade reading FCAT, their English III grades, and their promotion to English IV. ^ The study findings show that there was a significant difference in the performance of SWHLIHC and African American high school students on all three independent variables. SWHLIHC performed significantly higher on English III success and promotion to English IV. African American high school students performed significantly higher on the reading FCAT.^

Representações discursivas sobre lampião e seu bando em notícias de jornais mossoroenses (1927): “O mais audaz e miserável de todos os bandidos” e o seu “grupo de asseclas”

In this doctoral thesis analyzed the discursive representations of the bandit Lampião, the Lantern and his bandits gang in news mossoroenses newspapers published in the twenties of the last century (1927), when the gang invasion of the city of Mossoro in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, on June 13 of that year. To this end, we take as basis the theoretical assumptions of linguistics Textual, especially the narrower context of what is known today as Textual Analysis of the Discourses (ADT), theoretical and descriptive approach to linguistic studies of the text proposed by the French linguist Jean-Michel Adam. In this approach, we are interested in, specifically, the semantic level of the text, highlighting the notion of discursive representation, studied based on benchmarking operations, predication, modification, spatial location and temporal connection and analogy (ADAM, 2011; CASTILHO, 2010; KOCH, 2002, 2006; MARCUSCHI, 1998, 2008; NEVES, 2007; RODRIGUES, PASSEGGI & SILVA NETO, 2010). The corpus of this research consists of three reports in the twenties of the last century in newspapers The Mossoroense, Correio do Povo and the Northeast, and reconstituted through the collection held in the Municipal Museum Lauro Scotland files, Memorial Resistance Mossoro, both located in Natal, and in the news collection of Lampião newspapers in Natal, north of Rio Grande Raimundo Nonato historian. The discursive representations are built from the use of semantic analysis operations. Lampião to, the following representations are built: bandit, head of bandits, briber, defeated, Captain and Lord. To the outlaws of Lampião bunch of the following discursive representations were built: group, gang, gangsters, mates, bloodthirsty pack, brigands, bandits, criminals, burglar horde, and wild beasts. These representations reveal mainly the views of the newspapers of that time, which represented mainly the interests of traders, politicians, the government itself and generally Mossoró population.

Location and ages of terrestrial peatlands located on continental shelves and in coastal sediments

This synthesis dataset contains records of freshwater peat and lake sediments from continental shelves and coastal areas. Information included is site location (when available), thickness and description of terrestrial sediments as well as underlying and overlying sediments, dates (when available), and references.