Affirmative action and effort choice: An experimental investigation

We study the effect of affirmative action on effort in an experiment conducted in high schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas in Queensland, Australia. All participating schools have a large representation of indigenous Australians, a population group that is frequently targeted by affirmative action. Our participants perform a simple real-effort task in a competitive setting. Those ranked in the top third receive a high piece-rate payment and all the others receive a low payment. We introduce affirmative action by providing the lowest (bottom third) performers with a positive handicap increasing their chances to achieve the high payment target. Our findings show that the policy increases effort of those that it aims to favour, without discouraging effort of those who are indirectly penalized by affirmative action.

Novel application of a discrete choice experiment to identify preferences for a national healthcare-associated infection surveillance programme: A cross-sectional study

Objective: To identify key stakeholder preferences and priorities when considering a national healthcare-associated infection (HAI) surveillance programme through the use of a discrete choice experiment (DCE). Setting: Australia does not have a national HAI surveillance programme. An online web-based DCE was developed and made available to participants in Australia. Participants: A sample of 184 purposively selected healthcare workers based on their senior leadership role in infection prevention in Australia. Primary and secondary outcomes: A DCE requiring respondents to select 1 HAI surveillance programme over another based on 5 different characteristics (or attributes) in repeated hypothetical scenarios. Data were analysed using a mixed logit model to evaluate preferences and identify the relative importance of each attribute. Results: A total of 122 participants completed the survey (response rate 66%) over a 5-week period. Excluding 22 who mismatched a duplicate choice scenario, analysis was conducted on 100 responses. The key findings included: 72% of stakeholders exhibited a preference for a surveillance programme with continuous mandatory core components (mean coefficient 0.640 (p<0.01)), 65% for a standard surveillance protocol where patient-level data are collected on infected and non-infected patients (mean coefficient 0.641 (p<0.01)), and 92% for hospital-level data that are publicly reported on a website and not associated with financial penalties (mean coefficient 1.663 (p<0.01)). Conclusions: The use of the DCE has provided a unique insight to key stakeholder priorities when considering a national HAI surveillance programme. The application of a DCE offers a meaningful method to explore and quantify preferences in this setting.

Aaishah’s choice: Choosing home education in the Muslim community

In Australia, the decision to home educate is becoming increasingly popular (cf. Townsend, 2012). In spite of its increasing popularity, the reasons home education is chosen by Australian families is under-researched (cf. Jackson & Allan, 2010). In addition, the decision to home educate among minority groups, such as Australian Muslim families, is absent from the literature. This paper reports on an interview with one Muslim mother who chose to home educate her children. An in-depth, qualitative interview was conducted with Aaishah (pseudonym), a mother who lived in one of Australia’s most populated cities. Data were analysed using the Discourse Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis. The analysis revealed that there were similarities between the discourses of Christian parents described in the literature, in terms of the reasons Aaishah had given for her decision to home educate. In particular, analysis reveals Aaishah’s fears about schools, their negative experiences on her children and her hopes for her children’s futures.

Where to Submit? Journal Choice by Construction Management Authors

Publishers of academic journals can be seen as service providers to authors, in addition to the traditional role of providers of research results to readers. The purpose of this study was to analyse how author choices of journal in construction management are affected by quality and service perceptions. Seven journals were identified and for each 2006 article, one author e-mail address was extracted. A web based questionnaire was sent to 397 authors and 35% responded. It was found that there were three journals regularly followed by at least half the respondents. Most of the other four journals have scopes broader than construction management and receive lower scores for characteristics such as impact on researchers. No open access journals were included, and authors in the field of construction management rarely post openly accessible copies of their manuscripts or publications on the web. Author ranking of journals for their next submission is found to be related to general criteria such as academic status, circulation figures and ISI indexation.

Influence of propellant choice on MPD arcjet cathode surface current density distribution

The radial current density on an MPD arcjet cathode surface is theoretically investigated for five propellants. It is found that excessive current concentration at the upstream end of the cathode occurs in the case of hydrogen. This undesirable effect is traced to the higher electrical conductivity of hydrogen plasma.

Male spacing behaviour and acoustic interactions in a field cricket: implications for female mate choice

Males of several acoustically communicating orthopteran species form spatially and temporally structured choruses. We investigated whether male field crickets of the species Plebeiogryllus guttiventris formed choruses in the field. Males formed spatial aggregations and showed fidelity to a calling site within a night, forming stable choruses. Within aggregations, the acoustic ranges of males overlapped considerably. We tested whether males within hearing range of each other interacted acoustically. The chirps of simultaneously calling males were aphasic with respect to each other and showed no significant alternation or synchrony of calls. Some individuals changed temporal features of their calling songs such as chirp durations and chirp rates in response to a simultaneously calling neighbour. The implications of these results for female mate choice are discussed

Boundary regularity of correspondences in C-n

Let M, M' be smooth, real analytic hypersurfaces of finite type in C-n and f a holomorphic correspondence (not necessarily proper) that is defined on one side of M, extends continuously up to M and maps M to M-t. It is shown that f must extend across M as a locally proper holonnorphic correspondence. This is a version for correspondences of the Diederich-Pinchuk extension result for CR maps.

Analisi contrastiva delle modalità di traduzione in finnico dei Tempi verbali e delle perifrasi aspettuali dell'italiano

Analisi contrastiva delle modalità di traduzione in finnico dei Tempi verbali e delle perifrasi aspettuali dell italiano (Italian Philology) The topic of this research is a contrastive study of tenses and aspect in Italian and in Finnish. The study aims to develop a research method for analyzing translations and comparable texts (non-translation) written in a target language. Thus, the analysis is based on empirical data consisting of translations of novels from Italian to Finnish and vice versa. In addition to this, for the section devoted to solutions adopted in Finnish for translating the Italian tenses Perfetto Semplice and Perfetto Composto, 39 Finnish native speakers were asked to answer questions concerning the choice of Perfekti and Imperfekti in Finnish. The responses given by the Finnish informants were compared to the choices made by translators in the target language, and in this way it was possible both to benefit from the motivation provided by native speakers to explain the selection of a tense (Imperfekti/Perfekti) in a specific context compared with the Italian formal equivalents (Perfetto Composto/Perfetto Semplice), and to define the specific features of the Finnish verb tenses. The research aims to develop a qualitative method for the analysis of formal equivalents and translational changes ( shifts ). Although, as the choice of Italian and Finnish progressive forms is optional and related to speaker preferences, besides the qualitative analysis, I also considered it necessary to operate a quantitative one in order to find out whether the two items share the same degree of correspondence in frequency of use. In this study I explain translation choices in light of cognitive grammar, suggesting that particular translation relationships derive from so-called construal operations. I use the concepts of cognitive linguistics not only to analyze the convergences and divergences of the two aspectual systems, but also to redefine some general procedures related to the phenomenon of translation. For the practical analysis of the corpus were for the most part employed theoretical categories developed in a framework proposed by Pier Marco Bertinetto. Following this approach, the notions of aspect (the morphologic or morphosyntactic, subjective level) and actionality (the lexical aspect or objective level, traditionally Aktionsart) are carefully distinguished. This also allowed me to test the applicability of these distinctions to two languages typologically different from each other. The data allowed both the analysis of the semantic and pragmatic features that determine tense and aspect choices in these two languages, and to discover the correspondences between the two language systems and the strategies that translators are forced to resort to in particular situations. The research provides not only a detailed and analytically argued inventory about possible solutions for translating Italian tenses and aspectual devices in Finnish that could be of pedagogical relevance, but also new contributions about the specific uses of time-aspectual devices in the two languages in question.

A note on the choice of interfacial friction angle

Estimates of interfacial friction angle (delta) are necessary for the design of retaining structures and deep foundations, Recommendations in the literature regarding delta values are often contradictory and are therefore not easy to apply in geotechnical design, A critical examination of past studies in terms of data generation techniques used and conclusions drawn indicates that two distinctly different test procedures/techniques have been evolved. The interfacial situation in practice can also be categorized into two broad types, These two types of interface problems in geotechnical engineering are (a) the structure is placed on the free surface of prepared fill (type A situation) and (b) the fill is placed against the material surface which functions as a confined boundary (type B situation), The friction angle delta depends on the surface roughness of the construction material, But in the type A situation, it is independent of density and its limiting maximum value (delta(lim)) is the critical state friction angle phi(cv). In the type B situation, it is dependent on density of the fill and its limiting maximum value is the peak angle of internal friction phi(p) of the fill.

Choice of Classifiers in Hierarchical Recognition of Online Handwritten Kannada and Tamil Aksharas

In this paper, we propose a novel dexterous technique for fast and accurate recognition of online handwritten Kannada and Tamil characters. Based on the primary classifier output and prior knowledge, the best classifier is chosen from set of three classifiers for second stage classification. Prior knowledge is obtained through analysis of the confusion matrix of primary classifier which helped in identifying the multiple sets of confused characters. Further, studies were carried out to check the performance of secondary classifiers in disambiguating among the confusion sets. Using this technique we have achieved an average accuracy of 92.6% for Kannada characters on the MILE lab dataset and 90.2% for Tamil characters on the HP Labs dataset.

Rural electrification: Optimising the choice between decentralised renewable energy sources and grid extension

The study presents an analysis aimed at choosing between off-grid solar photovoltaic, biomass gasifier based power generation and conventional grid extension for remote village electrification. The model provides a relation between renewable energy systems and the economical distance limit (EDL) from the existing grid point, based on life cycle cost (LCC) analysis, where the LCC of energy for renewable energy systems and grid extension will match. The LCC of energy feed to the village is arrived at by considering grid availability and operating hours of the renewable energy systems. The EDL for the biomass gasifier system of 25 kW capacities is 10.5 km with 6 h of daily operation and grid availability. However, the EDL for a similar 25 kW capacity photovoltaic system is 35 km for the same number of hours of operation and grid availability. The analysis shows that for villages having low load demand situated far away from the existing grid line, biomass gasification based systems are more cost competitive than photovoltaic systems or even compared to grid extension. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.