Showing papers by "Ohio State University published in 1988"

Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution - 1863-1877

Abstract: This "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) made history when it was originally published in 1988. It redefined how Reconstruction was viewed by historians and people everywhere in its chronicling of how Americans -- black and white -- responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) has since gone on to become the classic work on the wrenching post-Civil War period -- an era whose legacy reverberates still today in the United States.

The Subjective Workload Assessment Technique: A Scaling Procedure for Measuring Mental Workload

Abstract: Mental workload is proposed to be a multidimensional construct that can be largely explained by three component factors: Time Load, Mental Effort Load, and Psychological Stress Load. In this paper, we describe a subjective scaling approach, the Subjective Workload Assessment Technique (SWAT), that captures this multidimensional nature of mental workload. We describe the SWAT procedure as a two-phased method that includes (a) a scale development phase based on conjoint measurement and nonmetric scaling, and (b) an event scoring phase. The development of SWAT and its measurement foundations are discussed. Recent research illustrating SWAT's widespread utility and its sensitivity as a measure of perceived mental workload is summarized.

A study of standardization of variables in cluster analysis

Abstract: A methodological problem in applied clustering involves the decision of whether or not to standardize the input variables prior to the computation of a Euclidean distance dissimilarity measure. Existing results have been mixed with some studies recommending standardization and others suggesting that it may not be desirable. The existence of numerous approaches to standardization complicates the decision process. The present simulation study examined the standardization problem. A variety of data structures were generated which varied the intercluster spacing and the scales for the variables. The data sets were examined in four different types of error environments. These involved error free data, error perturbed distances, inclusion of outliers, and the addition of random noise dimensions. Recovery of true cluster structure as found by four clustering methods was measured at the correct partition level and at reduced levels of coverage. Results for eight standardization strategies are presented. It was found that those approaches which standardize by division by the range of the variable gave consistently superior recovery of the underlying cluster structure. The result held over different error conditions, separation distances, clustering methods, and coverage levels. The traditionalz-score transformation was found to be less effective in several situations.

Locality and Community in the Politics of Local Economic Development

Abstract: Concomitant with the contemporary restructuring of local economies in the United States has been a distinctive local politics: one which revolves around a competition among localities rather than conflict with in them. The role of the local dependence of various actors is explored with a view to explaining this politics. Some firms are locally dependent and form business coalitions to stimulate investment in their local economy. They attempt to harness the powers of local government, which are susceptible as a result of their own local dependence. Subsequent local economic development programs often pose threats to people in their workplaces and living places and elicit opposition. To overcome this opposition, business coalitions attempt to promulgate a shared interest in a local community. This interest is extended to include threats to the local community implied by the economic development programs of business coalitions elsewhere. The local dependence of people makes them receptive to this ar...

A Microeconometric Model of the Demand for Health Care and Health Insurance in Australia

Abstract: This paper develops a model for interdependent demand for health insurance and health care under uncertainty to throw light on the issue of insurance-induced distortions in the demand for health care services. The model is used to empirically analyse the determinants of the choice of health insurance type and seven types of health care services using micro-level data from the 1977–78 Australian Health Survey. Econometric implementation of the model involves, simultaneously, issues of discreteness of choice, selectivity and stochastic dependence between health insurance and utilization. Health status appears to be more important in determining health care service use than health insurance choice, while income appears to be more important in determining health insurance choice than in determining health care service use. For a broad range of health care services both moral hazard and self selection are found to be important determinants of utilization of health care services.

The role of attitude importance in social evaluation: a study of policy preferences, presidential candidate evaluations, and voting behavior.

Abstract: According to a number of social psychological theories, attitudes toward government policies that people consider important should have substantial impact on presidential candidate preferences, and unimportant attitudes should have relatively little impact. Surprisingly, the accumulated evidence evaluating this hypothesis offers little support for it. This article reexamines the hypothesis, applying more appropriate analysis methods to data collected during the 1968, 1980, and 1984 American presidential election campaigns. The impact of policy attitudes on candidate preferences was indeed found to depend on the importance of those attitudes, just as theory suggests. The analysis also documented two mechanisms of this increased impact: People for whom a policy attitude is important perceive larger differences between competing candidates' attitudes, and important attitudes appear to be more accessible in memory than unimportant ones. According to political theorists, democratic governments maintain stability and legitimacy because citizens elect representafives who implement government policies that they favor (e.g., Dahl, 1956; Pennock, 1979). This is presumed to occur because voters' candidate preferences are determined in part by the match between their attitudes toward government policies (called policy attitudes) and their perceptions of candidates' attitudes toward those policies. This notion, referred to as policy voting, is consistent with the many social psychological theories that assert that social attraction is based in part on attitudinal similarity (Byrne, 1971; Festinger, 1954; Heider, 1958). It is also consistent with the results of many studies of voting behavior in recent American presidential elections. In addition to affiliations with political parties, assessments of candidates' personality traits, the emotions candidates evoke in voters, and evaluations of incumbent presidents' performance in office, candidate preferences are shaped by voters' policy attitudes and their perceptions of candidates' policy attitudes (see Kinder & Sears,

Realistic animation of rigid bodies

Abstract: The theoretical background and implementation for a computer animation system to model a general class of three dimensional dynamic processes for arbitrary rigid bodies is presented. The simulation of the dynamic interaction among rigid bodies takes into account various physical characteristics such as elasticity, friction, mass, and moment of inertia to produce rolling and sliding contacts. If a set of bodies is statically unstable, the system dynamically drives it toward a stable configuration while obeying the geometric constraints of the system including general non-holonomic constraints. The system also provides a physical environment with which objects animated using more traditional techniques can interact. The degree of interaction is easily controlled by the animator. A computationally efficient method to merge kinematics and dynamics for articulated rigid bodies to produce realistic motion is presented.

Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract: Participation as amicus curiae has long been an important tactic of organized interests in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. We analyze amicus curiae briefs filed before the decision on certiorari and assess their impact on the Court's selection of a plenary docket. We hypothesize that one or more briefs advocating or opposing certiorari increase the likelihood of its being granted. We test this hypothesis using data from the United States Reports and Briefs and Records of the United States Supreme Court for the 1982 term. The statistical analysis demonstrates that the presence of amicus curiae briefs filed prior to the decision on certiorari significantly and positively increases the chances of the justices' binding of a case over for full treatment—even after we take into account the full array of variables other scholars have hypothesized or shown to be substantial influences on the decision to grant or deny.

Feminist perspectives on empowering research methodologies

Abstract: This paper focuses on what feminist thought and practice add to the emergence of a postpositivist era in the human sciences. After delineating key assumptions regarding postpositivism, three questions are addressed: What does it mean to do feminist research? What can be learned about research as praxis and practices of self-reflexivity from looking at feminist efforts to create empowering research designs? And, finally, what are the implications of poststructuralist thought and practice for feminist empirical work?

Ownership Structure across Lines of Property-Casualty Insurance

Abstract: The range of ownership structures within the insurance industry is perhaps the broadest of any major industry. Included are Lloyds associations, where insurance contracts are offered by individual underwriters, stock companies that employ the standard corporate form, and mutuals and reciprocals that are more like cooperatives where customer and ownership functions are merged.

The Duration of Marketing Time of Residential Housing

Abstract: The marketing of unique durable goods such as housing presents a good example for the application of search theory. An optimal stopping rule strategy is employed to model sellers' behavior. The primary hypothesis is that the greater the atypicality of a house, the greater the expected variance of offers. Because a maximizing seller will wish to entertain more offers the greater is the variance, the marketing time of atypical houses will be relatively longer than that of standard houses. Using a sample of resale houses, the empirical study uses a failure time model to confirm the hypothesis. Extensions are mentioned, including discussions of the role of the list price and the limitations of the standard hedonic regression approach when applied to housing.

Polyaniline: Solutions, Films and Oxidation State

Abstract: The emeraldine oxidation state of polyaniline in its base form, “emeraldine base” can be solution-processed to yield large flexible films which can be doped to the metallic conducting regime (σ ∼ 1-5 S/cm). The approximate solubility of emeraldine base at room temperature in 80% aqueous acetic acid, 60% and 88% aqueous formic acid, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-methylpyrrolidinone (NMP) have been determined. Both emeraldine base and emeraldine hydrochloride can be sublimed onto a variety of substrates to produce high quality, ∼2000 A thick films which are similar but not identical to emeraldine base. Emeraldine base, which is slowly oxidized by air, can be reconverted to the emeraldine oxidation state by treatment with dilute aqueous acids.

Effect of age, weaning and postweaning diet on small intestinal growth and jejunal morphology in young swine.

Abstract: The effect of age, weaning and postweaning diet on small intestinal growth and morphology were investigated in young swine Small intestine weight and villus height, measured at the midpoint of the small intestine (ie, jejunum), were determined in suckling and weaned pigs Scanning electron microscopy was performed on jejunal specimens from suckling pigs killed at 2, 10, 21, 28 and 35 d of age and in 21-d and 35-d weaned pigs at various ages postweaning A 2 X 2 factorial arrangement of postweaning diets also was used to investigate jejunal morphological measurements in a 21-d-old weanling pig group These dietary treatments evaluated the effects of 0 or 25% added dried whey and 0 or 6% added corn oil The morphology results demonstrated that jejunal villus height declined during the suckling period, with a marked reduction at 3 and 7 d postweaning for both 21-d-old and 35-d-old weaned pigs Transmission electron microscopy also demonstrated long, uniform microvilli on the jejunal villi in suckling pigs at 2 and 21 d, with markedly reduced lengths upon weaning Jejunal villi were shorter in weaned compared with suckling pigs at the same approximate chronological age Scanning electron microscopy in suckling pigs at 2 and 10 d of age demonstrated long, thin, fingerlike villi with subsequently reduced heights and larger diameters by 35 d of age At weaning, villi were in close apposition, resulting in an overall smoother villus luminal surface Villus height subsequently increased by 14 d postweaning, coinciding with the appearance of morphologically tongue-shaped villi Starter diet composition initially did not influence the villus height reduction response postweaning Dietary corn oil addition was subsequently associated with shortened villus length (P less than 05) during the starter phase

Competition Among Refuging Sunfishes and Effects of Fish Density on Littoral Zone Invertebrates

Abstract: In small lakes, juvenile sunfishes (Centrarchidae) commonly occupy vege- tated habitats, reducing the risk of predation by piscivorous fish. Eight species of sunfish coexist in Lawrence Lake, Michigan, and the bluegill greatly dominates the fish fauna in terms of numbers and biomass. I hypothesized that the bluegill's use of the vegetation as a predation refuge could have a significant negative effect on the growth rates of other species occupying this habitat. A "target-neighbor" experimental design was used to test this hypothesis. Twelve 3-_M2 cages were arrayed linearly along the vegetated littoral zone of Lawrence Lake in 1986. Two juvenile pumpkinseeds (the "target" species) were placed into each cage, together with either 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 juvenile bluegills. Bluegill densities were randomly assigned to cages; average bluegill density in Lawrence Lake is equivalent to - 5 fish per cage. Growth in mass over a 50-d period was used as a measure of competitive effect. Benthic invertebrates were also sampled from each cage to determine whether fish density significantly affected invertebrate size and abundance and whether invertebrate availability influenced sunfish growth. Growth of both pumpkinseeds and bluegills declined linearly as a function of final bluegill density in the cages, indicating that the species were competing while occupying the vegetation refuge. Growth was positively related to the density of large invertebrate prey remaining at the end of the experiment. Using an optimal foraging model, I estimated the net energy return available to bluegills in each cage. Predicted net energy gains (in joules per second of foraging time) were also positively related to bluegill growth, indicating that prey availability directly influenced growth rates. Mean invertebrate size decreased signif- icantly as fish density increased, owing to a reduction in the number of large invertebrates; the number of small prey showed no relationship to fish density. These results are consistent with a hypothesis of exploitative competition between juvenile sunfishes and indicate that the behavioral avoidance of predators by small fish can have significant effects on inver- tebrate size and abundance in littoral habitats.

Venture Capital, High Technology and Regional Development∗

Abstract: FLORIDA R. L. and Kenney M. (1988) Venture capital, high technology and regional development, Reg. Studies 22, 33–48. This paper explores the role of venture capital in technological innovation and regional development. Both aggregate data and a unique firm level data base are employed to determine the location of major centres of venture capital, flows of venture capital investments, and patterns of investment syndication or coinvestment among venture capital firms. Three major centres of venture capital are identified: California (San Francisco–Silicon Valley); New York; and New England (Massachusetts–Connecticut): as well as three minor venture capital centres: Illinois (Chicago); Texas; and Minnesota. Venture capital firms are found to cluster in areas with high concentrations of financial institutions and those with high concentrations of technology-intensive enterprises. Venture capital firms which are based in financial centres are typically export-oriented, while those in technology centres tend t...

Individual and situational correlates of whistle‐blowing

Abstract: Although popular interest in whistle-blowing continues to increase, little is known about why some employees who observe wrongdoing report it, while others do not. In the present study, we analyze archival survey data from individuals who observed wrongdoing in any of 22 organizations. Results are generally consistent with predictions based on a model of whistle-blowing as a type of prosocial behavior. Whistle-blowing was more likely when observers of wrongdoing (1) held professional positions, (2) had more positive reactions to their work, (3) had longer service, (4) were recently recognized for good performance, (5) were male (though race was unrelated to whistle-blowing), (6) were members of larger work groups, and (7) were employed by organizations perceived by others to be responsive to complaints. Implications for research and practice are described.

A progress report on the status of the COLUMBUS MRCI program system

Abstract: The COLUMBUS program system is a collection of Fortran programs for performing general multireference single- and double-excitation configuration interaction (MRSDCI) wave function optimization based on the graphical unitary group approach. The program system also includes integral generation, SCF and MCSCF orbital optimization, integral transformation, and wave function analysis programs. The original program system was written in 1980 to 1981. Since that time, it has evolved into one of the most popular MRSDCI program systems used in the computational chemistry community. The discussion of this evolution will include the exploitation of efficient matrix-matrix and matrix-vector product computational kernels, the use of generally contracted symmetry-adapted orbital basis sets, general Hamiltonian diagonalization procedures, energy-based internal walk selection, flexible DRT specification, improved coupling-coefficient evaluation methods, coupled-pair functional and multireference CPF capabilities, and density matrix construction. The numerous versions of the program system that are maintained at different sites and on different computers are now in the process of being merged. The source code for this combined version will be made available to the computational chemistry community. The source code for a specific computer may be generated from the source code for another computer by a single pass through a simple filter utility that is included with the program system. The directly supported computers will initially include various models of VAX, Cray, FPS, IBM, CDC, and ETA machines with the addition of other machines shortly thereafter. The ongoing developments of the COLUMBUS system that are discussed include a new method for computing analytic energy gradients for MRSDCI wave functions. This effective-density-matrix based method avoids the “coupled perturbed MCSCF” solutions for each coordinate direction, avoids the transformation of any derivative-integral quantities from the AO to the MO basis, avoids the transformation of the coupling coefficients from the MO to the AO basis, allows a subset of the MCSCF doubly occupied orbitals to be frozen in the CI wave function, and allows the MRSDCI wave function to be generated from general reference CSFs that are not necessarily related to the MCSCF expansion CSFs.

Equity and Workplace Status: A Field Experiment

Abstract: There can be little doubt about the existence of certain trappings of success in organizations—physical symbols (cf . Good sell, 1977 ) reflecting the organizational status of job incumbents (Steele, 1973). Indeed, previous research has confirmed that certain indicators of status demarcation (cf. Konar & Sundstrom, 1985) , such as large offices (Langdon, 1966), carpeting (Joiner, 1976) , and proximity to windows (Halloran, 1978), are recognized as rewards symbolizing one's high standing in an organizational status hierarchy. Although these environmental rewards typically are associated with relatively highstatus individuals, thereby reinforcing the social order of organizations (Edelman, 1978), there are some occasions in which the status of th e jo b incumbent and th e physical symbols associated with that status are not matched (Wineman, 1982). Such instances may be recognized as cases of status inconsistency, (cf. Stryke r & Macke, 1978) and, as such, reactions to them may be explained by equity theory (e.g., Adams, 1965; Walster , Walster, & Berscheid, 1978).

Double stranded DNA sequencing as a choice for DNA sequencing

Abstract: Double stranded DNA sequencing (1) is favored because of its simplicity, and convenice. However it is only recently that the quality of this method has become comparable with single stranded DNA sequencing. We believe that two factors have limited the popularity of double stranded DNA sequencing: 1, the quality of the template DNA; 2, the inherent propertv.,of the DNA polymerase. The modified T7 DNA polymerase (Sequenase ) has several properties which make it more suitable for sequencing (2). We replaced the Klenow Polymerase I with Sequenase in our double stranded DNA sequencing, and by paying careful attention to the conditions used to denature and recover the template DNA, we are now routinely producing sequencing results which are as good as single stranded DNA sequencing (see figure). Here, we present a step-by-step protocol for the alkaline denaturation of template DNA, and our recommendations for the sequencing reaction.