Alaska Resources Library and Information Services: Pioneering Partnerships on the Last Frontier

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Science and Technology Libraries on September 2008, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/ 10.1300/J122v24n01_08Five federal agencies, one state agency, one state-federal entity, and one university combined their library resources to create the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services (ARLIS), which opened in Anchorage in 1997. This new library focuses on Alaska’s natural and cultural resources, and serves agency personnel, university faculty and students, and local and international researchers from the public and private sectors. Funded by its parent agencies and collectively directed by a team of six librarians, ARLIS is recognized for its unique and innovative structure, one-of-a-kind collections, and quality in-depth service.Ye

Does Expansion Cause Congestion? The Case of the Older British Universities, 1994 to 2004

This paper examines whether the rapid growth in the number of students in British universities in recent years has led to congestion, in the sense that certain universities’ output could have been higher if this expansion had been less rapid. The focus of the paper is on 45 older universities that were in existence prior to 1992. The analysis covers the period 1994/5 to 2003/4. Several alternative methods of measuring congestion are examined and, to check the sensitivity of the results to different specifications, three alternative DEA models are formulated. The results indicate that congestion was present throughout the decade under review, and in a wide range of universities, but whether it rose or fell is uncertain, as this depends on which congestion model is used. A crucial point here is whether one assumes constant or variable returns to scale. Nonetheless, all models point to a rise in congestion between 2001/2 and 2003/4, and this may well be a result of the rapid growth that occurred in this period. All models also record a sharp drop in mean technical efficiency in 2003/4. A possible explanation of the absence of a clear-cut trend in congestion is that the student : staff ratio in these universities was relatively stable in the decade under review, rising only gently from 2000/1 onwards.British universities; congestion; DEA

Does it matter How We Measure Congestion?

This paper examines three alternative methods of measuring congestion, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. These methods are the conventional approach of Färe and Grosskopf, the alternative proposed by Cooper et al., and a new method developed by Tone and Sahoo. Each method is found to have merits and demerits. The properties of the different methods are examined using data for 41 ‘new’ British universities in the period 1995/6 to 2003/4. Contrary to expectations, Färe and Grosskopf’s approach generally indicates substantially more congestion than do the other procedures. The main reason for this is identified as being its use of CRS rather than VRS as the assumed technology. While the alternative measures of congestion are found to be positively correlated, the correlations are not strong enough for them to be regarded as substitutes. All methods suggest the existence of a widespread problem of congestion in the new universities, although they differ noticeably as regards its severity.Length: 37 pagesData envelopment analysis; Education; Congestion;

Lathe attachment used to machine elliptical cones

Close-tolerance elliptical cones are fabricated by cutting-tool guide assembly used with conventional tracer cartridge on turret lathe accurately produced in two machine operations

Apparatus for machining geometric cones Patent

Rotary spindle lathe attachments for machining geometrical cone

Environmental Kuznets Curves: Mess or Meaning?

The shape of the relationship between the rate of environmental degradation and income per capita has been the subject of much empirical examination. When test results based around this so-called ‘environmental Kuznets curve’ are compared, the empirical evidence is neither consistently supportive of its traditional inverted-U shape nor uniform across pollutants. A deeper understanding of the characteristics of pollutants and of the derived demand and derived supply of pollutants needs to be achieved if environmental Kuznets curves are to be useful.Environmental Kuznets Curves, Empirical Evidence

RELIABILITY OF PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE: COMPARISON OF SHAZAM AND SAS

Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Comment on ``Bethe Ansatz Results for the 4f-Electron Spectra of a Degenerate Anderson Model ''

In a recent letter, Zvyagin calculates the density of states for 4f electrons coupled to a conduction band in the framework of the Bethe ansatz (BA) solution for the degenerate Anderson model. It is claimed that the results qualitatively disagree with the results obtained for the same model but using a variational approach. Even the high energy feature in the f-spectral function near the 4f-level energy ef, i.e. the ``normal'' ionization peak (NIP), is argued to be qualitatively different in the two approaches. In the following we point out that this is not the case.Comment: 1 page, RevTeX, no figur