In recent years the role of offline consolidation in supporting word learning has attracted great interest and has provided valuable insight into how novel spoken and written words are learned. Relatively little attention has focused on whether offline consolidation supports the learning and generalisation of novel orthographic knowledge. Meanwhile, laboratory-based approaches have proven valuable in overcoming the methodological challenges of studying reading acquisition, i.e. learning letter-sound knowledge. This thesis combines laboratory-based orthographic learning with an overnight consolidation framework to track the effects of sleep on learning novel letters and novel written words in six experiments. Experiment 1 validated the artificial orthography paradigm by using fMRI to show the novel orthography activated similar neural regions to pseudowords written in familiar orthography. Comparing recently learned words and objects additionally highlighted the componential and holistic processes that distinguish reading from object naming. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 investigated whether overnight consolidation had contrasting effects on learning novel letters and learning novel written words. All three studies showed overnight improvements in the ability to use and generalise knowledge of letters. Experiment 3 further assessed whether consolidation supported the formation of bigram representations. While the results did not show bigram consolidation, a recognition memory task indicated participants had consolidated the novel spoken words. Experiment 4 manipulated the internal statistical structure of the novel words finding, in contrast to Experiment 3, participants had consolidated the written forms of the novel words. Experiments 5 and 6 asked whether consolidated and unconsolidated spoken words would support orthographic learning. These studies failed to observe previous findings of spoken word consolidation and did not demonstrate clear effects of lexical knowledge on orthographic learning. The findings of the thesis demonstrate the importance of letter-level learning and consolidation during reading acquisition as well as highlighting the value of laboratory-based studies for understanding the interdependent trajectories of the skills involved in reading.

Thesis. 1979. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography: leaves 271-278. / by Nicolas S. Majluf. / Ph.D.

This dissertation introduces a new method for evaluating mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and goodwill allocations associated with them. This method differs from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which estimate the sum of the fair value of net identifiable assets by focusing on balance sheet information, and recognizes the remainder of the purchase price as goodwill. The new method utilizes both balance sheet and income statement information to estimate the value of a target as a business, and treats the remainder of the purchase price as the uncertain growth expectation. Using the new approach, I document that uncertain growth expectations in M&A prices (1) are negatively related to acquirer's long-term returns, (2) predict future goodwill impairments, and (3) are superior to event-date market reactions and premiums as a predictor of acquirers' future performance.

The aim of this PhD thesis was to explore the way in which recognition memory changes over time. Of particular interest was how forgetting and systems level consolidation processes alter the qualitative nature of recognition judgments and the impact this has on event related potentials (ERPs) recorded during recognition. An emerging body of fMRI and animal work has started to suggest that changes to the neural basis of memory can be observed after intervals in the order of days and weeks. Although much research has examined the ERP correlates of recent recognition, there has been little attempt to compare this to remote recognition. This gap in the literature is investigated in the present PhD thesis over five ERP and two behavioural experiments. The first set of experiments investigated recognition success i.e. the subjective awareness that a stimulus has been encountered before. Previous work has associated familiarity-based recognition with an early midfrontal ERP effect whereas recollection-based recognition has been linked to a later onsetting parietal ERP effect. These effects were compared for recently studied stimuli and stimuli studied 1 week earlier. Results revealed an attenuation of the late parietal effect. This quantitative difference suggests that the neural networks underlying the ERPs for recent and remote recollection remain the same after a 1 week delay but may be less active after a period of forgetting. Behavioural work linked this to a drop in strength and episodic detail for remote recollection. Examining the midfrontal effect over time produced a more complex pattern of results. The effect was not reliable in Experiment 1 for remote familiarity judgments. In follow up experiments, however, midfrontal effects were reliable for week old memories but were not modulated by either delay or memory strength manipulations. These findings do not permit strong conclusions regarding the way familiarity memory and midfrontal ERPs vary over time, other than to say that the midfrontal effect is not a short lived correlate of recognition memory. A second set of experiments investigated how the length of the delay between study and test impacts on retrieval orientation and retrieval effort. Retrieval orientation refers to the way in which participants strategically alter how a memory cue is processed based on current task demands. Results showed ERP differences when remote memories were cued compared to when recent memories were cued. However, these differences were eliminated when recent and remote memory was matched for performance. This finding indicated that effort required at retrieval rather than memory age per se influenced differential cue processing. A follow up experiment supported this claim but found that participants may utilise delay information during recognition in a very general sense. In this experiment, ERPs indicated different cue processing when participants knew the age of the memories they were trying to retrieve compared to when they did not. Taken together, the results suggest that memory age does not influence the ERP correlates of recognition in a direct manner. More important are the indirect changes occurring over time, such as reduced memory strength, reduced episodic detail, slower reaction times and increased effort at retrieval. These variables, and possibly a range of others, should be controlled as far as possible in studies aiming to explore neural changes driven by systems consolidation. Prospective studies, where the learning phase can be controlled makes this aim feasible, as some of the experiments in this thesis have shown. Future work might benefit from focusing more on variations at encoding, rather than large differences in the length of the retention interval, as has been the traditional approach to this issue.

A historical study of school organization and school district consolidation enables both educators and lay citizens to have a better understanding and appreciation of schools as they are today. By studying past developments of a given institution, one can better evaluate current requirements and affect future changes as the needs arise. The Cache County School System as presently constituted has evolved over the years from a cluster of small independent village schools with separate boards of education to a highly centralized system with one board of education and consolidated schools. The purpose of this study is to trace and analyze the development of this system.

There are substantial bodies of literature that advance theory about why Merger and Acquisition (M and A) candidates are found to be unattractive, why negotiations aren???t concluded and why the benefits of companies that are acquired are not realized. Little, if any, research identifies why M and A opportunities are not pursued in the period after candidates are analysed and found to be attractive but before negotiations begin. This study addresses this period by developing a theoretical framework of the variables that intervene to reverse decisions to pursue apparently attractive candidates before negotiations begin and which, in doing so, result in missed opportunities. The study is informed primarily by the Strategic Management content literature (Ansoff, 1965, Porter, 1980) but draws from the strategy process literature (Huff and Reger, 1987) including streams in Strategic Decision Making (SDM) (Papadakis and Barwise, 1998, Schwenck, 1995). The framework is developed using a multiple-case study method. This choice was dictated by the study???s theory building objective, the nature of the research questions ??? that is, what variables influence decisions and how? ??? and the lack of an existing theoretical foundation on which to build. The sample consisted of 37 decisions reversals made by 27 firms in Australia, Europe and the USA. The results suggest that there are three major categories of variables that stop acquirers from pursuing potentially attractive acquisition candidates. These are related to the acquirers???: ??? Strategy and objectives: For example, whether there is a change in strategy or objectives, or either or both are poorly understood and agreed between organizational levels or units; ??? Organizational functional resources: For example, whether constraints on appropriate knowledge and skill sets develop or are perceived to be likely to develop during the post-evaluation period; ??? Other financial factors: For example, whether a shortage of funds develops. Twelve individual variables are identified. Ten of these appear to be consistent with factors that Ansoff and colleagues (1971) associate with post-acquisition failure although variable definitions are not always comparable. Poor management of the variables thus appears to have the potential to expose acquirers to two different but important vulnerabilities. First, potentially attractive M and A opportunities may be forgone if the variables are operative in the post-evaluation ??? pre-negotiation period; second, if they don???t become operative until after the acquisition is consummated, the benefits of attractive companies that are acquired may not be realized. This study???s most important contribution is to the theoretically diverse base of acquisition performance literature which, to-date, tends to examine phases in the M and A decision making process before or after the focal period of this study. It also illustrates the use of a general multi-theoretic model of Strategic Decision Making (Rajagopolan, et al., 1993, 1998) exclusively in the M and A domain, a domain whose decisions are worthy of study in their own right. Finally, it provides insights into a new set of factors subject to control that managers may take into account in their acquisition planning.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-210).

Soil-bentonite (SB) slurry walls are one of the most popular techniques for minimizing the horizontal migration of contaminants. Backfill arching, or “hang-up” of the backfilled slurry, on the wall trench has the potential to significantly reduce the effectiveness of these barriers. This research was conducted to supplement the design and installation of an 11,000 m long slurry wall at PotashCorp’s mine in Rocanville, Saskatchewan. The slurry wall is being installed through low permeability glacial till containing permeable granular zones. This study was undertaken to improve the understanding of vertical stress distribution in these deep barriers. In particular, the objective of this study was to develop an understanding of the factors controlling arching and hydraulic conductivity (k) of SB walls. Slurry wall “hang-up” or arching is dependent on shear along the wall of the trench and on a coefficient of lateral earth pressure (K). Consolidated drained (CD) shear box tests were conducted to study the shear strength parameters of the backfill mixes. Six inch proctor mold was modified with load cells on the side walls to measure horizontal stresses along with consolidation. This was used to calculate coefficient of lateral earth pressure, K (which is the ratio of horizontal to vertical effective stress). The results of the laboratory testing program found that K was relatively independent of the percentage of fines present in the SB mix. It also showed that backfill angle of internal friction and k of the backfill decreased with increased fines content. The results of the laboratory testing program were used to model the vertical stress distribution in deep walls. An analytical model (discrete model) and a coupled seepage stress-strain finite element model (FEM) were used to predict vertical stress changes with time and depth for the different backfill materials. The primary conclusion of this research is that slurry wall backfill arching or “hang-up” significantly delays the magnitude and timing of vertical stress build-up in backfill. This loss of vertical stress results in backfill with lower density and higher hydraulic conductivity. The situation was found to be most critical for deep narrow slurry walls. Any advantage in using a coarser graded backfill was offset by higher backfill hydraulic conductivity. The net result is that the upper portions of slurry walls may not be able to achieve their hydraulic conductivity objectives as soon as expected, if at all. In addition, the backfill in the upper portion of the trench may be susceptible to chemical attack and osmotic consolidation. Construction of a 2 m high surcharge berm over the slurry wall was found to increase vertical effective stress and result in significantly lower (2 to 8 times) hydraulic conductivity values in the top 5 metres of the trench. The final hydraulic conductivity (k) at a depth of 5 m was approximately 75 % lower with a surcharge berm. Thus, construction of a surcharge berm over the slurry wall helps to satisfy the k requirement for SB walls and lowers the risk of osmotic consolidation.

University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology / Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering