This Paper analyzes the factors influencing the labor force participation of low-income adults on public housing assistance. A quasi-experiment is designed to fulfill the purpose of measuring the magnitudes of certain attributes of given individuals, e.g. the age in influencing employment status while controlling other factors such as other personal attributes and living environments. A number of logistic regressions are performed to assist the empirical analysis. Two final models are presented while statistical results are diagnosed to ensure the reliability of findings. Based on the unique data provided by AHA (the Atlanta Housing Authority), over 70 variables are analyzed to determine their significance on influencing individuals¡¯ future employment status. Finally, we find five the most significant predictors to be the individual¡¯s current employment status, age, and income, whether one resides in a mixed-income community in comparison to living in a housing project, and whether one uses housing vouchers in comparison to living in a housing project. The individual¡¯s immediate living environment is found to play an extremely important role in shaping his/her future employment status. The results demonstrate that living in the mixed-income community as opposed to living in conventional public housing projects can boost one¡¯s odds of being employed in the future by 170% while using housing vouchers as opposed to living in traditional public housing can increase one¡¯s odds of being employed by 90%. Both statistics are significant even at the 0.001 level. Hence, our findings strongly support the view that environment matters and distressed public housing projects should be revitalized, which has been a controversial topic over years. This study introduces an innovative index system-that consists of the Family Development Index (FDI), the Neighborhood Development Index (NDI), and the Quality of Life Index (QLI)-developed by Dr. Boston to show the development of low-income adults¡¯ socio-economic status and living environments induced by the revitalization of public housing projects in Atlanta over the period of 1995-2001. Based on this innovative index system, this paper tentatively proposes a reasonable approach to separate the self-selective effect from the environmental effect in influencing the labor force participation, which has long been reckoned as a complex task in social science research. We create the Self-distinguishing Index (SDI) based on a similar mechanism by which Dr. Boston created the FDI and NDI and combine it with the FDI to generate the Self-selective Index (SSI). We also modify the NDI to serve our purpose of measuring the environmental changes at the personal level. By this method, we successfully detach the self-selective effect from the environmental effect in determining the individual¡¯s future employment status. Those two effects are found to be significant at the 0.001 level and the 0.01 level respectively. A side-finding that individuals belonging to the treatment group have significantly better odds of being employed in the future is shown as well.

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, a major public health concern in developing countries, continues to be a priority for the World Health Organization. S. Typhi possesses a viaB locus responsible for the biosynthesis of the Vi-capsular antigen, a significant virulence factor at the focus of developing improved prophylaxis for typhoid fever. Tissue culture experiments have demonstrated that S. Typhi wild-type capsule-expressing strain elicits less chemokine secretion than a viaB mutant. Calf experiments using the viaB mutant resulted in an increase inflammatory response. Osmolarity is one of the control signals that affect the biosynthesis of the Vi antigen. Under high osmolarity growth conditions of 300 mM and greater, Vi production is suppressed and S. Typhi is highly invasive. Studies reveal that the viaB mutant displays increased invasion towards intestinal epithelial cells. Our first objective was to implement direct and indirect methods to localize and detect Vi expression within intestinal epithelial cells and bovine Peyer's patch. The second objective was to compare the invasiveness between a viaB mutant, an ompR mutant, and S. Typhi grown under hyperosmolarity. We also measured the effects of these strains in eliciting inflammation in the calf model. We report that tviB was significantly up regulated intracellularly within T84 polarized cells. In the calf experiments, tviB was expressed at levels significantly higher in calf tissue following invasion compared to inoculum grown under Vi-suppressing conditions. Together, these results support the idea that the Vi capsular antigen is expressed after invasion of intestinal epithelial cells in vivo. We found that S. Typhi grown under high osmolarity, the viaB mutant, and the ompR mutant had increased invasion in polarized T84 cells and bovine ileal tissue. Fluid accumulation among Vi-deficient and Vi-suppressed strains was similar. The histopathology of the inflammatory lesions of the small intestine produced by the Vi-deficient and suppressed strains was quite comparable. Our data supports the notion that Vi-suppressed and Vi mutants of S. Typhi exhibit similar levels of increased invasion and inflammation, perhaps mechanistically through the inactivation of the Vi antigen.

Uranium contaminations of the subsurface in the vicinity of nuclear materials processing sites pose a health risk as the uranyl ion in its oxidized state, U(VI), is highly mobile in aquifers. Current remediation strategies such as pump and treat or excavation are invasive and expensive to implement on a large scale. In situ bioremediation represents an alternative strategy that uses the ability of local microbial communities to immobilize contaminants and is actively studied for uranium remediation. The immobilization of U(VI) in groundwater is achieved either by bioreduction to solid uraninite (U(IV)), adsorption to the soil matrix, or non-reductive precipitation of uranium phosphate minerals through the activity of bacterial phosphatases. Bioreduction has been widely studied for remediation of the saturated zone, as anaerobic conditions typically prevail in these environments. This process is only efficient at circumneutral pH, however, and the end product uraninite is unstable under aerobic conditions or in the presence of manganese oxides, nitrite, or even freshly formed iron oxides. Although non-reductive biomineralization of uranium catalyzed by bacterial phosphatase activity successfully removes uranium from the vadose zone, further studies are needed to assess the ability of microbial communities to hydrolyze organophosphate compounds in the saturated zone where oxygen is often depleted and uranium bioreduction may be significant. To investigate this process under anaerobic conditions, low pH soil samples from a uranium contaminated site at the Oak Ridge Field Research Center were incubated anaerobically in flow through reactors in the presence of exogenic organophosphate compounds to stimulate the natural microbial communities in the original soil matrix. Aqueous uranium was injected continuously in the reactors to determine the fraction of uranium removed during these incubations. The reactors amended with organophosphate produced inorganic phosphate in the effluent, suggesting that bacterial phosphatase activity can be stimulated even in anaerobic environments at low pH. Removal of U(VI) in a control amended with organophosphate over a short time period was similar compared to reactors amended with organophosphate for long times suggesting that adsorption may also play a role in U(VI) immobilization. A sequential extraction technique was optimized to differentiate the fraction of uranium loosely adsorbed and the fraction of uranium precipitated as phosphate minerals and batch adsorption experiments were performed to obtain thermodynamic parameters that could be used to predict the fraction of U(VI) adsorbed onto the soil matrix. Results indicated that 100% uranium adsorption was favorable from pH 5 to 10 (without the presence of phosphate), and that most of the solid phase uranium was extracted in the step defined for the strongly adsorbed/uranium phosphate mineral in both long and short-term amended reactors. Overall, these results demonstrate that the biomineralization of uranium phosphate minerals is a viable bioremediation strategy in both the vadose and saturated zones of aquifers at both low and high pH, provided an organophosphate source is available.

In den 80-iger Jahren war die DDR hinter den USA und Kanada der drittgrößte Uranproduzent mit einer Jahresproduktion von ca. 200.000 Tonnen. Die Gewinnung erfolgte durch konventio­nellen Bergbau, durch in- situ- oder offene Haufenlagerung. Die Urangewinnung auf dem Ter­ritorium der ehemaligen DDR wurde nach der Wiedervereinigung eingestellt und mit der Sa­nierung der Altstandorte begonnen. Nach Einstellung des Uranabbaus muss die Wasserhaltung solange betrieben werden, bis eine kontrollierte Flutung der Bergbauschächte erfolgen kann. Die dabei anfallen­den Grubenwässer werden je nach Schadstoffkonzentration direkt in den Vorfluter abgeleitet oder in geeigneten Aufbereitungsanlagen meist durch Flockung und Adsorption behandelt. Dieses praktisch oft angewandte Grubenwasserreinigungsverfahren bezüglich Uran und den auftretenden Begleitelementen Chrom und Arsen hat den entscheidenden Nachteil, dass die anfallenden schwermetallhaltigen Fällschlämme auf Deponien verbracht werden müssen. Durch Niederschlags­ereignisse oder ansteigendes Grundwasser besteht die Gefahr, dass die Deponien wieder ausgelaugt werden und somit eine erneute Mobilisierung von Schwermetallen in die Umwelt erfolgt. Die Sanierung kontaminierter Gebiete, insbesondere Sedimente, Sondermüll-deponien, Standorte ehemaliger Galvanikbetriebe, Betriebsflächen chemischer Industriestandorte, Rieselfelder oder Orte der Klärschlammaufbereitung erfordern neue Herangehensweisen an das gegenwärtig hochaktuelle Problem der Rehabilitation. Es wurde deshalb u.a. im Rahmen dieser Arbeit ein Konzept auf Grundlage der elektrochemischen Umset­zung im "verdünnten" elektrochemischen Festbettreaktor entwickelt, das es gestattet, die mo­bilen Schwermetallspezies im Boden bzw. Deponiekörper in immobile Schwermetallverbindungen um­zuwandeln. Damit kann die Nachsorge und Sicherung solcher Deponiekörper bezüglich einer Remobilisierung wesentlich kostengünstiger gestaltet werden. Ausgehend von diesem Konzept sollen Möglichkeiten, Einsatzbedingungen und -grenzen der Immobilisierung von Schwermetallen am Beispiel von Uran(VI), Chrom(VI), Arsen(III) und chlorierten Kohlenwasserstoffe aufgezeigt werden. Elektrochemische Verfahren zur Sanierung kontaminierter Böden, Schlämme und Sedimente befinden sich international in einer dynamischen Forschungs- und Entwicklungsphase. Sie sind einzeln und in Verfahrenskombinationen einsetzbar und werden, bei verantwortungsvoller Handhabung, in absehbarer Zeit auch als zertifizierte Verfahren in Deutschland in bestimmten Sanierungsvorhaben ihre Leistungsfähigkeit beweisen. Gegenwärtig befinden sie sich in Deutschland noch im Stadium der Forschung und Entwicklung, während international (z.B. USA, Niederlande) schon kommerzielle Anwendungen angeboten werden. Zur objektiven Beurteilung ihrer Leistungsfähigkeit und Einsatzgrenzen bedarf es spezieller Grundkenntnisse. Elektrochemische Remediationsverfahren können als ergänzende, in Einzelfällen auch als alternative Verfahren zur Sediment- und Bodensanierung angesehen werden. Sie haben dann eine Chance auf Einsatz, wenn vor Ort (in- situ) saniert werden soll. Von ihrem Prinzip her, sind sie preiswerter als Bodenaushub und Verbrennung. Das Sanierungsziel besteht in einer möglichst vollständigen Konzentrierung oder Umsetzung der Wasserschadstoffe an der Feststoffmatrix.

<p>This essay analyse the anti-dumping policy of the European Union, with specific focus on the anti-dumping tariff imposed on imports of ertain footwear from the People’s Republic of China from 1997 to 2002.</p><p>Even though free trade is expected from the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) there are certain exceptions. One is when there is a suspicion that goods are being dumped in a foreign market, i.e. the exporter sells the product at a lower price in the foreign market than in its home market. Article VI in GATT regulates this together with the Anti-dumping Agreement.</p><p>In 1997 EU imposed an anti-dumping measure on certain footwear imported from the People’s Republic of China. This measure was in effect until 2002 (the maximum time for an anti-dumping tariff is five years). We expect to see a decrease of footwear exports from the People’s Republic of China to the European Union during this period.</p><p>By using a log-linear regression analysis we can see that the EU imports of Chinese footwear did indeed decrease from its trend otherwise during 1997 to 2002. Since the industry overall increased its sales during the same period, we draw the conclusion that the tariff was the reason for the decreased imports.</p>

<p>Denna uppsats syftar till att tydliggöra de mediala diskurser som finns om integration och utanförskap i tidningsartiklar. Tidningsartiklarna sträcker sig över två tidsperioder, 1996-1997 och 2006-2007. En frågeställning som uppsatsen försöker besvara är om analysens tidningsartiklar går att koppla till Ruth Levitas diskursmodeller om socialt utanförskap. Den centrala teoretiska utgångspunkten är ett postkolonialt perspektiv. Uttrycket ”vi och dem” utgör en röd tråd genom hela uppsatsen. Metoden för analysen är det diskursanalytiska verktyget diskursteori. Uppsatsens analys visar på tre centrala teman där samtliga utgår från utanförskap. Dessa teman är kultur och utanförskap, fördelning och utanförskap samt arbete och utanförskap.</p>

<p>Den globala turismnäringen har kommit att bli en av världens mest lukrativa branscher. Hundratusentals svenskar turistar i Thailand varje år. Vad representerar Thailand i turistens ögon? Hur ser turisten på sig själv i förhållande till det han/hon möter och hur förhåller sig turisten till det lokala och globala? Uppsatsen utgår från en kritisk hållning till fenomenet turism. Teorier om Postkolonialism och Orientalism samt kritisk turismforskning blir därmed centrala i förståelsen av det undersökta materialet. Materialet som studeras i uppsatsen innefattas av resdagboksinlägg från hemsidan <em>Resdagboken.se</em>. Som metod används den kritiska diskursanalysen.</p><p>Materialet visar på vissa specifika teman; ”Det trygga äventyret”, ”Att inte vara som alla andra turister”, ”Sol, bad konsumtion och lättja”, ”Erotik”, samt ”Tilltalet till dem där hemma”. Genom belysandet av turismens bakomliggande strukturer och hur man genom det skrivna ordet uttrycker föreställningar om andra och sig själv, försöker författaren till uppsatsen bredda förståelsen för turismen som global företeelse.</p>

La création d'un gaz de trous bidimensionnel dans un puits quantique (Cd,Mn)Te permet d'induire une interaction ferromagnétique entre les spins localisés du semiconducteur magnétique dilué. Une nouvelle méthode de dopage utilisant les pièges à la surface de l'échantillon a été mise au point ; elle a permis d'étendre la gamme des valeurs expérimentalement accessibles pour les densités de spins et de porteurs. Les propriétés magnétiques sont mesurées par spectroscopie magnéto-optique (photoluminescence). Nous mesurons une température critique plus élevée que la température de Curie-Weiss, ce qui suggère un effet du désordre. Des mesures locales de la photoluminescence permettent de tracer des cartes de l'aimantation spontanée, de la densité de porteurs et de la densité de spins localisés : les échantillons dopés par la surface présentent des fluctuations de densité de porteurs plus grandes que les échantillons dopés par impuretés azote, et ces fluctuations induisent directement des fluctuations de l'aimantation spontanée.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 78 pages. / Thesis (M.S.E.E.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: With CdTe based photovoltaics developed by close spaced sublimation reaching efficiencies of over 16%, commercialization of this technology draws serious attention. Today large area industrial modules have not been able to produce the same performance of their laboratory counterparts. This work provides a means for understanding the various technical challenges in developing an effective deposition technology for large area processing. The submodule process investigated provides a model for continuous and sequential processing of subsequent films. The system has a unique design and constructed with the provision for a moving transport module for the substrate transport. The process was developed to deposit large area CdTe (3 x 3 sq. inch) and provides valuable insights for the development of a large area deposition system. Upon optimizing the system for reproducibility, proper deposition conditions were established. / ABSTRACT: Films deposited under various conditions were studied to improve our understanding of the influence of processing conditions on device performance. The key advantage of this technique over others is its high deposition rate, simplicity of operation and high conversion efficiency. Typical deposition times were two minutes and could be reduced to as low as 45 sec with little variation in performance. The four major parameters that influence the films prepared by close spaced sublimation, namely substrate temperature, source temperature, ambient pressure, and spacing were optimized for best device performance. The influence of each parameter on deposition rate and cell efficiency was also studied. The best cells produced by this technology had an efficiency of 13% with Voc=830 mV, FF= 74% and Jsc=21.1 mA/cm2. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This dissertation explores the impact of housing and recreation policy on Tampa's urban youth. Deconcentration policy suggests that public housing youth have improved life chances when relocated to mixed-income neighborhoods. In 2007, Tampa's Central Park Village (CPV) public housing complex was demolished and all families were relocated to new neighborhoods. Similarly, neoliberal policy advocates for the government's reduced role in poverty-alleviating mechanisms to include housing the poor and the funding of afterschool programs. To offset a smaller city budget due to state property tax rollbacks in the mid-2000's, Tampa Parks and Recreation instituted increased afterschool and youth sports participation fees. In the dissertation, I examine how these policy changes affect both former CPV youth and Tampa urban youth in general. In addition, this dissertation examines the role of mentors (coaches) in urban neighborhoods and coaches' perceptions of newly instituted recreation policy.