A self-administered questionnaire was developed using the Tailored Design Method (Dillman 2000) to assess how information about wildlife, beyond traditional hunting and fishing issues, was transferred to the public by the five selected governmental agencies: state wildlife management agencies (DNRs), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), USDA Wildlife Services (WS), Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES), and U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The questionnaire addressed agency mission and record-keeping, as well as public demand for information and agency response concerning non-traditional wildlife issues, including: conflicts between humans and wildlife; human health and safety; attracting wildlife; viewing wildlife; general curiosity; and wildlife in distress (i.e., injured, diseased, orphaned). Respondents said that providing the public with information on wildlife and related issues is a significant part of their mission. Unfortunately, few kept permanent records of their interactions with constituents or had established formal protocols for handling queries about non-traditional wildlife issues. Several factors may prevent effective transfer of information about non-traditional wildlife issues to the public, including the historic emphasis on consumptive users. However, collaborative efforts between governmental and non-governmental organizations may prove to be an effective way to respond to public demand.

The information transfer in the context of hospitals in two countries, the UK and Brazil has been observed and analysed. This entailed identifying patterns of information use and need by medical professionals and ancillaries in both countries, and especially in determining deficiencies in satisfying such needs.

Agriculture has always been part and parcel of people in rural communities. As far as South Africa is concerned it is estimated that about one third of the people in rural communities have access to land for farming practices. Unfortunately land available for farming is not used optimally despite efforts from governmental authorities and developing agencies to introduce farming practices which could enhance the development of rural agriculture. Simultaneously information exists which could be applied to help small-scale farmers to improve farming practices. However, the transfer of information to rural communities without considering the information usage behaviour of target groups proved to be ineffective. This study is essentially an investigation to establish how information from the developed world can contribute to improve rural agriculture which in turn can contribute to the upliftment of people in rural communities. To address the problem eight objectives were set. That is, to determine the value of information in rural agriculture, determine how information is communicated in rural communities, determine the information usage behaviour of small-scale farmers, explore the existing information systems which could support access to information, identify factors which could influence the transfer process at grassroots level, identify mechanisms which could enhance the effective transfer of required information and develop a model which can serve as a guideline for the development of an effective transfer strategy. In order to obtain background information of the circumstances under which information is to be transferred an extensive literature study has been carried out regarding, development in rural communities, including the impact of the oral tradition still prevailing in rural communities, the existing state of rural agriculture in South Africa, the value of information as a resource, the information transfer process as it manifests in rural communities, including information systems atthe disposal of target groups in rural areas, transfer techniques and mechanisms appropriate, as well as factors impacting the transfer process. The Phokoane Case provided a real-life situation where the practical application of information transfer to small-scale farmers could be investigated in depth. The outcome of this investigation proved that information as a resource is imperative for the development of rural agriculture. Although not tangible, it acts as a dynamic force which can empower recipients to take informed decisions. The transfer of information to small-scale farmers (and rural people in general) differs markedly from transfer practices in the developed world. Due to an unawareness of what information entails and a lack of background to modern farming practices, there will be no demand for information. Therefore, a deliberate transfer effort is required. Information from the information resource system of the developed world can best be transferred when transfer techniques and mechanisms from the indigenous information system are applied. The service of a facilitator who is knowledgeable of both worlds and who knows how to coordinate and manage information, is imperative. A model has been developed which can serve as a guideline for the design of effective information transfer strategies to be used in development programmes. / Thesis (D Phil (Information Science))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Information Science / unrestricted

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 25-28, 1993 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / Telemetry attributes are the detailed items of information needed for a receiving/processing system to acquire and process data from a given test item. There are currently as many different ways to describe telemetry attributes as there are different organizations which provide them (instrumentation groups and aircraft/missile manufacturers) and use them (telemetry processing systems/test ranges). The Telemetry Attributes Transfer Standard (TMATS) has been developed as a method of standardizing the transfer of telemetry attributes information. This paper describes the TMATS standard and discusses its purpose and application.

In this dissertation I examine the informational externalities of going public decisions for industrial and banking sector. The results show that industrial rivals have positive valuation effects only in response to venture backed IPOs and no significant reaction in response to non-venture backed IPOs. I also find evidence that the effect on rival firms is stronger if they operate in low concentrated industries (i.e. high competition) and have low growth opportunities. The relative size of IPO firm seems to play an important role in the direction and magnitude of industry rivals' valuation effects. Negative information revealed in the form of downward price revisions adversely affect rival firms' valuation. Positive information is also conveyed at the IPO announcements in banking industry. Bank rivals experience wealth gains if they are headquartered in the same state and no valuation effects if they are headquartered in the same region as the announcing bank. However, positive and significant reactions are noted in Mid-Atlantic and Southwest regions and negative reaction in Midwest region. Overall, these findings confirm that IPOs convey valuable information to the market and investors use this information to reassess the value of the rival firms.

Cooperative interactions permeate through nature, bringing about emergent behavior and complexity. Using a simple cooperative model, I illustrate the mean field dynamics that occur at the critical point of a second order phase transition in the framework of Langevin equations. Through this formalism I discuss the response, both linear and nonlinear, to external forces. Emphasis is placed on how information is transferred from one individual to another in order to facilitate the collective response of the cooperative network to a localized perturbation. The results are relevant to a wide variety of systems, ranging from nematic liquid crystals, to flocks and swarms, social groups, and neural networks.

Twisted particles carry Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM), an important property utilized to encode quantum information. The OAM of twisted photons can be trans- ferred onto condensed matter systems in the form of twisted excitons. Numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr ̈odinger equation for a 3-arm molecular chain are used to demonstrate the manipulation of twisted excitons via an external magnetic field. We present the first design for an OAM transistor in a quasi-1D system that can be used to control the flow of OAM using the magnetic field. The underlying mechanism is the interaction between OAM and the magnetic field which leads to a orbit-resolved Bloch oscillation (ORBO). We present the semi-classical equations of motion for this phenomenon in a one-dimensional system. Unlike classical Bloch oscil- lation, an important effect in ultrafast electron dynamics, the magnet driven ORBO is not limited by electrical breakdown and can easily be observed in natural solids.

Although the static measure of accommodation is well documented, the dynamic aspect of the resting state (dark focus) of accommodation is still unknown. Previous studies suggest that refractive error is minimal at the intermediate resting point of accommodation — i.e., at the dark focus distances. Additionally, aging is closely linked to increased refractive error. In order to assess the effects of age on dark focus distance and its utility in enhancing the visual information transfer rate, two experiments were conducted under nighttime condition (scotopic vision) in a laboratory setting. A total of forty participants with normal vision or corrected to normal vision were recruited from four different age groups (younger: 26.9±5.0 years; middle-aged: 50.7±4.8 years; young-old: 64.6±2.8 years; and old-old: 79.8±6.1 years). Each age group included ten participants. In Experiment I, the accommodative status of dark focus at the fovea was assessed objectively using the modified autorefractor, a newly developed method to continuously monitor the accommodation process. The mean dark focus distances for younger, middle-aged, young-old, and old-old adults were 64.5±6.6, 73.4±20.6, 84.4±29, and 92.1±33.4 cm, respectively. There was a significant difference between the dark focus distances among different age groups. Post-hoc analysis indicated that there were statistically significant differences among young and old-old, young and young-old, and middle-aged and old-old age groups. In Experiment II, the information transfer rate was determined while viewing a target at three different distances: 52 cm, 73 cm (current recommended reading distances) and the individual's dark focus. A set of randomized alphabet characters were presented on a visual display with a luminance level of 20 cd/m2 and ambient illumination level of 4 lux. To assess the information transfer rate, participants were asked to read a set of characters aloud with their fastest rate for three seconds. Three measurements of information transfer rate at each viewing distance at random were made. Results obtained from each viewing distance were collected and averaged. The results showed that the mean visual information transfer rate for younger, middle-aged, young-old, and old-old adults were 14.27±1.43, 10.58±2.25, 9.35±2.13, and 7.73±2.36 bits/sec, respectively. There were statistically significant differences at α < 0.05 in means and standard deviations of visual information transfer rate in young and old-old, young and young-old, young and middle-aged, and middle-aged and old-old age groups. The mean visual information transfer rate at 52 cm, 73 cm and individual dark focus were 11.08±3.10, 10.14±2.97, and 10.22±3.42 bits/sec, respectively. There were statistically significant differences at α < 0.05 in means and standard deviations of visual information transfer rate at different viewing distances at 52 cm and 73 cm, and 52 cm and individual's dark focus. However, there were no statistically significant differences in the interaction between age and viewing distance (F = 1.6818, P = 0.1378) on the amount of visual information transfer rate. In summary, the visual information transfer rate was not greater when presenting visual stimulus at the individual's dark focus as compared with two fixed recommended viewing distances (52 cm and 73 cm). The greatest amount of visual information gained was at 52 cm. Actual and potential applications of this study including specifications for designs were also discussed. / Ph. D.

Firm closeness or comparability is an important concept to investors. Knowing that two firms have been historically close and observing an information announcement by one of the firms gives the investor cues as to the future performance of the other firm. Furthermore, from a methodological point of view, researchers commonly control for firm--group closeness by using industrial classification schemes such as the SIC. To the extent that these schemes group dissimilar firms, the advantage of using these schemes is undermined. This paper more formally examines the comparability concept and develops two new measures of firm--group accounting closeness. Both measures are based on the co--movement of accounting fundamentals. I provide insight regarding the extent to which the SIC and GIC schemes group similar firms. Furthermore, a trading strategy utilizing information in the measures is developed and tested. Results indicate that, when industry closeness is high enough, abnormal returns in the range of 1-3% over a 1-3 day window can be earned around leader information announcement dates. Finally, I contribute to the contagion/information transfer literature, most notably Gleason et al. (2008), by showing that the contagion effects of accounting information announcements are increasing in the closeness of the industry.

This thesis looks at new methods of achieving reliable data communication in wireless communication systems using different antenna transmission optimization methods. In particular, the problems of exploitation of MIMO communication channel diversity, secure downlink beamforming techniques, adaptive beamforming techniques, resource allocation methods, simultaneous power and information transfer and energy harvesting within the context of multi-antenna wireless systems are addressed.