Most Popular Books by S. Long

Business Incubators/accelerators/coworking spaces can be key drivers of economic development. The typical business incubator is in a suburban setting in an area with a population of less than 500,000. Universities or university-affiliated non-profits operate most incubators. The standard incubator has 15-20 companies when full and a "mixed profile" of University and non-university clients from many industry areas, including pharmaceutical, Information technology, medical technology, "biotech," and engineering - even retail. The model for most incubators has shifted in the past decade - economic development professionals are now relying on incubation, a "grow-your-own" entrepreneurial model rather than an attraction model, as the tax-incentive and relocation package concepts of the past have faded in their effectiveness to convince companies to move to new locations. Incubators are also beginning to "specialize" in various concentrations, such as "Clean-tech" or "alternative energy," to emphasize and attract specific industry sectors and to focus on the core competencies of associated research Universities. Also, many incubators/accelerators/coworking spaces are capitalizing on the resources provided by industry associations, such as access to specialized equipment and partnerships with leading scientists. Accelerators are defined differently, and many are concentrated in major metropolitan areas with ready access to capital and intensive programs designed to help businesses succeed in rapid fashion. Coworking spaces are gaining in favor by providing a solid environment for collaboration and business growth, with exciting programs and educational activities to assist in business formation and strategic direction. The commonality here, for this book, is the facility itself - the physical and operational strategy of business incubation is a process - a great business incubator involves programming, mentoring, education and many other efforts to insure small business growth. Business incubation also usually involves an actual physical site, a building where clients have specialized types of spaces. Most clients are looking for a collaborative, reasonably-priced and well-designed space for their business. They want to look professional, have adequate space for their employees, and have space for growth. Planning, designing and operating such a business incubation facility takes lots of background knowledge and lots of effort; this book is an attempt to cover a significant amount of the planning and strategy involved with facilities management. While many incubation professionals have an entrepreneurial background, few have a background in designing and operating a physical facility. The complexities of such systems as heating, ventilation and air conditioning; plumbing and electrical; lighting; fire alarms and sprinklers; security; elevators and stairs; and many other systems are often "uncharted territory" for incubation professionals. While this book addresses these key systems, it also incorporates design tips and ideas for "green building" compliance, ADA compliance and flexible design. While standardizing sizes of spaces may be easier for construction, inserting features such as "hotel doors," flex panels and varying the sizes of spaces can assist companies in growth and development, helping the incubator adapt to their needs. A review of adapting existing buildings or building a new building from the group up is conducted in this book.Also, after the physical construction takes place, an incubation professional must consider the operations aspect of managing an incubation building - this may include raising funds, maximizing operating revenues, and running programs. One book on Facilities Management cannot possibly cover every topic related to business incubation and its variants but we hope you find this book full of ideas, strategies, advice and tips that will prove useful to your program!

As a result of earlier experiments indicating the possibility of controlling water hyacinths with laser irradiation, a prototype CO2 laser system (10.6-micrometer wavelength) was designed, fabricated, and adapted for use in an outdoor environment. In the fall of 1972, the laser system was tested and evaluated near Bayou Gauche, Louisiana. Deficiencies were discovered in the test of the prototype. A scanning, flat-mirror system was substituted for the spherical-mirror system. A chiller system was installed to dissipate the excessive heat. Finally, the effects of the salt-air environment were eliminated when the system was moved to Lake Concordia, Louisiana, a freshwater inland lake, where in 1973 and 1974 controlled irradiation ranging from 0.2 to 100 J/sq cm was applied to plots of water hyacinth plants collected in the lake. Plant biomass, height, number, coverage, and number of flowers were measured periodically. Results of the analyses show that laser irradiation causes a significant decrease in growth rates with an increase in irradiation level, but this effect decreases as time passes until there is no significant difference between treated and control plots. Rates of photosynthesis were not significantly affected by laser irradiation.

In spite of the increased level of merger and takeover activity, and the intense interest of researchers in the subject, many important questions about tender offers remain unanswered. For example, what determines the size of bid premiums? Can we predict whether or not a tender offer will be successful? What, if anything, differentiates offers which are resisted by target management from those which are accepted? The purpose of this article is to summarize recent work (by one or both of the authors) that attempts to answer these questions by looking at a sample of 158 cash tender offers over the period 1972-1977.

Neural sexual differentiation in the zebra finch has presented major challenges to the aromatization hypothesis which states that for many species, masculinization of many regions in the brain are due to testosterone (T) being converted into estradiol (E2) by the aromatase enzyme. Interestingly, the masculinizing effects of E2 are only partial in female zebra finches, and for most studies, blocking E2 synthesis or activity have not prevented normal neural development in males. It is suspected that additional non-hormonal aspects of neural development are responsible for brain differentiation in this species. One possible candidate is the calcium binding gene, neurocalcin. The first aim of this thesis was to describe the distribution of neourcalcin protein throughout development and adulthood. There was a significant difference in neurocalcin immunoreactive neurons in RA and HVC. In both regions, females had more. We detected no sex difference in LMAN or the monomorphic visual nucleus rotundus. Semi-quantitative analysis revealed that neurocalcin was also distributed in many other regions of the brain outside of song regions but was not likely to be sexually dimorphic. This finding supports the hypothesis that increased expression of neurocalcin may play a role in the differentiation of select regions within the zebra finch brain. A second aim addressed whether neurocalcin is regulated by E2. Changes in gene expression were analyzed with q-PCR 2 hours and 24 hours after a single systemic injection. Although the sample size was too low to have statistical power, in some regions there seems to be a decrease in neurocalcin expression after hormone treatment. More specifically, 24 hours after injection there was a decrease in neurocalcin in female RA and HVC and male HVC. There was a decrease in LMAN as well, but this effect was seen sooner, at 2 hours. Although more work needs to be done, taken together these data are consistent with the idea that estrogens acting through neurocalcin may be important for regulating sexual dimorphisms within the neural song system at a specific developmental period.

Tender offers provide an ideal setting for the analysis of agency relationships since the best interests of the principal (target firm shareholders) and agent (target firm managers) are often in conflict. Moreover, the actions and stated rationale of target managers in resisting or not resisting tender offers are readily observable, and the size of the possible agency costs is great. This research provides direct empirical evidence on the relationship between managerial welfare and takeover bid resistance. Tests on a sample of cash tender offers provide support for the managerial welfare hypothesis. The existence or absence of bid resistance is found to be directly related to the personal wealth changes of the target firm''s managers. The relationships between managerial actions and bid premium size, bidder nationality, conglomerate offers, and "ex post settling up" are also examined.

A collection of adventure stories set in the fantasy world of Aetaltis.

The Faith and Life Third Edition series is a minor update to the Revised Edition series so that all text and liturgical references conform to the implementation of the new Roman Missal. Revised Edition teachers'' manuals may continue to be used with the Third Edition text and activity books as the changes are relatively few. A list of changes with side by side textual comparisons to aid teachers using the Revised Edition teacher''s manual is available from the Faith and Life series website. This Faith & Life activity book is designed for use in the home or classroom and provides creative activities for review and reinforcement of each lesson. Through carefully developed and selected activities, the emphasis is on understanding and putting into practice the teachings of Christ in everyday life. The Nation''s Leading Religion Series Just Got Better! THEME: The history of the Church--its founding by Christ, its birth in the Holy Spirit, the marks of the one, true Church, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the saints and the role of the religious and laity up to the present. The structure of the Church Jesus planned, the role of the Magisterium, the clergy, the religious and the laity and our own vocations. SEQUENCE: Part 1: The Church. Christ''s plan for the Church''s structure and its necessary attributes; the Church''s teaching authority. The early Church: Martyrs, Fathers, Saints and Mary. Part 2: The Christian in the World. Religious and laity, Holy Orders, Marriage, and family life; call to holiness. Part 3: The Last Things. Death, Judgment, the end of the world. AIM: To help the teenager know and love the Church as Christ''s Body and the Magisterium as the sure voice of Jesus, so that the young person may be strengthened through his life in the Church to face the confusion and secularism of modern-day society.

"There is a need for slow positrons for various applications. The high energy electrons required to make this possible are available at JLab. The Bremsstrahlung of these electrons can produce copious quantities of photons, which then via pair-production lead to positrons. We study here the production and stopping of these positrons. We use the Geant4 Monte-Carlo code to simulate this. Some of these pair-produced positrons are stopped in a second material, called a moderator. Some of these diffuse to the surface of the moderator and are ejected at low energy if the moderator is made of certain materials which have negative work functions. These positrons may be accelerated and used for the applications.. We lay out various possible ways of setting up a target and a detector to see what, according to current theory, will produce the most positrons." -- page 1

Dust obscuration measurements were made at Fort Carson, Colorado, in April and August 1983 to demonstrate the validity of existing models to predict crater volumes produced by a given explosive charge and to use models developed by the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory (ASL) to predict the mass of dust in clouds formed from the explosions. It was found that apparent craters formed agreed well with the 1.111 Power Law used in EOSAEL 82(COMBIC) developed by ASL. Cloud masses were calculated using techniques developed by ASL and a contractor, PEDCo, Inc. (now PEI Associates). Generally, results obtained at Fort Carson showed that from 2 to 5 percent of the excavated soil mass would be found in a dust cloud after approximately 10 sec had elapsed from detonation. Improvements in sampling techniques, particularly those characterizing the vertical nature of the cloud, are recommended. Since the composition of the cloud can vary greatly in a few metres of downwind distance, different sampler types should be used and should be positioned as close together as practical to determine differences in the respective samplers. Other recommendations concerning the conduct of future tests are included.