922 research outputs found
Performance audit, Pearce Elementary School District
No full textabstract: In fiscal year 2011, Pearce Elementary School District’s student AIMS scores were similar to peer districts’ averages. Although per pupil costs were high in some operational areas, the District was reasonably efficient overall. Pearce ESD’s per pupil administration costs were similar to the peer districts’ average, and although its plant operations, food service, and transportation program operated with higher per pupil costs than peer districts, these areas operated in a reasonably efficient manner
considering factors such as the age of the District’s buildings, number of meals served, and transportation miles driven. Although relatively efficient, the District should strengthen some of its accounting controls, including ensuring proper separation of duties for its payroll and purchasing processes and ensuring purchases are properly approved before they are made. The District should also strengthen some of its computer controls, such as the requirements for network passwords.Report (Arizona. Office of the Auditor General) ; 2013-13
is the author of many papers and reports. Tim was born in 1950.
No full textTim Pearce has responsibility for work relating to vehicle safety and institutional strengthening in developing countries. He was involved in UK transport-related research projects for 15 years before specialising in problems relating to developing countries. During the last 10 years he has been closely involved in the problems of the roadworthiness of vehicles both from the technical and institutional sides. He has worke
Rethinking the Andes–Amazonia Divide: a cross-disciplinary exploration
No full textNowhere on Earth is there an ecological transformation so swift and so extreme as between the snow-line of the high Andes and the tropical rainforest of Amazonia. The different disciplines that research the human past in South America have long tended to treat these two great subzones of the continent as self-contained enough to be taken independently of each other. Objections have repeatedly been raised, however, to warn against imagining too sharp a divide between the people and societies of the Andes and Amazonia, when there are also clear indications of significant connections and transitions between them. Rethinking the Andes–Amazonia Divide brings together archaeologists, linguists, geneticists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians and historians to explore both correlations and contrasts in how the various disciplines see the relationship between the Andes and Amazonia, from deepest prehistory up to the European colonial period. The volume emerges from an innovative programme of conferences and symposia conceived explicitly to foster awareness, discussion and co-operation across the divides between disciplines. Underway since 2008, this programme has already yielded major publications on the Andean past, including History and Language in the Andes (2011) and Archaeology and Language in the Andes (2012).Introduction: Why Andes-Amazonia? Why Cross-Disciplinary? / Adrian J. Pearce, David Beresford-Jones, and Paul Heggarty Section 1: Crossing Frontiers: Perspectives from the Various Disciplines 1.1 Archaeology / David Beresford-Jones and Eduardo Machicado Murillo 1.2 Linguistics / Paul Heggarty 1.3 Genetics /Lars Fehren-Schmitz 1.4 Anthropology / Alf Hornborg 1.5 The Andes-Amazonia Culture Area / Tom Zuidema Section 2: Deep Time and the Long Chronological Perspective 2.1 Initial East and West Connections across South America / Tom Dillehay 2.2 The Andes-Amazonia Divide and Human Morphological Diversification in South America / André Strauss 2.3 Deep Time and First Settlement: What, If Anything, Can Linguistics Tell Us? / Paul Heggarty 2.4 Early Social Complexity in Northern Peru and its Amazonian Connections / Peter Kaulicke 2.5 Changing Andes-Amazonia Dynamics: El Chuncho Meets El Inca at the End of the Marañón Corridor / Alexander Herrera Wassilowsky Section 3: Overall Patterns – and Alternative Models 3.1 How Real is the Andes-Amazonia Divide? An Archaeological View from the Eastern Piedmont / Darryl Wilkinson 3.2 Genetic Diversity Patterns in the Andes and Amazonia / Fabrício Santos 3.3 Genetic Exchanges in the Highland /Lowland Transitional Environments of South America / Chiara Barbieri 3.4 Broad-Scale Patterns Across the Languages of the Andes and Amazonia / Paul Heggarty 3.5 Highland-Lowland Relations: A Linguistic View / Rik van Gijn and Pieter Muysken 3.6 Rethinking the Role of Agriculture and Language Expansion for Ancient Amazonians / Eduardo Góes Neves 3.7 The Pacific Coast and Andean Highlands/Amazonia / Tom Dillehay, Brian McCray, and Patricia J. Netherly Section 4: Regional Case Studies from the Altiplano and Southern Upper Amazonia 4.1 Linguistic Connections between the Altiplano Region and the Amazonian Lowlands / Willem Adelaar 4.2 Hypothesised Language Relationships across the Andes-Amazonia Divide: The Cases of Uro, Pano-Takana and Mosetén / Roberto Zariquiey 4.3 The Andes as Seen From Mojos / Heiko Prümers 4.4 The Archaeological Significance of Shell Middens in the Llanos de Moxos: Between the Andes and Amazonia / Umberto Lombardo and José M. Capriles Section 5: Age of Empires: Inca and Spanish Colonial Perspectives 5.1 The Amazonian Indians as Viewed by Three Andean Chroniclers / Vera Tyuleneva 5.2 The Place of Antisuyu in the Discourse of Guamán Poma de Ayala / Cristiana Bertazoni 5.3 Colonial Coda: The Andes-Amazonia Frontier under Spanish Rule / Adrian J. Pearce 5.4 A Case Study in Andes-Amazonia Relations under Colonial Rule: The Juan Santos Atahualpa Rebellion (1742–1752) / Adrian J. Pearce Conclusion: The Andes-Amazonia Divide: Myth and Reality / Adrian J. Pearce, David Beresford-Jones, and Paul Heggarty Bibliography Inde
Playing Ethnography: A study of emergent behaviour in online games and virtual worlds
No full textThis study concerns itself with the relationship between game design and emergent social behaviour in massively multiplayer online games and virtual worlds. This thesis argues for a legitimisation of the study of ‘communities of play’, alongside communities perceived as more ‘serious’, such as communities of interest or practice. It also identifies six factors that contribute to emergent social behaviour and investigates the relationship between group and individual identity, and the emergent ways in which these arise from and intersect with the features and mechanics of the game worlds themselves.
Methodology: Under the rubric of ‘design research’, this study was conducted as an ethnographic intervention, an anthropological investigation that deliberately privileged the online experience whilst acknowledging the performative nature of both game play and the research process itself. The research was informed by years of professional practical experience in game design and playtesting, as well as by qualitative methods derived from the fields of Anthropology, Sociology, Computermediated Communications and the emerging field of Game Studies. The process of conducting the eighteen-month ethnographic study followed the progress of a sub-set of members of the ‘Uru Diaspora,’ a group of 10,000 players who were made refugees when the massively multiplayer game ‘Uru: Ages Beyond Myst’ was closed in February of 2004. Uru refugees immigrated into other virtual worlds, using their features and capabilities to create ethnic communities that emulated the culture, artefacts and environments of the original Uru world. Over time, players developed ‘hybrid’ cultures, integrating the Uru culture with that of their new homes, and eventually creating entirely new Uru and Myst-inspired content.
The outcome is the identification of six factors that serve as ‘engines for emergence’ and discusses their relationship to each other, to game design, and to emergent behaviour.
These include:
• Play Ecosystems: Fixed-Synthetic vs. Co-Created Worlds: Online games and virtual worlds exist along a spectrum, with environments entirely authored by the designer at one end, and those comprised primarily of player-created content and assets on the other, with a range of variations between. The type of world will impact the sort of emergent behaviour that occurs, and worlds that include player-created content will be more inclined to promote emergent behaviour.
• Communities of Play: Distributed groups formed around play demonstrate distinct characteristics based on shared values and play styles. The study describes in detail one such play community, and analyses the ways in which its characteristic play styles drove its emergent behaviours.
• The Social Construction of Avatar Identity: Individual avatar identity is constructed through an emergent process engaging social feedback.
• Intersubjective Flow: A social reading of the psychological notion of ‘flow’ that describes the way in which flow dynamics occur in a social context through play.
• Productive Play: Countering the traditional contention that play is inherently ‘unproductive’ as some scholars suggest, the thesis argues that play can be seen as a form of cultural production, as well as fulcrum for creative activity.
• Porous Magic Circles and the ‘Ludisphere’: The magic circle, which bounds play activities, is more porous than game scholars had previously believed. The term ‘ludisphere' is used to describe the larger context of aggregated play space via the Internet. Also identified are leakages between ‘virtual worlds’ and ‘real life’.
By identifying these factors and attempting to trace their roots in game design, the study aims to contribute a new approach to the making and analysis of user experience and creativity ‘in game’. The thesis posits that by achieving a deeper cultural understanding of the relationship between design and emergent behaviour, it is possible to make steps forward in the study of ‘emergence’ itself as a design
material
I dreamed last night of our old house, Maggie
No full textA lyrical song in which the author reminisces scenes and landscapes from Newfoundland (shores, friends, berries, caplin) as well as the earlier days where he walked by them in the company of his young bride Maggie to whom the song is addressed.The song was composed by Aubrey Pearce from Maberly, Trinity Bay, in 1966 on the occasion of "Come Home Year" in Newfoundland. It was sung to the tune of "When You and I Were Young, Maggie". The song was collected from a clipping of the "Fisherman's Advocate" (no further details)
mHealth Geographies: Mobile Technologies and Health in the Global South
No full textThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Routledge via the URL in this record
The Monks of Westminster
No full textFor this 1916 work, Archdeacon E. H. Pearce searched through the extensive muniments of Westminster Abbey to provide a list of all the known members of the monastic community until the Dissolution. Over 700 individuals are included, with all the information about them available to the author. While the list is not complete, and the use of other sources would add additional names for the early period, Pearce completed a remarkable achievement. Westminster was a substantial foundation, with an average community of 47 for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. About half of these, who held some office or function, are naturally better documented than ordinary monks. Scholarship was evidently valued by the abbey, although the majority of the writings evidenced were on the history of the community rather than theological or literary works. Some monks were supported at Oxford, but little is known of the education offered to the remainder.</jats:p
Minimum tillage for crop planting
No full textthis article is condensed from a report of studies of minimum tillage systems and research in the United Kingdom and North america during 1976.
The author, Mr Geoff Pearce, is a Senior Research Officer in the Department of Agriculture\u27s Weed Agronomy Section. He has been associated with reduced tillage research in Western Australia for several years and undertook the study tour to gain the benefit of intensive overseas research on the subject
Studies on interaction between synoptic and mesoscale weather elements in the tropics: report no. 1
No full textJune 1968.Pt. 1. Some aspects of cumulus-scale downdrafts / by R. Riehl -- Pt. 2. Vorticity budgets derived from Caribbean data / by R. P. Pearce
Accounting for spatially heterogeneous conditions in local-scale surveillance strategies: case study of the biosecurity insect pest, grape phylloxera (<i>Daktulosphaira vitifoliae</i>(Fitch))
No full textBACKGROUND: Surveillance strategies are often standardized and completed on grid patterns to detect pest incursions quickly; however, it may be possible to improve surveillance through more targeted observation that accounts for landscape heterogeneity, dispersal and the habitat requirements of the invading organism. We simulated pest spread at a local scale, using grape phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae (Fitch)) as a case study, and assessed the influence of incorporating spatial heterogeneity into surveillance compared with current, standard surveillance strategies. RESULTS: Time to detection and spread within and beyond the vineyard were reduced by conducting surveys that target sampling effort in soil that is highly suitable for the invading pest in comparison with standard surveillance strategies. However, these outcomes were dependent on the virulence level of phylloxera because phylloxera is a complex pest with multiple genotypes that influence spread and detectability. CONCLUSION: Targeting surveillance strategies based on local‐scale spatial heterogeneity can decrease the time to detection without increasing the survey cost, and surveillance that targets highly suitable soil is the most efficient strategy for detecting new incursions. In addition, combining targeted surveillance strategies with buffer zones and hygiene procedures, and updating surveillance strategies as additional species information becomes available, will further decrease the risk of pest spread. © 2018 Society of Chemical IndustryMaggie D Triska, Kevin S Powell, Cassandra Collins, Inca Pearce, Michael Rento
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