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The University of California at Berkeley now delivers more to the public of California than it ever has, and it does this on the basis of proportionally less funding by the State government than it has ever received. This claim may come as a surprise, since it is often said that Berkeley is in the process of privatizing, becoming less of a public university and more in the service of private interests. To the contrary, as the State’s commitment to higher education and social-welfare programs has declined, UC Berkeley has struggled to preserve and even expand its public role, while struggling simultaneously to retain its competitive excellence as a research university. This paper delineates how UC Berkeley has striven to retain its public character in the face of severe financial pressures. A summary of the indicators invoked can be found in the Table near the end of the text. This paper then addresses the sustainability and generalizability of the Berkeley strategy.

This chapter investigates the impact of different state correlation assumptions for out-of-sample performance of unobserved components (UC) models with stochastic volatility. Using several measures of US inflation the author finds that allowing for correlation between inflation’s trend and cyclical (or gap) components is a useful feature to predict inflation in the short run. In contrast, orthogonality between such components improves the out-of-sample performance as the forecasting horizon widens. Accordingly, trend inflation from orthogonal trend-gap UC models closely tracks survey-based measures of long-run inflation expectations. Trend dynamics in the correlated-component case behave similarly to survey-based nowcasts. To carry out estimation, an efficient algorithm which builds upon properties of Toeplitz matrices and recent advances in precision-based samplers is provided.

Purpose – This chapter examines the roles of the Unification Church (UC) in reconstructing the discourse of the gendered desire of Filipina marriage migrants and their Korean husbands, serving as an intermediary agency in the process of international marriage migration, and reinforcing heterosexual practices as part of a regime of normalization.

Methodology – The chapter is based on 1 year of ethnographic fieldwork that included a review of secondary sources, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with Filipinas and Korean men.

Findings – The chapter shows the ways in which the UC reinforces the dominant discourse of gendered desire that portrays marriage migrants as women who wish to migrate mainly to marry a man who can provide economic stability. Filipina migrants, however, infuse the cultural discourse of romantic love into their decisions about husbands and marriage migration. Lastly, as the UC delineates normative heterosexual practices based on its religious doctrines, the church becomes a “regime of normalization” for traditional patriarchal heteronormativity.

Social implications – The chapter contributes to the idea that gender and sexuality are socially constructed and constitutive of migration.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter examines not only the matchmaking role of an intermediary agency that facilitates cross-border marriages but also the agency's role in re/constructing gendered desire. Further, the chapter contributes to an understudied area: the social process of reconstructing heteronormativity in a transnational context.

This paper aims to deal with the integration of energy storage devices (ultracapacitors) in wind energy applications to absorb the short terms fluctuations. The originality of this contribution is focused on energy management related to wind power frequency distribution between the hybrid sources. The robust and simplified control strategies are proposed and applied to DC‐DC converters without AC signals measurements. A novel MPPT method is introduced to operate the wind generator at the maximum power regardless of the wind speed variations. The fluctuating part of this power is mitigated by using a UC. The reference current of this last is obtained from a low pass filter. An innovative limitation algorithm of the UC voltage is proposed with aims to ensure optimal operation of the system. The control algorithms are implemented in a PIC18F4431 microcontroller. Some experimental results from this new approach are presented and analyzed.

This study is organized according to the following main and sub‐topics after introduction: frequency distribution principle; wind energy generation; short‐term fluctuations storage system; and experimental setup and results.

The simulations results highlight the interest of using ultracapacitors in a wind‐diesel system. The experimental results show that the short term fluctuations induced by the wind generator current are effectively mitigated by the ultracapacitors.

In this paper, an interesting MPPT method is presented. The fluctuations mitigation is realised by using the frequency distribution according to ultracapacitors dynamics. The ultracapacitors voltage control method is proposed with the aim of maintaining optimal operation conditions, and is validated by experimental tests.

The purpose of this study is to examine how advances in unified communications (UC) technologies are enabling radical changes in workplace redesign. Low-cost and readily available technologies allow individuals to participate in work in ways that they could not before. Mobile hardware, networking infrastructure and robust UC platforms are making work less location- and time-dependent. Whereas these technologies provided the catalyst for the reimagining of the workplace in the early to mid-2000s, it was the explosion of BYOD (bring your own device) in recent years that has caused organizations to reconsider innovative workplace usage.

In this case study on the Microsoft Corporation, business motivators for workplace innovation, driven by performance metrics, are examined.

Included in the findings are increased productivity, talent attraction and retention, reduced sick leave, reduced communications costs, reduced IT and administration costs, reduced carbon footprint, lower real estate costs and reduced travel and training costs.

While many of these findings are beneficial to both employer and employee, they do not come without a cost. UC typically makes the employee accessible from anywhere at any time and this challenges a traditional work–life balance model. Moving forward will require both employer and employee to find a healthy work-life integration model that balances the needs of the individual with the needs of the organization.

This research documents a workplace redesign initiative enabled by UC at a global high technology company.

The purpose of this paper is to develop, validate, and use a survey instrument to measure and compare the perceived quality of three types of US urgent care (UC) service providers: hospital emergency rooms, urgent care centres (UCC), and primary care physician offices.

This study develops, validates, and uses a survey instrument to measure/compare differences in perceived service quality among three types of UC service providers. Six dimensions measured the components of service quality: tangibles, professionalism, interaction, accessibility, efficiency, and technical quality.

Primary care physicians’ offices scored higher for service quality and perceived value, followed by UCC. Hospital emergency rooms scored lower in both quality and perceived value. No significant difference was identified between UCC and primary care physicians across all the perspectives, except for interactions.

The homogenous nature of the sample population (college students), and the fact that the respondents were recruited from a single university limits the generalizability of the findings.

The patient’s choice of a health care provider influences not only the continuity of the care that he or she receives, but compliance with a medical regime, and the evolution of the health care landscape.

This work contributes to the understanding of how to provide cost effective and efficient UC services.

This study developed and validated a survey instrument to measure/compare six dimensions of service quality for three types of UC service providers. The authors provide valuable data for UC service providers seeking to improve patient perceptions of service quality.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of different parameter configurations of oscillation amplitude, welding speed, and normal force at 478 K (400°F) on the linear welding density of stainless steel 316L annealed utrasonically consolidated (UC) samples, and present an optimum parameter set based upon maximum linear welding density criteria.

The paper describes the application of analysis of variance to different experimental designs in order to compare factor effects and obtain the optimum linear welding density parameter set for the ultrasonic consolidation of stainless steel 316L annealed samples.

This work includes experimental results at assessing the explained variation due to factor effects on linear welding density, the statistical significance of these factors, and the combination of UC process parameters that maximizes linear welding density in stainless steel 316L annealed samples.

The paper presents results obtained with a specific UC system, a standard sample configuration, and relatively constant frictional conditions.

This work is a first step towards a reproducible UC of stainless steel 316L foils with high linear welding density.

The user churn (UC) of rural public digital cultural services (RPDCS) indicates that rural users no longer use RPDCS or have switched to other services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's UC and to contribute toward bridging the rural digital divide.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response theory, this study proposes a theoretical framework to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's user churn. A total of 120 RPDCS users were initially recruited and 90 representative participants were chosen. Data were collected from the 90 respondents and 20 follow-up interviews. To examine the proposed framework and validate the correlations between these factors and UC, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were used. In addition, recommendations are made to avoid the UC of RPDCS to bridge the rural digital divide.

The results indicate that the UC of RPDCS was stimulated by both physical and ability divides and RPDCS ineffectiveness, resulting in increased churn rates and an exacerbated digital divide. Thus, avoiding the UC of RPDCS is an important way to bridge the rural digital divide, which includes both the physical and ability divides.

This study adds new knowledge about RPDCS and distinguishes it from previous research on public digital cultural services. In addition, the authors discuss how to avoid the UC of RPDCS, to bridge the rural digital divide.

Objective – This chapter assesses health equity achievements of the Thai health system before and after the introduction of the universal coverage (UC) policy. It examines five dimensions of equity: equity in financial contributions, the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure, the degree of impoverishment as a result of household out-of-pocket payments for health, equity in health service use and the incidence of public subsidies for health.

Methodology – The standard methods proposed by O’Donnell, van Doorslaer, and Wagstaff (2008b) were used to measure equity in financial contribution, healthcare utilization and public subsidies, and in assessing the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure and impoverishment. Two major national representative household survey datasets were used: Socio-Economic Surveys and Health and Welfare Surveys.

Findings – General tax was the most progressive source of finance in Thailand. Because this source dominates total financing, the overall outcome was progressive, with the rich contributing a greater share of their income than the poor. The low incidence of catastrophic health expenditure and impoverishment before UC was further reduced after UC. Use of healthcare and the distribution of government subsidies were both pro-poor: in particular, the functioning of primary healthcare (PHC) at the district level serves as a “pro-poor hub” in translating policy into practice and equity outcomes.

Policy implications – The Thai health financing reforms have been accompanied by nationwide extension of PHC coverage, mandatory rural health service by new graduates and systems redesign, especially the introduction of a contracting model and closed-ended provider payment methods. Together, these changes have led to a more equitable and more efficient health system. Institutional capacity to generate evidence and to translate it into policy decisions, effective implementation and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation are essential to successful system-level reforms.

The purpose of this paper rapid development of various voltage sag compensation techniques in DC bus using ultra-capacitors (UCs) provides satisfactory results when compared with required peak power demand for shorter duration. Later, UCs have been used as floating capacitors [1] [2]. Various UCs are available based on internal resistances which also rely on its manufacturing materials, similar to double layer capacitors.

This paper demonstrates UCs based voltage sag compensation at load side under different working modes of hydraulic pack (HP) in an armored fighting vehicle (AFV). The main sources to supply the HP are 24 V, 400 Ahr battery bank and 20 kW main generator. HP is considered to be the highest power load of a system. 2,500 A inrush current was drawn by HP during initial conditions, and also, this system works in both elevation and azimuth mode. Voltage sag has been varied from 15 to 24 V for different modes. But as per the military standard, electrical systems should operate between 18 and 32 V DC. Because of insufficient terminal voltage, required energy cannot be attained and supplied to the loads. The proposed topology compensated the voltage sag and maintains nominal voltage on a DC bus. The devised circuit has been verified under all possible operating loads such as continuous, intermittent and momentary. The same has been simulated using MATLAB/Simulink and was experimentally verified. The minimum voltage maintained in a DC bus is 22.2 V in simulation, while experimentally, it was 24.2 V.

For getting higher percentage of efficiency, secondary energy system configuration, mainly designed for electrical vehicles, is needed. It was implemented and same was tested with the fighting vehicle system[1]. The proposed configuration comprises of bank of an UC and a battery bank. The system was finally implemented in AFVs.

The goods vehicles made of UCs can hold very minimum energy because of minimum density of energy. The modified AFV can have minimum charging as well as discharging of rate of energy and, thus, power[3][4]. Thus, the proposed idea of modified vehicle system has influence over significant change in the state of charge.