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Macrochelys temminckii(Alligator Snapping Turtle) is classified as a species of moderate conservation concern by the State of Alabama and is proposed for listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Using the most up-to-date and best available distribution and biological data is paramount in the decision-making process for any petitioned or proposed-listed species. We provide an additional 21 Alligator Snapping Turtle records from Alabama collected as bycatch during fishery surveys. We incidentally captured 19 Alligator Snapping Turtles from the Alabama (n = 12), Tombigbee (n = 6), and Conecuh (n = 1) rivers and observed 2 additional specimens from the Tallapoosa River drainage. For both the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers combined, 89% of our Alligator Snapping Turtle captures were in backwater areas (i.e., off channel), which are new location records in these river drainages. Researchers and managers should consider contacting and collaborating with colleagues across scientific disciplines to compile and provide the best available data for current species assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe an undergraduate laboratory experiment in protein gel electrophoresis that uses readily available apparatus and materials. The separation of a mixture of stained proteins by gel electrophoresis was videotaped. Position-time data for the proteins generated from analysis of digitized videotape images allowed for calculation of protein terminal velocities. The dependence of protein terminal velocity on molar mass was determined and found to agree with predictions made by current theory. We also introduce a model that draws on simple physical concepts to help students place the experimental results in context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the significance of surface quasi-elastic light scattering on the study of interfacial phenomena. Application of the biological membrane systems; Fabrication of electronic and optical devices; Component of surface fluctuations.

Presents a graphical approach in solving Schrodinger equation for angular momentum. Generation of angular momentum eigenfunctions and quantum numbers; Rationale for solving the equation; Characteristics of the eigenfuction graph; Applications of the quantum mechanical angular momentum.

Analyzes the U.S. Supreme Court's search and seizure decisions that have weakened the Fourth Amendment. Trends in the court's thinking on search and seizure questions; Overview of the cases; Application of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.

Four recent factor analytic studies of the Litwin and Stringer Organizational Climate Questionnaire (LSOCQ) are compared to assess the consistency of the instrument's factor structure when administered to different organizational populations. In addition, separate factor analytic results of the LSOCQ for three functional subgroups of a single organization are compared to investigate the LSOCQ's factor consistency within a single organization. Although there is somewhat more intra- than inter-organizational replicability of factors, both comparisons raise considerable doubt about the validity of the Litwin and Stringer instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the discussion concerning the merits and demerits of creating a new Cabinet Department of Education fails to go to the heart of the question as to what the purpose of cabinet departments should be, and under what circumstances they deserve to be created. Some members of the public administration community have criticized the creation of such a department as weakening the cabinet, stretching the president's span of control to such a degree that decisions will be made not by him but by his faceless assistants who are much less accountable for their actions, thus undermining good management and expanding the imperial presidency. The presidency of the U.S. is so different from any other political or management position that it must be regarded as sui generis, no organizational or management principles derived from the corporate world, or from public administration experience in general, can be assumed to have transferable applicability to it. Since the principal power of the president is that of leadership through persuasion, and since his foremost responsibility is that of setting a course and conveying to the nation a vision of purpose and direction, he needs the help of the most competent assistant persuaders he can enlist.

Focuses on Miles' Law in public administration. Examples of Miles' Law; Dynamics of Miles' law.

This article focuses on the reorganization of the federal government. The U.S. President Jimmy Carter spoke often during his campaign of his intention to reorganize the federal government. Previous Presidents, especially Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Nixon, carried with them into the White House similar convictions that the effectiveness of the United States Government could be substantially improved through reorganization. Each appointed study commissions with sweeping mandates. President Johnson was successful in 1965 and 1966 in gaining congressional approval of two new departments, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation, but when he tried to combine the Departments of Commerce and Labor into a single department in 1967, it was a debacle. Thereafter, he recommended no more consolidations to Congress. In 1971, President Nixon built his State of the Union message around sweeping reorganization proposals that would have created Departments of Community Development, Human Resources, Natural Resources, and Economic Affairs, replacing the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Commerce, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and Health, Education, and Welfare.

This paper describes the use of decision analysis to facilitate a group decision-making problem in the selection of trajectories for the two spacecraft of the Mariner Jupiter/Saturn 1977 Project. This NASA project includes the participation of some eighty scientists, divided by specialization among eleven science teams. A set of thirty-two candidate trajectory pairs was developed by the Project, in collaboration with the science teams. Each science team then ordinally ranked and assigned cardinal utility function values to the trajectory pairs. The scientists used these data and statistics derived from collective choice rules in selecting the preferred trajectory pair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents letters to the editor about public administration. Criticism for the student involvement in the ASPA forum; Reviewing symposium on PPBS; Criticism against AID by university contractors.

The author here makes the case for a separate Department of Education, rather than the creation of a super Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, containing the three sub- cabinet departments of Health, Education, and Welfare. The analogy with the Defense Department is not appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information regarding administrative adaptability to political change. The most dramatic tests of the adaptability of career civil servants result from the election or accession of a new President. Less traumatic changes occur when a new agency head is appointed during a Presidential term or there is a basic redirection of Administration or congressional policy. In any of these instances, a key career man or woman in the highest levels of the competitive civil service may find established relationships suddenly and profoundly disrupted. Administrative loyalty may be defined as a conscientious effort to assist one's superiors to succeed in achieving their program goals or in reconsidering and modifying program goals to achieve better results. It is by all odds the single most important factor in the adaptability of the career bureaucracy to political leadership. It is the cement of mutual trust without which an organization is not even an arithmetic sum of the human beings in it.

Comments on the article about the effect of the atomic bomb against Japan on the American people which appeared in the June/July issue of the periodical 'Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.'

Presents the results of a survey of how computers are used in an undergraduate physical chemistry program. Description of the procedure used in the experiment; Calculation of the response rate; Appendix of relevant Web sites.