Search

Too many disadvantaged college students in America do not complete their coursework with any college credential, while others earn degrees or certificates with little labor market value. Large numbers of these students also struggle to pay for college, and some incur debts that they have difficulty repaying. The authors provide a new review of the causes of these problems and promising policy solutions. new review of the causes of these problems and promising policy solutions. These circumstances stem both from problems on the individual side, such as weak academic preparation and financial pressures, and from institutional failures. Low-income students disproportionately attend schools that are underfunded and have weak performance incentives, contributing to unsatisfactory outcomes for many students. Some solutions, including better financial aid or academic supports, target individual students. Other solutions, such as stronger linkages between coursework and the labor market and more structured paths through the curriculum, aim at institutional reforms. All students, and particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, also need better and varied pathways both to college and directly to the job market, beginning in high school. We can improve college outcomes, but must also acknowledge that we must make hard choices and face difficult tradeoffs in the process. While no single policy is guaranteed to greatly improve college and career outcomes, implementing a number of evidence-based policies and programs together has the potential to improve these outcomes substantially.

What directions should workforce policy in the U.S. take over the next few decades in light of major labor market developments that will likely occur--such as the retirements of baby boomers and continuing globalization? This new volume edited by Harry J. Holzer and Demetra Smith Nightingale presents fresh thoughts on the topic. This book offers policy discussions that are firmly grounded in strong research and that address the critical workforce issues of the coming years.

Gaps in educational and employment outcomes persist (and in some cases are growing) among various groups of young adults in the United States. Particularly notable are the gaps that exist between minority young adults--especially black young adults--and their white counterparts. One oft-cited reason for this trend is the growing number of youth who have grown up in single-parent households. For example, the proportion of young blacks growing up in female-headed households increased dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s, leading many to believe that this helps explain why black male youth and young adults today have experienced worsening educational and employment outcomes, rising incarceration rates, and increasing single parenthood. Hill, Holzer, and Chen examine the effects of household structure on youth and young adults and how these effects might have contributed to the negative trends in outcomes observed for young minorities over time. They take into account several measures likely to affect outcomes, including human capital enrichment in the home; neighborhood environment, especially safety; and parental behavior and the home environment. They then consider the extent to which these measures are responsible for the observed effects of household structure on youth and young adult outcomes, and whether they account for significant effects among the full sample, for all blacks, for black males, and for black females. For young people from low-income and single-parent families to be successful, the authors recommend policies that promote healthy marriages or more positive noncustodial fatherhood, higher incomes for working single parents, better schooling or employment options and safer neighborhoods for poor youth, and better child care and parenting among single parents. The bottom line, say the authors, is that young people growing up in single-parent households face a combination of additional challenges compared to young people growing up in two-parent families, and that these challenges, while not insurmountable, pose a significant hurdle to achieving educational and employment success. The book shows that educational and employment outcomes for blacks and Hispanics continue to be lower than for whites even after controlling for these factors. Notably, young women have made more progress in both education and employment than have young men in all racial groups over the past two decades. Most troubling, however, the authors find that young black men are falling even further behind whites and Hispanics in a number of dimensions, and substantially behind black women in educational attainment and achievement. After the Introduction, the following chapters are included: (2) Outcomes for Young Adults in Two Cohorts; (3) Household Structure and Young Adult Outcomes; (4) Other Correlates of Household Structure and Their Effects on Outcomes; and (5) Conclusion.

By several recent counts, the United States is home to 2 to 3 million youth age 16 through 24 who are out of school and out of work. Much has been written on disadvantaged youth, and government policy has gone through many incarnations, yet questions remain unanswered. Why are so many young people "disconnected," and what can public policy do about it? And why has disconnection become more common for young men--particularly African-American men and low-income men--than for young women? In "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men", Edelman, Holzer, and Offner offer analysis and policy prescriptions to solve this growing crisis. They carefully examine field programs and research studies and recommend specific strategies to enhance education, training, and employment opportunities for disadvantaged youth; to improve the incentives of less-skilled young workers to accept employment; and to address the severe barriers and disincentives faced by some youth, such as ex-offenders and noncustodial fathers. The result is a clear guidebook for policymakers, and an important distillation for anyone interested in the plight of today's disconnected youth. [Foreword by Hugh Price.]

Chapter 8 of the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. It discusses the citizen participation category of the websites based on the effectivity of providing government services. Maine was ranked first, followed by Oregon, then by Michigan. Availability of online forms for comments or feedback, online bulletin board or chat capabilities to gather input on public issues, and online discussion forums on policy issues were part of the criteria.

Chapter 7 of the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. It discusses the services category of the websites of 50 states across the U.S. based on the effectivity of providing government services. Maine was ranked first, followed by New Jersey in second, and Minnesota coming in third. Access to searchable databases, portal customization, and private information online were part of the criteria in this category.

Chapter 6 of the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. It discusses the evaluation on the content category of the websites based on the effectivity of providing government services. South Carolina ranked first, followed by Missouri in second place, with Oregon and Utah sharing third place. Availability of emergency management mechanisms, access for the blind and the deaf, and access in more than one language were part of the criteria.

Chapter 5 of the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. It evaluates the usability component of the websites of 50 states across the U.S. based on the effectivity of providing government services. Utah was ranked first, followed by Georgia in second place, and Tennessee coming in third. Homepage length and availability of audience links were part of the criteria. It was noted that all fifty states provided search tools online.

Chapter 4 of the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. An evaluation of the privacy and security category of the 50 state websites including privacy statements and use of encryption in data transmission was done, based on the effectivity of providing government services. The State of Massachusetts ranked first, followed by Indiana in second place, and Utah in third place. Sharing in fourth position were Maine, Oregon, New Hampshire and Maryland.

Chapter 3 of the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. The overall score of each state is presented and was evaluated based on the five e-governance component categories. The tables presented the overall rankings of each state based on the scores with Maine garnering the highest score. Based on the rankings per region, ranked number one were Indiana for the Midwest, Maine for the Northeast, South Carolina for the South, and Oregon for the West.

Chapter 2 of the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. The same methodology was used in the 2003, 2005 and 2007 research on digital governance. Each state website was evaluated based on privacy and security, usability, content, services and citizen participation to measure the effectivity of provision of government services. Each category was equally weighted and to ensure reliability, two evaluators assessed each state website.

A chapter from the book "U.S. States E-Governance Survey (2008): An Assessment of State Websites" is presented. The report is an assessment tool to evaluate digital governance through the web sites of each state. Digital governance is based on both digital government, defined as public service delivery, and digital democracy or participation of citizens in governance. Analysis was done on the security, content and usability of the web sites, and participation of citizens.

Chapter 10 of the book "Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2007): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World" is presented. It features top cities worldwide ranked in terms of best practices in handling web sites based on the 2007 Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey results. The topmost-ranked city of Seoul in South Korea has developed a web site that has recorded a high score in all the e-governance categories. Other top ranking cities include Hong Kong, China, Helsinki, Findland and Singapore.

Chapter 8 of the book "Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2007): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World" is presented. It highlights the results of the 2007 Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey regarding online services of web sites. Results show that top-ranked cities in the category of online services include Seoul in South Korea, Hong Kong in China and Madrid in Spain. Results for service delivery by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development membership are provided.

Chapter 9 of the book "Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2007): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World" is presented. It highlights the results of the 2007 Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey regarding citizen participation via web sites. Results show that top-ranked cities in the category include Seoul, South Korea, Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand. Results regarding the provision of online bulletin board or chat capabilities for gathering citizen input on public issues are given.

Chapter 5 of the book "Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2007): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World" is presented. It discusses the results of the 2007 Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey regarding the privacy and security of web sites. The top-ranked cities based on the privacy and security of city and municipal web sites include the cities of Seoul in South Korea, Helsinki in Findland and London in England. Results on the use of encryption in the transmission of data are also discussed.

Chapter 7 of the book "Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2007): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World" is presented. It presents the results of the 2007 Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey regarding the content of web sites. Survey findings show that the top ranked cities based on the content of web sites include the cities of Hong Kong in China, Madrid in Spain and Seoul in South Korea whose average scores have increased from 2005. Results on the use of wireless technology are also given.

Chapter 6 of the book "Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2007): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World" is presented. It offers the highlights of the 2007 Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey regarding the usability of web sites. The top-ranked cities in the category of usability of web sites include the cities of Madrid in Spain, London in England and Seoul in South Korea. The highest average score in usability was earned by the city and municipal web sites of Oceania.

Chapter 4 of the book "Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide (2007): A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World" is presented. It offers comparisons between the findings from the Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey in 2003 and 2005 and the findings of the survey in 2007. Survey results in 2007 show an increase in the number of cities with official web sites and an improvement in e-governance performance as compared with the 2005 results.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the final option for fertility treatment of all etiologies and must often be performed on women with polycystic ovaries or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Many women undergoing IVF are noted to have polycystic ovaries or PCOS. These women have ovaries that are more sensitive to ovarian stimulation, they develop more follicles, produce more oocytes, and are more prone to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). This may be because of the increased vascularity of the ovaries as exemplified by increased ovarian stromal peak systolic blood flow velocity (Vmax) and increased levels of serum and intrafollicular vascular endothelial growth factor. In order to minimize the risk of OHSS, it is therefore necessary to commence ovarian stimulation with a smaller dose of gonadotropins. An alternative strategy could be to perform in vitro maturation of oocytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research presented in this paper addresses the issue of bridging conceptual differences between the theories and practice of various disciplines in the AEC industry. The authors propose an application logic that works as a framework in assisting the evaluation process of multidisciplinary design. Parametric design templates assist in channeling and integrating information generated during the design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heyawake is one of many recently popular Japanese pencil puzzles. We investigate the computational complexity of the problem of deciding whether a given puzzle instance has a solution or not. We show that Boolean gates can be emulated via Heyawake puzzles, and that it is possible to reduce the Boolean Satisfiability problem to Heyawake. It follows that the problem in question is $\textsf{NP}$-complete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to the "Discovery of Slowness." The archetypical perversely awful algorithm bogo-sort, which is sometimes referred to as Monkey-sort, is analyzed with elementary methods. Moreover, practical experiments are performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with a socially important topic — preservation of cultural heritage in Slovakia. Current results of an engineering geological investigation of five medieval castles, one of them under the patrimony of UNESCO (Spis Castle) located in different geotechnical and engineering geological conditions are discussed. The obtained results are based upon an investigation program sponsored by the Ministry of Environment in which about 40 most prominent medieval castles or castle ruins have been investigated with the aim to recommend the remedial measures and thus to prevent their gradual disintegration. A following project focused on monitoring of the selected castle rocks showing instability problems was later carried out. The results of engineering geological study and following monitoring showed, that the castles suffer from extremely slow displacement of creep character. This movement is caused mainly by the geologic structure and it is impossible to stop it or even reduce it. Since the monitoring results are influenced by seasonal periodic temerature changes a numerical modeling was used in order to understand better the landslide failure mechanism at Spis Castle site. Further a study of the thermal expansion as one of the potential triggering factors of the displacements observed in the castle's subgrade was carried out. The results gained during the study are of great value and are helpful in design of stabilization and preservation works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upcoming organic devices like thin lm transistors or light emitting diodes require novel architectures and materials. In most cases, two main problems, namely poor carrier mobility in the bulk and elusive interface effects, are closely related due to contact dominated device behavior. A three-dimensional Kinetic Monte Carlo simulator has been developed mimicking simultaneously charge injection and propagation. This work deals with the representation of contact roughness by the means of the Gaussian Disorder Model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HSP70:peptide complexes have multiple impact on APCs and consequently on the stimulation of T cells. HSPs activate APCs (innate response) and facilitate presentation of chaperoned peptides via MHC class I and II molecules (adaptive response) followed by effective CTL and CD4+ T cell responses. Cross-presentation of MHC class I-restricted epitopes is well investigated, the role in MHC class II-restricted antigen-presentation remains less clear but it becomes more and more obvious that peptides chaperoned by eukaryotic as well as prokaryotic HSPs particularly of the 70 kDa family are involved in MHC II-restricted presentation. HSP70 molecules bind a wide variety of self- and foreign peptides in an ATP- and pH-dependent manner and resulting HSP:peptide complexes can access MHC class II loading compartments via different possible mechanisms. Pro- and eukaryotic HSP70 chaperones have been found to facilitate processing and presentation of MHC class II-restricted antigens resulting in enhanced CD4+ T cell activation in response to allo- and auto-antigens. Further investigating the role of HSP70 in MHC II-restricted antigen-presentation will be of particular interest for a better understanding of the pathogenesis of autoimmune disorders and CD4+ T helper cell mediated tumour recognition [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the following lower bound methods for regular languages: The fooling set technique, the extended fooling set technique, and the biclique edge cover technique. It is shown that the maximal attainable lower bound for each of the above mentioned techniques can be algorithmically deduced from a canonical finite graph, the so called dependency graph of a regular language. This graph is very helpful when comparing the techniques with each other and with nondeterministic state complexity. In most cases it is shown that for any two techniques the gap between the best bounds can be arbitrarily large. Moreover, we show that deciding whether a certain lower bound w.r.t. one of the investigated techniques can be achieved is in most cases computationally hard, i.e., $\textrm{PSPACE}$-complete and hence is as hard as minimizing nondeterministic finite automata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on high resolution 3D-microsturctural data from FIB-nanotomography the pore structure in the sub-m range can now be described quantitatively. This is demonstrated for a 28 days old cement paste. In contrast to the discontinuous pore size distribution (PSD) which results from mercury intrusion porosimetry, the data from FIB-3D-analysis reveals an exponential PSD at radii larger than 50 nm. Using extended image analysis techniques, porosity in hadley grains and the capillary pore network in the interstitial groundmass can be distinguished and the connectivity between them can be quantified. In the 28 days old cement paste, 34% of the total pore volume are located within the hadley grains. The connection with the capillary pores in the groundmass is dominated by numerous but small pathways (intersections). The average radius of these intersections is below 100 nm. The average intersection density is 0.75 intersections per m2of phaenograin surface. The intersections occupy only 2% of the interface between the phaenograins and the groundmass. In summary, the new 3D-microscopy technique not only provides information about pore size distribution of the bulk microstructure, but it also enables to distinguish different types of pores and to characterize the connectivity between them. This information is considered to be a prerequisite for establishing microstructural models that can predict permeability properties in cement pastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a structural and language theoretical characterization of timed languages over discrete time in terms of a variant of Büchi automata and languages. The so-called tick automaton is a standard Büchi automaton with a special "clock-tick"-input symbol modeling the discrete flow of time. Based on these characterizations we give an alternative proof for the fact that the class of regular timed languages is closed under complementation and formulate a time-warp lemma which, similar to a pumping lemma, can be used to show that a timed language is not regular. The characterizations hold alike for timed automata with and without periodic clock constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce and investigate revolving-input finite automata, which are nondeterministic finite automata with the additional ability to shift the remaining part of the input. We consider three different modes of shifting, namely revolving to the left, revolving to the right, and circular interchanging. We show that the latter operation does not increase the computational power of finite automata, even if the number of revolving operations is unbounded. The same result is obtained for the former two operations in case of an arbitrary but constant number of applications allowed. An unbounded number of these operations leads to language families that are properly contained in the family of context-sensitive languages, are incomparable with the family of context-free languages, and are strictly more powerful than regular languages. Moreover, we show that right revolving can be simulated by left revolving, when considering the mirror image of the input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider classical linear-time planar separator algorithms, determining for a given planar graph a small subset of the nodes whose removal separates the graph into two components of similar size. These algorithms are based upon Planar Separator Theorems, which guarantee separators of size and remaining components of size less than 2n/3. In this work, we present a comprehensive experimental study of the algorithms applied to a large variety of graphs, where the main goal is to find separators that do not only satisfy upper bounds but also possess other desirable qualities with respect to separator size and component balance. We propose the usage of fundamental cycles, whose size is at most twice the diameter of the graph, as planar separators: For graphs of small diameter the guaranteed bound is better than the bounds, and it turns out that this simple strategy almost always outperforms the other algorithms, even for graphs with large diameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ventricular septal defects (VSD) are the most common congenital cardiac anomalies, accounting in isolation for almost 20% of congenital cardiac lesions (1). VSDs have also been reported after myocardial infarction (2,3), trauma (4,5), as well as residual defects after prior attempts at surgical closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An atrial-septal defect (ASD) is defined as an opening or defect in the atrial septum, between the right and left atrium. It excludes the patent foramen ovale. Four types of ASDs are recognized with distinct anatomic and embryological differences: 1.Primum defects arise from abnormal atrial-septal tissue development from the endocardial cushions.2.Secundum result from defects in the septum primum with incomplete overlap of septum secundum.3.Sinus venosus (superior vena cava type and inferior vena cava type) are defects in the part of the atrial septum that develops from the embryonic sinus venosus.4.Coronary sinus septal defect is a defect in septation between the coronary sinus and the left atrium (LA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the register complexity of LOOP-, WHILE-, and GOTO-programs, that is the number of registers (or variables) needed to compute certain unary (partial) functions from the non-negative integers to the non-negative integers. It turns out that the hierarchy of LOOP-computable (WHILE-, and GOTO-computable, respectively) functions $f:\mathbb{N}_0 \rightarrow \mathbb{N}_0$ (partial functions $f:\mathbb{N}_0 \hookrightarrow \mathbb{N}_0$, respectively) that is induced by the number of registers collapses to a fixed level. In all three cases the first levels are separated. Our results show that there exist universal WHILE- and GOTO-programs with a constant number of registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]