Essential Lessons Research Articles

Model Youth Programs: A Key Strategy for Developing Community-University Partnerships Using a Community Youth Development Approach

Universities across the nation face the charge of enhancing their intellectual capital as a learning institution while also contributing to the greater social good. While there is great potential for university-community partnerships to generate lessons for youth workers and policy makers, create powerful new knowledge for the academic field, and provide transformative experiences for community members, partnerships often fail to produce such meaningful results. In the San Francisco Bay Area, community residents who have been involved in such unsuccessful initiatives frequently perceived that university partners spent insufficient time learning about the community context, prioritized research objectives over community needs and did not make long-term commitments. Despite these challenges, community-university partnerships can be useful strategies for advancing the field of youth development by strengthening research and practice in local contexts. This paper presents how the design and implementation of model youth programs served as an effective strategy in developing a partnership between a university-based center and two local communities over a 5-year period. It also describes essential lessons that other communities, research institutions or universities may use to launch, implement, expand and sustain their own successful partnerships to build local capacity to implement youth development practices, promote positive outcomes for young people, and generate knowledge about the impact of youth development approaches.

Have You Googled Your Teacher Lately? Teachers' Use of Social Networking Sites

YEARS AGO, when e-mail rapidly became the norm for communication in schools, blasting nasty-grams was soon discovered to be a no-no. As grew more familiar with digital communication tools, they figured out quickly what was appropriate use of e-mail--and more important, what was not. You have probably seen a variation of this story in your own workplace. One day, an e-mail sent from a superintendent to a principal was forwarded to all the on campus. The superintendent was horrified that her communication with the principal had been broadcast to people in a way that she felt was inappropriate and even unprofessional. But there are no take backs in electronic communication. And when someone forwards an e-mail to two friends, and each of them forwards it to two more friends, digital communication can easily go viral. A more recent version of this story happened last year in a teacher preparation course. The get to know your classmates assignment was simple: post a photo of yourself and three of your favorite websites that you envision using as a future teacher. Many of the students in this class posted their MySpace.com pages. One student's site, though, was particularly shocking. It showed a bloody hand with a 10-inch machete stuck in it, blood dripping down the page, and a quote stating, Force the hand that writes. The shock did not stop there. The personal icon for this future teacher was a wrist with a dotted and the words cut here. This student chose to submit his website as part of this assignment, and the images were unforgettable. The instructor wondered how parents would respond if this person were their child's teacher. The instructor realized that a conversation with the entire class might be in order. She made a general announcement about the assignment, describing how students transitioning into teaching should consider managing their online lives with an eye to their future careers. The next day, the student with the blood-soaked profile page had set it to private (meaning only users that he deemed his friends could view the link). However, from that point forward, even his successes in class could not erase the lasting effects of the bloody My-Space page. Changing or omitting the get to know your classmates assignment would avoid this possibility in future semesters. But doing so would deny the instructor an opportunity to have an important conversation with her students, and it would deny the students an opportunity to learn some essential lessons about self-restraint and the importance of reputation to their future roles. This story is just one example of the information we have seen future post online. It is common to see content related to alcohol, drugs, and sex posted on future teachers social networking profiles. Both preservice and many inservice do not seem to understand that the between their lives and professional lives is not black and white in today's world. Colleges of education and district professional developers need to have in-depth conversations across the country on the topic of using social networking sites. WHAT ARE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES? Social networking sites are interactive websites designed to build online communities for individuals who have something in common--an interest in a hobby, a topic, or an organization--and a simple desire to communicate across physical boundaries with other interested people. These sites are not unlike the old-fashioned party line telephones, but they leave a more permanent record of the conversations. Most social networking sites include the ability to conduct live chats, send e-mails, upload videos, maintain a blog or discussion group, and share files. Users can also post links to pictures, music, and video, all of which have the potential to create a virtual identity. …

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On Wednesday June 11, 2008 at 10AM, Brake aims to get 100,000 children taking part in a short, supervised ‘walking bus’ and learning essential road safety lessons on the way. The children will use safe routes around their setting to break the world record for the longest simultaneous walking bus.

Asymmetric Information, Bargaining, and Comparative Advantage in Trade Relationships: An Interactive Game

The concept of comparative advantage is a fundamental tool in economics. Yet, it is a concept that new students of economics frequently find challenging to grasp. In this interactive classroom game, I highlight the three essential lessons of comparative advantage: (i) individuals can have a comparative advantage (and thus benefit from specialization) in an activity despite not having an absolute advantage, (ii) the gains from specialization are greatest when individuals have the most heterogeneous skill sets, and (iii) the extent of each individual's share of the gains from specialization is often left to negotiation, with asymmetric information playing an influential role. This classroom game allows each player to possess a unique production function, thus better resembling the diverse pool of potential trade partners that characterizes real life.

Au cœur des Mémoires de Commyne : l'affaire Saint-Pol, un cas exemplaire

At the core of Commynes’ Memoires: the Saint-Pol affair, an exemplary case. The Saint-Pol affair stands at the very core of Commynes’ Memoires, not only in Books III and IV, but in the entire work, through which it runs like a thread. Like the moralist he was, Commynes drew several essential lessons from this episode. But he was even more interested in political errors. Saint-Pol was a war-monger who was neither able nor willing to choose his side; he wanted to get the better of his collaborators who were his superiors; he brought the hatred of princes and their advisers on his head. Carried away by pride, he gave in to cruelty, and was thus rewarded by God’s wrath: God himself, and not Fortuna, was responsible for the Constable’s fall. In contrast to Saint-Pol, the Sire de Lescun and Commynes himself provide two counter-examples of virtuous conduct.

The FDNY on 9/11: Information and decision making in crisis

Abstract This article reviews and analyzes the essential lessons in the New York City Fire Department's use of information on 9/11/01. It draws heavily on an oral history archive compiled by the Department after the event but withheld until 2005 and released then only under court order. Analysis of the interviews shows that coordination and communication were serious problems; securing information early in the emergency was difficult; commanders lacked solid information to direct efforts; information was contradictory and difficult to interpret; the collapse of the WTC towers was difficult to conceptualize; improvisation was common; and false information compounded confusion. The oral history archive also offers insight into the information-processing and decision-making processes of commanders and front-line responders. The oral histories were useful in FDNY analysis of performance on that critical day but they do not provide definitive answers to critical questions such as the timeliness of the order to evacuate the towers. The use of information on 9/11 also provides other insights into the optimal use of information by emergency service departments.

Designing an Integrated Financial Supervision Agency: Selected Lessons and Challenges for Indonesia

Having initiated reforms in the financial sector in late 1997, the government of Indonesia also introduced a new Central Bank Independence Act in early 1999. The next task for the government is to devise a safety net system for the financial sector, which includes the possibility of establishing an integrated financial sector supervisory agency. This study draws essential lessons from the experiences of other countries to highlight a number of key challenges facing Indonesia in designing its integrated financial sector supervisory agency, especially at the early stages.

Essential Paul Meehl lessons for personality assessment psychology

The author presents four essential Meehl lessons for personality assessment. First, Meehl's particular form of the integration of science and practice is described. Second, by outlining Meehl's Hedonic Capacity conjecture, Meehl's contribution to the inclusion of personality individual differences in generating the full clinical picture and in planning treatment is recognized. The third Meehl lesson is on the nature and importance of theory in test development and application programs. The fourth Meehl lesson is a more general epistemological lesson for psychology. Meehl's role in destroying the fantasy of an easy methodological formula for a scientific psychology is described. His program of taxometric research is shown to be an example of demanding greater material implications from theory. Meehl's corroboration index is described and contrasted with the p value of statistical significance testing.

Contextual and cultural challenges for user mobility research

Personal, mobile synchronous and asynchronous communication has proven to be very desirable for all types of users, with estimates of more than a half-billion mobile phones sold each year [2]. Nokia Research Center's User Experience Group, working with other user practitioners in Nokia, seeks to understand why people do the things they do with their mobile communication devices and proposes solutions that best address their wants and needs. In accordance with the principles of user-centric product concept design [4], the solutions are designed to inform and inspire the product creation process within Nokia. Given that the group works three to eight years ahead of what appears on the market, confidentiality concerns restrict disclosure of many of these concepts and the findings on which these concepts are based. Instead, in this article we share some of the essential lessons learned from our projects centering on the early stages of product concept development. Two areas have proved to be particularly challenging in this respect: coping with multiple contexts and multiple cultures in the study of mobility.

Why some companies emerge stronger and better from a crisis: 7 essential lessons for surviving disaster

Ian Mitroff, recognized around the world as an authority in crisis management, has created a plan that goes well beyond disaster preparedness to help your company get accustomed to working in the face of some unsettling facts:* In an age of terror, cyberattacks, large-scale corporate fraud and more, crisis is no longer a question of if, but of when. * Your company, no matter its size, industry, or location, is not immune from this reality. * Your contingency planning will only be as effective as the human beings charged with putting it into action.Mitroff outlines seven distinct competencies your organization needs to handle crises effectively:* Right Heart (emotional IQ): By accepting crisis as an inevitability, you can process much of the shock and grief beforehand, and avoid making the effects of the crisis even worse through an unconstructive response. * Right Thinking (creative IQ): Crises don't give a damn for the ways in which we have organized the world, so out-of-the-box thinking is essential. * Right Social and Political IQ: Understand that your business is subject not only to the particular pitfalls of its industry, but also to the universal and complex challenges that threaten all companies. * Right Integration (integrative IQ): Realize that crises are perceived differently by different stakeholders, and are never simple exercises that can be solved. Identify and reconcile these perceptions now so that the path is clear when the crisis strikes. * Right Technical IQ: Think like a controlled paranoid to uncover ways in which malicious forces could cause a crisis in your company. Question every assumption about what is normal, impossible, or absurd. * Right Aesthetic IQ: Reconsider the classic design of the corporation, which is meant to address problems as they arise, and move toward one in which crisis management is an overarching discipline on a par with, for example, finance. * Spiritual IQ: Reject the notion that people's physical, mental, and spiritual beings are completely separate; recognize that crises cause us to question the very meaning of our lives and what we do, and establish ahead of time why our work is, and must remain, important to us on many different levels.Although crisis management has taken on new urgency in recent turbulent times, the need for careful planning did not originate on September 11, 2001. Mitroff's examples, drawn from interviews conducted both after the 2001 attacks and during his 25-year career as an expert in crisis management, demonstrate the need for action -- and offer a blueprint for taking it.

Fighting terrorism, making war: Critical insights in the management of information and intelligence

Abstract This article reviews and analyzes the essential lessons of information and intelligence management lessons from recent terrorist attacks and the decision to attack Iraq. It draws on evidence from the 9/11 Commission, the Senate investigation of intelligence and the war in Iraq, the Butler Commission in Britain, and other sources. It identifies and explores several themes, including the following: relationship between intelligence work and other information work; inconclusive nature of intelligence; role of executive leadership in successful intelligence work, including the leader's need for information and decision-making style; role of organizational culture and human factors; the need for sound information management practices and systems; and the need to evaluate information for decision making and other actions. The article concludes with a discussion of strategic information management policies and approaches that are essential to improve the nation's information and intelligence management capacity.

Commitment and Time Consistency: A Game-Theoretic Discussion

The paper offers a game-theoretic framework for discussing commitment and time consistency. We show when a commitment (or just the appearance of one) is valuable, how valiable it is, and whether the commitment is time consistent. We formulate restrictions on the set of eligible commitments. These restrictions correspond to the open-loop programming format, and we call the restrictions policy formation. We give a game-theoretic depiction of Fisher's savings-taxation model of time consistency. This depiction shows in a game tree the essential lessons of the model. The emphasis is on definition, examples, and interpretation. The paper contains no formal propositions. Our goal is to show that the concepts developed are useful for understanding commitment and time consistency, for modeling situations with these characteristics, and for achieving general results.

04/00267 Aftershocks - and essential lessons - from the California electricity debacle: Navarro, P. and Shames, M. The Electricity Journal, 2003, 16, (4), 24–30

So-called heat-reduced arc welding processes dominate the joining technology in the automotive sector today. They offer the advantage to reduce deformation of thin walled plates. Also, metallurgy and material properties are affected decisively. Based on the present state of the art in power-controlled gas metal arc welding (GMAW) this paper present the developing of a welding process, that allows a quasi-decoupling of the energy input between filler metal and base material. This is being realized by a polarity reversal. In conjunction with pulse control and the specific adjustment of the pulse a significant improvement of the arc stability can be achieved. This applies particularly to non-ferrous materials tending to concentrate oxygen on its surface like aluminum, magnesium and their combinations, respectively. Especially it is possible to control the deposition rate, welding formation and bonding conditions between base material and filler metal. Furthermore spatter can be reduced and manufacturing time can be saved. The present investigation includes the comparison between various modern GMAW processes, such as ColdMIG®, CMT® and short arc, with the pulsed GMAW using alternating current (AC) for welding aluminum. Thereby, mainly the penetration depending on the heat input is taken into account. It can be noted that the AC pulsed GMAW process produces weld seams of the same quality as well-known processes in matters of height and width of the joint. The generated welds have low notches at the edge of the seam and a uniform weld scaling. Visual imperfections on the surface have not been detected.

Democratization and Political Tolerance in Seventeen Countries: A Multi-level Model of Democratic Learning

Research on mass support for democracies shows that popular support for democratic norms is at an historic high. At the same time, research on political tolerance draws considerably bleaker conclusions about the democratic capacity of mass publics. We attempt to synthesize the essential lessons of these two literatures into a general model of democratic learning which argues that exposure to the rough-and-tumble of democratic politics should enhance political tolerance. We provide a test of the model using multilevel data from a diverse set of 17 countries. At the macro-level, we find, consistent with our theory, that: (1) political tolerance is greater in stable democracies that have endured over time (the longer the better), independent of a nation’s socioeconomic development; and (2) that federal systems increase levels of tolerance, as well. At the micro-level, we find that democratic activism, or using civil liberties, enhances political tolerance, independent of a host of other individual-level predictors. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for studies of democratization and political tolerance.

Introduction: Recent Developments in Monetary Macroeconomics

IntroductionRecent Developments in Monetary Macroeconomics David Altig The contents of this volume hardly require explanation beyond its title: "Recent Developments in Monetary Macroeconomics." Our intent for the conference was to collect a set of papers reflecting the cutting edge of applied monetary macroeconomics. As befitting such an ambitious-sounding goal, the contributions are wide ranging. For purposes of this brief introduction, however, we might organize the papers as answers to three questions. (1) What is the "optimal" Taylor rule? (2) Are "New Keynesian" or "New Neoclassical Synthesis" models the final word on the monetary transmission mechanism? (3) Is there a role for money in the conduct of monetary policy? What is the "Optimal" Taylor Rule The inclusion of the Taylor rule issue is almost a prerequisite for any collection of papers purporting to survey recent developments in monetary macroeconomics. In policy discussions, the Taylor rule is ubiquitous, and it is currently the choice among alternative specifications of central bank behavior. More precisely, perhaps, the general form of the Taylor rule is the choice, as it has come to represent the general class of equations that relate the federal funds rate to some measure of an output gap and inflation rate. There is substantially less unanimity about whether output gaps and inflation rates should be past, present, or (expected) future values, whether past values of the funds rate need to be included, and what are the appropriate magnitudes of the responses to each of these measures. Marc Giannoni and Michael Woodford offer the natural approach to addressing the dispute: find the representation that is optimal within the framework being employed for policy analysis. The model in question here is essentially a derivative of the "New Neoclassical Synthesis" class of models that are currently the workhorses of most monetary policy analyses among academic and central bank staffs alike. Their approach to discovering the optimal policy within this structure has the flavor of [End Page 1039] the "Ramsey problem" familiar from optimal tax policy, although with the strong requirement that the derived policy rule be "robustly optimal": it must support the optimal equilibrium no matter what the distribution of disturbances the model policymakers face. Giannoni and Woodford offer two essential lessons. First, whether optimal policy incorporates forecasts of future price-level growth or output gaps depend critically on the dynamics of the inflation rate. If the adjustment of the price-level to shocks is inertial, then optimal policy necessarily depends on forecasts of future inflation. Second, the response of the funds rate to its own past is inertial. In fact, it is super-inertial, meaning that (all else equal), the contemporaneous funds rate responds more than one-for-one with the lagged value of the funds rate (and lagged changes in the rate). The proposition that monetary authorities ought to aggressively respond to lagged values of the funds rate also arises in the papers by Jess Benhabib, Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé, and Martín Uribe, and George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja. In the latter case, the authors consolidate and expand on their well-known work on learning dynamics. A central contribution of the work presented in this article is the notion that convergence to a unique rational expectations equilibrium under learning, as well as the stability of that equilibrium, serves as basis for the choice (or rejection) of an optimal policy formulation. An apparent lesson from Evans and Honkapohja's analysis is that the learnability criterion prescribes a policy rule that differs in some important ways from the conventional wisdom coming from analyses that invoke the Taylor rule in a pure rational expectations environment. In particular, they conclude that the optimal policy rule in the environment they consider requires the monetary authority to respond directly to private-sector expectations. The environment they consider is essentially the same as in Giannoni and Woodford, with the exception of the central bank's assumed loss function: Giannoni and Woodford assume a preference for interest rate smoothing, Evans and Honkapohja do not. In his comments, John Duffy points out that the introduction of interest-smoothing motive yields an optimal policy rule under learning that is much closer to the conventional view. In particular, it does not require...

Clinical Data Retrieval: 25 Years of Temporal Query Management at the University of Vienna Medical School

Today, many clinical information systems include analysis components which allow clinicians to apply a selection of predefined statistical functions that satisfy typical cases. They are mostly to inflexible to handle complex, non-standard problems, however. The focus of this paper, therefore, is to present an approach that enables clinicians to autonomously create ad hoc queries including temporal relations in an interactive environment. We developed the query language AMAS, which was specifically customized for users from the medical domain to flexibly retrieve and interpret temporal, clinical data. AMAS provides for a significant temporal expressiveness in data retrieval using time-stamped clinical databases and relies on an operator-operand concept for the specification of a query. Within the last 25 years, four different clinical retrieval systems have been implemented at the Department of Medical Computer Sciences, based on the AMAS query language. Currently, these systems allow access to the medical records of more than 2 million patients. Physicians of 46 different departments at the University of Vienna and Graz Medical Schools have made extensive use of these systems in the course of clinical research and patient care, executing more than 10,000 queries per year. We discuss a list of 20 issues that represent the most essential lessons we have learned in the development of the four systems mentioned above. Amongst others, our experiences indicate that the operator-operand concept allows on intuitive specification of complex, temporal queries. Further, customization to different user classes, based on their statistical background, is essential.

Born in Bondage: Growing up Enslaved in the Antebellum South

Each time a child was born in bondage, the system of slavery began anew. Although raised by their parents or by surrogates in the slave community, children were ultimately subject to the rule of their owners. Following the life cycle of a child from birth through youth to young adulthood, Marie Jenkins Schwartz explores the daunting world of slave children, a world governed by the dual authority of parent and owner, each with conflicting agendas. Despite the constant threats and the necessity of submission to the slave owner, slave families managed to pass on essential lessons about enduring bondage with human dignity. The author counters the commonly held vision of paternalistic slave-holder who determines the life and welfare of his passive chattel, showing instead how slaves struggled to give their children a sense of self and belonging that denied the owner complete control. This book gives us an unsurpassed look at what it meant to grow up as a slave in the ante-bellum South. Schwartz recreates the experiences of these bound but resilient young people as they learned to negotiate between acts of submission and selfhood, between the worlds of commodity and community.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as Adolescent Literature: Essential Lessons

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as Adolescent Literature: Essential Lessons

Contracting out Government Services: Lessons from the Private Sector

Contracting out has become a popular method of simultaneously reducing government expenditures and improving the efficiency of government services.(1) Proponents of privatization can point to the apparent satisfaction of most government decision makers in achieving the dual aims of economy and efficiency, which in turn has spurred on new contracting-out initiatives.(2) Such Structural Changes in government operations can be highly beneficial and deserve to be emulated, provided that these initiatives have been properly evaluated and their limits thoroughly understood. Unfortunately, in the case of contracting out, the benefits have been trumpeted loudly while its weaknesses have been muted. To some extent, this imbalance reflects the absence of a systematic treatment of the advantages and hence the limits of outsourcing. In this article, which supports outsourcing as a vital financial tool in the hands of government authorities, I examine contracting out in a private sector context to determine the sources of its alleged cost-savings. This will facilitate abstracting the essential lessons that can be transferred from the private sector to the public sector. One conclusion will emerge quite dearly: Contracting out is not a panacea. Indeed, at times, instead of stemming the flow of budgetary red ink, it will intensify the hemorrhage. Contracting Out in the Private Sector A business firm can acquire the resources it needs for producing its output by producing them itself, acquiring them from the marketplace on an ad hoc basis, or turning to designated suppliers. The firm will typically buy an input on the market when that resource is not unique and is readily available at acceptable prices. However, the options narrow to contracting out versus self-production when the firm anticipates supply constraints, unacceptable pricing, or unique specifications. It is this constrained choice--produce in-house or out--that needs to be understood. In fact, no private business firm is so integrated that it produces all the resources it uses. Companies typically out for physical inputs, intermediate or component products, and services used in producing the few goods or services in which the firm specializes. Furthermore, because the typical business firm is geared up for undertaking a limited number of primary activities, secondary functions are relegated to outside contractors. Finally, firms rely on contractors rather than permanent staff and facilities to meet temporary needs. These generalized statements can be easily illustrated with a simple service provider such as an automobile repair facility. The master mechanic who owns a typical small shop repairs vehicles with the assistance of a few mechanics. Parts supplies are normally obtained on an as-needed basis from a few distributors, relying on the competitive local parts market. Outsourcing is routine as well and might be resorted to when demand overwhelms the facility's capacity. The shop might out activities that require special skills and equipment such as wheel alignments or transmission repairs. (Although such contracts may be informal, an implicit that builds on a long-lasting relationship based on mutual trust may be treated for all practical purposes as a formal contract.) Other relationships, such as a service with a photocopier or computer repair service, stem from secondary functions, in this case running the business side of the operation in an office equipped with machinery that is prone to malfunction. So, too, will the shop have a with a health maintenance organization to cover the medical outlays of the owner and staff. Finally, outside architects and construction crews will manage plant modernization plans and their execution. Similarly, a retained attorney will handle the occasional legal brief and an accountant will file the periodic tax forms. This illustration, however, begs the contract out versus in-house production question. …

What Knowledge Base?

Toward a Knowledge Base for School Learning (Wang, Haertel, & Walberg, 1993a) is an ambitious and provocative piece of work. It purports to capture the essential lessons from several broad domains of research and translate them into findings that are relevant for educational policy and practice. Its main finding is that so-called distal variables (demography, policy, and organization) have relatively little influence on learning, while so-called proximal variables (individual psychology, classroom instruction, and home environment) have relatively greater influence. I have neither the inclination nor the expertise to criticize the authors' methodology. In general, I find the genre of cross-cutting analyses of existing research—whether they are reviews or meta-analyses—to be enormously interesting and helpful. I find the methodological battles around this genre also to be interesting in small doses and extremely boring in large doses. I am glad that people worry about the methodological issues involved in the aggregation of research results. I understand that it is an important field of scholarly debate. But I must say frankly that I do not form my judgments about the research says on the basis of these methodological disputes. So my comments will not focus on this dimension of the review. My interests lie rather in the relationship among research, policy, and educational practice (defined both as the practice of organizing and operating schools and the practice of designing curriculum and teaching it). From this perspective, I find Toward a Knowledge Base for School Learning to be more intriguing for what it doesn't say than for what it does say. The idea of a knowledge base is simply a convenient hook on which the authors hang their findings. Since the idea of a knowledge base is undefined, the findings hang in thin air—suspended in a peculiar world that has more to do with research and researchers than it has to do with anything related to policy or practice. The knowledge base hook, then, is a skyhook. The problems I have with this review are many of the same problems I have with other similar attempts to capture a knowledge base by analyzing existing research on schooling. I find these reviews and meta-analyses often stimulating and useful in thinking about research. I find them practically useless in thinking about policy and practice. Let me explain briefly why this might be so.