Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Little Science Confronts The Data Deluge: Habitat Ecology, Embedded Sensor Networks, And Digital Libraries, Christine Borgman, Jillian Wallis, Noel Enyedy

Jillian C Wallis

e-Science promises to increase the pace of science via fast, distributed access to computational resources, analytical tools, and digital libraries. “Big science” fields such as physics and astronomy that collaborate around expensive instrumentation have constructed shared digital libraries to manage their data and documents, while “little science” research areas that gather data through hand-crafted fieldwork continue to manage their data locally. As habitat ecology researchers begin to deploy embedded sensor networks, they are confronting an array of challenges in capturing, organizing, and managing large amounts of data. The scientists and their partners in computer science and engineering make use of …

Family Sources Of Educational Gender Inequality In Rural China: A Critical Assessment, Emily C. Hannum, Peggy A. Kong, Yuping Zhang

Emily C. Hannum

Teaching Urban History, Steven Corey

Steven H. Corey

No abstract provided.

Poverty And Proximate Barriers To Learning: Vision Deficiencies, Vision Correction And Educational Outcomes In Rural Northwest China, Emily Hannum, Yuping Zhang

Emily C. Hannum

Few studies of educational barriers in developing countries have investigated the role of children’s vision problems, despite the self-evident challenge that poor vision poses to classroom learning and the potential for a simple ameliorative intervention. We address this gap with an analysis of two datasets from Gansu Province, a highly impoverished province in northwest China. One dataset is the Gansu Survey of Children and Families (GSCF, 2000 and 2004), a panel survey of 2,000 children in 100 rural villages; the other is the Gansu Vision Intervention Project (GVIP, 2004), a randomized trial involving 19,185 students in 165 schools in two …

Report Of The Commission To Assess The Threat To The United States From Emp Attack: Critical National Infrastructures, William R. Graham

George H Baker

The physical and social fabric of the United States is sustained by a system of systems; a complex and dynamic network of interlocking and interdependent infrastructures (“critical national infrastructures”) whose harmonious functioning enables the myriad actions, transactions, and information flow that undergird the orderly conduct of civil society in this country. The vulnerability of these frastructures to threats — deliberate, accidental, and acts of nature — is the focus of greatly heightened concern in the current era, a process accelerated by the events of 9/11 and recent hurricanes, including Katrina and Rita. This report presents the results of the Commission’s …

Summary Of 2008 Homeland Security Symposium At The National Academies: Fostering Public-Private Partnerships, George H. Baker, Cheryl J. Elliott

George H Baker

Recent U.S. high consequence events have made clear the importance of government collaboration with industry. The benefits of such collaboration were clearly seen as a lesson from Hurricane Katrina. The resources owned and controlled by American industry dwarf those available to local, state and even the federal government departments. Better agreements and incentives to bring the full capabilities of industry squarely into the national response agenda will be indispensable in effectively responding to large-scale catastrophes. General Russel Honoré who led the National Guard response to Katrina has said, “We need the partnering between local, state, and federal governments; but the …

Grounded History: A Keynote Address To The 14th Annual Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference, Amilcar Shabazz

Amilcar Shabazz

No abstract provided.

Change And Emerging Technologies: The Library's Role Is Supporting Teaching And Learning In A 2.0 Environment, Jeffrey G. Trzeciak, Cathy Moulder, Olga Perkovic

Cathy Moulder

Liaison librarians at McMaster University Library are actively collaborating with faculty members to incorporate emerging technologies into their classes. This session will describe three recent projects to incorporate wiki technology. The librarians played key roles to incorporate this Web 2.0 application into the curriculum of existing courses and into the requirements of a new course. The wiki initiatives strengthened partnerships with those faculty who were early adopters. Student reactions were varied and sometimes surprising. Faculty assessed student engagement and the quality of deliverables as much higher in quality than expected, suggesting that wiki use had a positive effect on learning. …

A New Approach To Flood Education (Booklet), Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.

Ability Grouping And Academic Inequality: Evidence From Trinidad And Tobago, Clement (Kirabo) Jackson

C. Kirabo Jackson

In Trinidad and Tobago students are assigned to secondary schools after fifth grade based on achievement tests, generating large differences in school and peer quality. Using instrumental variables to address self-selection bias, I find that being assigned to a school with high-achieving peers has large positive effects on examination performance, particularly for girls. This suggests that ability grouping (or school tracking) reinforces achievement differences by assigning the weakest students to schools that provide the least value-added. While students benefit from attending schools with brighter peers on average, the marginal effect is non-linear such that there are small benefits to attending …

Education In The Reform Era, Emily C. Hannum, Jere Behrman, Meiyan Wang, Jihong Liu

Jihong Liu

No abstract provided.

Teaching Students And Teaching Each Other: The Importance Of Peer Learning For Teachers (With Elias Bruegmann), Clement (Kirabo) Jackson

C. Kirabo Jackson

Using student examination data linked to longitudinal teacher personnel data we document that a teacher’s students have larger test score gains when she experiences an improvement in the observable characteristics of her colleagues. Using within-school and within-teacher variation, we further show that a teacher’s students have larger test score gains when she has more effective colleagues (based on their own students’ achievement gains from an out-of-sample pre-period). A one standard deviation increase in average teacher peer quality is associated with an increase of 0.02 and 0.04 standard deviations in student test scores in reading and math respectively (about one third …

Education In The Reform Era, Emily C. Hannum, Jere Behrman, Meiyan Wang, Jihong Liu

Emily C. Hannum

No abstract provided.

Urban-Rural Disparities In Access To Primary And Secondary Education Under Market Reform, Emily C. Hannum, Meiyan Wang, Jennifer H. Adams

Emily C. Hannum

No abstract provided.

Beyond Cost: Rural Perspectives On Barriers To Education, Emily C. Hannum, Jennifer H. Adams

Emily C. Hannum

No abstract provided.

A New Approach To Community Flood Education, Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.

Building Community Resilience To Floods: The Role Of Education (Booklet), Neil Dufty

Neil Dufty

No abstract provided.

The Big Payoff? Educational And Occupational Attainments Of Ethnic Minorities In Beijing, Reza Hasmath

Reza Hasmath

Cascading Infrastructure Failures: Avoidance And Response, George H. Baker, Cheryl J. Elliott

George H Baker

No critical infrastructure is self-sufficient. The complexity inherent in the interdependent nature of infrastructure systems complicates planning and preparedness for system failures. Recent wide-scale disruption of infrastructure on the Gulf Coast due to weather, and in the Northeast due to electric power network failures, dramatically illustrate the problems associated with mitigating cascading effects and responding to cascading infrastructure failures once they have occurred.

The major challenge associated with preparedness for cascading failures is that they transcend system, corporate, and political boundaries and necessitate coordination among multiple, disparate experts and authorities. This symposium brought together concerned communities including government and industry …

Cash For Test Scores: The Impact Of The Texas Advanced Placement Incentive Program, Clement (Kirabo) Jackson

C. Kirabo Jackson

No abstract provided.