Preventing childhood depression by building resiliency in children

This review of literature is a report of the success of programs designed to prevent childhood depression by building resiliency. Research results indicate that prevention programs focused on teaching children and parents coping skills, changing negative thought patterns, social problem solving, teaching the symptoms of childhood depression and how to discuss it with children, and fostering resiliency have reduced the incidence of depression in children (Comer, 1985; Gladstone & Beardslee, 2000; Seligman, 1995). Additional research needs to address the following questions: a) How does building resilience differ for children from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds? b) . What are the best ways to identify children who are at risk for depression? c) Is the developmental timing of resiliency programs critical? d) Do the effects of resiliency last into adulthood? e) What are the most important components of a prevention program? f) How can we best evaluate program effectiveness? g) What are the basic skills needed to implement a prevention program? h) Are schools willing to provide resiliency programs for children at risk for childhood depression

Does It Pay, at the Margin, to Work and Save? -- Measuring Effective Marginal Taxes on Americans' Labor Supply and Saving

Building on Gokhale, Kotlikoff, and Sluchynsky's (2002) study of Americans' incentives to work full or part time, this paper uses ESPlanner, a life-cycle financial planning program, in conjunction with detailed modeling of transfer programs to determine a) total marginal net tax rates on current labor supply, b) total net marginal tax rates on life-cycle labor supply, c) total net marginal tax rates on saving, and d) the tax-arbitrage opportunities available from contributing to retirement accounts. In seeking to provide the most comprehensive analysis to date of fiscal incentives, the paper incorporates federal and state personal income taxes, the FICA payroll tax, federal and state corporate income taxes, federal and state sales and excise taxes, Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, Medicaid benefits, Foods Stamps, welfare (TAFCD) benefits, and other transfer program benefits. The paper offers four main takeaways. First, thanks to the incredible complexity of the U.S. fiscal system, it's impossible for anyone to understand her incentive to work, save, or contribute to retirement accounts absent highly advanced computer technology and software. Second, the U.S. fiscal system provides most households with very strong reasons to limit their labor supply and saving. Third, the system offers very high-income young and middle aged households as well as most older households tremendous opportunities to arbitrage the tax system by contributing to retirement accounts. Fourth, the patterns by age and income of marginal net tax rates on earnings, marginal net tax rates on saving, and tax-arbitrage opportunities can be summarized with one word -- bizarre.

RESEARCH UPDATES

Includes: An Economic Analysis of Intelligent Transportation Systems in the Distribution of Agricultural and Food Products, by Albert J. Allen, Warren C. Couvillion and David Parrish; Small-Volume Fresh Growers' Marketing Channels: A Case Study of Tennessee Producers, by John R. Brooker and David B. Eastwood; Specific Programs That the Pat 28 Winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, 1988-1996, Have Undertaken to Implement Their Quality Strategies, by Robert R. Cangemi and Raymond H. Lopez; Implications if Changes in the Food Supply Chain for Small and Medium Sized Produce Firms in the Pacific Northwest, by Sarah M. Duffel, Desmond O'Rourke and Jill McCluskey; Customers' Willingness to Travel to Farmer's Markets, by David B. Eastwood; Building a World Wide Web Infrastructure for Regional Food Systems Education and Outreach, by Carl L. German, Richard VanVranken; Kathleen Klotzbach; Evaluating the Willingness-to-Purchase IPM-Grown Fresh Produce, by Ramu Govindasamy and John Italia; Consumer Patronage of Farmer's Markets: The Influence of Sociodemographic Characteristics, by Ramu Govindasamy and John Italia; Industry Strategic Planning and Coordination: The Case of the Texas Vegetable Industry, by Charles R. Hall, Conrad Lyford and Lance D. Pate; Changes in Transportation Patterns of Refrigerated Cargoes, by Bruce Lambert and Roger Hinson; Segmenting Households Based on Food Nutrition Attitudes and Behavior, by Ronald Larson, Eric Nordmoe and Ann Veeck; Contingent Valuation of Health Risk Reductions Through Beef Irradiation, by Arbindra P. Rimal, Stanley M. Fletcher, and Kay H. McWatters; Marketability and Economic Advantages of Transgenic Sweet Corn for South Georgia Vegetable Growers, by Forrest Stegelin; Commercial Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Satisfaction with Retail Seed, Fertilizer and Pesticide Suppliers in the Georgia Coastal Plain, by Forrest Stegelin; Changing Structure in the Florida Citrus Markets, by Suzanne Thornsbury and Ferdinand Wirth; Changing Patterns of Sweet Corn Marketing and Consumption in New York State, by Wen-fei L. UvaResearch and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Reusability in software engineering

This paper surveys recent work concerning reusability in software engineering. The current directions in software reusability are discussed, and the two major approaches of reusable building blocks and reusable patterns studied. An extensive bibliography, parts of which are annotated, is included

Improving Teacher Morale with Team Building.

The purpose of this study is to build a conceptual framework to explain the influence of team building among elementary school teachers to improve teacher morale. This framework is intended as the foundation for a team building model to provide principals and teachers with a guide for implementing sound team-building activities into inservice training and throughout the school year. What are the best practices for implementing team building and how can these practices encourage teachers to have a more positive outlook on their profession? The variables include school environment, school climate, different principals, principal changes, years of teaching experience, teaching and planning time, school populations, and types of student programs at the school. This qualitative case study was conducted using interviews of administrators and teachers from 7 public elementary schools located in Southern Appalachia to discover how teambuilding activities influenced their perceptions of teacher morale. School observations captured the climate of the schools and each school\u27s School Improvement Plan (SIP) and Staff Development Plan were examined. The researcher coded transcripts into themes, patterns, and the following conceptual constructs: (a) communication, (b) change, (c) building community, (d) acknowledgement, (e) work morale, (f) time, (g) team building, and (h) teamwork. Findings confirmed that administrators and a majority of the teachers showed evidence of high morale. The administrators reported that team-building activities at their school promoted open communication and a positive working environment. Ninety percent of the teachers discussed that team building brought the faculty together and improved communication and the overall climate of the school. Ten percent of the teachers interviewed came from 2 schools that had vertical team meetings during their planning time. They complained that vertical team meetings were a waste of time. For the most part team-building activities incorporated in the schools influenced keeping teacher morale high. Many teachers welcomed opportunities to work with their coworkers on school decision-making teams as well as in off-campus socializing

Statistical Assertions for Validating Patterns and Finding Bugs in Quantum Programs

In support of the growing interest in quantum computing experimentation, programmers need new tools to write quantum algorithms as program code. Compared to debugging classical programs, debugging quantum programs is difficult because programmers have limited ability to probe the internal states of quantum programs; those states are difficult to interpret even when observations exist; and programmers do not yet have guidelines for what to check for when building quantum programs. In this work, we present quantum program assertions based on statistical tests on classical observations. These allow programmers to decide if a quantum program state matches its expected value in one of classical, superposition, or entangled types of states. We extend an existing quantum programming language with the ability to specify quantum assertions, which our tool then checks in a quantum program simulator. We use these assertions to debug three benchmark quantum programs in factoring, search, and chemistry. We share what types of bugs are possible, and lay out a strategy for using quantum programming patterns to place assertions and prevent bugs.Comment: In The 46th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA '19). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1811.0544

Repeated patterns in tree genetic programming

We extend our analysis of repetitive patterns found in genetic programming genomes to tree based GP. As in linear GP, repetitive patterns are present in large numbers. Size fair crossover limits bloat in automatic programming, preventing the evolution of recurring motifs. We examine these complex properties in detail: e.g. using depth v. size Catalan binary tree shape plots, subgraph and subtree matching, information entropy, syntactic and semantic fitness correlations and diffuse introns. We relate this emergent phenomenon to considerations about building blocks in GP and how GP works

Social Entrepreneurship and Social Transformation

This study provides a comparative analysis of seven cases of social entrepreneurship that have been widely recognized as successful. The paper suggests factors associated with successful social entrepreneurship, particularly with social entrepreneurship that leads to significant changes in the social, political and economic contexts for poor and marginalized groups. It generates hypotheses about core innovations, leadership, organization, and scaling up in successful social entrepreneurship. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for the practice of social entrepreneurship, for further research, and for the continued development of support technologies and institutions that will encourage future social entrepreneurship.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 15. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Evidence of Program Quality and Youth Outcomes in the DYCD Out-of-School Time Initiative: Report on the Initiative's First Three Years

Examines New York City's progress in improving out-of-school-time program quality and serving more children and youth, participants' and parents' overall satisfaction with quality and accessibility, and links between programming, quality, and benefits

Lessons Learned and Next Steps in Energy Efficiency Measurement and Attribution: Energy Savings, Net to Gross, Non-Energy Benefits, and Persistence of Energy Efficiency Behavior

This white paper examines four topics addressing evaluation, measurement, and attribution of direct and indirect effects to energy efficiency and behavioral programs: Estimates of program savings (gross); Net savings derivation through free ridership / net to gross analyses; Indirect non-energy benefits / impacts (e.g., comfort, convenience, emissions, jobs); and, Persistence of savings