Generation Challenge Program : Follow-Up on Executive Council and Science Council Inquiries

This report was prepared for the autumn 2004 meetings of ExCo and the Science Council. It was later discussed during the CGIAR Business Meeting at AGM 2004. The report is a detailed response to inquiries made by the Executive Council and the Science Council regarding the challenge program's goals and added values

Generation Brexit officially launches in six new languages

Today Generation Brexit officially launches in six new languages - German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Greek. With our new language sections, the Generation Brexit project becomes the only pan-European Brexit project of its type. We want to hear from YOU, in your language. After you set up an account (top right side of the page), you can either come ..

Design and Evaluation of Path Planning Decision Support for Planetary Surface Exploration

Human intent is an integral part of real-time path planning and re-planning, thus any decision aiding system must support human-automation interaction. The appropriate balance between humans and automation for this task has previously not been adequately studied. In order to better understand task allocation and collaboration between humans and automation for geospatial path problem solving, a prototype path planning aid was developed and tested. The focus was human planetary surface exploration, a high risk, time-critical domain, but the scenario is representative of any domain where humans path plan across uncertain terrain. Three visualizations, including elevation contour maps, a novel visualization called levels of equal costs, and a combination of the two were tested along with two levels of automation. When participants received the lower level of automation assistance, their path costs errors were less than 35% of the optimal, and they integrated manual sensitivity analysis strategies. When participants used the higher level of automation assistance, path costs errors were reduced to a few percentages, and they saved on average 1.5 minutes in the task. However, this increased performance came at the price of decreased situation awareness and automation bias.We would like to acknowledge the NASA Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Fellowship and the Office of Naval Research for sponsoring this research

A note on normal generation and generation of groups

In this note we study sets of normal generators of finitely presented residually $p$-finite groups. We show that if an infinite, finitely presented, residually $p$-finite group $G$ is normally generated by $g_1,\dots,g_k$ with order $n_1,\dots,n_k \in \{1,2,\dots \} \cup \{\infty \}$, then $$\beta_1^{(2)}(G) \leq k-1-\sum_{i=1}^{k} \frac1{n_i},$$ where $\beta_1^{(2)}(G)$ denotes the first $\ell^2$-Betti number of $G$. We also show that any $k$-generated group with $\beta_1^{(2)}(G) \geq k-1-\varepsilon$ must have girth greater than or equal $1/\varepsilon$.Comment: 10 pages, no figure

First generation interferometers

The status and plans for the first generation long baseline suspended mass interferometers TAMA, GEO, LIGO and Virgo are presented, as well as the expected performances

Fourth generation bound states

We investigate the spectrum and wave functions of q̅ ′q′ bound states for heavy fourth generation quarks (q′) that have a very small mixing with the three observed generations of standard model quarks. Such bound states come with different color, spin and flavor quantum numbers. Since the fourth generation Yukawa coupling, λ_q′, is large we include all perturbative corrections to the potential between the heavy quark and antiquark of order λ_(q′)^(2)N_c/16π^2 where N_c is the number of colors, as well as relativistic corrections suppressed by (v/c)^2. We find that the lightest fourth generation quark masses for which a bound state exists for color octet states. For the color singlet states, which always have a bound state, we analyze the influence that the Higgs couplings have on the size and binding energy of the bound states

A Lost Generation

America is in immediate danger of throwing away a vast number of our young people; these are kids who have fallen through the gaping holes in our social services net and have landed on our streets. They roam this country by the thousands in search of simple necessities such as food and a warm place to sleep, often trading their bodies in exchange for the most basic of human rights. In the words of Michael Stoops, Director of Community Organizing at the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, DC, there is a dire need for more shelter beds for homeless youth. In fact, we are in danger of producing another Lost Generation, and the process is fueled by our own apathy, neglect, and lack of decisive action. Furthermore, it is a damning testimony of abiding intolerance in our society that LGBT young people are wildly disproportionally represented among homeless youth in America. [excerpt

Third Generation Disadvantage among Mexican Americans

Among Mexican Americans, generational differences in education do not fit with assimilation theory’s predictions of significant improvement from the second to third generation; instead, education for third generation remains similar to the second generation and falls behind that of non-Hispanic whites. Scholars have not examined this educational gap for recent cohorts, nor have they considered a wide range of economic outcomes by generation. Using a nationally representative sample of young adults from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, we examine various educational and economic outcomes among second- and third-generation Mexican Americans and compare it to whites and blacks. We find that third-generation Mexican Americans have similar outcomes to the second generation and lower education and economic levels than whites and blacks, even when controlling for key factors. Our findings reveal limitations to assimilation theory and suggest that the persistent low status of third-generation Mexican Americans may be largely due to their racialization. These findings coupled with prior research on Mexican Americans point to a consistent pattern of third generation disadvantage, which stands in contrast to second generation advantage