The Role of Secondary Education in Promoting Sustainable Development in the Caribbean and Latin America

This dissertation research completed a secondary data analysis of international education data collected for Latin American and Caribbean countries. This study utilized a quantitative methodological approach which established correlative, frequency and factor sparsity (Pareto) illustrations. This project sought to understand how secondary education contributes to sustainable development in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The Global Education Monitoring Report 2017 analyzed educational outcomes of second and third world countries and became the basis of this research. However, for this secondary data analysis research project, the researcher only focused on data specific to LAC countries. The following key areas of inquiry: (1) efforts by LAC to provide access to universal secondary education, (2) disparities in educational access based on gender, income and location, (3) in-school deterrents and social norms, (4) disparities in educational outcomes based on gender were used as a guide for this research project. The World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has identified four major areas of concern for LAC regarding educational outcomes: (1) a lack of public investment in universal education impacts achievement of education at all levels, (2) failure to invest in female students increases economic instability (3) gender bias in educational outcomes and (4) social norms and in-school deterrents and its effect on completion. This research found that sustainable development does have an impact on educational outcomes for male and female students at both the lower and secondary levels. Further, the wealth gap that exists between LAC countries significantly contributes to educational outcomes

Towards Continual Reinforcement Learning: A Review and Perspectives

In this article, we aim to provide a literature review of different formulations and approaches to continual reinforcement learning (RL), also known as lifelong or non-stationary RL. We begin by discussing our perspective on why RL is a natural fit for studying continual learning. We then provide a taxonomy of different continual RL formulations and mathematically characterize the non-stationary dynamics of each setting. We go on to discuss evaluation of continual RL agents, providing an overview of benchmarks used in the literature and important metrics for understanding agent performance. Finally, we highlight open problems and challenges in bridging the gap between the current state of continual RL and findings in neuroscience. While still in its early days, the study of continual RL has the promise to develop better incremental reinforcement learners that can function in increasingly realistic applications where non-stationarity plays a vital role. These include applications such as those in the fields of healthcare, education, logistics, and robotics.Comment: Preprint, 52 pages, 8 figure

Regulatory Competition and State Capacity

This Article explores an underlying tension in the regulatory competition literature regarding why some jurisdictions are more attractive to firms than others. It pays special attention to offshore financial centers (OFCs). OFCs court the business of nonresidents, offer business friendly regulatory environments, and provide for minimal, if any, taxation on their customers. On the one extreme, OFCs are theorized as merely products of legislative capture— thereby lacking any meaningful agency of their own. On the other hand, OFCs are conceptualized as well-governed jurisdictions that attract investment because of the high quality of their laws and legal institutions—indicating some ability to manage legislative capture. This Article argues that the prevailing explanatory frameworks for OFC development and success overlook deeper institutional structures within these jurisdictions. Drawing on the political sociology literature on state development, this Article offers a new theoretical framework. It suggests that some OFCs may have experienced more success than others because of how they developed “state capacity”—i.e., their ability to formulate and implement specific kinds of policy choices skillfully and effectively. This Article makes two important contributions to the regulatory competition and OFC literatures. First, it places the institutional quality of jurisdictions at the center of the discourse and analysis of OFC achievements in the business law arena. Second, it introduces the interdisciplinary concept of “state capacity” into the growing scholarly debate concerning the rise of OFCs

Coexisting with volcanoes : the relationships between La Soufrière and the society of St. Vincent, Lesser Antilles

Human population growth has resulted in increased numbers of people living in areas prone to disasters. Exploring the historical and social context of how volcanoes and their eruptions influence society in different socioeconomic and cultural ways over time helps us to understand the present-day challenges faced by those living in an active volcanic environment. La Soufrière volcano, on the island of St. Vincent, has erupted frequently in the recorded history of the Lesser Antilles. The three eruptions investigated (1812, 1902- 1903 and 1979) occur at three distinct stages of societal development: during the slavery era, post-emancipation and on the eve of independence. These distinct stages enable the investigation of how eruptions of La Soufrière highlighted social issues relevant to each time period. A mixed methodologies approach was used to explore how the society of St. Vincent has come to coexist with the low-frequency, high impact events of La Soufrière through time. The impact of the eruptions was mainly dependent on magnitude and longevity. This study shows the differences between VEI 4 and VEI 3 eruptions on the island and the control of topography on PDCs and lahars. It presents the most detailed chronology of the 1812 event to date and reveals previously overlooked aspects of 1902 eruptive activity of inland- direct base surges and a volcanogenic landslide. The mismatch effect is explored in how people experienced and recollected the 1979 eruption. This study finds that the volcanic hazard impacts occurred in the same places for the three eruptions but, damage to the agricultural sector was not homogenous. The differences lay within the socioeconomic structure of the agricultural systems between each eruption and consequent recovery options available. Furthermore, the volcanic hazard impacts, St. Vincent’s smallness, social capital and opportunities influenced whether people returned to their homes, stayed in evacuated locations or migrated off island. The island also shares typical coping adaptive strategies of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) such as migration/resettlement within and off the island and, temporary and permanent abandonment, which evolved from the loss of indigenous knowledge. This study demonstrates the importance of combining physical and social science to understand the complex interactions between volcanoes and people that lead to coexistence

A tale of two dialect regions: Sranan's 17th-century English input

This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences in Sranan, an English-based creole spoken in Suriname. Sranan contains "fossilised" linguistic remnants of an early English colonial period. The book discusses whether Sranan’s English influence(s) originated from a single dialect from the general London area, as proposed by Norval Smith in 1987, or whether we are dealing with a composite of dialectal features from all over England. The book introduces a novel replicable methodology for linguistic reconstructions, which combines statistics (in the form of binomial probability), English dialect geography (via use of Orton’s et. al., 1962–1971, Survey of English Dialects, which focuses on traditional regional English dialects across England and Wales), and 17th-century English migration history (compiled from The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607–1660, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654–1686, Virtual Jamestown, Virginia Center for Digital History, and Colonial State Papers secured from the British History Online databases, among other relevant historical sources)

A tale of two dialect regions: Sranan's 17th-century English input

This book traces the precise origin of the early English lexical and lexico-phonetic influences in Sranan, an English-based creole spoken in Suriname. Sranan contains "fossilised" linguistic remnants of an early English colonial period. The book discusses whether Sranan’s English influence(s) originated from a single dialect from the general London area, as proposed by Norval Smith in 1987, or whether we are dealing with a composite of dialectal features from all over England. The book introduces a novel replicable methodology for linguistic reconstructions, which combines statistics (in the form of binomial probability), English dialect geography (via use of Orton’s et. al., 1962–1971, Survey of English Dialects, which focuses on traditional regional English dialects across England and Wales), and 17th-century English migration history (compiled from The Complete Book of Emigrants: 1607–1660, The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654–1686, Virtual Jamestown, Virginia Center for Digital History, and Colonial State Papers secured from the British History Online databases, among other relevant historical sources)