Intelligence of school children: Los Angeles as a case study 1922-1932

In an effort to construct the most advanced school system in the nation, Los Angeles school administrators and educators initiated a new scientific method of group intelligence testing. Almost immediately educators discovered serious limitations with the process and resisted its exclusive use. This study examines the reception of this new technology in Los Angeles between 1922 and 1932. Many historians have seen those associated with I.Q. measuring as bulwarks supporting the hegemony of Anglo-Saxon upper-middle class society. While their criticism has brought some non-equitable aspects of twentieth-century public education to surface, it has not led to our understanding of how educators interpreted the tests. An analysis of the sources, including reports published in the Department of Psychology and Education Research Bulletin of the Los Angeles City Schools, the Teachers' and Principals' School Journal, and the Minute~ of the Board of Education, provides insight into how Los Angeles educators viewed standardized testing

On the Projection of Mortality Rates to Extreme Old Age

This article shows how cohort mortality rate projections of mortality models that involve age effects can be improved and extended to extreme old ages. The proposed approach allows insurers to use such mortality models to obtain valuations of financial instruments such as annuities that depend on projections of extreme old age mortality rates

Affective compatibility between stimuli and response goals: a primer for a new implicit measure of attitudes

We examined whether a voluntary response becomes associated with the (affective) meaning of intended response effects. Four experiments revealed that coupling a keypress with positive or negative consequences produces affective compatibility effects when the keypress has to be executed in response to positively or negatively evaluated stimulus categories. In Experiment 1, positive words were evaluated faster with a keypress that turned the words ON (versus OFF), whereas negative words were evaluated faster with a keypress that turned the words OFF (versus ON). Experiment 2 showed that this compatibility effect is reversed if an aversive tone is turned ON and OFF with keypresses. Experiment 3 revealed that keypresses acquire an affective meaning even when the association between the responses and their effects is variable and intentionally reconfigured before each trial. Experiment 4 used affective response effects to assess implicit in-group favoritism, showing that the measure is sensitive to the valence of categories and not to the valence of exemplars. Results support the hypothesis that behavioral reactions become associated with the affective meaning of the intended response goal, which has important implications for the understanding and construction of implicit attitude measures

Sister Minnie Wood (continued)

This article updates the 2016 article about this nurse and her career

Refrain from Standards? French, Cavemen and Computers. A (short) Story of Multidimensional Analysis in French Prehistoric Archaeology

Focusing on the history of prehistoric archaeology in the 20th century, this papers shows (1) that statistical multidimensional analyses were carried out by a new kind of actors who challenged the previous common language shared by prehistorians. This fundamental change was important, considering that (2) language is a fundamental point for the epistemology of archaeology. However, a comparison of multidimensional analyses applications over time shall make clear that (3) the differences are mostly a generational matter: the transmission processes between them will be addressed

The dawn of mathematical biology

In this paper I describe the early development of the so-called mathematical biophysics, as conceived by Nicolas Rashevsky back in the 1920's, as well as his latter idealization of a "relational biology". I also underline that the creation of the journal "The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics" was instrumental in legitimating the efforts of Rashevsky and his students, and I finally argue that his pioneering efforts, while still largely unacknowledged, were vital for the development of important scientific contributions, most notably the McCulloch-Pitts model of neural networks.Comment: 9 pages, without figure

Atoll research bulletin.

no.494 (2001

The Politics of Development Policy and Development Policy Reform in New Order Indonesia

How can we account for Indonesia’s astonishing development performance between 1965 and 1997—rapid growth, massive reduction in the incidence of poverty, low income-inequality and substantial diversification of the economy—in the face of extremely dirigiste microeconomic policies, even by developing country standards, and massive, systemic and endemic rent-seeking and corruption? This question is answered by demonstrating that Suharto, the leader of Indonesia’s New Order government, was extremely successful in building and sustaining a procapitalist, pro-integration with the world economy, and pro-growth with equity political coalition in which corruption played a central role.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40018/3/wp632.pd