Building Quality Improvement Systems: Lessons from Three Emerging Efforts in the Youth-Serving Sector

Quality is fast becoming a policy priority in states and localities around the country. As a result, formal and informal networks of youth organizations are seeking and developing strategies to help them assess and improve performance. This report takes a close look at efforts underway in three networks and provides a preliminary framework for thinking about key questions when planning any kind of program quality improvement work in the youth-serving sector

Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars

Based on interviews with William T. Grant Scholars Program mentors and mentees in the social, behavioral, and health sciences, explores building mentoring relationships, mentoring across differences, supporting career development, and managing conflict

An Eye for the Air Traffic Controller Workload

The purpose of this paper is to outline an approach for workload measurements and optimization of air traffic systems and displays that match controller needs. Ill-designed systems and displays can cause safety hazards for aircraft by increasing controller workload and reducing situation awareness. To prevent this situation, researchers need to develop systems that allow effortless monitoring while being attentive to operator needs. Such systems, once developed, will increase operator and system efficiency and increase the safety of airline operations

Chemical Concepts in the Era of Computational Chemistry

Present work in the philosophy of chemistry has overlooked a foundational debate among chemists about the proper function of chemical concepts. The debate is fueled by a desire to connect computational models with traditional chemical concepts, and has divided chemists since the origins of quantum chemistry. By analyzing the history of the concepts of electronegativity and the atom in the molecule, I show that there are two camps with conflicting priorities. Theorists who favor rigor seek concepts that neatly summarize important elements of the underlying physical models. Theorists who favor understanding seek concepts that achieve a balance between simplicity and qualitative accuracy. The development of concepts for understanding is shown to involve the use of multiple quantification schemes in order to achieve consistency with other concepts. This practice might appear shortsighted if not for the diverse functionality of the resulting concepts. These concepts can i) help discover new reactions and structures, ii) allow comparison of different models in computational chemistry, and iii) guide chemists to develop more accurate and more interpretable computational models. Finally, it is shown that these conflicting modes of conceptual development have implications for the nature of chemical concepts. Chemists on each side of the debate adopt different positions, explicitly or tacitly, on reduction, pluralism, and the ontology of chemical concepts. Philosophers of chemistry who neglect this debate cannot responsibly interpret chemists’ statements on these issues

An Eye for the Air Traffic Controller Workload

The purpose of this paper is to outline an approach for workload measurements and optimization of air traffic systems and displays that match controller needs. Ill-designed systems and displays can cause safety hazards for aircraft by increasing controller workload and reducing situation awareness. To prevent this situation, researchers need to develop systems that allow effortless monitoring while being attentive to operator needs. Such systems, once developed, will increase operator and system efficiency and increase the safety of airline operations

Fee Simple Estate and Footholds in Fishing: The Australian High Court\u27s Formalistic Interpretation of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act

The coast of the Northern Territory in Australia boasts some of the world’s best fishing and hosts a lucrative commercial fishing industry. The Northern Territory is also home to over 50,000 Aboriginal people who rely on these waters for their subsistence and livelihood. However, the Aboriginal population is effectively barred from participating in the commercial fishing industry by Territory regulations and economic disadvantage. In July 2008, ten years of litigation over access to coastal waters adjoining Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory culminated with the High Court’s decision in Northern Territory of Australia v. Arnhem Land Aboriginal Trust. The High Court recognized that the Aboriginal landowners had estates in fee simple to the tidal waters adjoining their land. While the High Court recognized the boundaries of Aboriginal lands extend over intertidal land, it did not analyze the potential conflict between property interests of the Aboriginal landowners and those rights conferred by a fishing license. This limitation was partially based on the Court’s ruling that a license issued under the Northern Territory’s Fisheries Act, without more, does not grant permission to enter and take fish from the Aboriginal intertidal waters. However, the decision left open the possibility that the Northern Territory could enact new legislation or amend the Fishing Act in order to augment the Territory’s authority to regulate in the granted intertidal waters. This comment argues that unless the Northern Territory acts in accordance with Aboriginal best interests and in cooperation with Aboriginal landowners, such future legislation would likely conflict with Commonwealth law enacted for the benefit of the Aboriginal population