Policing and Middle School: An Evaluation of a Statewide School Resource Officer Policy

This study investigates the effectiveness of North Carolina Senate Bill 402, Section 8.36 – Grants for School Resource Officers in Elementary and Middle Schools, which provides matching state funds to districts for use in middle and elementary schools. Using generalized difference-in-difference and negative binomial hurdle regression designs, seven years of data—inclusive of 110 districts and 471 middle schools—were analyzed to assess the effectiveness of the state-funded SRO program. Results show that offering matched SRO funds to increase policing and training was not associated with reductions in reported acts (infractions) per school year, a key measure of school safety. Racial enrollment percentages, such as higher enrollments of Black and Hispanic students, were generally not associated with increased disciplinary acts. However, total enrollment was associated with increases in reported acts and increased grade level proficiency was associated with reductions in reported acts. Findings also show that public policy activity generally increases after school shootings occur. However, a multi-pronged approach to school safety, beyond preventing mass acts of violence through increased policing, is recommended. Specifically, policies that focus on a broad range of issues, including those that improve academic achievement and address larger societal challenges have potential to enhance school safety

The Safety Appliance Act and the FELA: A Plea for Clarification

The aim of this thesis is to analyse and examine the debate on prenatal testing in Western countries, with a special focus on my own country, Sweden. In the near future it might be possible for a pregnant woman to profile the DNA of her foetus with a simple blood test early in pregnancy. This method of prenatal testing – Non Invasive Prenatal Diagnosis (NIPD) – could potentially detect the genetic causes of almost every disease. I will argue that prenatal testing should be offered by society to all pregnant women, not only to those at highest risk of giving birth to children with severe conditions. I will do that from a perspective of reproductive freedom. Furthermore, I will argue that offering prenatal testing for some conditions (such as Downs’s syndrome) and not for others, is conflicting with the autonomous choice of the pregnant woman

A historical perspective on the Federal Reserve's monetary aggregates

Data on the monetary aggregates are the fundamental raw material for research in many facets of economics and finance. Money demand modeling, measurement of money stock announcement effects, tests of the rationality of preliminary money stock forecasts and financial market efficiency, and comparison of alternative seasonal adjustment procedures are just a few such areas. Working in the spirit of Friedman and Schwartz, we chronicle the evolution of the Federal Reserve's monetary aggregates. Numerous changes in data sources, definitions, revision procedures, and seasonal adjustment methods suggest caution for all researchers using monetary aggregate time series data. A timeline compiled by Kenneth Kavajecz shows each redefinition, revision and special event that affected the monetary aggregates from 1960-1993.Monetary policy - United States ; Money supply

Design, building, and testing of the postlanding systems for the assured crew return vehicle

The design, building, and testing of the postlanding support systems for a water-landing Assured Crew Return Vehicle (ACRV) are presented. One ACRV will be permanently docked to Space Station Freedom, fulfilling NASA's commitment to Assured Crew Return Capability in the event of an accident or illness. The configuration of the ACRV is based on an Apollo Command Module (ACM) derivative. The 1990-1991 effort concentrated on the design, building, and testing of a one-fifth scale model of the egress and stabilization systems. The objective was to determine the feasibility of (1) stabilizing the ACM out of the range of motions that cause seasickness and (2) the safe and rapid removal of a sick or injured crew member from the ACRV. The development of the ACRV postlanding systems model was performed at the University of Central Florida with guidance from the Kennedy Space Center ACRV program managers. Emphasis was placed on four major areas. First was design and construction of a one-fifth scale model of the ACM derivative to accommodate the egress and stabilization systems for testing. Second was the identification of a water test facility suitable for testing the model in all possible configurations. Third was the construction of the rapid egress mechanism designed in the previous academic year for incorporation into the ACRV model. The fourth area was construction and motion response testing of the attitude ring and underwater parachute systems

Uniformly exponential growth and mapping class groups of surfaces

We show that the mapping class group of an orientable finite type surface has uniformly exponential growth, as well as various closely related groups. This provides further evidence that mapping class groups may be linear.Comment: 6 pages, no figure

The Assumptions Behind the Assumptions in the War on Terror: Risk Assessment as an Example of Foundational Disagreement in Counterterrorism Policy

This 2007 article (based around an invited conference talk at Wayne State in early 2007) addresses risk assessment and cost benefit analysis as mechanisms in counterterrorism policy. It argues that although policy is often best pursued by agreeing to set aside deep foundational differences, in order to obtain a strategic plan for an activity such as counterterrorism, foundational differences must be addressed in order that policy not merely devolve into a policy minimalism that is always and damagingly tactical, never strategic, in order to avoid domestic democratic political conflict. The article takes risk assessment in counterterrorism, using cost benefit analysis, as an example of a foundational disagreement that cannot easily be elided. Examining an extreme, indeed crude, recent example of cost benefit analysis applied to the risks of terror and the costs of counterterrorism - John Mueller\u27s widely noticed Overblown - the article suggests that cost benefit analysis, at least applied in this way, runs roughshod over other important values in counterterrorism policy, such as justice, but in addition, makes radical yet unstated assumptions about what cost benefit analysis seeks to compare in establishing counterterrorism policy or estimating the risks and costs of terrorism - unstated assumptions that, in fact, assume the conclusion. The article notes that cost benefit analysis tends to promote a policy-minimalizing event specific catastrophism - seeking above all to prevent simply the next, serial terrorist attack, with however no greater strategic vision. Indeed, the article says in conclusion (as Philip Bobbitt has noted) cost benefit analysis is relentlessly tactical, not strategic; it also tends toward serial \u27event specific catastrophism\u27 as its analytic frame; and it is a method of evaluating proposed courses of action, not generating them, and hence promotes a strategically questionable tendency to reaction as a response to terrorism. This article presents these ideas in brief fashion, however, as the first draft in a larger project on cost benefit analysis and counterterrorism, and it does so by reference to a book that is unabashedly crude in its approach to both cost benefit analysis and terrorism/counterterrorism. The critical project will extend beyond this particular article, which is in effective a a first pass at developing a critique. It is also an article that does not extend beyond events of early 2007 (when the original address was given) and should be read in that light