BARD: Better Automated Redistricting

BARD is the first (and at time of writing, only) open source software package for general redistricting and redistricting analysis. BARD provides methods to create, display, compare, edit, automatically refine, evaluate, and profile political districting plans. BARD aims to provide a framework for scientific analysis of redistricting plans and to facilitate wider public participation in the creation of new plans. BARD facilitates map creation and refinement through command-line, graphical user interface, and automatic methods. Since redistricting is a computationally complex partitioning problem not amenable to an exact optimization solution, BARD implements a variety of selectable metaheuristics that can be used to refine existing or randomly-generated redistricting plans based on user-determined criteria. Furthermore, BARD supports automated generation of redistricting plans and profiling of plans by assigning different weights to various criteria, such as district compactness or equality of population. This functionality permits exploration of trade-offs among criteria. The intent of a redistricting authority may be explored by examining these trade-offs and inferring which reasonably observable plans were not adopted. Redistricting is a computationally-intensive problem for even modest-sized states. Performance is thus an important consideration in BARD's design and implementation. The program implements performance enhancements such as evaluation caching, explicit memory management, and distributed computing across snow clusters

Shocks and more shocks

Presentation at the Thirteenth Annual Hyman P. Minsky Conference on the State of the U.S. and World Economies Session on Monetary Policy and the U.S. and World Economies - The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Hilton New York, New York City, April 15, 2003Economic conditions

Prediction of Advanced Fibrosis in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: An Enhanced Model of BARD Score.

UNLABELLED: BACKGROUNDAIMS: The BARD score is a model to detect advanced liver fibrosis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients. The aims of this study were to identify additional factors and then to build an enhanced version of the BARD score. METHODS: One hundred seven patients with biopsy-proven NAFLD were enrolled retrospectively. Logistic regressions were performed to identify independent risk factors for advanced liver fibrosis (stage 3 or 4). An enhanced model of the BARD score (BARDI score) was built and evaluated with a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. RESULTS: In multivariate analysis, age (odds ratio [OR], 0.89; p=0.04), aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase ratio (OR, 1.73; p CONCLUSIONS: The BARDI score had an improved PPV over the BARD score and maintained an excellent NPV. Further study is warranted for its external validation and comparison with other models

Tallaba

Ġabra ta’ poeżiji u proża li tinkludi: Lill-Kittieba tal-“Malti” ta’ P. – Bejn Żewġt Iqlub ta’ A. C. – Lill-Qamar ta’ V. M. B. – It-Tallaba minn ta’ Matilde Serao ta’ Ġużè Micallef GoggiN/

Addressing the Bard: Learning Ideas

The Scottish Poetry Library has published a new, provocative and exciting anthology of Burns poems, launched in the Year of Homecoming and of Burns’s 250th anniversary. What makes this anthology different is that twelve contemporary poets have been asked to select one of Burns’s poems and to respond to it. The result is an eclectic collection with some unexpected choices and responses that enlighten, challenge and amuse us. All of the response poems provide insight into Burns’s original work and some may have a more direct resonance with modern readers. In addition to the book itself, these supporting resources are being provided on the Learning and Teaching Scotland website. The material has been developed by Liz Niven, poet, writer, and Scots-language educator, and Maureen Farrell, an English teacher and now teacher educator from the University of Glasgow

Color Coded

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

Create Space–Create Communal Change: An Exploration of Tactics Used by Augusta Savage and Theaster Gates

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College