Historical Analysis: Tracking, Problematizing, and Reterritorializing Achievement and the Achievement Gap

For more than a century, state and federal governments and organizations have used different measures to determine if students and groups of students have achieved in a particular subject or grade level. While the construct of achievement is applied irrespective of student differences, this equal application turns out to be anything but equitable. In this chapter, we work to understand the way achievement plays out for Black students by deconstructing how the word achievement works. In doing so, we track the history of education, testing, and curriculum as it has been applied to Black youth and youth of color

Can Sustainable Withdrawal Rates be Enhanced by Trend Following?

We examine the consequences of alternative popular investment strategies for the decumulation of funds invested for retirement through a defined contribution pension scheme. We examine in detail the viability of specific ‘safe’ withdrawal rates including the ‘4%-rule’ of Bengen (1994). We find two powerful conclusions. First that smoothing the returns on individual assets by simple trend following techniques is a potent tool to enhance withdrawal rates. Second, we show that while diversification across asset classes does lead to higher withdrawal rates than simple equity/bond portfolios, “smoothing” returns in itself is far more powerful a tool for raising withdrawal rates. In fact, smoothing the popular equity/bond portfolios (such as the 60/40 portfolio) is in itself an excellent and simple solution to constructing a retirement portfolio. Alternatively, trend following enables portfolios to contain more risky assets, and the greater upside they offer, for the same level of overall risk compared to standard portfolios

The role of valuation and bargaining in optimising transboundary watercourse treaty regimes

In the face of water scarcity, growing water demands, population increase, ecosystem degradation, climate change, and so on transboundary watercourse states inevitably have to make difficult decisions on how finite quantities of water are distributed. Such waters, and their associated ecosystem services, offer multiple benefits. Valuation and bargaining can play a key role in the sharing of these ecosystems services and their associated benefits across sovereign borders. Ecosystem services in transboundary watercourses essentially constitute a portfolio of assets. Whilst challenging, their commodification, which creates property rights, supports trading. Such trading offers a means by which to resolve conflicts over competing uses and allows states to optimise their ‘portfolios’. However, despite this potential, adoption of appropriate treaty frameworks that might facilitate a market-based approach to the discovery and allocation of water-related ecosystem services at the transboundary level remains both a challenge, and a topic worthy of further study. Drawing upon concepts in law and economics, this paper therefore seeks to advance the study of how treaty frameworks might be developed in a way that supports such a market-based approach to ecosystem services and transboundary waters

Using Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System Computer Adaptive Testing Domains to Investigate the Impact of Obesity on Physical Function, Pain Interference, and Mental Health in Sports Medicine Patients

Background: While obesity has become an increasingly prevalent health concern in the United States, little emphasis has been placed on utilizing patient reported outcome measures (PROM) to investigate its impact on life from the patients\u27 perspective. The purpose of the study was to determine the association between patients\u27 body mass index (BMI) and three Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS) computer adaptive test scores: upper extremity physical function (UE) or lower extremity physical function (PF), pain interference (PI), and depression (D). Methods: Patients were recruited from two sports medicine orthopedic surgery clinics. PROMIS questionnaires were administered to patients arriving for their first visit. Patients were stratified into BMI groupings according to the National Institute of Health standards. Patients\u27 BMI, sex, race, ethnicity, and injury were determined retroactively. Data were analyzed using a Pearson correlation and a least significant difference post hoc test. Results: A total of 833 patients completed the set of PROMIS questionnaires that were retrospectively analyzed. BMI was found to have a correlation with PROMIS-UE (R=-0.111, P\u3c0.05), PROMIS-PF (R=-0.174, P\u3c0.01), PROMIS-PI (R=0.224, P\u3c0.01), and PROMIS-D (R=0.092, P\u3c0.05). Obese patients also portrayed the worst PROMIS-UE, PROMIS-PI, and PROMIS-PF. Conclusion: We found BMI to correlate with each PROMIS domain: negatively with PROMIS-UE, PROMIS-PF, PROMIS-D, and positively with PROMIS-PI. Additionally, overweight and obese BMI patients portrayed worse physical function and pain interference scores than their healthy group counterparts