Environmental attitudes and knowledge in urban, Latino youth

The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate an environmental education program at the Audubon Center at Debs Park to examine if the program improved participants\u27 knowledge and attitudes about the environment. Located just minutes from downtown Los Angeles, The Audubon Center conducts programs primarily for urban, low income, and ethnic minority children. The majority of these children are Latino

Youth Service-Learning and Community Service Among 6th- through 12th-Grade Students in the United States: 1996 and 1999

Involving America\u27s students in community service activities is one of the objectives established under the third National Education Goal for the year 2000, which seeks to prepare students for responsible citizenship. Over the past 10 years, legislative initiatives have responded to and galvanized a growing national emphasis on increasing students\u27 involvement with their local communities and linking this service to academic study through service-learning. Examples of initiatives that have mandated support for service-learning activities in elementary and secondary schools include the National and Community Service Act of 1990, the Serve America program and the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, and the Learn and Serve America program (Corporation for National Service 1999)

Using graphic methods to challenge cryptographic performance

Block and stream ciphers have formed the traditional basis for the standardisation of commercial ciphers in the DES, AES, RC4, and so on. More recently alternative graphic methods such as Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) have been adopted for performance gains. In this research we reviewed a range of graphic and non-graphic methods and then designed our own cipher system based on several graphic methods, including Visual Cryptography (VC). We then tested our cipher against RC4 and the AES algorithms for performance and security. The results showed that a graphics based construct may deliver comparable or improved security and performance in many of the required areas. These findings offer potential alternative avenues for post-quantum cryptographic research

State Oversight and Local Government Savings: An Analysis of Illinois County Fund Balance Politics

This paper assesses Illinois county government policies pertaining to the size, use, and replenishment of unreserved funds. As political forces push for reductions in taxes and in government itself, incentives for local governments to use less transparent means for managing finances increase. A better understanding of the impact which fund balance policies have on the amount of financial slack local governments keep on the one hand, and how counties use the funds on the other, is of increasing importance. This work expands on previous analyses of budgetary uncertainty and the possibility of using slack to stabilize service provision through times of revenue abundance and scarcity (Marlowe, 2004, 2005; Stewart, 2009, 2011a; Stewart, Hamman, and Pink-Harper, 2018; Tyer, 1993; Wang and Hou, 2012; Wolkoff, 1987)