Evaluation of Pre-Trial Diversion Project, State of Alaska, Department of Law

In February 1978 the Alaska Department of Law initiated a pilot pretrial intervention (PTI) project in Anchorage directed at first-time property offenders with no history of violence and no current drug or alcohol dependency. The project was aimed at reducing recidivism and costs to the criminal justice system, and included a built-in evaluation component. This report explores the PTI project's impact by (1) comparing PTI clients with other defendants; (2) investigating compliance of PTI clients with contracts to which they agree at time of program entry; (3) comparing costs of PTI compared with those generated in ordinary criminal cases; (4) evaluating the program's administration, identifying its deficiencies, and suggesting improvements; and (5) looking at recidivism rates of PTI clients.State of Alaska Department of Law Grant No. 78-A-014 Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, United States Department of JusticeAcknowledgements / Introduction / Project Background / Project Clientele / Client Performance / Cost Comparisons / Project Administration / Appendix A. Eligibility Criteria / Appendix B. Data Collection For

Paging and Registration in Cellular Networks: Jointly Optimal Policies and an Iterative Algorithm

This paper explores optimization of paging and registration policies in cellular networks. Motion is modeled as a discrete-time Markov process, and minimization of the discounted, infinite-horizon average cost is addressed. The structure of jointly optimal paging and registration policies is investigated through the use of dynamic programming for partially observed Markov processes. It is shown that there exist policies with a certain simple form that are jointly optimal, though the dynamic programming approach does not directly provide an efficient method to find the policies. An iterative algorithm for policies with the simple form is proposed and investigated. The algorithm alternates between paging policy optimization and registration policy optimization. It finds a pair of individually optimal policies, but an example is given showing that the policies need not be jointly optimal. Majorization theory and Riesz's rearrangement inequality are used to show that jointly optimal paging and registration policies are given for symmetric or Gaussian random walk models by the nearest-location-first paging policy and distance threshold registration policies.Comment: 13 pages, submitted to IEEE Trans. Information Theor

Real, virtual, and other personas in an online collaborative environment

This presentation reports on a study of an unusual online course, which incorporates collaboration across campuses in teaching about evaluation of information technologies. Issues raised by new information technologies are major foci within the course, and also entry points for our study of its implementation.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

On Approaching the Ultimate Limits of Photon-Efficient and Bandwidth-Efficient Optical Communication

It is well known that ideal free-space optical communication at the quantum limit can have unbounded photon information efficiency (PIE), measured in bits per photon. High PIE comes at a price of low dimensional information efficiency (DIE), measured in bits per spatio-temporal-polarization mode. If only temporal modes are used, then DIE translates directly to bandwidth efficiency. In this paper, the DIE vs. PIE tradeoffs for known modulations and receiver structures are compared to the ultimate quantum limit, and analytic approximations are found in the limit of high PIE. This analysis shows that known structures fall short of the maximum attainable DIE by a factor that increases linearly with PIE for high PIE. The capacity of the Dolinar receiver is derived for binary coherent-state modulations and computed for the case of on-off keying (OOK). The DIE vs. PIE tradeoff for this case is improved only slightly compared to OOK with photon counting. An adaptive rule is derived for an additive local oscillator that maximizes the mutual information between a receiver and a transmitter that selects from a set of coherent states. For binary phase-shift keying (BPSK), this is shown to be equivalent to the operation of the Dolinar receiver. The Dolinar receiver is extended to make adaptive measurements on a coded sequence of coherent state symbols. Information from previous measurements is used to adjust the a priori probabilities of the next symbols. The adaptive Dolinar receiver does not improve the DIE vs. PIE tradeoff compared to independent transmission and Dolinar reception of each symbol.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; corrected a typo in equation 3

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP UNDER APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA AS PORTRAYED IN THE APARTHEID ARCHIVE PROJECTAND INTERPRETED THROUGH FREIREAN EDUCATION

This qualitative study employed a phenomenological approach to examine how teachers, school leaders, and students rationalize their roles in the educational process when their institution is bounded by an educational system that openly strives against them. For a context, this study examined apartheid-era South Africa, from 1948 to 1994, which established social and administrative policies that deliberately curtailed the education of Indigenous and other South Africans, as a means of oppressing non-European ethnic groups. In lieu of face-to-face interviews, stories and interviews submitted to The Apartheid Archive Project, curated by the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa, portrayed the experience of education under apartheid. Relevant testimonials were examined using the phenomenological approach described by Moustakas (1994), and interpreted through the perspective of critical pedagogy, with Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) as the key source. The central question asked, “How do personal experiences of an oppressive school system, as interpreted through the framework of Freirean education, inform school leaders?” The conclusion required school leaders to recognize and embrace the role of schools and education in social change – a role that leads toward the recognition of oppression, and provides a means of liberation. Oppression infiltrates school systems, impinges upon the educational process, and robs students of learning opportunities. In recognizing this, educators engage their responsibility as school leaders, and embrace the pivotal role education plays in social reconstruction, liberation, and humanization

The Recognition of Unusual Objects in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Color System

We present 5 filter photometry of 21 carbon stars, 15 asteroids, 15 cataclysmic variables, 6 metal-poor stars, 5 Cepheids, 1775 field stars, blue horizontal branch (BHB) stars and RR Lyrae stars in the globular clusters M 15 and M 2, two primary standards, and 19 secondary standards. The photometry was carried out using a filter set identical to that which will be used for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that carbon stars, CVs, R-type, J-type, and V-type asteroids, BHB stars, and RR Lyr stars should be identifiable on the basis of SDSS photometry alone, while Cepheids, metal-poor stars, and many types of asteroids are indistinguishable from the stellar locus of field stars.Comment: 44 pages, 13 postscript figures. Accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, vol. 110, November 1998. Uses AAS Latex style file, version 4.