Visualising variation in mortality rates across the life course and by sex, USA and comparator states, 1933–2010

Background Previous research showed that younger adult males in the USA have, since the 1950s, died at a faster rate than females of the same age. In this paper, we quantify this difference, and explore possible explanations for the differences at different ages and in different years. Methods Using data from the Human Mortality Database (HMD), the number of additional male deaths per 10 000 female deaths was calculated for each year from 1933 to 2010, and for each year of age from 0 to 60 years, for the USA, and a number of other countries for comparison. The data were explored visually using shaded contour plots. Results Gender differences in excess mortality have increased. Coming of age (between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age) is especially perilous for men relative to women now compared with the past in the USA; the visualisations highlight this change as important. Conclusions Sex differences in mortality risks at various ages are not static. While women may today have an advantage when it comes to life expectancy, in the USA, this has greatly increased since the 1930s. Just as young adulthood for women has been made safer through safer antenatal and childbirth practices, changes in public policy can make the social environment safer for men

A Taylor rule and the Greenspan era

Federal funds rate ; Inflation (Finance) ; Interest rates

In the shadow of cathedrals : conflict between the shadow culture of marginal groups and the cathedral culture of established christian groups and an exploration of ways to overcome boundaries between the two cultures

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1740/thumbnail.jp

Creating a Model for a Career Planning and Placement Center at Kaskaskia College

Statement of Purpose The primary purpose of this field study was to create a model in the form of a comprehensive career planning and placement program for those individuals served by Kaskaskia Community College, District No. 501. Besides students cur rently enrolled, those who are temporary dropouts and return, early semester leavers, adults in the community and other individuals who could benefit from such services will be encouraged to make use of the facilities and personnel available. While there has always been some type of placement activities taking place in the public schools in·the past, for the most part they have not been directed toward the vocational or the community college student. Today educators are realizing that a more comprehensive school-based placement service is needed. Such a service would not curtail what is currently being done, but would provide service for the total student body and would involve the administrators, counselors, teachers, students, parents, and employers. Some educators have even gone so for as to state that a comprehensive placement center at the community college level would help to decrease the national and state unemployment rate by seeking part-time employment for needy students as well as for graduates in the area for which they were trained or in a related area. The territory to be served demonstrated an unemployment rate of eleven percent as late as August, 1983, according to U. S. Department of Labor Statistics. It is expected to remain at that level. Several small industries are expanding but even more are abandoning the area. Much employment has revolved around the railroad industry. That facet has become almost non-existent. Youth unemployment, specifically, has been extremely high. The most recent percentage is thirteen and eight-tenths. These figures are specifically higher than the national average. Thus, the study was deemed necessary, relevant, and appropriate. Procedure Because the researcher is a vocational counselor for Kaskaskia College, District No. 501, he has used the needs of his area for developing a model to help alleviate the unemployment of college-aged youth, former students, and other people in the community who avail themselves of this service. It can be adapted as a reference or guide for other geographical areas. Chapter I introduces the problem and explains its importance, defining the terms necessary for understanding and creating a career planning and placement center. The objective of adequate employment, backed by a community college with comprehensive career planning and a workable placement center, is realized. Chapter II overviews the literature. Laws, previous studies and governmental and industrial statistics have been considered. Current findings are vital to this project. Chapter III includes the initiation of a career center for planning and placement. Data have been collected and evaluated. A model was designed from the research. A guide has been created, accompanied by the writer\u27s findings in three separate works: Directory of the Career Planning Center; Career Placement Handbook for Kaskaskia College; and Credentials for Career Placement. A brief review, summary, and recommendations conclude the paper in Chapter IV

An extended abstract: A heuristic repair method for constraint-satisfaction and scheduling problems

The work described in this paper was inspired by a surprisingly effective neural network developed for scheduling astronomical observations on the Hubble Space Telescope. Our heuristic constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) method was distilled from an analysis of the network. In the process of carrying out the analysis, we discovered that the effectiveness of the network has little to do with its connectionist implementation. Furthermore, the ideas employed in the network can be implemented very efficiently within a symbolic CSP framework. The symbolic implementation is extremely simple. It also has the advantage that several different search strategies can be employed, although we have found that hill-climbing methods are particularly well-suited for the applications that we have investigated. We begin the paper with a brief review of the neural network. Following this, we describe our symbolic method for heuristic repair

The min-conflicts heuristic: Experimental and theoretical results

This paper describes a simple heuristic method for solving large-scale constraint satisfaction and scheduling problems. Given an initial assignment for the variables in a problem, the method operates by searching through the space of possible repairs. The search is guided by an ordering heuristic, the min-conflicts heuristic, that attempts to minimize the number of constraint violations after each step. We demonstrate empirically that the method performs orders of magnitude better than traditional backtracking techniques on certain standard problems. For example, the one million queens problem can be solved rapidly using our approach. We also describe practical scheduling applications where the method has been successfully applied. A theoretical analysis is presented to explain why the method works so well on certain types of problems and to predict when it is likely to be most effective

The evolution of city population density in the United States

Population

On the Estimation of Parameters when the Observations are Subject to Measurement Error

Maximum likelihood estimation of parameters is considered in the situation where a measurement x is taken to mean x + d. The maximum likelihood estimator for the parameter of the exponential distribution is found for this case and compared with the usual estimator

Prejudice and effective anti-bullying intervention: Evidence from the bullying of "minorities"

The tradition of research into school bullying, and the development of anti-bullying intervention programmes in Norway, has had a significant influence upon similar efforts being made in other countries. However, recent evaluations of the effectiveness of school-based anti-bullying interventions have revealed mixed and most often modest levels of success. This in turn has led to suggestions being made in Norway that rather than to continue support for a direct approach to the issue of school bullying, making improvements in the "learning environment" should be prioritized; however, it is argued here that there is, as yet, no body of direct evidence to directly confirm that position. Instead, it is contended that research into school bullying has been limited to the conceptualization of bullying as being purely a sub-set of aggression, and that anti-bullying intervention has been, consequently, focused largely on purely behaviour management solutions. From recent studies on specific forms of bullying of minority groups (lesbian, gay and bisexual young people, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities or special educational needs and members of alternative sub-cultures), it appears that prejudice is at least influential on specific patterns of bullying behaviour, but has not received sufficient attention in either the conceptualization of bullying or the design of programmes to prevent and counter it. Hence, rather than scaling down direct anti-bullying intervention efforts, it is suggested that subsequent research and programme design could be re-focused in order to give a greater consideration to prejudice as an underlying factor. © 2014 The Editors of Nordic Psychology