Outreach Education: Making Neuroscience Readily Available for Rural Students and Communities of Alaska

WHAT is neuroscience? Neuroscience is the scientific study of the structure or function of the nervous system and brain. To get a grasp on the vast study of neuroscience, first think of the human body and how complex it is. Think of the skeletal system and the muscular, nervous, digestive and respiratory systems that make up the human body and keep it running in tip top shape. Now think of the brain, a singular organ of soft nervous tissue that one-handedly controls all of those other systems, including both mental and physical actions. Sounds a bit daunting doesn’t it

Política de educação e discurso político: The American Federation for Children redes

This article presents findings from an analysis of the AFC policy network using tools from network ethnography and qualitative content analysis. Specifically, we examined tax forms and carried out extensive web searches to spatialize and map the AFC network, mined text from policy-actors in the AFC network, and analyzed the policy discourse promoted by these network actors to achieve their political goals. The task for this study was to use AFC as a heuristic device to explore the complexity of the education policy field and to understand how network policy-actors work to achieve their policy goals through advocacy and marketing. Findings from the study indicate that the AFC network demonstrates a hierarchical ordering, this hierarchical ordering is reflective of the elite planning and social engineering associated with neoliberal reforms, and that the policy-actors in the AFC network employ discursive strategies to frame an elite political project to advance school choice policies as an anti-elite movement oriented toward political empowerment and educational justice.Este artículo presenta los resultados de un análisis de la red política American Federation for Children Network (AFC) utilizando herramientas de red de la etnografía y análisis de contenido cualitativo. En concreto, examinamos formularios de impuestos y realizó extensas investigaciones en la web para espacializar y asignar la red AFC, texto extraído de políticos-actores en la red AFC, y analizados por el discurso político Promovido Estos actores de la red para alcanzar sus objetivos políticos. La tarea para este estudio fue utilizar el AFC como un dispositivo heurístico para explorar la complejidad de la política educativa y entender cómo los actores de política de red trabajan para alcanzar sus objetivos de política a través de la defensa y el marketing. Las conclusiones del estudio indican que la red AFC demuestra una ordenación jerárquica, esta ordenación jerárquica es el reflejo de la planificación de la elite y la ingeniería social asociadas a las reformas neoliberales, y que la política-actores al servicio de la red estrategias discursivas AFC para encuadrar un proyecto político élite para hacer avanzar las políticas de elección de la escuela como un movimiento político anti-elite orientado hacia la capacitación y la justicia educativa.Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma análise da rede política American Federation for Children Network (AFC) utilizando ferramentas de rede da etnografia e análise de conteúdo qualitativa. Especificamente, nós examinamos formulários de impostos e realizou extensas pesquisas na web para espacializar e mapear a rede AFC, texto extraído de políticos-atores na rede AFC, e analisados pelo discurso político Promovido Estes atores da rede para atingir seus objetivos políticos. A tarefa para este estudo foi usar o AFC como um dispositivo heurístico para explorar a complexidade da política educacional e entender como os atores de política de rede trabalham para alcançar seus objetivos de política por meio de advocacy e marketing. Conclusões do estudo indicam que a rede AFC Demonstra uma ordenação hierárquica, esta ordenação hierárquica é o reflexo do planejamento elite e engenharia social associados às reformas neoliberais, e que a política-atores a serviço da rede estratégias discursivas AFC para enquadrar um projeto político elite para fazer avançar as políticas de escolha da escola como um movimento político anti-elite voltada para a capacitação e justiça educacional

Risk Evaluation for Permafrost-Related Threats:Methods of Risk Estimation and Sources of Information

In our evaluation of permafrost-related threats that affect Alaska communities, we have focused on threats associated with permafrost degradation and thawing ground ice, which can result in significant thaw settlement and cause unacceptable damage to engineered structures. Our evaluation system for permafrost-related threats includes risks of general permafrost degradation and thaw settlement (general and differential). We have evaluated permafrost-related threats for 187 Alaska villages based on available information including scientific publications, maps, satellite imagery and aerial photographs, geotechnical reports, personal communication, community plans and reports, and other sources. Evaluation was based on five criteria: permafrost (PF) occurrence; PF temperature; thaw susceptibility of frozen soils (expected thaw settlement in case of permafrost degradation); massive ice occurrence; and existing PF-related problems. For each of these categories, four risk levels (ranks) were considered. The total (cumulative) risk level was based on the rating score (sum of individual ranks for all five categories). Based on the rating score, each village was assigned one of four risk levels: 0 – no permafrost; 5–8 – low risk level; 9–11 – medium risk level; 12–15 – high risk level. A vulnerability score was developed for each community allowing the identification of communities with the highest risk of damage due to thawing permafrost. Most of communities with the high-risk level (22 villages of 34) are underlain by continuous permafrost, while the low risk level is typical mainly of communities underlain by predominantly unfrozen soils/bedrocks (33 villages of 46), and no high risk levels were detected for this group of villages. Medium risk level is typical mainly of communities underlain by discontinuous and sporadic permafrost (35 villages of 47); some villages of this group are characterized by high and low risk levels (12 and 9, correspondingly). Occurrence of massive-ice bodies (mostly ice wedges) is typical exclusively of communities underlain by continuous and discontinuous permafrost (23 and 20 villages, correspondingly). We presume that at least 20 communities may have extremely ice-rich yedoma deposits with large ice wedges either within villages or in their vicinity. Permafrost conditions in Alaskan communities are very diverse, and in many cases they are extremely variable even within the same community. Detailed studies are required for more precise evaluation of potential permafrost-related threats associated with permafrost degradation and/or thawing of ground ice.The Denali Commissio

East meets west: when the Islamic and Gregorian calendars coincide

Recent research has documented that at the time of religious celebrations in Muslim countries, such as Ramadan, there is a “festival” effect in share returns. In the Gregorian calendar, December is also a time of celebration and festivities which may be associated with patterns in the behaviour of security prices. Further, the first month of the year in the Islamic calendar, Muharram, is a time of sadness and mourning for some believers, and there may be an effect when the Islamic first month of the year overlaps with the first month of the Gregorian year - January. Over a 33-year cycle, each Islamic month falls in a Gregorian month for about 5–6 consecutive years; when this happens, an Islamic (Eastern) calendar effect may interact with a Gregorian (Western) calendar effect. The current paper addresses this issue by examining the behaviour of share returns and volatility for individual companies listed in Muslim countries’ stock exchanges when the two calendars coincide for: (i) religious festival effects; (ii) first-month-of-the-year effects; and (iii) the two most common effects reported in the Islamic and Gregorian calendars (Ramadan and January). The results show that the Western and Eastern effects interact more prominently in larger companies and in larger or more developed markets

A network approach to public goods

Abstract We study settings where each agent can exert costly effort that creates nonrival, heterogeneous benefits for some of the others. For example, municipalities can forgo consumption to reduce pollution. How do the prospects for efficient cooperation depend on asymmetries in the effects of players' actions? We approach this question by analyzing a network that describes the marginal benefits agents can confer on one another. The first set of results explains how the largest eigenvalue of this network measures the marginal gains available from cooperating; as an application, we describe the players whose participation is essential to achieving any Pareto improvement on an inefficient status quo. Next, we examine mechanisms all of whose equilibria are Pareto efficient and individually rational; an outcome is called robust if it is an equilibrium outcome in every such mechanism. Robust outcomes exist and correspond to the Lindahl public goods solutions. The main result is a characterization of effort levels at these outcomes in terms of players' centralities in the benefits network. It entails that an outcome is robust if and only if agents contribute in proportion to how much they value the efforts of those who help them

A Service of zbw Consumer Learning about Established Firms: Evidence from Automobile Insurance

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Abstract Most research on experience goods embodies the notion that, while direct product experience is required to learn about new goods, information is more complete for established products. This view is supported, at least in part, by three premises -that learning from direct product experiences occurs rapidly; that a consumer's preference for a given firm increases with information (so that firms have strong incentives to disseminate information), and that consumer purchase choices react strongly to that information. However, officials in many industries question these views -arguing that limited consumer information impacts demand even for wellestablished products, that learning from direct experiences can be quite slow, that consumers are often initially optimistic and then disappointed by experiences, and that by the time consumers learn they may be too "locked-in" to react. Unfortunately the empirical measurement required to settle these issues is nearly impossible in the standard, non-durable product markets generally studied -if consumers learn each time they purchase a product, it is quite difficult to separate learning from other sources of state dependence in demand. Markets for continuously provided services, such as credit cards, telephony, or insurance, are potentially much better venues for such measurement, because consumers learn about service quality at distinct interactions with firms. Unfortunately, the occurrence of these interactions tends to be either endogenous or unobservable. This paper overcomes these problems by considering automobile insurance, where consumers learn about service quality each time they have a claim, and the occurrence of claims is completely distinct from a consumer's satisfaction with her firm and fully observable from company records. Using a panel of 18,595 consumers from one well-established auto insurance company, the paper estimates a structural model of consumers' departure decisions with an imbedded Bayesian learning model. Among the key findings are: patterns of consumer departures by age and claims experience strongly suggest the importance of consumer learning at a longstanding firm; consumers enter the firm optimistic about its quality and are generally disappointed by experiences; and the impact of learning is greatly mitigated by the slow arrival of claims and the accrual of consumer lock-in over tenure with one firm