Trends in Education Philanthropy: Benchmarking 2018-19

Grantmakers for Education's 10th anniversary edition of Trends in Education Philanthropy: Benchmarking 2018-19 offers insights on the current and evolving priorities of the education funding community. This new report identifies significant and profound shifts in education investments toward social and emotional learning and postsecondary and early education, and away from the core K-12 reforms that have largely defined the last decade of policymaking, as well as other relevant findings

Approaching the Intersection: Will a Global Pandemic and National Movement for Racial Justice Take Philanthropy Beyond Its Silos?

How is the philanthropic sector responding to the interconnected inequities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic and the national movement against policy brutality and racism? Is this time of acute social upheaval leading funders to reevaluate their generally siloed approaches and consider what it will take to address today's challenges in transformational ways? Approaching the Intersection: Will a Global Pandemic and National Movement for Racial Justice Take Philanthropy Beyond Its Silos? explores these questions through conversations with place-based funders and national philanthropy-serving organization (PSO) leaders. It presents a snapshot of a sector that appears receptive to new ways of working, has access to approaches that suggest promise for making transformational change, but is moving cautiously and at times hesitantly toward undertaking the types of fundamental institutional realignment that will enable approaches with the greatest promise for delivering systemic equity and justice

Cognitive correlates of adjustment for mothers and stepfathers in stepfather families

Abstract: This study relates three types of cognitions--ambiguity of the stepfather role, an optimistic perspective on stepfamilies, and myths about stepfamilies--to two areas of satisfaction, namely, (step)parent-child relationships and family/ marital/personal life. Subjects were 27 mothers and 27 stepfathers who were married to each other about three years. Compared to stepfathers, mothers had a more optimistic perspective on stepfamilies, were less likely to endorse myths regarding step families, and reported greater satisfaction with (step)parent-child relationships. Generally, cognitions were related to family/marital/ personal life satisfaction for mothers and to satisfaction with stepparent-child relationships for fathers. stepfamilies | parenting | parent-child relationships | domestic relations | stepfathers | Keywords: stepmothers Article: This study relates three types of cognitions--ambiguity of the stepfather role, an optimistic perspective on stepfamilies, and myths about stepfamilies--to two areas of satisfaction, namely, (step)parent-child relationships and family/ marital/ personal life. Subjects were 27 mothers and 27 stepfathers who were married to each other about three years. Compared to stepfathers, mothers had a more optimistic perspective on stepfamilies, were less likely to endorse myths regarding stepfamilies, and reported greater satisfaction with (step)parent-child relationships. Generally, cognitions were related to family/ marital/ personal life satisfaction for mothers and to satisfaction with stepparent-child relationships for fathers. Because divorce rates for persons remarried after a divorce are somewhat higher than those of persons married for the first time The focus of this study is on cognitions (e.g., perceptions, assumptions, beliefs, and explanations) specific to stepfather families and the relation between these cognitions and the satisfaction with life in a stepfamily for both spouses in stepfather families. Not only have cognitions been found to be related to individual adjustment (e.g., Beck, Rush, Shaw, and Emery, 1979), but they have also been linked to the development and maintenance of marital satisfaction (e.g., Kurdek, 1991). Two related theories underscore the importance of cognitions in mediating satisfaction. The first theory has an intrapersonal focus and posits that dysfunctional emotional and behavioral responses are related to appraisals of life events that are invalid or are based on unreasonable standards The second theory has an interpersonal focus and posits that cognitions are a critical component in the sequential flow of behavioral interactions. In their contextual model of marriage, Given the general importance of cognitions for satisfaction as discussed above, three kinds of cognitions specific to stepfather families are of interest in this study. These include perceptions of the ambiguity of the stepfather role, an optimistic perspective on life in a stepfather family, and myths regarding the functioning of stepfather families. Although the importance of these particular cognitions has been emphasized in the clinical stepfamily literature (e.g., Ambiguity regarding the stepfather role is of interest because it has been described as the core difficulty encountered by most stepfather families (Fine and Schwebel, in press; Giles-Sims, 1987). According to literature in the field of organizational psychology, role ambiguity includes uncertainty about the scope of one's responsibilities, uncertainty about the particular behaviors needed to fulfill one's responsibilities, uncertainty about whose expectations for role behavior must be met, and uncertainty about the effects of one's actions on the well-being of oneself and of others An optimistic perspective on stepfamily living is of interest because such a general outlook might act as a buffer against some of the stresses experienced in stepfamilies Finally, myths regarding stepfamily living are of interest in light of general findings and clinical observations that dysfunctional beliefs are negatively related to adjustment Because previous studies have found that persons in first marriages and remarriages differ in their evaluations of some aspects of their lives (e.g., family relationships) but not in others (e.g., marital interactions) Given limited information on cognitions and satisfaction in stepfather families, the first purpose of this study is to assess differences between mothers and stepfathers on cognitions and satisfaction. Differences on these variables are of interest for two reasons. First, because there is consistent evidence of gender specialization in families in the areas of marriage, family life, and parenthood The second purpose of this study is to assess the relation between cognition and satisfaction. Care was taken so that the content of the cognition measures did not overlap with that of the satisfaction measures (cf. METHOD Subjects Subjects were obtained from participants in an ongoing longitudinal study of relationship quality in newlyweds who were recruited from lists of marriage licenses published in a local newspaper (see All respondents were white. Mean ages for mothers and stepfathers were 34.74 and 36.88, respectively. On the average, both spouses had some college. Eighty-four percent of the mothers and 96% of the fathers were working. On the average, mothers earned between $15,000 to$19,999, while stepfathers earned between $25,000 and$29,999. Spouses had lived together a mean of 42.85 months and had been married a mean of 37.44 months. Twenty-one of the couples were stepfather only families, 5 were couples in which mothers' children resided with a child born to the couple, and I included both a stepmother and a stepfather. [1] There was a total of 42 stepchildren (22 boys, 20 girls), with a mean age of 12.11 years. All stepchildren lived with their mother and stepfather on a full-time basis. With regard to marital history, 8 stepfathers were married for the first time, 14 had been divorced once, and 5 were divorced more than once. Twenty-one mothers were divorced once, and 6 were divorced more than once. Background Informatio

Research in the Restricted Problems of Three and Four Bodies Final Scientific Report

Seven studies have been conducted on research in the existence and nature of solutions of the restricted problems of three and four bodies. The details and results of five of these research investigations have already been published, and the latest two studies will be published shortly. A complete bibliography of publications is included in this report. This research has been primarily qualitative and has yielded new information on the behavior of trajectories near the libration points in the Earth-Moon-Sun and Sun-Jupiter-Saturn systems, and on the existence of periodic trajectories about the libration points of the circular and elliptical restricted four-body models. We have also implemented Birkhoff's normalization process for conservative and nonconservative Hamiltonian systems with equilibrium points. This makes available a technique for analyzing stability properties of certain nonlinear dynamical systems, and we have applied this technique to the circular and elliptical restricted three-body models. A related study was also conducted to determine the feasibility of using cislunar periodic trajectories for various space missions. Preliminary results suggest that this concept is attractive for space flight safety operations in cislunar space. Results of this research will be of interest to mathematicians, particularly those working in ordinary differential equations, dynamical systems and celestial mechanics; to astronomers; and to space guidance and mission analysts

Monte-Carlo sampling of energy-constrained quantum superpositions in high-dimensional Hilbert spaces

Recent studies into the properties of quantum statistical ensembles in high-dimensional Hilbert spaces have encountered difficulties associated with the Monte-Carlo sampling of quantum superpositions constrained by the energy expectation value. A straightforward Monte-Carlo routine would enclose the energy constrained manifold within a larger manifold, which is easy to sample, for example, a hypercube. The efficiency of such a sampling routine decreases exponentially with the increase of the dimension of the Hilbert space, because the volume of the enclosing manifold becomes exponentially larger than the volume of the manifold of interest. The present paper explores the ways to optimise the above routine by varying the shapes of the manifolds enclosing the energy-constrained manifold. The resulting improvement in the sampling efficiency is about a factor of five for a 14-dimensional Hilbert space. The advantage of the above algorithm is that it does not compromise on the rigorous statistical nature of the sampling outcome and hence can be used to test other more sophisticated Monte-Carlo routines. The present attempts to optimise the enclosing manifolds also bring insights into the geometrical properties of the energy constrained manifold itself.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in European Physical Journal

Is my joke protected by copyright? : an analysis of joke theft and copyright in stand-up comedy

This Thesis Paper is submitted in support of the MFA Thesis Project Killing Gerry, a web series that examines potential copyright infringement in stand-up comedy and artistic creations as a whole. The web series uses copyright protected works under the fair dealing and UGC protections offered by the Copyright Act as a means to illuminate potential limitations of or ambiguities within the Act's copyright protections.Often, existing artistic works are used in part by other creators as a means to create new artistic work. Copyright law attempts to strike a balance between the rights of the user and the protections of the copyright owner. In Canada, there is some ambiguity in copyright law as it pertains to performance-based art forms such as stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy creations may be protected as literary or as this paper argues, dramatic works. A performer’s performance of comedic work is also protected, but comedians still may not be adequately protected by copyright law. The web series Killing Gerry coupled with this support paper, seeks to examine a specific example of an alleged infringement on copyright to illuminate limitations of the law for stand-up comedians

Health Care Charges Associated With Physical Inactivity, Overweight, and Obesity

INTRODUCTION: Physical inactivity, overweight, and obesity are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study was to estimate the proportion of total health care charges associated with physical inactivity, overweight, and obesity among U.S. populations aged 40 years and older. METHODS: A predictive model of health care charges was developed using data from a cohort of 8000 health plan members aged 40 and older. Model cells were defined by physical activity status, body mass index, age, sex, smoking status, and selected chronic diseases. Total health care charges were estimated by multiplying the percentage of the population in each cell by the predicted charges per cell. Counterfactual estimates were computed by reclassifying all individuals as physically active and of normal weight while leaving other characteristics unchanged. Charges associated with physical inactivity, overweight, and obesity were computed as the difference between current risk profile total charges and counterfactual total charges. National population percentage estimates were derived from the National Health Interview Survey; those estimates were multiplied by the predicted charges per cell from the health plan analysis. RESULTS: Physical inactivity, overweight, and obesity were associated with 23% (95% confidence interval [CI], 10%–34%) of health plan health care charges and 27% (95% CI, 10%–37%) of national health care charges. Although charges associated with these risk factors were highest for the oldest group (aged 65 years and older) and for individuals with chronic conditions, nearly half of aggregate charges were generated from the group aged 40 to 64 years without chronic disease. CONCLUSION: Charges associated with physical inactivity, overweight, and obesity constitute a significant portion of total medical expenditures. The results underscore the importance of addressing these risk factors in all segments of the population

Accessibility-based reranking in multimedia search engines

Traditional multimedia search engines retrieve results based mostly on the query submitted by the user, or using a log of previous searches to provide personalized results, while not considering the accessibility of the results for users with vision or other types of impairments. In this paper, a novel approach is presented which incorporates the accessibility of images for users with various vision impairments, such as color blindness, cataract and glaucoma, in order to rerank the results of an image search engine. The accessibility of individual images is measured through the use of vision simulation filters. Multi-objective optimization techniques utilizing the image accessibility scores are used to handle users with multiple vision impairments, while the impairment profile of a specific user is used to select one from the Pareto-optimal solutions. The proposed approach has been tested with two image datasets, using both simulated and real impaired users, and the results verify its applicability. Although the proposed method has been used for vision accessibility-based reranking, it can also be extended for other types of personalization context

Type 1 low z AGN. I. Emission properties

We analyze the emission properties of a new sample of 3,579 type 1 AGN, selected from the SDSS DR7 based on the detection of broad H-alpha emission. The sample extends over a broad H-alpha luminosity L_bHa of 10^40 - 10^44 erg s^-1 and a broad H-alpha FWHM of 1,000 - 25,000 km s^-1, which covers the range of black hole mass 10^6<M_BH/M_Sun<10^9.5 and luminosity in Eddington units 10^-3 < L/L_Edd < 1. We combine ROSAT, GALEX and 2MASS observations to form the SED from 2.2 mic to 2 keV. We find the following: 1. The distribution of the H-alpha FWHM values is independent of luminosity. 2. The observed mean optical-UV SED is well matched by a fixed shape SED of luminous quasars, which scales linearly with L_bHa, and a host galaxy contribution. 3. The host galaxy r-band (fibre) luminosity function follows well the luminosity function of inactive non-emission line galaxies (NEG), consistent with a fixed fraction of ~3% of NEG hosting an AGN, regardless of the host luminosity. 4. The hosts of lower luminosity AGN have a mean z band luminosity and u-z colour which are identical to NEG with the same redshift distribution. With increasing L_bHa the AGN hosts become bluer and less luminous than NEG. The implied increasing star formation rate with L_bHa is consistent with the relation for SDSS type 2 AGN of similar bolometric luminosity. 5. The optical-UV SED of the more luminous AGN shows a small dispersion, consistent with dust reddening of a blue SED, as expected for thermal thin accretion disc emission. 6. There is a rather tight relation of nuL_nu(2 keV) and L_bHa, which provides a useful probe for unobscured (true) type 2 AGN. 7. The primary parameter which drives the X-ray to UV emission ratio is the luminosity, rather than M_BH or L/L_Edd.Comment: 33 pages, 23 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS; complete versions of tables 1 and B1 can be found at http://physics.technion.ac.il/~stern/PaperData/Type1AGN1