Review of script displays of African languages by current software

All recorded African languages that have a writing system have orthographies which use the Roman or Arabic scripts, with a few exceptions. Whilst Unicode successfully handles the encoding of both these scripts, current software, in particular web browsers, take little account of users wishing to operate in a minority script. Their use for displaying African languages has been limited by the availability of facilities and the desire to communicate with the ‘world’ through major languages such as English and French. There is a need for more use of the indigenous languages to strengthen their language communities and the use of the local scripts in enhancing the learning, teaching and general use of their own languages by their speaking communities

Minding the Gaps in Absenteeism: Disparities in Absenteeism by Race/Ethnicity, Poverty and Disability

Children from certain racial and ethnic minority backgrounds, in poverty, and/or with a disability, often face distinct challenges in attending school, leading them to miss more school relative to their non-minority, more socio-economically advantaged and non-disabled peers. This brief describes these disparities in absenteeism in the US, discusses the challenge of explaining these disparities, and considers the implications that disparities have for addressing absenteeism. Finally, it closes with advice on how schools can make headway in reducing disparities in absenteeism. As this brief argues, while schools can readily document absenteeism gaps, diagnosing the root causes of these gaps remains much more elusive. Further, schools seeking to reduce disparities in absenteeism will not only need to intentionally establish explicit targets to reduce such gaps, but they will need to develop individualized strategies to remove barriers to attendance thereby getting children—especially those facing disproportionate challenges—back into the classroom

Heinrich Zille and the politics of caricature in Germany 1903-1929

Apparently, at Heinrich Zille’s funeral in Berlin in 1929 the respective delegates from the socialist town council and the communist party entered into a violent public dispute over his artistic legacy. At the time of his death Zille was a legendary figure. He was so well known and loved in the city that each side of the warring left had an interest in appropriating his work and reputation. And the work was sufficiently open to allow them to do so. Indeed, in 1933 one of his main critical champions, the sociological journalist Hans Ostwald, attempted to defend it from censorship on the grounds that Zille had ‘exposed in order to help all his compatriots towards a better life. Unconsciously, he prepared the way for the national socialist movement and the new Germany’. This essay examines the character of Zille’s published representations of Berlin life, particularly in the pre-war years, in the light of both its enormous popularity and its political ambivalence, which were, of course, not unconnected

On the weights of mod pp Hilbert modular forms

We prove many cases of a conjecture of Buzzard, Diamond and Jarvis on the possible weights of mod $p$ Hilbert modular forms, by making use of modularity lifting theorems and computations in $p$-adic Hodge theory.Comment: 34 pages. Essentially final version, to appear in Inventiones mathematicae. This version does not incorporate any minor changes (e.g. typographical changes) made in proo

Risky Choice and Type-Uncertainty in 'Deal or No Deal?'

This paper uses data from the popular television game-show, "Deal or No Deal?", to analyse the way individuals make choices under risk. In a unique approach to the problem, I present a formal game-theoretical model of the show in which both the contestant and the banker are modelled as strategic players. I use standard techniques to form hypotheses of how rational expected utility-maximisers would behave as players in the game and I test these hypotheses with the relevant choice data. The main result is that an increasing offer function is the result of optimal behaviour when the banker is uncertain about the contestant’s risk attitudes. This result provides a theoretical foundation to the empirical model of the banker that pervades the literature. Estimates of the coefficient of relative risk aversion are consistent with estimates from other studies and estimates of the discernment parameter suggest contestants have difficulty making choices