Does family structure affect children's educational outcomes?

In this paper we examine the effect of family structure on children’s educational outcomes by exploiting the sibling structure in the NLSY and NLSY-Child to control for unobserved heterogeneity across families and individuals. We also compare outcomes for children within the same family—stepchildren with their half-siblings in the same blended family who are the biological children of both parents. Using panel data methods to control for unobserved heterogeneity across families, we find that family structure effects are statistically insignificant. Finally, comparing half-siblings in our data, we find no difference in educational outcomes as a function of family structure. Our empirical results are consistent with at least two interpretations. First, they can be interpreted as evidence that estimates of family structure effects reflect selection rather than causation. Second, they can be interpreted as evidence that the presence of stepchildren disrupts families.Child care ; Demography ; Education ; Human capital

Taking a step back: an analysis of the unresolved core issue of constitutional validity in the campaign finance reform debate

Thesis Statement Congressional attempts to enact reform in the financing of political campaigns may unavoidably violate the First Amendment2 to the United States Constitution and its guarantees of freedom of speech and association. As a result, the core issue that must be resolved in the campaign finance reform debate is whether campaign finance reform is unavoidably unconstitutional. and opponents (anti-reformists)4 of campaign finance reform have been engaging in an extended ad hoc debate over reform measures without adequately confronting the critical core issue that continues to prevent key reform measures from being adopted: does the First Amendment prohibit campaign finance reform? Statement of the Problem The process used by the American nation to elect political leaders naturally lends itself to investigation by a political scientist. An investigation may be conducted on many different levels to gather both empirical data and normative insights into the vitality of the American elections process to determine whether it is democratic and egalitarian in nature. Traditionally, an enduring tenet of American political ideology has been the concept of an open, free and fair electoral process. This tenet is based upon a notion of equality, and those chosen to exercise political power and formulate public policy are theoretically selected by the citizenry at large in a process embodied by the traditional refrain of “one person, one vote”. Perhaps nowhere else in American society is the concept and ideal of equality given as much value as it is in the elections mechanism employed by this country. Presently, a great deal of debate is occurring in both academic and nonacademic circles as to whether the reality of the American electoral process is at odds with its traditional egalitarian ideology. Many scholars, politicians and individual citizens have concluded that the American electoral process is controlled by special interests, and that the wealthy have a pronounced edge when it comes to deciding who is to be elected to hold political office. As a result, reforming the process of campaign financing has become an enduring agenda item for political discussion. The attention of the general public, academics, politicians and all concerned with the American political elections process has made campaign finance reform an important topic to analyze

Social Climatology: An Age Comparison of Women\u27s Sustained Commitment to Collective Action Against Climate Change

Climate activists urgently emphasize action to prevent catastrophic and apocalyptic-like damage from climate change. The foundation of the institutional change needed to combat climate change is collective action, which I study here through a collective action frame. These frames can gain traction for policy agendas: they are solution- and action-oriented. I interviewed women climate activists to understand how they frame the problems from, causes of, and solutions to climate change, as well as how they urge others to act against climate change. I compared my informants based on age because beliefs, values, and lived experiences are important in how activists approach problems, and I expected that collective action frames would differ by generation. I conducted 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with ten activists who were 18 to 36 years old (younger cohort) and ten activists who were 55 years and older (older cohort). The cohorts disagreed on what were the greatest impacts of climate change. The younger cohort’s top concern was the social destabilization that will result from climate change, whereas the older cohort believed it was the exacerbation of inequalities. The cohorts also disagreed on the best ways to incite climate action. The younger cohort argued the best strategy was to find common ground with people while the older group believed the best strategy was to empower people. Both cohorts agreed that the root cause of climate change was the industrial revolution and the ideologies that it perpetuated. Both cohorts also agreed that the main solution for climate change would be an ideological revolution that must be achieved by reconnecting with others. I found that both cohorts agreed that solving climate change could happen only when we come together and not apart. Combatting climate change should be based on a collective understanding of the ways in which humans are inextricably interconnected

Academic Chemistry Inputs and Outcomes Data

The Academic Chemistry Inputs and Outcomes Data assembles panel data on academic chemistry inputs and outputs for 147 universities from 1989 through 2009. Each observation represents a single university-year and includes information on numbers of publications, citations to these publications, levels of federal and non-federal R&D funding, numbers of faculty, postdoctoral researchers, doctorates awarded and institutional characteristics. The data were compiled for the analysis of the determinants of university publication behavior and its relationship to research funding as reported in Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Donna K. Ginther, Ted Juhl and Joseph Heppert, "The Effects of Research & Development Funding on Scientific Productivity: Academic Chemistry, 1990-2009," Public Library of Science One, available in KU ScholarWorks at http://hdl.handle.net/1808/20057. As described in the Data Description and Code Book, these data were assembled by linking together information from a number of publicly available data sources and combining them with proprietary data on publications and citations provided by Thomson Reuters from their Web of Science database. These data are available to download as a text file (.csv) and as a STATA (.dta) data file. Anyone is free to use these data for scholarly purposes, but must include a citation to this user guide in any papers or published articles that employ these data

Standards and Infrastructure for Innovation Data Exchange

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original publication is available at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6104/196.Economic growth relies in part on efficient advancement and application of research and development (R&D) knowledge. This requires access to data about science, in particular R&D inputs and outputs such as grants, patents, publications, and data sets, to support an understanding of how R&D information is produced and what affects its availability. But there is a cacophony of R&D-related data across countries, disciplines, data providers, and sectors. Burdened with data that are inconsistently specified, researchers and policy-makers have few incentives or mechanisms to share or interlink cleaned data sets. Access to these data is limited by a patchwork of laws, regulations, and practices that are unevenly applied and interpreted (1). A Web-based infrastructure for data sharing and analysis could help. We describe administrative and technical demands and opportunities to meet them. Data exchange standards are a first step

Gender Issues Among Academic AMS Members: Comparisons with the 1993 Membership Survey

This is the publisher's version. It can also be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009BAMS2538.

Cosmic ray tests of the D0 preshower detector

The D0 preshower detector consists of scintillator strips with embedded wavelength-shifting fibers, and a readout using Visible Light Photon Counters. The response to minimum ionizing particles has been tested with cosmic ray muons. We report results on the gain calibration and light-yield distributions. The spatial resolution is investigated taking into account the light sharing between strips, the effects of multiple scattering and various systematic uncertainties. The detection efficiency and noise contamination are also investigated.Comment: 27 pages, 24 figures, submitted to NIM

Visible light photon counters optimization for quantum information applications

In this paper we describe the studies of the main parameters needed for optimal operation of Visible Light Photon Counters (VLPCs) when used in quantum information systems. The isolation of the single photon signal is analyzed through the definition of a contamination parameter. A compromise in the minimization of this parameter for temperature, bias voltage and dark count variation must be achieved and this depends on the experimental conditions

Mitochondrial echoes of first settlement and genetic continuity in El Salvador

Background: From Paleo-Indian times to recent historical episodes, the Mesoamerican isthmus played an important role in the distribution and patterns of variability all around the double American continent. However, the amount of genetic information currently available on Central American continental populations is very scarce. In order to shed light on the role of Mesoamerica in the peopling of the New World, the present study focuses on the analysis of the mtDNA variation in a population sample from El Salvador. Methodology/Principal Findings: We have carried out DNA sequencing of the entire control region of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genome in 90 individuals from El Salvador. We have also compiled more than 3,985 control region profiles from the public domain and the literature in order to carry out inter-population comparisons. The results reveal a predominant Native American component in this region: by far, the most prevalent mtDNA haplogroup in this country (at ~90%) is A2, in contrast with other North, Meso- and South American populations. Haplogroup A2 shows a star-like phylogeny and is very diverse with a substantial proportion of mtDNAs (45%; sequence range 16090–16365) still unobserved in other American populations. Two different Bayesian approaches used to estimate admixture proportions in El Salvador shows that the majority of the mtDNAs observed come from North America. A preliminary founder analysis indicates that the settlement of El Salvador occurred about 13,400±5,200 Y.B.P.. The founder age of A2 in El Salvador is close to the overall age of A2 in America, which suggests that the colonization of this region occurred within a few thousand years of the initial expansion into the Americas. Conclusions/Significance: As a whole, the results are compatible with the hypothesis that today's A2 variability in El Salvador represents to a large extent the indigenous component of the region. Concordant with this hypothesis is also the observation of a very limited contribution from European and African women (~5%). This implies that the Atlantic slave trade had a very small demographic impact in El Salvador in contrast to its transformation of the gene pool in neighbouring populations from the Caribbean facade