The Effect of Mandated State Education Spending on Total Local Resources

Many states are under court-order to reduce local disparities in education spending. While a substantial body of literature suggests that these orders and the resulting school finance equalizations have increased the level and progressivity of state education spending, there is little evidence on the broader effects of such measures on the change in total resources available not only for schools, but for other local government programs as well. When states spend more on education, both state and local budget constraints change. We find that while mandated school finance equalizations increase both the level and progressivity of state spending on education, states finance the required increase in education spending in part by reducing their aid to localities for other programs. Local governments, in turn, respond to the increases in state taxation and spending by reducing both their own revenue-raising and their own spending on education and on other programs. Thus, while state education aid does increase total spending on education, it does so at the expense of drawing resources away from spending on programs like public welfare, highways, and hospitals. These findings provide insight into the effectiveness of using earmarked funds to achieve redistribution.

The Effect of Mandated State Education Spending on Total Local Resources (new title: The effect of state education finance reform on total local resources)

Many states are under court-order to reduce local disparities in education spending. While a substantial body of literature suggests that these orders and the resulting school finance equalizations have increased the level and progressivity of state education spending, there is little evidence on the broader effects of such measures on the change in total resources available not only for schools, but for other local government programs as well. When states spend more on education, both state and local budget constraints change. We find that while mandated school finance equalizations increase both the level and progressivity of state spending on education, states finance the required increase in education spending in part by reducing their aid to localities for other programs. Local governments, in turn, respond to the increases in state taxation and spending by reducing both their own revenue-raising and their own spending on education and on other programs. Thus, while state education aid does increase total spending on education, it does so at the expense of drawing resources away from spending on programs like public welfare, highways, and hospitals. These findings provide insight into the effectiveness of using earmarked funds to achieve redistribution.school finance equalization, state and local public finance

A study of reversal tendencies in a visual memory test, and an analysis of the correlation and intercorrelation between visual memory, school achievement, and I.Q.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

AGRI-ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE EUROPEAN UNION

Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Synthesis and Phase Identification of Lithium Gallium Oxide Compositions for Scintillator Applications

Investigation into new scintillation materials can be time consuming and costly; however, creating sintered pellets as a screening method can be a time- and cost-efficient alternative. In this study, pellets of three different cerium doped lithium gallium oxide compounds were synthesized. Compositions of LiGaO2:Ce, Li5GaO4:Ce, and LiGa5O8:Ce were created from combining Li2CO3, Ga2O3 and CeO2 at different stoichiometric ratios, assuming the CO2 produced would burn off, and aiming to use 0.5% cerium by weight. These mixtures were made into pellets and sintered. The sintering temperatures of LiGaO2 and LiGa5O8 used were based on the principle of being 2/3 the melting temperatures. The sintering temperatures used for LiGaO2 and LiGa5O8 were 1100ºC and 987ºC, respectively. The sintering of Li5GaO4 was investigated at 1100ºC, 800ºC, and 500ºC. The only temperature tested that did not melt the Li5GaO4 pellets was 500ºC. X-ray diffraction and phase identification were used to find the given phase of each compound. The phase of LiGaO2 has shown to be the right phase, while LiGa5O8 had an abundance of Ga2O3 and LiGa5O8, and Li5GaO4 showed an excess of LiGaO2. Radioluminescence was used to determine the emission wavelength of these compounds, providing the importance of sintering pellets more than once with the LiGa5O8 data

Revisiting Hume’s Sceptical Crisis: an Essay on the Imagination, Ideas and Belief in Hume’s Treatise

Hume began his Treatise with the bold intention to turn philosophy into a ‘science of man’. In the conclusion to Book One, however, Hume’s confidence is replaced with intense despair over the unreliability of this human science. Rather quickly, however, Hume rejects this despair, accepting that such scepticism is unwarranted and can be cured by reference to our natural associative tendencies. Many have suggested that Hume emerged from this crisis because he changed his feelings about the matter, with little justification. In this thesis, by contrast, I argue that Hume’s jump from pessimism to optimism relies upon his arguments about the ‘empire of imagination’ in the creation of our ideas and beliefs about the experienced world. The key, as I will show, is how one interprets the creative imagination, which Hume refers to as the fancy. My central hypothesis is that there are two distinct roles played by the fancy: the critical and the fictitious. The critical fancy mixes with natural causation to create ideas that represent the world as we experience it. The fictitious fancy creates ideas that do not represent the world as we experience it. In essence, my argument is that the dialectic between the two types of fancy allowed Hume to emerge from his sceptical crisis because our fundamental beliefs about the world have a basis in a particular natural function of the imagination that renders their formation possible. More specifically, the critical fancy serves to justify our beliefs about the world as we experience it

Revisiting Hume’s Sceptical Crisis: an Essay on the Imagination, Ideas and Belief in Hume’s Treatise

Hume began his Treatise with the bold intention to turn philosophy into a ‘science of man’. In the conclusion to Book One, however, Hume’s confidence is replaced with intense despair over the unreliability of this human science. Rather quickly, however, Hume rejects this despair, accepting that such scepticism is unwarranted and can be cured by reference to our natural associative tendencies. Many have suggested that Hume emerged from this crisis because he changed his feelings about the matter, with little justification. In this thesis, by contrast, I argue that Hume’s jump from pessimism to optimism relies upon his arguments about the ‘empire of imagination’ in the creation of our ideas and beliefs about the experienced world. The key, as I will show, is how one interprets the creative imagination, which Hume refers to as the fancy. My central hypothesis is that there are two distinct roles played by the fancy: the critical and the fictitious. The critical fancy mixes with natural causation to create ideas that represent the world as we experience it. The fictitious fancy creates ideas that do not represent the world as we experience it. In essence, my argument is that the dialectic between the two types of fancy allowed Hume to emerge from his sceptical crisis because our fundamental beliefs about the world have a basis in a particular natural function of the imagination that renders their formation possible. More specifically, the critical fancy serves to justify our beliefs about the world as we experience it

Some Analyses of Twentieth Century Landing Statistics of Marine Shrimp of the South Atlantic and Gulf States of the United States

There is a strong correlation between the total catch of white and brown shrimp with dockside prices on the United States Gulf Coast since 1902, but there is no significant correlation between South Atlantic production and prices, probably because the South Atlantic shrimp stocks have been over-fished since the 1920s. There is no negative or positive correlation between the catch statistics of brown and white shrimp of the United States, and these species seem to be weakly competitive, if at all. There is a significant correlation between the annual production of South Atlantic and Gulf white shrimp, but there is none between South Atlantic and Gulf brown shrimp, possibly because the brown shrimp live generally in deeper water and are not so much influenced by short term variations in climatic conditions as the white shrimp are in shallow water. In furtherance of this idea, there is some indication that the brown shrimp production is less variable than the white shrimp production

Brain Mechanisms Supporting the Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation

The subjective experience of one’s environment is constructed by interactions among sensory, cognitive, and affective processes. For centuries, meditation has been thought to influence such processes by enabling a nonevaluative representation of sensory events. To better understand how meditation influences the sensory experience, we used arterial spin labeling functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the neural mechanisms by which mindfulness meditation influences pain in healthy human participants. After 4 d of mindfulness meditation training, meditating in the presence of noxious stimulation significantly reduced pain unpleasantness by 57% and pain intensity ratings by 40% when compared to rest. A two-factor repeated-measures ANOVA was used to identify interactions between meditation and pain-related brain activation. Meditation reduced pain-related activation of the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify brain regions associated with individual differences in the magnitude of meditation-related pain reductions. Meditation-induced reductions in pain intensity ratings were associated with increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula, areas involved in the cognitive regulation of nociceptive processing. Reductions in pain unpleasantness ratings were associated with orbitofrontal cortex activation, an area implicated in reframing the contextual evaluation of sensory events. Moreover, reductions in pain unpleasantness also were associated with thalamic deactivation, which may reflect a limbic gating mechanism involved in modifying interactions between afferent input and executive-order brain areas. Together, these data indicate that meditation engages multiple brain mechanisms that alter the construction of the subjectively available pain experience from afferent information

Community Benefits and Lessons for Local Engagement in a California Open Streets Event: A Mixed-Methods Assessment of Viva CalleSJ 2018

This report presents the findings from an evaluation of the September 2018 Viva CalleSJ open streets event in San José,CA. The research was designed to assess the success of the event, guide planning for future open streets events, and inform potential funders and community partners about the benefits of such events. To gather the impressions of participants, local residents, and workers at businesses along the event route, the mixed-methods study analyzed results from a survey of 1,571participants, 114 interviews with community members and businesses, and participant observations. Researchers also examined social media presence and a related augmented reality gaming component. The study found that Viva CalleSJ 2018 participants were resoundingly positive about their experience. Many said that the event brought people together from across the city and inspired a sense of community and civic pride, and the majority of participants benefited from at least one hour of physical activity. Most local businesses and residents viewed the event positively as well, and many food and beverage outlets appeared to benefit from increased patronage during the event. However, some shop keepers along the event route and residents in surrounding neighborhoods were not aware of Viva CalleSJ in the weeks prior to it happening or did not have a clear understanding of how it might impact them. Some were wary of the road closures and in some cases were ultimately frustrated by what they perceived to be negative impacts on their businesses