Independent Evaluation of the Jim Joseph Foundation's Education Initiative Year 4 Report

Research indicates that well-prepared educators help produce strong learning outcomes for students. For the continued health of Jewish education, higher education institutions should have the capacity to prepare sufficient numbers of highly qualified educators and education leaders for careers in Jewish education. Teachers, division heads, and school heads represent a substantial segment of the educator population in Jewish day schools. More than 5,000 educators enter new positions in Jewish day schools every year and are in need of adequate preparation. The most frequent obstacle to instructional quality in Jewish day schools is the difficulty in recruiting qualified teachers (Ben-Avie & Kress, 2006; Jewish Education Service of North America, 2008; Kidron et al., in press; Krakowski, 2011; Sales, 2007).A similar problem has been observed in supplementary schools in congregational or communal settings. These schools enroll the majority of Jewish children and adolescents receiving a Jewish education in the United States (Wertheimer, 2008). In recent years, congregations have begun to replace traditional educational programs with new approaches that aim to raise the quality of instruction and the level of parent and student satisfaction relative to their programs. These new approaches may include greater integration of experiential Jewish education and community service, family learning, and the integration of all aspects of congregational learning under the leadership of one director (Rechtschaffen, 2011; Sales, Samuel, Koren, & Shain, 2010). High-quality programs that are updated or reconstructed across time to meet the needs of the Jewish community require well-prepared directors and educators. However, many directors and educators in congregational schools have not participated in teacher preparation programs, and the depth of Jewish content knowledge among these teachers is highly variable (Stodolsky, Dorph, & Rosov, 2008)

A novel argument for an even-like semantics of Mandarin dou

There have been ongoing debates about the semantics of Mandarin particle dou, which, among its various readings, has a distributive reading and a scalar reading. In the paper, we make a novel observation that dou, on both readings, is sensitive to a standard on a scale associated with a contextually supplied gradable property, and take this to be new evidence in favor of a unified, scalar analysis of dou. To uniformly capture its two readings and its standard-sensitivity, we propose to integrate insights from two proposals, Liu 2017 and Greenberg 2018a. Specifically, on the one hand, we follow Liu 2017 in arguing that (a) dou is uniformly a scalar particle, (b) it operates on distinct types of alternatives on distinct readings and (c) a trivialization operation occurs on the distributive reading; on the other hand, we, deviating from Liu, adopt two components adapted from the gradability-based semantics originally suggested for Englishevenin Greenberg 2018a, i.e. (a) anevaluative presupposition and (b) a contextually determined scale, instead of one based on unlikelihood. Our revised proposal can successfully account for the two readings in a unified manner but circumvents the issue regarding the dimension of the scale faced by Liu 2017 in the meanwhile

Two Types of Quantificational Modalized Genericity, and the Interpretation of Bare Plural and Indefinite Singular NPs

No abstract

Temporally Restricted Generics

No abstract

Genericity and (Non)accidentalness

This paper attempts to clarify nature of the “law-likness” or “nonaccidentalness” that generic sentences are usually claimed to express. It does so by examining the interactions of such generic sentences with a construction which seems to express “accidentalness,” namely the happens to construction (as in John happens not to see well). In particular, it turns out that generics with bare plural subjects (BP generics, like Dogs have four legs), but not generics with indefinite singular subjects (IS generics, like A dog has four legs) are compatible with this construction (compare Dogs happen to have four legs vs #A dog happens to have four legs). I analyze happens to as a domain vague necessity operator, i.e. a universal quantifier over worlds, whose restriction (the domain of worlds quantified over) is systematically vague. Following Greenberg (2003, 2008) I propose that a number of distributional and interpretational differences between IS and BP generics can be attributed to the fact that although both have the same basic modal quantificational semantic structure the restriction over worlds is necessarily precise in the former kind of generics but is allowed to be vague in the latter. The compatibility of BP generics with happens to is thus analyzed as a case of modal concord.Cet article entreprend de clarifier la nature de la « law-likness » ou « non-accidentalité » qu’expriment, selon l’opinon courante, les phrases génériques. Pour ce faire, il examine les interactions des ces phrases génériques avec une construction qui semble exprimer « l’accidentalité », à savoir la construction en happens to (comme dans John happens not to see well, fr. il se trouve que John ne voit pas bien). En particulier, il s’avère que les génériques avec un sujet pluriel nu (génériques BP, comme Dogs have four legs, fr. les chiens ont quatre pattes), mais pas les génériques avec un sujet indéfini singulier (génériques IS, comme A dog has four legs, fr. un chien a quattre pattes), sont compatibles avec cette construction (cf. Dogs happen to have four legs vs #A dog happens to have four legs). J’analyse happens to comme un opérateur de nécessité à domaine vague, c’est-à-dire un quantificateur universel sur les mondes dont la restriction (le domaine de mondes sur lequel opère la quantification) est systématiquement vague. À la suite de Greenberg (2003, 2008), je propose qu’un certain nombre de différences distributionnelles et interprétatives entre les génériques IS et BP peuvent être attribuées au fait que bien que les deux ont la même structure sémantique quantificationnelle modale de base, la restriction des mondes est nécessairement précise dans le premier type de génériques, alors qu’elle peut être vague dans le second. La compatibilité des génériques BP avec happens to est ainsi analysée comme un cas de concordance modale

Vicki Ahrens oral history interview by Yael V. Greenberg, March 4, 2003

Vicki Ahrens discusses the university in its earliest days and her transition from student to employee, from 1969 to 1994. She also briefly discusses the future of the university

Florence Jandreau oral history interview by Yael V. Greenberg, 2 June 24, 2003

Florence Jandreau started working as a Clerk at USF in 1971. Having worked her way up, she currently is the Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the USF Library. She discusses her years of service to the university and the many people she has worked with

Georg Kleine oral history interview by Yael V. Greenberg, June 19, 2003

Georg Kleine discusses his personal history and his experiences at USF, where he worked with many individuals and served in various positions including Department of History faculty and Associate Dean of the Honors College

Effects of activity-based hospital payments in Israel: A qualitative evaluation focusing on the perspectives of hospital managers and physicians

Background: Since 2010, Israel has expanded the adoption of procedure-related group (PRG) based payments for hospitals. While there is a rich quantitative literature that assesses the effects of payment reforms on efficiency or quality of care, very few qualitative studies have focused on the impacts of diagnosis-related group (DRG)-like payments on hospitals from the perspective of hospital workers as change agents. Methods: We used a qualitative, thematic analysis based on 33 semi-structured in-depth interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs), chief financial officers (CFOs), ward directors and physicians conducted in five public hospitals in Israel, sampled by maximum variation according to hospital characteristics. Results: Interviewees reported that the payment reform led to organizational changes such as increased transparency and enhanced supervision. Interviewees also reported several actions in response to the economic incentives of PRGbased payment. These included (1) shifting activities to afterhours and using operating rooms (ORs) more efficiently to enable increased surgical volumes; (2) reducing costs by shortening lengths of stay and increasing cost-consciousness in procurement; and (3) increasing revenues by improving coding and selecting procedures. Moderating factors reduced the effects of the reform. For example, organizational factors such as the public nature of hospitals or the (un)availability of healthcare resources did not always allow hospitals to increase the number of cases treated. Also, conflicting incentives such as multiple payment mechanisms or underpricing of procedures blurred the incentives of the reform. Finally, managers and physicians have many other considerations that outweigh the economic ones. Conclusion: PRG payments affected the organizational dynamics of hospitals and changed decision-making about admission and treatment policies. However, such effects were moderated by many other factors that should be considered when shaping and analyzing hospital payment reforms

Regulation of Cancer Aggressive Features in Melanoma Cells by MicroRNAs

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs with regulatory roles, which are involved in a broad spectrum of physiological and pathological processes, including cancer. A common strategy for identification of miRNAs involved in cell transformation is to compare malignant cells to normal cells. Here we focus on identification of miRNAs that regulate the aggressive phenotype of melanoma cells. To avoid differences due to genetic background, a comparative high-throughput miRNA profiling was performed on two isogenic human melanoma cell lines that display major differences in their net proliferation, invasion and tube formation activities. This screening revealed two major cohorts of differentially expressed miRNAs. We speculated that miRNAs up-regulated in the more-aggressive cell line contribute oncogenic features, while the down-regulated miRNAs are tumor suppressive. This assumption was further tested experimentally on five candidate tumor suppressive miRNAs (miR-31, -34a, -184, -185 and -204) and on one candidate oncogenic miRNA (miR-17-5p), all of which have never been reported before in cutaneous melanoma. Remarkably, all candidate Suppressive-miRNAs inhibited net proliferation, invasion or tube formation, while miR-17-5p enhanced cell proliferation. miR-34a and miR-185 were further shown to inhibit the growth of melanoma xenografts when implanted in SCID-NOD mice. Finally, all six candidate miRNAs were detected in 15 different metastatic melanoma specimens, attesting for the physiological relevance of our findings. Collectively, these findings may prove instrumental for understanding mechanisms of disease and for development of novel therapeutic and staging technologies for melanoma