Trends in Modern War Gaming: The Art of Conversation

Lieutenant William McCarty Little—a war-gaming visionary—was truly a man ahead of his time.1 Although physically sight impaired and medically retired from active naval service, he opted to use his ideational vision and keen mind to support the Naval War College, in Newport, Rhode Island, during its first few years of operation after its founding in 1884. Initially an unpaid volunteer, he was appointed in 1887 as a member of the faculty, where he developed two-sided war gaming at the College—a construct that is still in use at the state-of-the-art facility that today bears his name

The impact of midlife educational, work, health and family experiences on men's early retirement

Objectives. In empirical studies on predictors of retirement, midlife experiences have often remained implicit or been neglected. This study aims to improve our understanding of retirement by examining the impact of midlife educational, work, health, and family experiences on early retirement intentions and behavior. We distinguish theoretically and empirically between financial and nonfinancial preretirement factors through which midlife experiences could affect retirement. Methods. Using panel data of 1,229 Dutch male older workers, we estimated linear regression models to explain retirement intentions and logistic regression models to explain retirement behavior. Results. Midlife experiences in all studied life spheres are related to retirement intentions. Educational investments, job changes, late transitions into parenthood, and late divorces are associated with weaker intentions to retire early. Midlife health problems are related to stronger early retirement intentions. For midlife work and family experiences, the relationships are (partly) mediated by the preretirement financial opportunity structure. In the educational, work, and health spheres, the preretirement nonfinancial situation has a mediating effect. Only some of the predictors of retirement intentions also predicted retirement behavior. Discussion. Given the destandardization of life courses, information on distal life experiences might become even more important toward understanding retirement in the future. keywords: children; divorce; education; life course; retirement; work history

Robust Reading Instruction in the Early Grades: Conceptual and Practical Issues in the Integration and Evaluation of Tier 1 and tier 2 Instructional Supports

Schools implement Response to Intervention (Rtl) for two major purposes. The first is to provide a coordinated system of high-quality instruction and intervention for all students in the school (Burns & Vanderheyden, 2006; Haager, Klinger, & Vaughn, 2007; National Association of State Directors of Special Education, 2006). This system can be envisioned as a framework of effective instruction to prevent academic problems from occurring and effective interventions to address problems that do occur in a timely and appropriate manner. The system is integrated and coordinated to support all students to reach primary learning objectives (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Zumeta, 2008; Greenwood, Kratochwill, & Clements, 2008). The second purpose of Rtl is to diagnose specific learning disabilities (SLD) in students who do not respond adequately to instruction and intervention (O'Conner, 2007; Reynolds & Shaywitz, 2009; Torgesen, 1997, 2004). Strong empirical evidence supports the prevention and intervention purpose of Rtl (Baker et al., 2008; Gersten et al., 2009; Greenwood, Kratochwill, & Clements, 2008; Vaughn & Fuchs, 2006), but evidence for using Rtl for SLD determination is lacking (Fuchs, Mock, Morgan, & Young, 2003; Reynolds & Shaywitz, 2009)

Testing for Budget Constraint Effects in a National Advisory Referendum Survey on the Kyoto Protocol

In contrast to providing standard reminders about remembering household budgets, does asking survey respondents about their discretionary income and its use affect their voting responses in a national advisory referendum survey? We explore this question using U.S. household data from a unique set of multi-mode random samples (telephone and Internet surveys), and an advisory referendum concerning the Kyoto Protocol. The contingent valuation method is applied to estimate household willingness to pay (WTP) for a split-sample treatment: respondents who only received a standard reminder of household budgets (control group) versus respondents who received two mental accounting-type questions on discretionary income and its uses (treatment group). Results indicate that the treatment significantly influences voting responses and lowers estimated household WTP.budget constraint, contingent valuation, Kyoto Protocol, mental accounts, referendum, Environmental Economics and Policy,

EvryFlare II: Rotation Periods of the Cool Flare Stars in TESS Across Half the Southern Sky

We measure rotation periods and sinusoidal amplitudes in Evryscope light curves for 122 two-minute K5-M4 TESS targets selected for strong flaring. The Evryscope array of telescopes has observed all bright nearby stars in the South, producing two-minute cadence light curves since 2016. Long-term, high-cadence observations of rotating flare stars probe the complex relationship between stellar rotation, starspots, and superflares. We detect periods from 0.3487 to 104 d, and observe amplitudes from 0.008 to 0.216 g' mag. We find the Evryscope amplitudes are larger than those in TESS with the effect correlated to stellar mass (p-value=0.01). We compute the Rossby number (Ro), and find our sample selected for flaring has twice as many intermediate rotators (0.040.44) rotators; this may be astrophysical or a result of period-detection sensitivity. We discover 30 fast, 59 intermediate, and 33 slow rotators. We measure a median starspot coverage of 13% of the stellar hemisphere and constrain the minimum magnetic field strength consistent with our flare energies and spot coverage to be 500 G, with later-type stars exhibiting lower values than earlier-types. We observe a possible change in superflare rates at intermediate periods. However, we do not conclusively confirm the increased activity of intermediate rotators seen in previous studies. We split all rotators at Ro~0.2 into Prot10 d bins to confirm short-period rotators exhibit higher superflare rates, larger flare energies, and higher starspot coverage than do long-period rotators, at p-values of 3.2 X 10^-5, 1.0 X 10^-5, and 0.01, respectively.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Ancillary machine-readable files included. Accepted for publication in ApJ (proofs submitted). Includes significant new material, including starspot color that depends on stellar mass, more rotation periods, potential changes in activity during spin-down, and examples of binary rotator

Exploring the Beta Model Using Proportional Budget Information in a Contingent Valuation Study

Using a set of random telephone and Internet (web-based) survey samples for a national advisory referendum, we implement Beta models to handle proportional budget information, and allow for consistency in modeling assumptions and the calculation of estimated willingness to pay (WTP). Results indicate significant budget constraint effects and demonstrate the potential for Beta models in handling mental-accounting type information.Beta model

Study of Magnetic Properties of A_2B^'NbO_6 (A=Ba,Sr, (BaSr): and B^'=Fe and Mn) double perovskites

We have studied the magnetic properties of Ba_2FeNbO_6 and Ba_2MnNbO_6. it is seen that Ba_2FeNbO_6 is an antiferromagnet with a weak ferromagnetic behaviour at 5K while Ba_2MnNbO_6 shows two magnetic transitions one at 45 K and the other at 12K. Electron spin resonance (ESR) measurements at room temperature show that the Mn compound does not show any Jahn-Teller distortion. It is also seen that the Neel temperature of the A_2FeNbO_6 (A=Ba,Sr, BaSr) compounds do not vary significantly. However variations in the average A-site ionic radius influence the formation of short range correlations that persist above T_N.Comment: 10 oages, 5 figures, MMM, to appear in J.Appl.Phy

Measuring Galaxy Asymmetries in 3D

One of the commonly used non-parametric morphometric statistics for galaxy profiles and images is the asymmetry statistic. With an eye to current and upcoming large neutral hydrogen (HI) surveys, we develop a 3D version of the asymmetry statistic that can be applied to datacubes. This statistic is more resilient to variations due to the observed geometry than 1D asymmetry measures, and can be successfully applied to lower spatial resolutions (3-4 beams across the galaxy major axis) than the 2D statistic. We have also modified the asymmetry definition from an `absolute difference' version to a `squared difference' version that removes much of the bias due to noise contributions for low signal-to-noise observations. Using a suite of mock asymmetric cubes we show that the background-corrected, squared difference 3D asymmetry statistic can be applied to many marginally resolved galaxies in large wide-area HI surveys such as WALLABY on the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP).Comment: 14 pages, Accepted to MNRA