Intergenerational spillover effects of language training for refugees

Children of refugees are among the most economically disadvantaged youth in several European countries. They are more likely to drop out of school and to commit crime. We find that a reform in Denmark in 1999 that expanded language training for adult refugees and was shown to improve their earnings and job market outcomes permanently, also increased lower secondary school completion rates and decreased juvenile crime rates for their children. The crime effect is entirely due to boys who were below school age when their parents received language training. The older cohorts who were in elementary school when their parents received language training performed better in lower secondary school. Boys were more likely to finish lower secondary school and to sit the final exams, and girls achieved higher grade point averages in the exams

The Institutional Learning Objectives (ILOs) and Undergraduate Assessment

This poster presents undergraduate assessment results for critical thinking, information literacy, quantitative reasoning, and written communication based on a 2015-2016 qualitative review, led by the Assessment Office, of WASC-defined core competencies using the VALUE Rubrics and the expertise of instructional faculty from across campus. These results are presented as baseline data as well as the jumping off point for faculty and administrators regarding discussions about how to ensure all students graduate with the knowledge and skills we intend them to have. Suggestions for utilizing the findings toward improvement as well as next steps are discussed

Design mining interacting wind turbines

© 2016 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An initial study has recently been presented of surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithms used to design vertical-axis wind turbines wherein candidate prototypes are evaluated under fan-generated wind conditions after being physically instantiated by a 3D printer. Unlike other approaches, such as computational fluid dynamics simulations, no mathematical formulations were used and no model assumptions weremade. This paper extends that work by exploring alternative surrogate modelling and evolutionary techniques. The accuracy of various modelling algorithms used to estimate the fitness of evaluated individuals from the initial experiments is compared. The effect of temporally windowing surrogate model training samples is explored. A surrogateassisted approach based on an enhanced local search is introduced; and alternative coevolution collaboration schemes are examined