APPR Appeals Process Report: Panels

[Excerpt] This report describes the characteristics of joint panels and examines where they are being used in New York State to resolve APPR teacher evaluation disputes. The information presented here was gathered by analyzing the provisions of the APPR appeal procedures, which are publicly available on the New York State Department of Education website

Interdependent Durations

This paper studies the identification of a simultaneous equation model where the variable of interest is a duration measure. It proposes a game theoretic model in which durations are determined by strategic agents. In the absence of strategic motives, the model delivers a version of the generalized accelerated failure time model. In its most general form, the system resembles a classical simultaneous equation model in which endogenous variables interact with observable and unobservable exogenous components to characterize a certain economic environment. In this paper, the endogenous variables are the individually chosen equilibrium durations. Even though a unique solution to the game is not always attainable in this context, the structural elements of the economic system are shown to be semiparametrically point identified. We also present a brief discussion of estimation ideas and a set of simulation studies on the model.duration, empirical games, identification

Bounds in Competing Risks Models and the War on Cancer

In 1971 President Nixon declared war on cancer and increased the federal funds allocated to cancer research dramatically. Thirty years later, many have declared this war a failure. Overall cancer statistics confirm this view: age-adjusted mortality in 2000 was essentially unchanged from the early 1970s. At the same time, age-adjusted mortality rates from cardiovascular disease have fallen quite dramatically. Since the causes underlying cancer and cardiovascular disease are likely to be correlated, the decline in mortality rates from cardiovascular disease may be somewhat responsible for the rise in cancer mortality. It is natural to model mortality with more than one cause of death as a competing risks model. Such models are fundamentally unidentified, and it is therefore difficult to get a clear picture of the progress in cancer. This paper derives bounds for aspects of the underlying distributions under a number of different assumptions. Most importantly, we do not assume that the underlying risks are independent, and impose weak parametric assumptions in order to obtain identification. The theoretical contribution of the paper is to provide a framework to estimate competing risk models with interval data and discrete explanatory variables, both of which are common in empirical applications. We use our method to estimate changes in cancer and cardiovascular mortality since 1970. The estimated bounds for the effect of time on the duration until death for either cause are fairly tight and we find that trends in cancer show much larger improvements than previously estimated. For example, we find that time until death from cancer increased by about 10% for white males and 20% for white women.

Quantile Regression Under Random Censoring

No abstract.

The strength of Foucault's words

Includes bibliographical references.Foucault inquires into many of the social and political structures of his time not only by openly critiquing them, but by writing in a fashion that is anything but devoid of style. This is significant in understanding his work and the implications of his work in dialog. The research being done is to explore how Foucault used dialog to demonstrate power over and throughout series of thought like Marxism and Structuralism. After investigating these thoughts and the use of words to portray these ideas, there will then be a comparison to how word structure influences current systems of thought and politics in today's society. While it is not currently definitive until there is a real understanding of how Foucault makes his ideas unique, comparing his critique of former events to those occurring today is where the research becomes significant. This paper will aim to dissect current policy and speeches with the same or similar algorithms that Foucault used to understand policy of his time. It will search to understand how certain speech patterns display power and simplicity/complexity over people's understanding of them.B.A. (Bachelor of Arts

Discipline as a means of production: A study based on a disciplinary system in a French regional bank

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the way in which banks take into account the transformation of both the substance of their activity and the framework governing it. This relates to the way they do (or do not) transform the organization of the production process when its substance significantly changes, as well as to the key factors governing their commercial and financial success. The underlying idea is that, for some banks, taking these mutations into account has resulted in changing the way they operate on the basis of “economics of discipline”. The first part of this article presents the main elements of the theory of organizational discipline. The aim is to present the conceptual tools used to analyze the disciplinary system of a bank. The second part of the article gives an example of a disciplinary system based on the study of a French regional bank

An African’s perspective on leadership in the Book of Titus

Leadership is central in Paul‘s letter to Titus. Previous studies have focused more on the arguments surrounding its Pauline authorship and the advice it gives on the pastoral care of the receiving communities, rather than the letter‘s contribution to the success of leadership in the Greco-Roman society. This paper, therefore, investigates leadership in Titus through the lens of an African leader who recognises that his people are also part of a society in which their aspiration to have credible leadership remains limited, albeit in more subtle ways than in Greco-Roman society. Using Abogunrin‘s approach to decolonising biblical interpretation in Africa, this paper reveals that leadership in the African context and in Titus is similar to some degree. It highlights the likely obstacles to credible leadership that bedevil contemporary Nigeria.Keywords: African leader, Decolonising biblical interpretation, Greco-Roman society, Leadership in Titus, Letter to Titu

Alien Registration- Croteau, Honore (Biddeford, York County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/1781/thumbnail.jp

Reliability of Corroding Reinforced Concrete Structures

The enhanced performance due to the addition of steel within concrete elements has thrust reinforced concrete structures to be one of the most commonly used construction materials in the world. Reinforced concrete structures are exposed to a variety of deterioration mechanisms during their operational existence, each of which contributes to reducing their service life, durability, and load bearing capacity. The longevity of these reinforced concrete structures is strongly connected to degradation processes, whose origin is environmental and/or functional. Among these processes is the initiation and evolution of corrosion on the steel reinforcement. Steel reinforcement has direct effects on the durability, safety, and useful service life of a reinforced concrete structure. The reliability of an engineering design is measured by the probability that a design meets certain demands under certain conditions, or its resistance will be able to sustain given loads. The main focus of this study is to develop a reliability-based service life prediction model using the uncertainties characteristically recognized in the parameters included in established corrosion detection processes. Reliability algorithms, such as Advanced First Order Reliability Method (AFORM), were used to analyze the effects of key factors within both uniform and localized corrosion conditions on time-dependent reliability. The results clearly illustrate the decrease in reinforced concrete element reliability after exposure to corrosion due to the reduction in flexural capacity of the steel reinforcement