Realizing Health Reform's Potential: Will the Affordable Care Act Make Health Insurance Affordable?

Examines the percentage of low-income families, by income, family structure, and out-of-pocket healthcare costs, unable to afford insurance even with the premium and cost-sharing subsidies provided under the 2010 reform. Explores implications

Identifying the underlying dimensions of teachers\u27 emotional intelligence

Within the area of educational research that has its focus on individual differences, the concept of emotional intelligence and its study in relation to the professional lives of teachers has raised considerable interest over the past decade. This article reports on data from a new measure of emotional intelligence specifically related to situations in the teaching environment. The four underlying dimensions that are identified in this study appear to be a more relevant way of characterising emotional intelligence for those in the teaching profession than other conceptualisations of emotional intelligence. The article concludes with an examination of the contention that emotional intelligence is strongly connected to effective teaching practice<br /

The Public Cost of Low Wages in New York

This report outlines the public cost of New York's Minimum wage. Over the next several years New York State will raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 per hour; Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now pushing for legislation to extend this to New York workers in all industries. The governor also recently committed to pay all state government workers$15 an hour.The Labor Center's report on the public cost of jobs paying less than $15 per hour in New York echoes the findings of earlier Labor Center research examining the fiscal impacts of low-wage work in the fast-food and retail sectors, including bank tellers and Wal-Mart employees, and in individual states. Report highlights for the study include:Of all New York workers paid less than$15 an hour, 52 percent received public assistance or had a family member enrolled in a safety net program.Of all New York workers, 32 percent earned less than $15 an hour.Eighteen percent of workers in New York earned less than$15 an hour and had at least one family member, including themselves, receiving public assistance such as food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, or cash assistance programs.Approximately 26 percent of state and local assistance funds in New York went to help low-wage workers

An exploration of individual differences in teachers’ temperaments and multiple intelligence

For this study on individual differences, predictions were made from the literature on the four temperaments in order to examine how teachers with particular temperaments might use their multiple intelligence strengths in their approaches to teaching and learning. From a cohort of 336 beginning teachers it was found that temperaments and multiple intelligences are two separate constructs. The differences in patterns of intelligence strengths confirm that each of the four temperaments is distinct from the other. Teachers adopting a Catalyst Temperament have above average strengths in Linguistic, Musical, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Intelligences. Those with a Stabilizer Temperament display above average strengths in Logical-Mathematical and Interpersonal Intelligences. Teachers adopting a Theorist Temperament demonstrate strengths in Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic, Spatial and Intrapersonal Intelligences. Those with an Improviser Temperament show below average strengths in all except Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence.<br /

Differences in student engagement : investigating the role of the dominant cognitive processes preferred by engineering and education students

This paper reports on a study of the differences in the dominant cognitive processes preferred by groups of engineering and education students and examines the implications of these differences for the assessment of student engagement with university courses. Concern is expressed that the items commonly used to capture student engagement data do not adequately cover the full range of the dominant cognitive processes preferred by tertiary students. The paper sets out a brief overview of student engagement along with the theory of dominant and auxiliary cognitive processes, as developed by Jung and later by Myers. Evidence is presented of the differing frequencies of the eight cognitive processes, as assessed by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, that are preferred by cohorts of students undertaking courses in engineering and education. The implications of these differences are discussed in the context of subject disciplines in university environments.<br /

Identifying a taxonomy for the emergence of metacognition in young learners

This paper details a study of upper primary (elementary) students&rsquo; thinking as they go about solving a problem, presented in an innovative computer program. Student responses to a metacognitive probe question reveal levels of responses that can be classified because of their shared quality. A thematic analysis was conducted with the initial classifications being based on theoretically derived categories from the metacognitive literature. These classifications were subsequently ordered into a taxonomy of hierarchical progression towards metacognition. Results in this instance indicated that less than 20% of these upper primary students showed they were capable of operating at a metacognitive level

An investigation into the differing efficiencies of working fluids used in binary cycle power plants.

In this paper the efficiency of three common working fluids in binary cycle geothermal power plants were compared by modeling the properties of the fluid within the working parameters of the Dora-II geothermal power plant. It was concluded that ammonia has the highest efficiency of the fluids and R-134a was the least efficient

The Impact of Oakland's Proposed City Minimum Wage Law: A Prospective Study

The Lift Up Oakland Coalition, an alliance of community, labor, small business, and faith organizations, has placed an initiative on the Oakland November 2014 ballot that would establish a minimum wage of $12.25 for businesses in the city starting March 1, 2015. This study examines the effects of a$12.25 minimum wage on Oakland workers and businesses. Drawing on a variety of government data sources, we estimate that more than a quarter of the Oakland workforce would benefit from the proposed policy, with the average worker earning an additional $2,700 a year. Our analysis of the existing economic research literature suggests that businesses will adjust to modest increases in operating costs through reduced employee turnover costs, improved work performance, and a small, one-time increase in restaurant prices