Behavioral Economics and Workforce Development: A Review of the Literature from Labor Economics and the Broader Field

Literature Reviewhere is mutual benefit for employers and workers when workers improve their skills beyond the minimum requirements for their position—a fact not lost on employers, many of who are willing to provide education and training opportunities to staff, including frontline workers. These opportunities typically include on-the-job-training, tuition reimbursement for postsecondary courses, and paid leave to attend classes. Despite often generous budgets for these activities, relatively few workers take advantage of these opportunities, potentially limiting increases in productivity, wages and longer-term career advancement (Tompson, Benz, Agiesta, & Junius, 2013). This dilemma raises an interesting research question: Can emerging lessons from behavioral science experiments be applied to cutting the Gordian Knot of worker participation in education and training programs? This review of current literature on the topic is intended to explore the strengths and limitations of applying tools of behavioral sciences to increase the participation and completion rate of training for lower-wage, frontline incumbent workers in ways that benefit both workers and sponsoring firms.The Hitachi FoundationRay Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resource

Humanoid Theory Grounding

In this paper we consider the importance of using a humanoid physical form for a certain proposed kind of robotics, that of theory grounding. Theory grounding involves grounding the theory skills and knowledge of an embodied artificially intelligent (AI) system by developing theory skills and knowledge from the bottom up. Theory grounding can potentially occur in a variety of domains, and the particular domain considered here is that of language. Language is taken to be another “problem space” in which a system can explore and discover solutions. We argue that because theory grounding necessitates robots experiencing domain information, certain behavioral-form aspects, such as abilities to socially smile, point, follow gaze, and generate manual gestures, are necessary for robots grounding a humanoid theory of language

Facilitating Distinctive and Meaningful Change Within U.S. Law Schools (Part 2): Pursuing Successful Plan Implementation Through Better Resource Management

In Part 1 of this series, one of the current authors used institutional theory, behavioral economics, and psychology to explain why U.S. law schools have had difficulty evolving faster and better. The author then used institutional entrepreneurship to propose a seven-step, faculty-led, operational change process designed to overcome institutional isomorphism and to enable each law school to formulate a distinctive, meaningful, strategic plan. In Part 2, the current article addresses the typical implementation challenges to be expected within the context of existing law school governance. The article begins by discussing the Resource Based View of the firm and the role of resource management in achieving competitive advantages. These considerations lay the foundation for the critical role of faculty engagement and law school leadership in successful strategic plan implementation. Next, within this context, the article discusses four questions whose answers may foreshadow implementation problems. Lastly, the article discusses the results of several Monte Carlo Simulations. The simulations provide insight into the likely performance problems caused by faculty misaligned with, or disengaged from, their law school’s strategic goals. The results suggest that even minimal faculty misalignment can have a significant deleterious effect on the ability of a given law school to achieve any distinctive position. All told, the article concludes that U.S. law schools can successfully implement distinctive and meaningful strategic plans within existing shared governance structures. However, success will be difficult to achieve. It requires the full engagement and leadership by both the faculty and the Dean, sustained operational support for strategic change, and the active management of law school resources

Classical r-matrices via semidualisation

We study the interplay between double cross sum decompositions of a given Lie algebra and classical r-matrices for its semidual. For a class of Lie algebras which can be obtained by a process of generalised complexification we derive an expression for classical r-matrices of the semidual Lie bialgebra in terms of the data which determines the decomposition of the original Lie algebra. Applied to the local isometry Lie algebras arising in three-dimensional gravity, decomposition and semidualisation yields the main class of non-trivial r-matrices for the Euclidean and Poincare group in three dimensions. In addition, the construction links the r-matrices with the Bianchi classification of three dimensional real Lie algebras.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, typos correcte

Augustine's incarnational hermeneutics and postmodernity

This thesis focuses on the hermeneutic framework of St. Augustine of Hippo. Study of this topic has been suggested by patrologists such as Frances Young, and garnered occasional glances in contemporary scholarship. Little has been done as far as a systematic treatment of Augustine’s theory of hermeneutics in favor of theological/doctrinal issues. This thesis begins with a contextualization of the hermeneutic of late antiquity, then follows Augustine’s analysis of the three-fold schema of language: res, verbum, and dicibile. Primary texts for these topics are On Christian Doctrine, Against the Academic Skeptics, and The Teacher. Secondary literature specifically on this topic and texts is sparse, though a few scholars have addressed papers to the query. This thesis is written in dialogue with contemporary theological hermeneutics, with the view that a pre-modern hermeneutic schema can be a valuable interlocutor in the continuing development of post-modern thought. Additionally, the human need to identify, interpret, and apply meaning is a perennial struggle, and an influential thinker/writer of late antiquity can aid in the contemporary development of a holistic interpretive/epistemological framework without falling to false dichotomies and deterministic methodologies

Classical r-matrices for the generalised Chern-Simons formulation of 3d gravity

We study the conditions for classical r-matrices to be compatible with the generalised Chern-Simons action for 3d gravity. Compatibility means solving the classical Yang-Baxter equations with a prescribed symmetric part for each of the real Lie algebras and bilinear pairings arising in the generalised Chern-Simons action. We give a new construction of r-matrices via a generalised complexification and derive a non-linear set of matrix equations determining the most general compatible r-matrix. We exhibit new families of solutions and show that they contain known solutions for special parameter valuesComment: 20 pages, minor corrections and comments added in v

Investigation of reliability attributes and accelerated stress factors on terrestrial solar cells

Three tasks were undertaken to investigate reliability attributes of terrestrial solar cells: (1) a study of the electrical behavior of cells in the second (reverse) quadrant; (2) the accelerated stress testing of three new state-of-the-art cells; and (3) the continued bias-temperature testing of four block 2 type silicon cells at 78 C and 135 C. Electrical characteristics measured in the second quadrant were determined to be a function of the cell's thermal behavior with breakdown depending on the initiation of localized heating. This implied that high breakdown cells may be more fault tolerant when forced to operate in the second quadrant, a result contrary to conventional thinking. The accelerated stress tests used in the first (power) quadrant were bias-temperature, bias-temperature-humidity, temperature-humidity, thermal shock, and thermal cycle. The new type cells measured included an EFG cell, a polycrystalline cell, and a Czochralski cell. Significant differences in the response to the various tests were observed between cell types. A microprocessed controlled, short interval solar cell tester was designed and construction initiated on a prototype

Predictive Modeling of the Non-Profit Sector in the US

The Non-Profit Sector contributes almost $1 trillion to the US economy, representing 5.4% of GDP, and generating over 12 million jobs in 2017. Yi (2010) suggests that a better understanding of the factors that affect fundraising should be of great interest to policy makers, and fundraisers. However, the workings of the sector are subject of much debate. Matsunaga, Yamauchi and Okuyama (2010) relate its size to the Theory of Government Failure. Sokolowski (2013) proposes that government funding does have a positive effect on revenues. Curry, Rodin and Carlson (2012) suggested they swing with GDP, but, Berman, Brooks and Murphy (2006) contend that macroeconomic variables do not affect short-run dynamics. List (2011) found that non-profit revenues react more to economic upswings than downturns. And the National Philanthropic Trust (2016) relates ups and downs to certain events and public awareness. Wallace (2016) points to the fact that predictive modeling has focused big-donor analytics, aimed at the identification of potential donors. We set out instead to define a working model. After locating complete time series for an emblematic segment, the environmental cause, Factor Analysis allowed us to pinpoint independent variables. We found that Non-Profit Revenues (NPR) depend largely on Public Awareness, as measured by TV coverage, and Disposable Personal Income (DPI), specifically: NPR = -4401.542 + 528.327(DPI) +23.121(TVCoverage) +

Shape maps for second order partial differential equations

We analyse the singularity formation of congruences of solutions of systems of second order PDEs via the construction of \emph{shape maps}. The trace of such maps represents a congruence volume whose collapse we study through an appropriate evolution equation, akin to Raychaudhuri's equation. We develop the necessary geometric framework on a suitable jet space in which the shape maps appear naturally associated with certain linear connections. Explicit computations are given, along with a nontrivial example

Multilevel Particle Filters for L\'evy-driven stochastic differential equations

We develop algorithms for computing expectations of the laws of models associated to stochastic differential equations (SDEs) driven by pure L\'evy processes. We consider filtering such processes and well as pricing of path dependent options. We propose a multilevel particle filter (MLPF) to address the computational issues involved in solving these continuum problems. We show via numerical simulations and theoretical results that under suitable assumptions of the discretization of the underlying driving L\'evy proccess, our proposed method achieves optimal convergence rates. The cost to obtain MSE $O(\epsilon^2)$ scales like $O(\epsilon^{-2})$ for our method, as compared with the standard particle filter $O(\epsilon^{-3})$