Immigrant Homebuyers in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts: Keys to the Revitalization of the Cities

This report describes the homebuying experience of immigrants in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts and how it contributes to their lives and the life of the cities. Home ownership provides wealth to individuals and families. As a key financial resource, owning a home provides opportunities to secure the "good life" including education, business, training, health and comfort. As such, successive waves of immigrants in local communities have regarded the eventual acquisition of their first home as a major goal. In so doing, large segments of immigrants have morphed from renters to homeowners. In such instances, we often witness the transitioning of a poor community to one that is working-class emerging to a middle-class. This report is an in-depth description of such a metamorphous among immigrants in Lawrence and Lowell. The study reveals important contributions that immigrants homebuyers have made to the growth and economic health of the two cities

On-orbit operational scenarios, tools and techniques

This paper concentrates on methods and techniques used to develop operational scenarios for orbital missions, including development of models to analyze alternatives, modification of tools and refinement of techniques for future missions. Many of these tools and techniques have been derived from previous tools, techniques and experience from the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) program. Results from use of these tools show the current Cargo Transfer Vehicle nominal mission scenario, with 95 discrete events defined for the CTV mission from the NLS Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLLV) to Space Station Freedom (SSF)

Improving location prediction services for new users with probabilistic latent semantic analysis

Location prediction systems that attempt to determine the mobility patterns of individuals in their daily lives have become increasingly common in recent years. Approaches to this prediction task include eigenvalue decomposition [5], non-linear time series analysis of arrival times [10], and variable order Markov models [1]. However, these approachesall assume sufficient sets of training data. For new users, by definition, this data is typically not available, leading to poor predictive performance. Given that mobility is a highly personal behaviour, this represents a significant barrier to entry. Against this background, we present a novel framework to enhance prediction using information about the mobility habits of existing users. At the core of the framework is a hierarchical Bayesian model, a type of probabilistic semantic analysis [7], representing the intuition that the temporal features of the new user’s location habits are likely to be similar to those of an existing user in the system. We evaluate this framework on the real life location habits of 38 users in the Nokia Lausanne dataset, showing that accuracy is improved by 16%, relative to the state of the art, when predicting the next location of new users

Race and Excellence in American Higher Education

W,E.B. DuBois’ assessment of American higher education’s posture toward black students in 1926 — “The attitude of the northern institution toward the Negro student is one which varies from tolerance to active hostility” — could have been written today based on several investigations. The American Council on Education reported recently that “the higher education community must continue to address the issues of losses in participation at all levels for blacks; the segregation of Hispanics; the retention and graduation of minority students, both undergraduate and graduate; the lack of growth for minorities in faculty and staff ranks.” The College Board reports that “although many of the legal barriers to educational opportunity have been removed, education — to a large extent — remains separate and unequal in the United States.” The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights reports a significant drop in the number of minorities receiving bachelor’s degrees, from 14,209 in 1975 to 6,792 in 1983. There are many other indices showing deterioration of a black (and Latino) presence in American higher education

Introduction

This issue of the Trotter Review focuses on one of the most important set of challenges facing the Black community in the U.S., and that is, how to access, and manage, and control, significant facets and processes associated with the information superhighway. This current issue identifies the nature of the challenges, but also proposes some strategies that the Black community and its leadership might consider to ensure both access and control over information technology

The Foundation of American Racism: Defining Bigotry, Racism, and Racial Hierarchy

Despite the fact that current surveys reveal a decline in the level of white prejudice towards blacks, however, the number of hate groups and incidents of racial harassment and violence is rapidly increasing. In addition, while black and white Americans seem to be interacting more in the work place, residential segregation continues to be a major problem. Furthermore, there are indications that the political attitudes of blacks and whites are not only different on many philosophical and economic issues, but are becoming increasingly divergent

Introduction

The particular relationships between communities of color in the United States could very well be the political issue for urban America in the next century, with profound racial, cultural, and economic implications for all Americans. This issue of the Trotter Review focused on various aspects of relations between communities of color. Communication and collaboration between communities of color are vitally important today for the maintenance and expansion of democracy and social justice in the United States. We hope this issue of the Trotter Review will contribute to improving relations between communities of color

The New Black Neo-Conservativism: A Critique

In this presentation, I will examine some of the general ideas, explanations and logic regarding black life conditions offered by a group of intellectuals who have come to be described as “Neo-Conservative.” I will not concentrate my critique on particular individuals, however; my focus will be primarily on the ideas and proposals that they have offered, especially those ideas that have been associated with public policy proposals. In my opinion, the media and the scholarly community have focused too much on individuals, rather than examining closely and analytically the public policy ideas associated with Neo-Conservatism. I will seek to critique some of these Neo-Conservative ideas or notions and show how they are ahistorical. I think I can show, further more, how sensational and popular rhetoric have been used by Neo-Conservatives to discourage thorough analysis of their ideas and proposals

Introduction

This issue of the Trotter Institute Review is devoted to a two-part proposition. The first is that institutions, agencies, businesses, and schools must begin to reflect the increasingly diverse ethnic and racial characteristics of American society. America is in the midst of a demographic revolution. It is unfortunate that some educators have chosen to ignore the social, economic, and intellectual implications of this change and that others have even become angry and attacked efforts to create an appreciation of multiculturalism. This unfortunate resistance to the implications of America\u27s unfolding demography leads to the second proposition reflected in this issue of the Trotter Institute Review. That is, institutions of higher education have a unique professional and moral responsibility to help lead the nation to its next stage of social and economic development. This leadership will not be forthcoming if the issue of diversity is ignored. America will not develop if the contributions of people of color continue to be dismissed. We can no longer delay the building of a multiracial, multicultural society — as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, We are faced with the fact that tomorrow is here today. The articles in this issue of the Trotter Institute Review present information about tomorrow while offering suggestions for what can be done today to produce a stronger, healthier, and more democratic American society