Building Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program: Job Training Program for Disadvantaged Workers

This pilot program in Buffalo trains entry level workers for successful placement in the building trades and skilled trades’ apprenticeship programs. As a pre-apprenticeship program, BTPAP does not attempt to replicate the specialized training that is part of an apprenticeship program. Rather, BTPAP uses a “holistic approach” to basic skills development, including construction related mathematics, job search training, and exposure to various fields of skilled labor and their professional cultures. These fields include cement masons, roofers, plumbers, steamfitters, iron workers, electricians, plasterers and carpenters. Beyond skills enhancement, this program also seeks to instill the basic awareness that construction and skilled trades are viable employment option for minorities, women, and people living in poverty. BTPAP helps build confidence in each program graduate – allowing them to reach new opportunities in the skilled labor market

Perceptual dimensions of infants' cry signals : a dissertation present in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Education at Massey University

Two experiments were performed to uncover perceptual dimensions of 24 infant cry signals. In Experiment 1, the 24 cries were rated by listeners on 50 semantic differential scales. A factor analysis of the ratings uncovered three meaningful factors (Effect, Potency & Value) which emphasise emotional aspects of the cries, and support a suggestion that different cry-types essentially differ along a continuum of intensity/aversiveness. In Experiment 2, the method of pair-comparisons was used to obtain cry similarity ratings which were submitted to INDSCAL (a multidimensional scaling program). Three dimension were uncovered which emphasise physical aspects of the cries. These dimensions (Potency, Form and Clarity) were labelled in terms of the 50 semantic differential scales using standard linear multiple regression. For both experiments, accurate predictions of cry recognition results were made from the cry similarity data, suggesting that the listeners attended to the same cry features in each task. A canonical analysis of the semantic differential factor scores and the INDSCAL dimension weights revealed two significant canonical correlations, which suggests that the two techniques are essentially describing the same perceptual space. The relative advantages of the semantic differential and the method of pair-comparisons (coupled to INDSCAL) are discussed, and also the possibility of applying the semantic differential to study different cry-types, clinically abnormal cries, and the effects of crying on the caregiver

Incorporating Human Beliefs and Behaviors into Wildlife Ecology

Like much of the global biosphere, wildlife species have experienced rapid declines during the Anthropocene. Wildlife ecologists have responded to these crises by developing a range of technologies, techniques, and large datasets, which together have revolutionized the field, provided novel insights into the movements and behaviors of animals, and identified new risks and impacts to wildlife in a human-dominated world. While these advances have been vitally important, wildlife ecology has been slower to recognize and incorporate humans themselves into its new research domains. The chapters of this dissertation explore methods for better incorporating human behaviors, beliefs, actions, and infrastructure into the theories and approaches in wildlife ecology that have flourished in the last two decades. The research presented here demonstrates the importance of linking human beliefs and behaviors to wildlife ecology both by presenting novel findings and by showing the opportunities missed when narrow approaches are applied to complex socio-ecological problems.In Chapter 1, I provide a general introduction on the theories underlying this research, contextualize the research questions in light of the loss and recovery of large predators, and describe the research site where I collected much of the data for this dissertation. In Chapter 2, I apply the methods of movement ecology to some of the first fine-scale telemetry data collected on rifle hunters. I draw conclusions about their individual, site-level, and regional-level hunting behaviors and discuss the broad implications of these findings for hunting management. In Chapter 3, I examine livestock-predator conflict using approaches from both ecology and the social sciences. I describe a form of selection bias that is likely widespread but unreported due to the omission of social data from ecological models of conflict, and I offer guidelines for combining and translating ecological and social research on conflict. In Chapter 4, I explore the ecological impacts of one of the most globally widespread human constructions, the fence. I show for the first time the potential extent of fencing at large scales and discuss the wide variety of ecological effects of fences for both humans and ecosystems. I further highlight biases and gaps in fence research that have thus far limited a complete understanding of the environmental effects of these features. In Chapter 5, I conclude by making recommendations regarding how research might better incorporate human perceptions, decisions, and actions into ecology

Final proposal for encoding the Bassa Vah script in the SMP of the UCS

This is a proposal to encode the Bassa Vah script in the international character encoding standard Unicode. This script was published in Unicode Standard version 7.0 in June 2014. The Bassa Vah script was used to write the Bassa language of Liberia

Classifying blocks with abelian defect groups of rank 33 for the prime 22

In this paper we classify all blocks with defect group $C_{2^n}\times C_2\times C_2$ up to Morita equivalence. Together with a recent paper of Wu, Zhang and Zhou, this completes the classification of Morita equivalence classes of $2$-blocks with abelian defect groups of rank at most $3$. The classification holds for blocks over a suitable discrete valuation ring as well as for those over an algebraically closed field. The case considered in this paper is significant because it involves comparison of Morita equivalence classes between a group and a normal subgroup of index $2$, so requires novel reduction techniques which we hope will be of wider interest. We note that this also completes the classification of blocks with abelian defect groups of order dividing $16$ up to Morita equivalence. A consequence is that Broue's abelian defect group conjecture holds for all blocks mentioned above

The Potential Role For CDFIs in the Opportunity Zones of the Investing in Opportunities Act (IIOA)

The Opportunity Zones legislation was designed to mobilize new levels of capital into low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities – areas that have historically been overlooked and underserved by mainstream capital markets. As longstanding financial partners to LMI communities, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), it would seem, are positioned to play a pivotal role in the Opportunity Zones ecosystem. Yet the legislation presents a challenge on that front. As the law dictates, the mechanism through which Qualified Opportunity Zone Fund investments must be made are equity instruments, while CDFIs tend to operate more on the lending side. For this reason, the CDFI industry has struggled to determine exactly how it can harness the potential power of the Opportunity Zones tax incentive to advance their efforts to support LMI communities. This report, then, is timely. As our partners at the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Impact Finance show in the pages that follow, there is indeed a role for CDFIs in the emerging Opportunity Zones space – or, more accurately, several potential roles, both financial and non-financial alike. Enterprise is proud to support this report and is grateful for its contribution to the field. It is now up to us, as CDFIs and mission-aligned partners, to convert the ideas held within this report into action. In so doing, we can help realize the original intent of the Opportunity Zones legislation: to responsibly direct significant capital into communities that have been financially marginalized for too long

Pressure Hessian and viscous contributions to velocity gradient statistics based on Gaussian random fields

Understanding the non-local pressure contributions and viscous effects on the small-scale statistics remains one of the central challenges in the study of homogeneous isotropic turbulence. Here we address this issue by studying the impact of the pressure Hessian as well as viscous diffusion on the statistics of the velocity gradient tensor in the framework of an exact statistical evolution equation. This evolution equation shares similarities with earlier phenomenological models for the Lagrangian velocity gradient tensor evolution, yet constitutes the starting point for a systematic study of the unclosed pressure Hessian and viscous diffusion terms. Based on the assumption of incompressible Gaussian velocity fields, closed expressions are obtained as the results of an evaluation of the characteristic functionals. The benefits and shortcomings of this Gaussian closure are discussed, and a generalization is proposed based on results from direct numerical simulations. This enhanced Gaussian closure yields, for example, insights on how the pressure Hessian prevents the finite-time singularity induced by the local self-amplification and how its interaction with viscous effects leads to the characteristic strain skewness phenomenon

It Better Only Drizzle, Why the newly created Oregon Rainy Day Fund is inadequate protection against the next economic downturn and how the problem can be fixed

Despite the creation of the Oregon Rainy Day Fund by the Legislature earlier this year, Oregon's public structures remain exposed to serious disruption in the next, inevitable economic downturn. This report examines the severe shortcomings of Oregon's two reserve accounts, the Rainy Day Fund and the Education Stability Fund, finding that:As of October 2007, state reserves available to the Legislature in the new Rainy Day Fund and the Education Stability Fund, combined, total only $237 million -- the equivalent of just 1.8 percent of General Fund revenue in the current budget cycle. To weather a recession of the same magnitude as the one that struck in 2001, the state would need nearly$2 billion, or about 15 percent of General Fund revenue in the current budget cycle.A design flaw prevents the Legislature from accessing the Oregon Rainy Day Fund until July 2009, and it severely limits access to future earnings and investments in the fund.The Education Stability Fund was drained nearly empty in 2005 and has barely recovered. Its effectiveness, moreover, is hampered because some of its funds are tied up in venture capital investments and because investment earnings are not retained in the fund.Oregon has failed to fund its two reserve accounts adequately. At the present rate of funding for both the Rainy Day Fund and the Education Stability Fund, total available reserves will grow to just 6.8 percent of General Fund revenue by the end of the 2013-15 budget cycle. By comparison, the 2001 recession caused General Fund revenue to decline by 15.2 percent.How to save Oregon's future rainy daysOregon would be in much better shape to weather a recession if the Legislature were to fix the flaws that restrict the availability and growth potential of the two reserve accounts and to fund them more adequately.The Legislature should refer to voters measures that would transfer future unanticipated personal and corporate income tax revenue into the Rainy Day Fund until the fund reaches its funding cap.The Legislature should increase the cap to allow the fund to grow large enough to protect Oregon from a 2001-like recession