Soldiers to Citizens: The Link Between Military Service and Volunteering

Research has shown that military service is linked with some forms of political engagement, such as voting, especially for minorities. In this paper, we explore the relationship between military service and another measure of civic engagement— volunteering. Military service can help to overcome barriers to volunteering by helping to socialize people with a norm of civic responsibility, by providing social resources and skills that compensate for the lack of personal resources, and by making people aware of opportunities to volunteer and “asking” them to do so. The data used to explore this research question are from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) 2005 September supplement on volunteering. We find that military service is positively related to volunteering among blacks and Hispanics. Married veterans and veterans over the age of 65 are more likely to volunteer than nonveterans.LBJ School of Public Affair

Traditional public schools versus charter schools: a comparison of technical efficiency

This paper addresses the now famous question of “Does Money Matter?†in public education. While the general consensus is that additional expenditures may improve educational outcomes, this is by no means a guarantee. Indeed, some studies indicate that a school's resources are not an important determinant of student performance. As Adkins and Moomaw (2003) suggest, the true relationship between resources and performance may become more apparent in a better specified model accounting for technical inefficiency. Along these lines, we attempt to measure the technical efficiency gains of charter schools over traditional public schools using a stochastic frontier production model.Charter Schools

Educating Labour’s Professionals

Nota: Las reglas de escritura de las referencias bibliográficas pueden variar según los diferentes dominios del conocimiento. Este documento está protegido por la ley de derechos de autor. La utilización de los servicios de Érudit (comprendida la reproducción) se rige por su política de utilización que se puede consultar en el UR

Audio Source Separation Using Sparse Representations

This is the author's final version of the article, first published as A. Nesbit, M. G. Jafari, E. Vincent and M. D. Plumbley. Audio Source Separation Using Sparse Representations. In W. Wang (Ed), Machine Audition: Principles, Algorithms and Systems. Chapter 10, pp. 246-264. IGI Global, 2011. ISBN 978-1-61520-919-4. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-919-4.ch010file: NesbitJafariVincentP11-audio.pdf:n\NesbitJafariVincentP11-audio.pdf:PDF owner: markp timestamp: 2011.02.04file: NesbitJafariVincentP11-audio.pdf:n\NesbitJafariVincentP11-audio.pdf:PDF owner: markp timestamp: 2011.02.04The authors address the problem of audio source separation, namely, the recovery of audio signals from recordings of mixtures of those signals. The sparse component analysis framework is a powerful method for achieving this. Sparse orthogonal transforms, in which only few transform coefficients differ significantly from zero, are developed; once the signal has been transformed, energy is apportioned from each transform coefficient to each estimated source, and, finally, the signal is reconstructed using the inverse transform. The overriding aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how this framework, as exemplified here by two different decomposition methods which adapt to the signal to represent it sparsely, can be used to solve different problems in different mixing scenarios. To address the instantaneous (neither delays nor echoes) and underdetermined (more sources than mixtures) mixing model, a lapped orthogonal transform is adapted to the signal by selecting a basis from a library of predetermined bases. This method is highly related to the windowing methods used in the MPEG audio coding framework. In considering the anechoic (delays but no echoes) and determined (equal number of sources and mixtures) mixing case, a greedy adaptive transform is used based on orthogonal basis functions that are learned from the observed data, instead of being selected from a predetermined library of bases. This is found to encode the signal characteristics, by introducing a feedback system between the bases and the observed data. Experiments on mixtures of speech and music signals demonstrate that these methods give good signal approximations and separation performance, and indicate promising directions for future research

Cultures of Teaching

This paper explores some of the hidden regularities of classroom practices in adult education and examines possible explanations towards developing a clearer understanding of the social practice of teaching

Effective Computational Cosmology

Effective Field Theories (EFTs) provide a unique framework in which to attempt to answer outstanding questions in cosmology (and all field of physics, for that matter). This work investigates how the use of both EFTs and computational tools can help us to advance our knowledge of how the universe evolved and formed over time. Specifically, we review the successful EFT of Inflation, the EFT of Dark Energy (EFTDE), and introduce the EFT of Reheating as a generalized model of particle formation after inflation. In this way, we show how effective EFTs are at quantifying physical phenomenology at many different energy scales. Additionally, we review some useful codes and numerical algorithms and apply them to the question of post-inflationary resonance and late-time cosmic acceleration. In the case of the latter, we use real data to constrain EFTDE theory, offering a map -- the first of its kind -- from EFT parameters to standard cosmological parameters

Workplace Literacy: A Labour Perspective

This paper explores the policies and practices of Canadian unions in the area of workplace literacy. Specifically, it examines the roles that unions play in workplace literacy education and how labour-initiated workplace literacy programs might enhance education for working people and inform critical issues in workforce education

Community Prevention Plan for the Reduction of Sexually Transmitted Infections in Bastrop County, Texas

Goal Statement: My goal is to increase community awareness of sexually transmitted infections (STI), increase community STI knowledge, and to identify a plan to reduce STI transmission through the use of prophylactic measures. Significant Findings: Sexually transmitted infections include infectious pathogens of bacterial, viral, or parasitic origin that are transmitted through anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. In the United States, from 2014-2018 there was a significant increase in reported STIs, nationwide. Within this time frame, there was a 19% increase in chlamydia cases, 63% in gonorrhea cases, and 71% in both primary and secondary stage syphilis cases (CDC, 2018). The significant increase in these three ubiquitous STIs of bacterial origin demonstrates a clear deficit in the utility of present STI educational and prevention programs. An increase in these relatively common STIs may also indicate a lockstep increase in other STIs. All sexually active individuals are at risk when it comes to the transmissibility of these infections. Alcohol and drug abuse, multiple concurrent sexual partners, and aversion to condom use and STI testing all confer an increased risk for STIs (Murali & Jayaraman, 2018; Lewis et al., 2020). Of those individuals sexually active, young adults and adolescents represent the most at-risk group in the United States. Concerning all STIs, individuals aged 15-24 comprise more than half of the 20 million new STI cases each year in the United States (Saldanha, 2020). From the STI cases reported in Texas in 2019, 93,136 out of the total 145,874 cases were documented from individuals within the 15-24 age range (TDSHS, 2020). With this at risk population in mind, reformation of STI educational programs to include behavioral focused interventions may prove effective in reducing both STI incidence and prevalence. Objectives/Strategies/Interventions/Next Steps: For helping professionals, including but not limited to social workers, counselors, nurses, and physicians, behavioral focused psychoeducational STI programs appear to be the most effective intervention paradigms for reducing STI risk-associated behaviors and increasing use of effective preventative measures. The Health Belief Model (HBM) presents as a useful theory of prevention for identifying and reframing individual beliefs that dissuade people from utilizing and maintaining STI related preventative behaviors (NCI, 2005). Beliefs modulate how people perceive the risk and severity of STIs and the financial and social costs of both seeking treatment and maintaining preventative behaviors. Effective prevention must include concerted efforts at the community, institutional, and public policy levels. At the community level, psychoeducational programs are key. Training of respected community leaders in STI preventative practices, sexual health knowledge, and the effective delivery of information, as described in Young et al. (2011), will prove effective for bolstering community empowerment and disseminating risk-aversion practices. At the institutional level, psychoeducation programs in public school systems that emphasize prophylactic practices such as effective condom use, present as a useful tool for reducing risky behaviors and increasing safe sex practices. The Be Proud! Be Responsible! program created by Jemmot et al. (1992) serves as a model for such interventions. At the public policy level there must be a redressment of policies such as Section 510 of Title V of the Social Security Act of 1996 that allocate funding only to those schools that teach abstinence-only-before-marriage curriculum (Jeffries et al., 2010). Such policies should be amended to include the preventative efficacy of condom usage in the reduction of STIs. Knowledge of effective preventative practices and practical sexual health management will prove to be the most effective bulwark against the perceived barriers to STI prevention and treatment. The equitable dissemination of this information amongst the general public and at risk populations is the key to ameliorating the rising STI epidemic in the United States