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

A Small Group Ministry Combining Health Concepts with Biblical Narrative Analysis-Derived Principles at the Stevensville Seventh-day Adventist Church

Problem There are varied approaches to and models of evangelism and discipleship. Stevensville Seventh-day Adventist Church had, for many years, held evangelistic series to which the community was invited. At different times they had additionally put on health-related seminars and likewise invited the community. The evangelistic series typically focused on improving one\u27s understanding of truth while the health-related seminars traditionally focused on improving one\u27s physical well-being. Models of outreach which focus merely upon changing intellectual and spiritual understanding based primarily upon teaching church doctrines (traditional evangelistic series) and models that purely and exclusively focus on improving one\u27s physical well-being (health-related seminars), even in the context of an experiential relationship with Jesus, leave a reservoir of approaches untapped; approaches for whole-person transformation. Deep change is transformational and engages the whole person–spiritual, emotional, social, and intellectual facets of personhood. How could a church simultaneously integrate these two models into a single ministry, as did Christ? Method An eight-week small groups program was created for the Stevensville Seventh-day Adventist Church. The program introduced participants to information and principles drawn from (a) CREATION Health to improve their understanding of their physical health and from (b) selected healing narratives of Christ to improve their understanding of their spiritual health. The program additionally combined both in-person group elements with individual one-on-one coaching elements. The goal was to improve participant\u27s understanding of the elements of good physical health and good relational health with Christ. The success of the program was judged on participants self-reporting of perceived improvements in both areas. Results At the onset of the project a total of 11 participants initially joined. This number grew to 14 by the end of the eight weeks. All of the participants reported improved understanding of their physical health as well as a deepening in their understanding of Christ as creator, healer, redeemer and friend. The small group became so well bonded that at the conclusion of the initial eight weeks, they unanimously agreed to continue meeting together. Conclusions Copying Christ\u27s method of helping individuals understand both their physical health as well as their relational health with God can result in improving both, with the benefit of also increasing individual\u27s faith, hope, and love. The program revealed that the small group was a success as reported by the participants. As designed and implemented, the small group model with coaching elements created an environment in which participants were able to learn new information and gain insights into their own goals. In turn, they were empowered to make healthier decisions, and experience improvements in both their physical health and relationship with Christ as creator, healer, redeemer and friend, while also growing in community with each other