316 research outputs found
Another factor to consider in choosing a child support guideline: Errors in child support calculations
In an effort to standardize the calculation of monthly child support awards, the federal government requires states to use preestablished formulas to determine the amount of awards. However, because of human error, differences in the experience and training of the officials making the calculations, and the extent to which computers are used to calculate the awards, the formulas do not always yield the same result. In fact, the discrepancy between the amount calculated by an individual child support official and the approved amount as calculated by the state in which that official works can be quite large, on the order of several hundred dollars. Adopting simpler formulas will reduce errors; this should be a priority even if child support officials use computers to calculate award amounts (computers can reduce errors but will not eliminate them, particularly in the case of complex formulas). Efforts to further the training and education of personnel who calculate awards would also help, and child support offices should revise their formulas to cover high-income cases.
Child support enforcement for teenage fathers: Problems and prospects
The NLSY data indicate that about 7.3 percent of teenage males become fathers and that very few of these fathers live with their children. Father absence and the concurrent increase in female-headed households are closely associated with the impoverishment of children. Most absent teen fathers never come into contact with the child support enforcement program, and the extent to which they financially support their children informally is not well understood. While the income of absent teen fathers is low in the teen years, it increases over time, as does the potential for collecting child support. Nevertheless, men who were absent teen fathers earn less in early adulthood than men who deferred parenting until age twenty or later and teen fathers who lived with their children. Early establishment of paternity and greater standardization in the treatment of adolescent fathers by the child support enforcement program are recommended. Further, the substantial and persistent income deficit experienced by adolescent fathers who live apart from their children raises an interesting dilemma. While children may benefit financially and psychosocially from living with two parents, the lower income of men who were absent teenage fathers may make them poor marital prospects. This raises doubts about the recent recommendations of some scholars that we should bring back the shotgun wedding.
Self-gravitating magnetised tori around black holes in general relativity
We investigate stationary, self-gravitating, magnetised disks (or tori)
around black holes. The models are obtained by numerically solving the coupled
system of the Einstein equations and the equations of ideal
general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics. The mathematical formulation and
numerical aspects of our approach are similar to those reported in previous
works modeling stationary self-gravitating perfect-fluid tori, but the
inclusion of magnetic fields represents a new ingredient. Following previous
studies of purely hydrodynamical configurations, we construct our models
assuming Keplerian rotation in the disks and both spinning and spinless black
holes. We focus on the case of a toroidal distribution of the magnetic field
and build a large set of models corresponding to a wide range of values of the
magnetisation parameter, starting with weakly magnetised disks and ending at
configurations in which the magnetic pressure dominates over the thermal one.
In all our models, the magnetic field affects the equilibrium structure of the
torus mainly due to the magnetic pressure. In particular, an increasing
contribution of the magnetic field shifts the location of the maximum of the
rest-mass density towards inner regions of the disk. The total mass of the
system and the angular momentum are affected by the magnetic field in a complex
way, that depends on the black hole spin and the location of the inner radius
of the disk. The non-linear dynamical stability of the solutions presented in
this paper will be reported elsewhere.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Using Networks To Build Collaborative And Equitable Food Systems
Local food systems are widely regarded as go-to examples for fostering rural-urban and farmer-consumer connections, but they require significant investments in stakeholder networks and the institutional infrastructure necessary to sustain and expand them. In our latest research brief, authors Rich Pirog and Marcus A. Coleman focus on local food systems as vehicles for collaboration and racial equity among multiple stakeholders and networks. They highlight examples of statewide, regional, and national initiatives to illustrate the power of networks to foster deeper levels of collaboration and reciprocity. They also explore the vital roles of Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) and Cooperative Extension
PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION COMMENTS WELCOME Evaluating Job Training Programs: What have we learned?
Non-linear Electrical Load Location Identification
The article discusses the issues of identifying the location of non-linear loads in electrical networks which makes the main contribution to the distortion of the non-sinusoidal voltage and current in the distribution network of an industrial enterprise, including mining enterprises. The existing methods for determining the location of the source of higher harmonic components in voltage and current are considered, their advantages and disadvantages are revealed. The main disadvantages of the methods used include the low accuracy and incorrectness of their use in existing enterprises. When developing a new method, the authors were faced with the task of simplicity of its use in the conditions of industrial operation of electrical equipment and the absolute correctness of the results obtained. The proposed method of identifying the source of higher harmonics is based on the variation of the parameters of the power system, in particular, the change in resistance of power transformers taking into account their transformation ratio. It is shown that by varying the transformation ratio during regulation under load, the total coefficient of the harmonic components of the voltage changes. Based on the constructed dependencies, the variation of the derivative of this function with different variations of the parameters of sources of higher harmonics is analyzed and a method is developed that allows determining the share contribution of consumers to the total harmonic component of the voltage
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