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Theorizing Risk and Research: Methodological Constraints and Their Consequences
Conflict, postconflict settings, and other risky research sites are important with wide-ranging policy implications. Microlevel, field-based research lends critical insights to how conflicts work and the mechanisms behind macrolevel correlations that underpin quantitative political science. This article identifies how the risks associated with conflict and postconflict contexts influence researchers’ choices by theorizing the existence of distinct adaptive strategies. Specifically, researchers facing elevated risk generally manage it through three main strategies: outsourcing risk, avoiding risk, and internalizing risk. We argue that these strategies systematically shape and circumscribe outputs. We conclude by discussing how the relationship between risky fieldwork and what we know about conflict is poorly acknowledged. Thinking about how we manage risk should play a larger role in both our preparation for and interpretation of research, particularly in conflict and postconflict contexts
Interactions between teaching assistants and students boost engagement in physics labs
Through in-class observations of teaching assistants (TAs) and students in
the lab sections of a large introductory physics course, we study which TA
behaviors can be used to predict student engagement and, in turn, how this
engagement relates to learning. For the TAs, we record data to determine how
they adhere to and deliver the lesson plan and how they interact with students
during the lab. For the students, we use observations to record the level of
student engagement and pre- and post-tests of lab skills to measure learning.
We find that the frequency of TA-student interactions, especially those
initiated by the TAs, is a positive and significant predictor of student
engagement. Interestingly, the length of interactions is not significantly
correlated with student engagement. In addition, we find that student
engagement was a better predictor of post-test performance than pre-test
scores. These results shed light on the manner in which students learn how to
conduct inquiry and suggest that, by proactively engaging students, TAs may
have a positive effect on student engagement, and therefore learning, in the
lab.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures. v2: Revised for clarity and concision. Version
accepted to Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Researc
A Comparative Anatomy of REITs and Residential Real Estate Indexes: Returns, Risks and Distributional Characteristics
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are the only truly liquid assets related to real estate investments. We study the behavior of U.S. REITs over the past three decades and document their return characteristics. REITs have somewhat less market risk than equity; their betas against a broad market index average about .65. Decomposing their covariances into principal components reveals several strong factors. REIT characteristics differ to some extent from those of the S&P/Case-Shiller (SCS) residential real estate indexes. This is partly attributable to methods of index construction. Our examination of REITs suggests that investment in real estate is far more risky than what might be inferred from the widely-followed SCS series.
E.P. v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute: The Evolution of Involuntary Civil Commitments from Treatment to Punishment
Addresses the problem of identification of hybrid dynamical systems, by focusing the attention on hinging hyperplanes and Wiener piecewise affine autoregressive exogenous models. In particular, we provide algorithms based on mixed-integer linear or quadratic programming which are guaranteed to converge to a global optimu
Escaping the Shadow of Malpractice Law
Abinovich-Einy addresses several constituencies operating at the meeting point of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), communication theory, healthcare policy, and medical-malpractice doctrine. From an ADR perspective, the need for, and barriers to, addressing non-litigable disputes, for which the alternative route is the only one, is explored. It is shown that ADR mechanisms may not take root when introduced into an environment that is resistant to collaborative and open discourse without additional incentives and measures being adopted
Court Reform in England
In this report, the Direct Weight Optimization (DWO) approach to function estimation is studied for two special function classes: The classes of approximately constant and approximately linear functions. These classes consist of functions whose deviation from a constant/affine function is bounded by a known constant. Upper and lower bounds for the asymptotic maximum MSE are given, some of whic halso hold in the non-asymptotic case
Long-haul flights and tourist arrivals
Travel cost is a barrier for many tourists who wish to visit faraway destinations. This affects exotic tourism destinations located far from key markets since it the great majority of travelers from these markets will find travel cost prohibitively high. However, exotic tourism destinations might attract more visitors if they are able to improve market access through improved international air connectivity. The objective of this study is to test whether an increase in the number of long-haul flights has positive impacts on the number of tourist arrivals. We estimate a dynamic demand model using panel data of tourist arrivals to Peru and flight connections from 75 origin countries spanning the years 2004 to 2009, and find significant positive direct and indirect effects of long haul flights on demand for air travel to Peru.Air travel demand, nonstop flights, tourism arrivals, Peru
Self-Sufficiency Under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act: A Suggested Judicial Approach
The Direct Weight Optimization (DWO) approach to statistical estimation and the application to nonlinear system identification has been proposed and developed during the last few years. Computationally, the approachis typically reduced to a convex (e.g., quadratic or conic) program, whichcan be solved efficiently. The optimality or sub-optimality of the obtained estimates, in a minimax sense w.r.t. the estimation error criterion, can be analyzed under weak a priori conditions. The main ideas of the approach are discussed here and an overview of the obtained results is presented
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