Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 Special Report on Poverty

The sheer scale of needs associated with being poor or near poor dwarfs the resources of even the largest Jewish community in the United States. One is tempted to believe that the scale of need is so vast that the Jewish community should abandon this field to others.Yet since the earliest days of Jewish communal life in New York, the organized Jewish community has accepted its responsibilities to care for those in need. Even since the New Deal, when the federal government took on the primary role of providing a societal safety net, the Jewish community has been active in providing philanthropic support and services for poor and near-poor Jews.The numbers of poor and near-poor Jewish households, the enormous increase in the number of these households over the past 20 years, and the diverse groups affected by poverty create an imperative for an extraordinary response -- from government, the voluntary sector, the philanthropic sector, and all segments of society. These findings suggest that the organized Jewish community needs to take a hard look at current planning, advocacy, service delivery, and resource investment

Higher Education and the Journey of Transformation

Higher education exists in a cultural context, and our universities and colleges were designed to serve and maintain the dominant culture of modernism and technocracy. Holism is a countercultural perspective that contests this worldview, respecting nature’s organic patterns and self-organizing processes. A holistic pedagogy follows, rather than dictates to, the organic unfolding of life, and embraces an open, responsive, flexible, and self-reflective practice. The author describes his efforts to apply holistic principles in higher education and discusses the obstacles he encountered in a conventional college setting. He urges educators to recognize students as struggling, aspiring human souls looking for identity and security in an impersonal and insecure society

Press Release: Rodney Hurst It was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke

A press release about Rodney Hurst\u27s book It was never about a hot dog and a coke. In addition, it advertises the Amelia Island Book Festival on October 2-4, 2008

Coordinate sum and difference sets of dd-dimensional modular hyperbolas

Many problems in additive number theory, such as Fermat's last theorem and the twin prime conjecture, can be understood by examining sums or differences of a set with itself. A finite set $A \subset \mathbb{Z}$ is considered sum-dominant if $|A+A|>|A-A|$. If we consider all subsets of ${0, 1, ..., n-1}$, as $n\to\infty$ it is natural to expect that almost all subsets should be difference-dominant, as addition is commutative but subtraction is not; however, Martin and O'Bryant in 2007 proved that a positive percentage are sum-dominant as $n\to\infty$. This motivates the study of "coordinate sum dominance". Given $V \subset (\Z/n\Z)^2$, we call $S:={x+y: (x,y) \in V}$ a coordinate sumset and $D:=\{x-y: (x,y) \in V\}$ a coordinate difference set, and we say $V$ is coordinate sum dominant if $|S|>|D|$. An arithmetically interesting choice of $V$ is $\bar{H}_2(a;n)$, which is the reduction modulo $n$ of the modular hyperbola $H_2(a;n) := {(x,y): xy \equiv a \bmod n, 1 \le x,y < n}$. In 2009, Eichhorn, Khan, Stein, and Yankov determined the sizes of $S$ and $D$ for $V=\bar{H}_2(1;n)$ and investigated conditions for coordinate sum dominance. We extend their results to reduced $d$-dimensional modular hyperbolas $\bar{H}_d(a;n)$ with $a$ coprime to $n$.Comment: Version 1.0, 14 pages, 2 figure

Proton Electromagnetic Form Factor Ratios at Low Q^2

We study the ratio $R\equiv\mu G_E(Q^2)/G_M(Q^2)$ of the proton at very small values of $Q^2$. Radii commonly associated with these form factors are not moments of charge or magnetization densities. We show that the form factor $F_2$ is correctly interpretable as the two-dimensional Fourier transformation of a magnetization density. A relationship between the measurable ratio and moments of true charge and magnetization densities is derived. We find that existing measurements show that the magnetization density extends further than the charge density, in contrast with expectations based on the measured reduction of $R$ as $Q^2$ increases.Comment: 4 pages 3 figures We have corrected references, figures and some typographical error

S3E5: How can philosophy help deliver the best medical care?

Some may imagine that people who major in and pursue careers in philosophy are relegated to poring through old dusty books about Plato and Socrates. In reality, philosophy majors work in all kinds of fields, including the legal profession and entertainment. One place you might not expect to find a philosopher is in the hospital helping to make decisions about medical care, but that is what bioethicists do. Jessica Miller, a professor of philosophy at UMaine, also is a bioethicist. She uses her expertise to help medical professionals make decisions about care. We speak with Miller about bioethics and how it benefits patients, families and health care professionals. She also dispels a few myths as to what philosophy is really about