Estimating Public and Private Expenditures on Occupational Training in the United States

[Excerpt] Retraining and upgrading the skills of incumbent workers and providing training to new labor force entrants, dislocated workers, and unemployed persons can help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the workforce. Funding for occupational training comes from many sources — the federal government, state and local governments, private employers, philanthropic foundations, and individual workers themselves. This report examines occupational training to present a preliminary picture of the total spending on job training in the United States

Supporting children and young people to assume responsibility from their parents for the self-management of their long-term condition: An integrative review

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Background: Children and young people with long-term conditions (LTCs) are usually dependent on, or share management with, their families and are expected to develop self-management skills as they mature. However, during adolescence, young people can find it challenging to follow prescribed treatment regimens resulting in poor clinical outcomes. Though reviews have looked at children's and parents' experiences of self-management, none have explicitly examined the parent-to-child transfer of self-management responsibility. Methods: An integrative review was conducted with the aim of exploring the parent-to-child transfer of LTC self-management responsibility, through addressing two questions: (a) How do children assume responsibility from their parents for self-management of their LTC? (b) What influences the parent-to-child transfer of this responsibility? Eight databases were searched for papers published from 1995 to 2017. Methodological quality was assessed; included papers were synthesized to identify themes. Results: Twenty-nine papers were identified. Most papers used qualitative designs and focused on children with diabetes. Participants were predominantly children and/or parents; only two studies included health professionals. Assuming self-management responsibility was viewed as part of normal development but was rarely explored within the context of the child gaining independence in other areas of their life. Children and parents adopted strategies to help the transfer, but there was limited evidence around health professionals' roles and ambivalence around what was helpful. There was a lack of clarity over whether children and parents were aiming for shared management, or self-management, and whether this was a realistic or desired goal for families. Multiple factors such as the child, family, social networks, health professional, and LTC influenced how a child assumed responsibility. Conclusions: Evidence suggests that the parent-to-child transfer of self-management responsibility is a complex, individualized process. Further research across childhood LTCs is needed to explore children's, parents', and professionals' views on this process and what support families require as responsibilities change

An analysis of the education potential of sites in the Cape Peninsula for secondary school fieldwork in environmental studies

In South African secondary schools much less fieldwork is undertaken than in a number of other countries despite fieldwork being required by some school syllabuses and the fact that, in many areas, suitable sites are ready to hand. In an attempt to assess the nature of future demands for fieldwork sites, this study reviews developments in education which lead to increasing emphasis on teaching outside the classroom, and the reasons why so little fieldwork is being done are analyzed. A methodology is developed for selecting fieldwork sites taking into account educational priorities and practical constraints. This is worked out in practice by drawing up a fieldwork syllabus for a particular school, and selecting sites in the Cape Peninsula for field studies. Finally, the educational potential of a sample of these sites is indicated by means of exercises prepared for secondary school children

Adaptive semi-linear inversion of strong gravitational lens imaging

We present a new pixelized method for the inversion of gravitationally lensed extended source images which we term adaptive semi-linear inversion (SLI). At the heart of the method is an h-means clustering algorithm which is used to derive a source plane pixelization that adapts to the lens model magnification. The distinguishing feature of adaptive SLI is that every pixelization is derived from a random initialization, ensuring that data discretization is performed in a completely different and unique way for every lens model parameter set. We compare standard SLI on a fixed source pixel grid with the new method and demonstrate the shortcomings of the former when modelling singular power-law ellipsoid (SPLE) lens profiles. In particular, we demonstrate the superior reliability and efficiency of adaptive SLI which, by design, fixes the number of degrees of freedom (NDOF) of the optimization and thereby removes biases present with other methods that allow the NDOF to vary. In addition, we highlight the importance of data discretization in pixel-based inversion methods, showing that adaptive SLI averages over significant systematics that are present when a fixed source pixel grid is used. In the case of the SPLE lens profile, we show how the method successfully samples its highly degenerate posterior probability distribution function with a single nonlinear search. The robustness of adaptive SLI provides a firm foundation for the development of a strong lens modelling pipeline, which will become necessary in the short-term future to cope with the increasing rate of discovery of new strong lens systems

High-growth firms: introduction to the special section

High-growth firms (HGFs) have attracted considerable attention recently, as academics and policymakers have increasingly recognized the highly skewed nature of many metrics of firm performance. A small number of HGFs drives a disproportionately large amount of job creation, while the average firm has a limited impact on the economy. This article explores the reasons for this increased interest, summarizes the existing literature, and highlights the methodological considerations that constrain and bias research. This special section draws attention to the importance of HGFs for future industrial performance, explores their unusual growth trajectories and strategies, and highlights the lack of persistence of high growth. Consequently, while HGFs are important for understanding the economy and developing public policy, they are unlikely to be useful vehicles for public policy given the difficulties involved in predicting which firms will grow, the lack of persistence in high growth levels, and the complex and often indirect relationship between firm capability, high growth, and macro-economic performance

Death is not a success: reflections on business exit

This article is a critical evaluation of claims that business exits should not be seen as failures, on the grounds that may constitute voluntary liquidation, or because they are learning opportunities. This can be seen as further evidence of bias affecting entrepreneurship research, where failures are repackaged as successes. This article reiterates that the majority of business exits are unsuccessful. Drawing on ideas from the organisational life course, it is suggested that business ‘death’ is a suitable term for describing business closure. Even cases of voluntary ‘harvest liquidation’ such as retirement can be meaningfully described as business deaths

Book reviews

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Computation of Dominant Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors: A Comparative Study of Algorithms

We investigate two widely used recursive algorithms for the computation of eigenvectors with extreme eigenvalues of large symmetric matrices -- the modified Lanczös method and the conjugate-gradient method. The goal is to establish a connection between their underlying principles and to evaluate their performance in applications to Hamiltonian and transfer matrices of selected model systems of interest in condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics. The conjugate-gradient method is found to converge more rapidly for understandable reasons, while storage requirements are the same for both methods