Small Business Success: What Works and What Fails

Small Business Success: What You Need to Know. The owners of eight successful new businesses (successful defined as at least four years old and owner perceived) were interviewed, as well as the former owners of four unsuccessful businesses. The study showed that while planning can help your business, implementation is the fundamental component of small business success. This study was undergone to help create a link between what students learn in businesses classes, which is primary focused on working for a large company, and what people do in the entrepreneurship field

Pitkin Charter School

The Loew’s Pitkin building is a renovation of a movie/stage theater built in 1929. Over the next three decades the neighborhood declined and the theater closed in the Nineteen Sixties. The building was then a church for a while and then retail space with the theater auditorium empty. The building was finally abandoned in the Seventies and deteriorated until the early part of the next century. The School board of New York City took possession of the vacant structure and turned it into PS 159. It is a grade school serving grades from kindergarten to fifth grade and special education. This building is a public grade school located in Brooklyn, New York. This report evaluates the prescriptive code requirements of the New York City building codes and standards in effect at the time of permitting in the year, 2007. The building is Six Stories with an occupied roof. The building does not have an occupied story (roof level) over Seventy Five Feet. This building does not meet the requirements of a High Rise building as defined in the New York City Building Code. The building is categorized as a non- combustible protected structure. It has separated mixed occupancy classifications consisting of Assembly, Education, Business, Storage, and Factory. This report will analyze one fire scenario of a Christmas tree in the multi-use space Gym Auditorium Cafeteria located on the Sixth floor for the performance base design requirement. The prescriptive standards/codes used to evaluate the building are the New York City Building Code (IBC), New York City Fire Code (IFC), New York City Electric Code, and applicable standards from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The report will analyze building code requirements to include height and area, fire resistance rating of structural components, unprotected opening requirements, separation distance, fire department accesses, fire extinguisher placement, egress components, Fire sprinkler, and fire alarm. The Performance based analysis was conducted using Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS). The fire scenario in this performance based analysis is a Christmas tree fire in the multipurpose room on the top floor. The requirements of tenability will be established: temperature, visibility and fractional effective dose. The time for egress from the multipurpose room will be calculated to obtain the required safe egress time (RSET). The smoke layer height has been calculated using FDS and the available safe egress time will be determined (ASET). A comparison of the two components will be done to determine if tenable environment lasts long enough for people to egress the multipurpose room. There is one room that did not meet New York City building Code egress travel distance requirements. On the roof, a mechanical room located in the lower left hand corner did not meet the One Hundred foot travel distanced required for a single exit egress. There are three areas that did not meet the mean egress requirements for NFPA 101 the Life Safety Code; but, did meet the building code requirements. The kindergarten and first grade did not meet the requirement of being on level of exit discharge nor were they provided with an independent means of egress. The second grade is more than one story above exit discharge and was not provided with an independent means of egress. The performance based analysis determined the Christmas tree fire scenario in the multipurpose room did create an untenable environment before the occupants left the room. The smoke layer descended below a level of seven foot before all of the occupants left the room failing the visibility requirement of tenability. The installation of either a Mechanical or Natural Ventilation System would increase the time the smoke layer would take to reach a level of Seven feet allowing the visibility requirement of tenability to be met

Embracing New Opportunities in and beyond First-Year Honors Composition

Authors describe course-embedded research experiences at a diverse, rural, regional university. Emphasizing the capacity for conventional teaching and learning in first-year honors composition, these experiences provide relationshiprich education through faculty and peer mentorships. Positing that first-year honors composition is undervalued as a means for establishing programmatic foundations that resonate with students throughout their honors experience, the authors reinforce its importance as a place for disciplinary research and thus for opportunities in mentoring. By addressing an urgent need for mentoring underrepresented students, the authors consider how a research-based first-year honors composition course might help such students make meaningful disciplinary connections. A curricular overview is provided, with references to impact studies on mentorship, persistence, and student success beyond first-year courses and general educational curricula, setting the stage for sustained, whole-college mentorship in the honors experience

Street Outreach Workers: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Street outreach workers are an important part of the Senator Charles E. Shannon Jr. Community Safety Initiative (CSI) comprehensive gang and youth violence reduction strategy in Massachusetts1. Street outreach involves the use of individuals to “work the streets,” making contact with youth in neighborhoods with high levels of gang activity. These individuals are generally not employed by the criminal justice system agencies but rather are based in community service organizations or other non- governmental agencies. Street outreach workers provide an important bridge between the community, gang-involved youth, and the agencies (whether social service or law enforcement) that respond to the problems of delinquency and gangs. This guide offers information, guidance, and lessons learned from street outreach programs nationally and within the Massachusetts Shannon CSI communities to help guide existing street outreach programs and support communities considering developing new street outreach programs

Evidence-Based Use of Cognitive Testing for Academic Interventions: A Critical Appraisal of Meta-Analytic Methodologies

Research suggests Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) are directly linked to specific neurocognitive deficits that result in unexpected learning delays in academic domains for children in schools. However, meta-analytic studies have failed to find supporting evidence for using neurocognitive tests and, consequently, have discouraged their inclusion in SLD identification policies. The current study critically reviews meta-analytic findings and the methodological validity of over 200 research studies used in previous meta-analytic studies to estimate the causal effect of neurocognitive tests on intervention outcomes. Results suggest that only a very small percentage (6–12%) of studies used in previous meta-analytic studies were methodologically valid to estimate a direct effect of cognitive tests on academic intervention outcomes, with the majority of studies having no causal link between neurocognitive tests and intervention outcomes. Additionally, significant reporting discrepancies and inaccurate effect size estimates were found that warranted legitimate concerns for conclusions and policy recommendations provided in several meta-analytic studies. Given the lack of methodological rigor linking cognitive testing to academic interventions in current research, removing neurocognitive testing from learning disability evaluations may be premature. Suggestions for future studies evaluating the impact of neurocognitive tests on intervention outcomes as well as guidelines for synthesizing meta-analytic findings are discussed

A Tale of Three Cities: Crime and Displacement after Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, it greatly disrupted both the physical and social structures of that community. One consequence of the hurricane was the displacement of large numbers of New Orleans residents to other cities, including Houston, San Antonio, and Phoenix. There has been media speculation that such a grand-scale population displacement led to increased crime in communities that were recipient of large numbers of displaced New Orleans residents. This study was a case study of three cities with somewhat different experiences with Katrina\u27s diaspora. Time series analysis was used to examine the pre- and post-Katrina trends in six Part I offenses (murder, robbery, aggravated assault, rape, burglary, and auto theft) to assess any impact of such large-scale population shifts on crime in host communities. Contrary to much popular speculation, only modest effects were found on crime. Social disorganization theory was used to frame both the analysis and the interpretation of these result