Incentives and Improved Economic Conditions: A Field Experiment in Medellin, Colombia

The motivation for this research is to replicate the Oakland based Family Independence Initiative (FII) and to test the components of this model. The FII program claims its success stems from a bottom-up approach structured around setting life improving goals, mutual support groups, and small monetary incentives for achieved results. We enrolled close to 200 small business owners in four experimental treatments (group, no-group, incentives, no-incentives) and a fifth external control group. The experimental data shows that incentives have the strongest overall impact in improving the likelihood of goal achievement and economic performance. Furthermore, the interaction of goal setting, groups, and incentives has positive significant impacts meaning the full FII program is indeed delivering on its promise to improve people’s economic life: more goals are achieved and monthly sales values are significantly higher than in the other treatment groups. In addition to investigating the mechanisms behind its effectiveness, our research finds that the FII model is replicable in a developing country setting, promising a new potentially successful yet inexpensive way to help people lift themselves out of poverty

Incentives to Improve Economic Conditions: A Field Experiment in Medellin, Colombia

The motivation for this research is to replicate the Oakland based Family Independence Initiative (FII) and to test the components of this model. The FII program claims its success stems from a bottom-up approach structured around setting life-improving goals, mutual support groups, and small monetary incentives to achieve results. As the popularity of this program continues to gain momentum in the United States, we designed a field experiment to measure the impact of incentives on goal achievement and economic conditions as well as the overall impact of the FII model. We enrolled close to 200 small business owners in four experimental treatments (group, no-group, incentives, no-incentives) and a fifth external control group. The experimental data shows that incentives have the strongest overall impact in improving the likelihood of goal achievement and economic performance. Furthermore, the interaction of goal setting, groups, and incentives has positive significant impacts meaning the full FII program is indeed delivering on its promise to improve people’s economic life: more goals are achieved and monthly sales values are significantly higher than in the other treatment groups. In addition to investigating the effectiveness of incentives and goal setting, our research found that the FII model is replicable in a developing country setting, promising a new potentially successful yet inexpensive way to help people lift themselves out of poverty

DRAGONS AND MERMAIDS: Script Building Using Sociodrama as an Ecological Teaching and Learning Application

This project describes and demonstrates a script-building process for use as a teaching and learning application for third-grade students. Creativity elements of models framing this application will include the Torrance Model of Sociodrama as Creative Problem Solving, Rhodes’ 4 P’s (person, process, product, and press), and the Creative Problem Thinking Skills Model. The constructivism theory of learning is discussed to demonstrate an active-learning process that is ecological in nature, as are the creativity models discussed. Engagement of students in this ecological and active-learning process is the intention of the teaching and learning application in this paper. Commonalities among these creativity models, the constructivism learning theory, and the script-building teaching and learning application are evident and presented in two matrix charts. An example of a script built by students resulting from this teaching and learning application is presented to model the results of an action-learning process

Social Media Portals as a Modern Form of Social Communication: An Exemplification of Polish Mediasphere

Today, internet plays an indisputable role as a means of communication, information flow, and as a point of meeting the needs of a growing number of people. The authors noted more and more important role that mass communication plays in social media. This article presents various definitions of the phenomenon and the proposed typology, and threats which entails using either incompetent social media today. This article is intended to facilitate the communication process for researchers, sociologists, media experts, and people interested in the study of the phenomenon of online communication

Determination of amyloid core structure using chemical shifts.

Amyloid fibrils are the pathological hallmark of a large variety of neurodegenerative disorders. The structural characterization of amyloid fibrils, however, is challenging due to their non-crystalline, heterogeneous, and often dynamic nature. Thus, the structure of amyloid fibrils of many proteins is still unknown. We here show that the structure calculation program CS-Rosetta can be used to obtain insight into the core structure of amyloid fibrils. Driven by experimental solid-state NMR chemical shifts and taking into account the polymeric nature of fibrils CS-Rosetta allows modeling of the core of amyloid fibrils. Application to the Y145X stop mutant of the human prion protein reveals a left-handed beta-helix

An Algorithm to Enumerate Grid Signed Permutation Classes

In this paper, we present an algorithm that enumerates a certain class of signed permutations, referred to as grid signed permutation classes. In the case of permutations, the corresponding grid classes are of interest because they are equivalent to the permutation classes that can be enumerated by polynomials. Furthermore, we apply our results to genome rearrangements and establish that the number of signed permutations with fixed prefix reversal and reversal distance is given by polynomials that can be computed by our algorithm.Comment: Corrected typos and extended some explanations. Final version included in the Proceedings of The International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation, ISSAC 202

Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe: Documentation of the Panel Dataset

Der Methodenbericht beschreibt die Erhebung der zweiten Welle der Studie "Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe - Modern Mobile Living and its Relation to Quality of Life" sowie die Struktur der resultierenden Paneldaten. Eine erste Welle wurde im Jahr 2007 in sechs europäischen Ländern durchgeführt: Deutschland, Frankreich, Spanien, Polen, Belgien und der Schweiz. Insgesamt wurden 7.220 zufällig ausgewählte Personen befragt. Die Studie fokussierte auf drei zentrale Aspekte: Erstens, die Verbreitung und Vielfalt berufsbedingter räumlicher Mobilität in Europa, zweitens, die Ursachen und Entstehungszusammenhänge, sowie, drittens, die Konsequenzen von berufsbedingter räumlicher Mobilität für subjektives Wohlbefinden, Familie, Beruf und soziale Beziehungen. Zwischen 2010 und 2012 wurde eine Wiederholungsbefragung unter 1.735 Personen in vier Ländern durchgeführt: Deutschland, Frankreich, Spanien und der Schweiz (Wiederbefragungsquote: 34,5 %). Das Paneldesign eröffnet neue Möglichkeiten durch Längsschnittanalysen und damit tiefere Einblicke in die genannten Forschungsfragen. Diese Möglichkeiten werden zudem ergänzt durch eine retrospektive Erfassung umfangreicher Biographien zu Mobilität, Berufen, Familie und Partnerschaften. Daneben wurden im Rahmen der zweiten Welle neue Befragungsinhalte zu Themen wie soziale Integration, freiwilliges bürgerschaftliches Engagement und soziale Mobilität aufgenommen. Die Datendokumentation bietet eine Beschreibung der erhobenen Formen von Mobilität, der Inhalte des Erhebungsinstruments, der Stichprobengewinnung, der Feldphase, der Panelselektivität sowie der Datengewichtung.This data documentation describes the realisation of the second wave of the study Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe - Modern Mobile Living and its Relation to Quality of Life and the basic structure of the panel data thus obtained. A first wave was conducted in 2007 in six European countries: Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Poland and Belgium. Overall, 7,220 randomly selected individuals were interviewed. The study focused on three main aspects: firstly, on the prevalence and variety of job-related spatial mobility in Europe, secondly, on the causes and circumstances of people’s mobility decisions, and thirdly, on the consequences of job-related spatial mobility for subjective well-being, family life, occupational career and social integration. Between 2010 and 2012, a follow-up survey was carried out in four countries: Germany, Spain, Switzerland and France. 1,735 respondents of the initial survey could be interviewed again (overall response rate: 34.5%). The panel structure provides a deeper insight into the mentioned research interests by providing an opportunity for longitudinal analysis. Moreover, this opportunity is enhanced by a collection of extensive retrospective data about spatial mobility, employment, partnership and family. Furthermore, the second wave includes new contents with topics such as social integration, volunteerism and social mobility. This documentation features a description of the forms of mobility investigated, the contents of the questionnaire, the sampling procedure, the fieldwork, the sample drop-outs and the weighting of the data