Mid-Term Review of the Lisbon Strategy: Regional and Local Players Need to Step Up Their Involvement

[Introduction]. How should regional and local actors in Europe be involved in delivering the revised Lisbon strategy? This is a question of importance not only for the development of good multilevel governance in the European Union but also for the effective implementation of European policies. This report summarises some of the discussion of this question which took place at the International Conference1 on the Lisbon strategy on growth and employment from the regional and local viewpoint. This conference, which brought together around 80 high-level civil servants and practitioners, politicians and academics, was jointly organised by EIPA and the European Centre for the Regions (EIPA-ECR) in April 2005 in Barcelona. The authors have summarised some "Key Messages" which were stated by speakers and participants. These are reproduced at the end of this article

"The Common Agricultural Policy and the Environmental Challenge – New Tasks for Public Administrations? Summary of Conference Proceedings"

[From the Introduction]. The seminar brought together senior officials from the European Commission, academics, researchers and senior experts from national administrations, who shared their views with 40 participants from all the Member States and the Candidate Countries

Replacing Remedial Mathematics with Corequisites in General Education Mathematics Courses

Many colleges and universities offer courses, such as Remedial Mathematics or Elementary Algebra, that underprepared students must complete before they can take a college-level mathematics course. However, nationally there is a push to replace remedial mathematics courses with corequisite courses instead. This design allows students to enter directly into their general education mathematics course instead of first overcoming the barrier of a remedial course. Corequisite mathematics courses were implemented across the 23-campus California State University system during the 2018-19 academic year. I will discuss the design and implementation of a corequisite structure at California State University, Monterey Bay, in particular focusing on the redesign of our Introductory Statistics course and corresponding corequisite course. I will discuss the rationale for moving to this structure, the logistics of making this change, the design and pedagogy used for Introductory Statistics and its corequisite, as well as preliminary findings about student success in our first year implementation

The Relationship of STEM Attitudes and Career Interest

This study examines the relationships between attitudes toward all core STEM subjects and interest in STEM careers among 4th through 12th grade US students through the administration of the Student Attitudes toward STEM (S-STEM) Survey to over 15,000 public school students. The research developed a model based on expectancy-value theory that incorporates key demographic factors of age, gender, and race/ethnicity. Our findings reinforce prior research that students across key demographic factors perceive biological/clinical and physical science career paths differently, resulting in two career clusters. Of interest, the relationship of mathematics attitudes to career interest varied by STEM career cluster. Findings were also supportive of the conclusion that students’ attitudes towards STEM careers are not static over their primary and secondary grades, stabilizing and leveling during their secondary years. Gender showed significantly different interest levels for the two career clusters: males higher for physical sciences and females higher for biological/clinical sciences. Racial/ethnic disparity in STEM career interests can be seen more readily in physical sciences and engineering than in the biological sciences. Overall, our work reinforces findings that students, as young as elementary grades, are forming attitudinal associations between their academic and life experience and future STEM careers

The adoption of algorithmic decision-making agents over time: algorithm aversion as a temporary effect?

Many individuals encounter algorithmic decision-making agents with algorithm aversion – the irrational discounting of superior algorithmic advice. So far, we know little about how algorithm adoption develops over time and how people may overcome algorithm aversion. In response, we explore the factors that foster the adoption of algorithmic decision-making agents – initially and over time. Based on an experiment with incentive-compatible awards over several rounds, we find that one’s knowledge about peers successfully using the technology as well as low transaction costs serve as strong initial motivators to foster initial algorithm adoption. Further, by revealing that adoption rates increase and initial difference in adoption rates become smaller over time, we find evidence that despite the technology’s particularities, algorithm aversion seems to have a temporary effect only

Xenon Acquisition Strategies for High-Power Electric Propulsion NASA Missions

The benefits of high-power solar electric propulsion (SEP) for both NASA's human and science exploration missions combined with the technology investment from the Space Technology Mission Directorate have enabled the development of a 50kW-class SEP mission. NASA mission concepts developed, including the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission, and those proposed by contracted efforts for the 30kW-class demonstration have a range of xenon propellant loads from 100's of kg up to 10,000 kg. A xenon propellant load of 10 metric tons represents greater than 10% of the global annual production rate of xenon. A single procurement of this size with short-term delivery can disrupt the xenon market, driving up pricing, making the propellant costs for the mission prohibitive. This paper examines the status of the xenon industry worldwide, including historical xenon supply and pricing. The paper discusses approaches for acquiring on the order of 10 MT of xenon propellant considering realistic programmatic constraints to support potential near-term NASA missions. Finally, the paper will discuss acquisitions strategies for mission campaigns utilizing multiple high-power solar electric propulsion vehicles requiring 100's of metric tons of xenon over an extended period of time where a longer term acquisition approach could be implemented