Search for Gluinos with the CMS Detector at the LHC

Gluino pair production in an EGRET motivated supersymmetry scenario has been studied. The analysis shows, that this special scenario could be proven with the first LHC data, and assuming a higher integrated luminosity the analysis would be able to cover a large region of the minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) parameter space.Comment: Contributed paper to the 36th ITEP Winter School of Physics, Moscow, Feb. 2008, 22 pages,11 figures, Submitted to "Yadernaya Fizika

Assessing the Increasing Strength of Charter Laws

Since 2005, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (National Alliance) has advocated for high-quality public charter school laws. With the support of a working group with deep expertise in public charter school law, we released a model charter law in 2009 with 20 essential components focused on creating and supporting high-quality public charter schools.After we released the model charter law, we then undertook an extensive review of all existing state charter laws in comparison to the model law and issued annual state charter laws rankings reports in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Each year, we sought input on the rankings reports from a variety of charter stakeholders and made adjustments to the reports' scoring rubrics as needed. In the rankings reports, we showed where state scores shifted as a result of policy change, but we also noted where changes occurred as a result of adjustments in our scoring rubrics or further clarifications about existing policies in states that would affect the state's rankings score.The purpose of this report is to sync the ratings from the multiple rankings reports so that rating changes over time are primarily the result of changes in policy, not from changes to our scoring rubrics and clarifications about existing policies

Automatic Closure of Low-Performing Public Charter Schools

The National Alliance advocates for the growth and expansion of high-quality charter schools. While we believe it is important to foster the growth of charter schools achieving great academic results for students, it is equally important to close charter schools that are not improving student outcomes.We are pleased to see that over the past several years, state lawmakers have increasingly enacted legislation, often based on our model law, to better support the growth of high-quality public charter schools -- including strengthening accountability provisions for these innovative public school options. At the same time, a growing number of states have passed laws that require charter schools to close if they do not meet certain performance benchmarks.This week we released a state policy snapshot that provides an overview of automatic closure policies in the 15 states that have such laws, which is an increase of four states since we last released this snapshot in 2014.As state lawmakers consider these policies, they should give serious thought to several issues, including authorizers' track records in closing low-performing public charter schools, the sophistication of their states' accountability systems, and how to handle public charter schools that serve high percentages of at-risk students.We commend policymakers who have acted to enforce the quality of their state's charter school landscape through strong accountability measures. We also strongly encourage lawmakers to work closely with the local public charter school stakeholders who are committed to quality as they investigate this policy issue

2015 State Legislative Session Highlights for Public Charter Schools

2015 has proved to be another successful year for public charter school legislation across the country. Some of the biggest developments of the 2015 state legislative sessions include:Alabama became the 43rd state to enact a public charter school law.Connecticut defeated a proposed two-year moratorium on opening of new charter schools.Indiana increased school autonomy, strengthened school and authorizer accountability, and funded facilities and finance programs.Nevada improved funding opportunities and modified its automatic closure requirements for low-performing public charter schools.New York increased flexibility for teacher certification and adjusted its cap to allow more public charter school growth in New York City.Ohio increased per-pupil funding for charter facilities and expanded the ability of traditional districts to levy taxes for charter schools that are sponsored by "exemplary" sponsors.Oklahoma overhauled law, including provisions to allow charter schools statewide, strengthening school and authorizer accountability, and allowing charter schools to borrow money.Wisconsin overhauled its law to allow more entities to authorize independent public charter schools, strengthening school and authorizer accountability, and providing additional funding to independent public charter schools

RURAL COMMUNITY HOUSING: POLICY ISSUES AND DIRECTIONS

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

CREATING LEGAL PATHWAYS TO REDUCE IRREGULAR MIGRATION? WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM GERMANY’S “WESTERN BALKAN REGULATION”

The arrival of over 1 million people in Europe in 2015 and the sense of crisis it provoked have renewed debates on appropriate ways to establish a more orderly migration management system. How can we ensure pathways are available for those in genuine need of protection, while reducing the number of migrants arriving irregularly? “Legal pathways” are often presented as an essential tool toward this end. In 2015, Germany created such legal pathways in the form of access to the German labor market in a little known, and almost accidental migration policy experiment: the Western Balkan Regulation. Against the backdrop of large numbers of people arriving in Germany from the six Western Balkan states (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia) who had almost no chance of receiving asylum and then from 2015 the sudden increase of Syrians and others coming through the Balkan route, the regulation was part of a broader initiative in Berlin to reduce the numbers of people seeking asylum. The regulation, also known as section 26.2 (§26.2) of the employment regulation (Beschäftigungsverordnung), essentially opened the labor market for nationals from the six Western Balkan countries, without, more surprisingly, including any minimum skill or qualification requirements. The only pre-requisite was a valid job offer by an employer in Germany, subject to a standard priority check for third country nationals

Assessing the Effectiveness of Health Care Cost Containment Measures

Using SOEP panel data and difference-in-differences methods, this study is the first to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of four different health care cost containment measures within an integrated framework. The four measures investigated were introduced in Germany in 1997 to reduce moral hazard and public health expenditures in the market for convalescent care. Doubling the daily copayments was clearly the most effective cost containment measure, resulting in a reduction in demand of about 20 percent. Indirect measures such as allowing employers to cut statutory sick pay or paid vacation during health spa stays did not significantly reduce demand.copayment, cost containment measures, health expenditures, convalescent care, SOEP

Assessing the Effectiveness of Health Care Cost Containment Measures

Using SOEP panel data and difference-in-differences methods, this study is the first to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of four different health care cost containment measures within an integrated framework. The four measures investigated were introduced in Germany in 1997 to reduce moral hazard and public health expenditures in the market for convalescent care. Doubling the daily copayments was clearly the most effective cost containment measure, resulting in a reduction in demand of about 20 percent. Indirect measures such as allowing employers to cut statutory sick pay or paid vacation during health spa stays did not significantly reduce demand.health expenditures, cost containment measures, copayment, convalescent care, SOEP

FNAS computational fluid dynamics

This work involves the coordination of necessary resources, facilities, and special personnel to provide a workshop to promote the exchange of CFD technology between industry, universities, and government. Critical flow problems have been isolated and simulation of these is being done

Space shuttle main engine numerical modeling code modifications and analysis

The user of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes must be concerned with the accuracy and efficiency of the codes if they are to be used for timely design and analysis of complicated three-dimensional fluid flow configurations. A brief discussion of how accuracy and efficiency effect the CFD solution process is given. A more detailed discussion of how efficiency can be enhanced by using a few Cray Research Inc. utilities to address vectorization is presented and these utilities are applied to a three-dimensional Navier-Stokes CFD code (INS3D)