The Effects of AI on the Professions: A Literature Repository

The literature on AI as a whole is huge and burgeoning, but a focus on the professions has enabled us to look at how it will change the nature of work overall, and specifically how it will impact on those who offer a professional service either as specialist consultants or in-house practitioners in public, private and not for profit sectors. It does not claim to be exhaustive, but every topic that is currently under consideration about and arising from AI and the professions is covered here. It does not cover popular practitioner-oriented publications either since this was outside the remit of the research which was to look at a stable and authoritative base for considering AI and the professions. Readers of this report are encouraged to read the contemporary popular journals, blogs and websites since they provide a regular update on topics that are under consideration at any one time and form a running commentary that should be engaged with

How Educators Can Eradicate Disparities in School Discipline: A Briefing Paper on School-Based Interventions

The number of students issued suspensions in U.S. schools continues to be extremely high, resulting in thousands of students missing school every day. Simultaneously,disparities in school suspension continue to worsen, indicating that students in some groups are missing school far more often and disproportionately(particularly, boys, African American students, students with disabilities, and in some regions, Latino and American Indian students). These disparities are also true of referrals to law enforcement and school-based arrests nationwide. According to recent data collected by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, students of color made up 75% of referrals to law enforcement and 79% of schoolbased arrests, even while students of color comprise 39% of the nation's public school population.Punitive school discipline matters tremendously to the educational opportunity of young people: New knowledge on school discipline shows that even a single suspension or a single referral to the juvenile court system increases the odds of low achievement and dropping out of school altogether. Moreover, research shows that schools and educators -- not just students themselves -- make a difference in how discipline is meted out

The importance of biomass net uptake for a trace metal budget in a forest stand in north-eastern France

The trace metal (TM: Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn) budget (stocks and annual fluxes) was evaluated in a forest stand (silver fir, Abies alba Miller) in north-eastern France. Trace metal concentrations were measured in different tree compartments in order to assess TM partitioning and dynamics in the trees. Inputs included bulk deposition, estimated dry deposition and weathering. Outputs were leaching and biomass exportation. Atmospheric deposition was the main input flux. The estimated dry deposition accounted for about 40% of the total trace metal deposition. The relative importance of leaching (estimated by a lumped parameter water balance model, BILJOU) and net biomass uptake (harvesting) for ecosystem exportation depended on the element. Trace metal distribution between tree compartments (stem wood and bark, branches and needles) indicated that Pb was mainly stored in the stem, whereas Zn and Ni, and to a lesser extent Cd and Cu, were translocated to aerial parts of the trees and cycled in the ecosystem. For Zn and Ni, leaching was the main output flux (N95% of the total output) and the plot budget (input–output) was negative, whereas for Pb the biomass net exportation represented 60% of the outputs and the budget was balanced. Cadmium and Cu had intermediate behaviours, with 18% and 30% of the total output relative to biomass exportation, respectively, and the budgets were negative. The net uptake by biomass was particularly important for Pb budgets, less so for Cd and Cu and not very important for Zn and Ni in such forest stands

Cosmic string catalysis of skyrmion decay

The Callan-Witten picture is developed for monopole catalyzed skyrmion decay in order to analyze the corresponding cosmic string scenario. It is discovered that cosmic strings (both ordinary and superconducting) can catalyze proton decay, but that this catalysis only occurs on the scale of the core of the string. In order to do this we have to develop a vortex model for the superconducting string. An argument is also given for the difference in the enhancement factors for monopoles and strings

The Modern Mississippi: Provenance Indicators and Human Impact

Given the significant degree to which the modern Mississippi River and its tributaries have been altered through dams, levees, and diversions, it is important to understand how sediment is transported from source to sink. The objective of this dissertation is to explore how the modern Mississippi River transports sediment from its tributaries to its delta using three independent proxies. Provenance indicators have traditionally been an effective way with which to characterize sediment transport in large river systems. First, detrital U-Pb zircon dating is used to investigate modern flux and possible anthropogenic influences on coarse-grained sediment within the modern Mississippi River. Overall, results indicate that samples taken from the modern river show regional flux and possible repercussions of the Red River diversion into the Atchafalaya basin. Secondly, apatite geochemistry is used to determine its viability as an independent provenance indicator when used on detrital populations with large samples sizes. In the end, it is concluded that when quantitative analysis is used to enhance variability between samples, these results compare closely with detrital zircon U-Pb spectra. Finally, Nd and Sr samples are evaluated from a core taken within the modern Mississippi River delta. From this data, it is concluded that εNd values from the Mississippi River remain relatively stable until modern human alterations shift the geochemical signature in the top of the core

This is N.Y.C. Not Little Rock : The Battle to Integrate New York City\u27s Public Schools

The landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954, and its subsequent implementation, offer an essential question: Are segregated schools inherently evil, and is integration the only solution to unequal education? The statistics that illustrate the effects of segregated schooling are indeed staggering. According to a 2016 Government Accountability Office study, the number of schools segregated along racial and economic lines doubled between 2000 and 2013. In New York City, the achievement gap between Black and white students has continued to grow. In 2018, the National Assessment of Achievement Progress reported that 48 percent of white fourth-graders were proficient in math, while only 16 percent of black students met the standard. With a gap of 32 percentage points—growing 5 points since 2015—Black children in New York are consistently behind their white peers in academics. Sixty years ago, New York\u27s Black and Latino parents parents grappled with this same issue as they fought to desegregate the city’s schools. This Honors Project will discuss segregated schooling in New York City during the 1950s and 60s, and the actors who fought to disrupt the system. Throughout this work, I will attempt to illustrate the power of community in New York City, for both good and evil, for equality and bigotry. Parents—Black, white, and Puerto Rican—function as key players in this story, as they continually fought local and state Boards to access the education they believed to be rightfully theirs and their children’s. I will also assert the notion that segregation was not solely a Southern issue: the similarities between the fight for school integration in both North and South are striking, and highlight the far reaches of prejudice in the nation both then and now. Most importantly, I argue that unequal education may not be solved by integration alone, and that believing in integration as the only viable option perpetuates the incorrect notion that children of color require proximity to white students in order to be academically successful