Education Policy Reform and the Return to Schooling from Instrumental Variabes

We exploit an unusual policy reform which had the effect of reducing the direct cost of schooling in Ireland in the early 1970's. This gave rise to an increased level of schooling but with effects that vary across family background. This interaction generates a set of instrumental variables which we use to estimate the return to schooling allowing for the endogeneity of schooling. We find a large and well determined in the rate of return of the order of 11 or 12% substantially higher than the OLS estimates of around 7%.

Computational analysis of the LRRK2 interactome.

LRRK2 was identified in 2004 as the causative protein product of the Parkinson's disease locus designated PARK8. In the decade since then, genetic studies have revealed at least 6 dominant mutations in LRRK2 linked to Parkinson's disease, alongside one associated with cancer. It is now well established that coding changes in LRRK2 are one of the most common causes of Parkinson's. Genome-wide association studies (GWAs) have, more recently, reported single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) around the LRRK2 locus to be associated with risk of developing sporadic Parkinson's disease and inflammatory bowel disorder. The functional research that has followed these genetic breakthroughs has generated an extensive literature regarding LRRK2 pathophysiology; however, there is still no consensus as to the biological function of LRRK2. To provide insight into the aspects of cell biology that are consistently related to LRRK2 activity, we analysed the plethora of candidate LRRK2 interactors available through the BioGRID and IntAct data repositories. We then performed GO terms enrichment for the LRRK2 interactome. We found that, in two different enrichment portals, the LRRK2 interactome was associated with terms referring to transport, cellular organization, vesicles and the cytoskeleton. We also verified that 21 of the LRRK2 interactors are genetically linked to risk for Parkinson's disease or inflammatory bowel disorder. The implications of these findings are discussed, with particular regard to potential novel areas of investigation

Bench-to-bedside review: Dealing with increased intensive care unit staff turnover: a leadership challenge

Critical care leaders frequently must face challenging situations requiring specific leadership and management skills for which they are, not uncommonly, poorly prepared. Such a fictitious scenario was discussed at a Canadian interdisciplinary critical care leadership meeting, whereby increasing intensive care unit (ICU) staff turnover had led to problems with staff recruitment. Participants discussed and proposed solutions to the scenario in a structured format. The results of the discussion are presented. In situations such as this, the ICU leader should first define the core problem, its complexity, its duration and its potential for reversibility. These factors often reside within workload and staff support issues. Some examples of core problems discussed that are frequently associated with poor retention and recruitment are a lack of a positive team culture, a lack of a favorable ICU image, a lack of good working relationships between staff and disciplines, and a lack of specific supportive resources. Several tools or individuals (typically outside the ICU environment) are available to help determine the core problem. Once the core problem is identified, specific solutions can be developed. Such solutions often require originality and flexibility, and must be planned, with specific short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. The ICU leader will need to develop an implementation strategy for these solutions, in which partners who can assist are identified from within the ICU and from outside the ICU. It is important that the leader communicates to all stakeholders frequently as the process moves forward

The significance of the pycnocline in tropical lakes

The vertical temperature profile is a poor indicator of sratification in most tropical lake. Data from Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda, showed, however, that the density profile highlighted discontinuity layers whieh were not obvious from the temperature profile, It is suggested that the vertical density profile and the region of maximum discontinuity, the pycnocline, could be adopted as a useful index of stratification especially in tropical lakes

Functional Literacy, Educational Attainment and Earnings - A Multi-Country Comparison

In this paper a rich and innovative dataset, the International Adult Literacy Survey, is used to examine the impact of functional literacy on earnings. We show that the estimated return to formal education is sensitive to the inclusion of literacy - excluding it biases the return to education in many countries by significant amounts. Literacy itself has a well-determined effect on earnings in all countries though with considerable variation in the size of the effect. The benefits of literacy do not only arise from increasing low levels of literacy: increases at already high levels generate substantial increases in earnings in some countries. In general we find little interaction between schooling and literacy though for a few countries they appear to complement each other.

A Response to Cogley and Sbordone's Comment on "Closed-Form Estimates of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve with Time-Varying Trend Inflation"

In their 2010 comment (which we refer to as CS10), Cogley and Sbordone argue that: (i) our estimates are not entirely closed form, and hence are arbitrary; (ii) we cannot guarantee that our estimates are valid, while their estimates (Cogley and Sbordone 2008, henceforth CS08) always are; and (iii) the estimates in CS08, in terms of goodness of fit, are just as good as other, much different estimates in our paper. We show in this reply that the exact closed-form estimates are virtually the same as the "quasi" closed-form estimates. Our estimates are consistent with the implicit assumptions underlying the first-stage VAR used to form expectations, while the estimates in CS08 are not. As a result, the estimates in CS08 point towards model misspecification. We also rebut the goodness of fit comparisons in CS10, and provide a more credible exercise that illustrates that our estimates outperform CS08's estimates.closed form; model-consistent expectations; New Keynesian Phillips curve; forward-looking Euler equation; time-varying trend inflation

PENGARUH PENAMBAHAN KAPUR GAMPING MADURAPADA TANAH LEMPUNG DI DAERAH MARTAJASAH BANGKALANTERHADAP NILAI CALIFORNIA BEARING RATIO (CBR) TEST

Kekuatan tanah memegang peranan penting dalam mendukung suatu konstruksi seperti; jalan, bangunan gedung, jembatan dan sebagainya. Khusus untuk perencanaan jalan raya kekuatan tanah ditandai dengan meningkatnya nilai California Bearing Ratio (CBR) dari tanah tersebut. Kemampuan tanah dalam menerima dan menyalurkan beban. Jenis tanah yang mempunyai Ip (Index Plasticity) tinggi digolongkan sebagai tanah yang kurang baik, dengan harga Ip yaitu sebesar 74,41%. Penelitian ini dilakukan guna untuk mengetahui seberapa besar pengaruh penambahan Kapur Gamping Madura pada Tanah Lempung di daerah Martajasah Bangkalan terhadap nilai California Bearing Ratio (CBR). Jenis peneitian yang digunakan adalah penelitian eksperimen yang dilakukan dilaboratorium dengan membuat campuran tanah dan Kapur sebanyak 5 (lima) variasi campuran yaitu: 0%, 3%, 6%, 9%, dan 12%. Metode pengumpulan data yang digunakan pada penelitian ini diantaranya: Uji Atterberg terdiri dari test batas cair/liquid limit (LL) dan test batas plastis/plastic limit (PL) untuk mendapatkan nilai IP, selanjutnya pengujian test Standart Proctor untuk mengetahui harga kepadatan maksimum dan kadar air optimum. Tahap terahir proses pengujian utama yaitu melakukan pengujian CBR untuk mengetahui tingkat kekerasan tanah dalam mencari harga nilai CBR. Berdasarkan hasil analisa data penelitian dapat disimpulkan bahwa semakin banyak penambahan Kapur pada Tanah Lempung maka Harga CBR semakin meningkat, harga besarnya nilai CBR pada tanah asli penetrasi 0,1” adalah (8,72%), penetrasi 0,2” adalah (7,38%), dan pada tanah lempung + kapur 3% penetrasi 0,1” adalah (19,02%), penetrasi 0,2” adalah (15,14%), dan pada tanah lempung +  kapur 6% penetrasi 0,1” adalah (35,34%), penetrasi 0,2” adalah (29,45%), dan pada tanah lempung + kapur 9% penetrasi 0,1” adalah (45,03%), penetrasi 0,2” adalah (40,00%) dan pada tanah lempung + kapur 12% penetrasi 0,1” adalah (51,77%), penetrasi 0,2” adalah (45,05%).   Kata Kunci : Penambahan Kapur Gamping Madura, California Bearing Ratio (CBR), Tanah   Lempung. The strength of the soil an important role in support a construction of such : roads, buildings, bridges and so on. Specifically for the planning a highway strength of the ground marked by increasing the value of California Bearing Ratio (CBR) of the soil. Capability in receiving and distributing the load. The kind of soil that have IP (Plasticity Index) high is classified as soil is not good, with the price of the equel 74,41%. This research was conducted in order to find out how big the influence of addition Limestone Madura on Clay Soil in the area of Martajasah of Bangkalan California Bearing Ratio (CBR). Type used is the research experiments in laboratory by creating a mix of clay soil and lime as much as five (5) variations : 0%, 3%, 6%, 9% and 12%. Data collection methods used in this research include : Test of Atterberg liquid limit test (LL) and plastic limit test (PL) to get the value of IP, further testing the standard Proctor test to find out the price of dry density and water content. Last stage process of testing to determine the level of hardness of the CBR soil in search of CBR value price. Based on the results of the analysis of the research data it can be concluded that the more additions of Lime on Clay Soils the price increases, the price of CBR value of soil on the original CBR penetration of 0.1” is (8,72%), penetration of 0.2” is (7,38%), in clay soil + lime 3% penetration of 0.1” is (19,02%), penetration of 0.2” is (15,14%), and soil clay + lime 6% penetration of 0.1” is (35,34%), penetration of 0.2” is (29,45%), and soil clay + lime 9% penetration of 0.1” is (45,03%), penetration of 0.2” is (40.00%) and soil clay + lime 12% penetration of 0.1” is (51,77%), penetration of 0.2” is (45,05%). Key Words : Cretaceous Limestone Addition Madura, California Bearing Ratio (CBR), Soil Clays

CULTURAL FACTORS AS PREDICTORS OF COGNITIVE TEST PERFORMANCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

A scan of the international literature suggests the existence in various countries of a persistent culture-based academicperformance gap across various subjects, including computer science, and at different levels of education. Almost twodecades after the formal demise of Apartheid, this study seeks to investigate whether a culture-based academic achievementgap similarly persists in the South African university classroom in the field of information and systems technology. Thisstudy sought to identify whether performance gaps exist between students of different races, home languages and genders ininformation systems and technology education at a South African university. Pre- and post- assessments were conductedwith first year information systems and technology students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in respect of three separatecourses (Databases, Networks, Spreadsheets) attended by the same sample of students during the first semester in 2011.Multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify the extent to which the various independent variables (such as race,home language and gender) contributed to the variance of the dependent variables (improvement (gain) score and post testscore). The findings when using post-test scores as the dependent variable suggested that there were significant culture-baseddifferences in cognitive performance among first year South African university students in information systems andtechnology education. However, there were no significant differences in performance improvement (gain) scores oncognitive testing for the same sample. While Black students were significantly out-performed in terms of test scores, therewere no significant differences in the extent to which students improved their marks over the period of the study (one entiresemester). In fact, Black students improved by a slightly better margin than the Indian students, despite their raw test scoresbeing lower than those for their Indian counterparts. This suggests that despite their disadvantaged educational background,Black students are able to respond as effectively as more advantaged students to an equalised educational context once the‘playing fields are levelled at university

Estimation of Forward-Looking Relationships in Closed Form: An Application to the New Keynesian Phillips Curve

We illustrate the importance of placing model-consistent restrictions on expectations in the estimation of forward-looking Euler equations. In two-stage limited-information settings where first-stage estimates are used to proxy for expectations, parameter estimates can differ substantially, depending on whether these restrictions are imposed or not. This is shown in an application to the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC), first in a Monte Carlo exercise, and then on actual data. The closed-form (CF) estimates require by construction that expectations of inflation be model-consistent at all points in time, while the difference-equation (DE) estimates impose no model discipline on expectations. Between those two polar extremes there is a wide range of alternative DE specifications, based on the same dynamic relationship, that explicitly impose model restrictions on expectations for a finite number of periods. In our application, these last estimates quickly converge to the CF estimates, and illustrate that the DE estimates in Cogley and Sbordone (2008) are not robust to imposing modest model requirements on expectations. In particular, our estimates show that the NKPC is not purely forward-looking, and thus that time-varying trend inflation is insufficient to explain inflation persistence.closed form; model-consistent expectations; New Keynesian Phillips curve; forward- looking Euler equation; time-varying trend inflation

Machine Understandable Contracts with Deep Learning

This research investigates the automatic translation of contracts to computer understandable rules trough Natural Language Processing. The most challenging aspect, which is studied throughout this paper, is to understand the meaning of the contract and express it into a structured format. This problem can be reduced to the Named Entity Recognition and Rule Extraction tasks, the latter handles the extraction of terms and conditions. These two problems are difficult, but deep learning models can tackle them. We think that this paper is the first work to approach Rule Extraction with deep learning. This method is data-hungry, so the research also introduces data sets for these two tasks. Additionally, it contributes to the literature by introducing Law-Bert, a model based on BERT which is pre-trained on unlabelled contracts. The results obtained on Named Entity Recognition and Rule Extraction show that pre-training on contracts has a positive effect on performance for the downstream tasks