Conservation Assessment for Sword Moss (Bryoxiphidium norvegicum (S.E. Bridel) W. Mitten)

ID: 8945; issued December 31, 2002INHS Technical Report prepared for USDA, Forest Service Vienna Ranger District Shawnee National Fores

A Language for Configuring Multi-level Specifications

This paper shows how systems can be built from their component parts with specified sharing. Its principle contribution is a modular language for configuring systems. A configuration is a description in the new language of how a system is constructed hierarchically from specifications of its component parts. Category theory has been used to represent the composition of specifications that share a component part by constructing colimits of diagrams. We reformulated this application of category theory to view both configured specifications and their diagrams as algebraic presentations of presheaves. The framework of presheaves leads naturally to a configuration language that expresses structuring from instances of specifications, and also incorporates a new notion of instance reduction to extract the component instances from a particular configuration. The language now expresses the hierarchical structuring of multi-level configured specifications. The syntax is simple because it is independent of any specification language; structuring a diagram to represent a configuration is simple because there is no need to calculate a colimit; and combining specifications is simple because structuring is by configuration morphisms with no need to flatten either specifications or their diagrams to calculate colimits

"The Health, Earnings Capacity, and Poverty of Single-Mother Families"

Approximately 1.4 million single mothers have substantial health problems. Even if they were to work full time, they would be unlikely to earn enough to adequately provide for themselves and their children. Many of these women are not likely to find employment that offers health insurance coverage for themselves or their children. Employment is thus not an option that would provide sufficient resources--in terms of income or insurance--for them to live at or above the poverty line. Those single mothers who have a disabled child are at additional disadvantage. These children may require increased time from an adult and are likely to have considerable medical care needs and expenditures. For these families, employment of the mother may not provide adequate resources in terms of either time available to meet the disabled child's special needs, income, or adequate health insurance. We explore these issues, first examining the health status of single mothers compared to other women. We next estimate their earnings capacity--the amount they would earn were they to join the work force on a full-time basis, taking into account their health status and that of their children. We then investigate the percentage of single mothers and their children who would be poor if they had to rely on the earnings capacity of the women (working 40 hours per week, adjusting for health). Finally, we explore the policy implications of our findings, which seem particularly timely in the face of the new work requirements of the 1988 Family Support Act. The act requires most single mothers currently receiving or applying for Aid to Families with DependentChildren (AFDC) to enroll in training or register to work.

Partially Identifying Treatment Effects with an Application to Covering the Uninsured

We extend the nonparametric literature on partially identified probability distributions and use our analytical results to provide sharp bounds on the impact of universal health insurance on provider visits and medical expenditures. Our approach accounts for uncertainty about the reliability of self-reported insurance status as well as uncertainty created by unknown counterfactuals. We construct health insurance validation data using detailed information from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Imposing relatively weak nonparametric assumptions, we estimate that under universal coverage monthly per capita provider visits and expenditures would rise by less than 8% and 16%, respectively, across the nonelderly population.

Book review: the research impact handbook by Mark Reed

Drawing on a range of evidence-based principles that underpin impact delivery, The Research Impact Handbook by Mark Reed aims to equip researchers with the skills and confidence needed to embed impact in their own research. Steven Hill, Head of Research Policy at HEFCE, finds the text a valuable contribution and welcomes the mixture of theoretical and practical approaches for researchers to understand and address the barriers (and anxiety) around stepping into the impact world

Using REF results to make simple comparisons is not necessarily responsible. Careful interpretation needed.

What are the implications of the HEFCEmetrics review for the next REF? Is is easy to forget that the REF is already all about metrics of research performance. Steven Hill, Head of Research Policy at HEFCE, reiterates that like any use of metrics, we need to take great care in how we use and interpret the results of the REF. This is part of a series of blog posts on the HEFCE-commissioned report investigating the role of metrics in research assessment. For the full report, supplementary materials, and further reading, visit our HEFCEmetrics section

Time for REFlection: HEFCE look ahead to provide rounded evaluation of the REF.

Head of Research Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Steven Hill, presents an overview of the work HEFCE are currently commissioning which they are hoping will build a robust evidence base for research assessment. He argues that attention on the costs, benefits, problems and solutions of the REF are an obvious starting point, but it is also important that the higher education community consider and inform wider issues beyond the current exercise

Making space for the academic book of the future

Yesterday Steven Hill spoke at the University Press Redux conference in Liverpool on the role of policy in shaping the academic book of the future. This post is a summary of the argument of his talk. While there is much potential for innovation, the uptake seems slow. Even when we see the benefits of innovation, the change in process and practice is real barrier. Maybe we need to focus more on making space, putting the emphasis on active creation of innovative practice

A post-pandemic research agenda

As governments refocus their attentions from managing COVID-19 to planning for the aftermath and recovery from the pandemic. Steven Hill, draws on the work of the economists Mariana Mazzucato and Kate Raworth, to suggests now is the time to rethink research policy along more equitable and sustainable lines