Monotonicity of second-best optimal contracts

Includes bibliographical references (p. 17)

An Investigation of Personal and Professional Secondary Traumatic Stress Predictors in Urban School Personnel

Due to the high rates of exposure to potentially traumatic events in childhood, educators may experience high levels of indirect trauma exposure that can lead to adverse consequences, such as Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). STS is a potential “constellation of symptoms that may run parallel to those of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) including symptoms of intrusion, avoidance, arousal, and emotional numbing” (Molnar et al., 2017, p. 130). However, STS remains understudied in the school personnel population. This quantitative survey study explored to what extent a set of professional (i.e., supervisor support, colleague support, trauma-informed practices professional development, professional role) and personal factors (self-care, personal trauma history, perceived dosage of student trauma, and subjective impact of the COVID-19 pandemic) predicted STS scores for a sample of 225 urban school personnel. Analyses included conducting descriptives and a series of hierarchical and moderation multiple regression analyses. Results reveal 41.2% of the participants met criteria for STS on the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (Bride et al., 2007). The results suggest the set of personal factors are significantly associated with STS scores. Professional factors, however, were found to be less strongly related, with the possible exception of supervisor support. Finally, the results suggest supervisor support may moderate or positively impact the relationship between some risk factors (e.g., perceived dosage of student trauma) and STS scores. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed

Dafny meets the Verification Benchmarks Challenge

A suite of verification benchmarks for software verification tools and techniques, presented at VSTTE 2008 [11], provides an initial catalogue of benchmark challenges for the Verified Software Initiative. This paper presents solutions to these eight benchmarks using the language and verifier Dafny. A Dafny program includes specifications, code, inductive invariants, and termination metrics. Each of the eight programs is fed to the Dafny verifier, which without further user interaction automatically performs the verification in a few seconds

Effective C2 Comms to the Tactical Edge in Challenged, Disrupted, and Denied Environments

Native IP networks are ill-equipped to handle the communication challenges found in wireless comms environments, resulting in communications outages that degrade C2 data flow and subject the user to disconnection, timeouts, and repeated login requests. We counter these limitations by integrating DTN (Disruption-Tolerant Networking) technology into the IP network using software+hardware or software-only solutions as appropriate. This work evaluates the tradeoffs between the currently available DTN software implementations and seeks to identify the one with the highest technical readiness level, as well as any barriers to adoption that may be present. We find that no current implementation is fully ready, and that each have particular pros and cons to adoption.Naval Research ProgramPrepared for Topic Sponsor: Maj Jeffrey Sykes, USMC, HQMC Aviation; Research Sponsor HQMC Aviation; Research POC Name: Maj Scott CuomoN16-M343-

Optical properties of mercury ion thruster exhausts and implications for science instruments

Emission from the exhaust plume of a 30 cm mercury ion thruster was measured from 160 to 600 nm as a function of axial and radial distance from the thruster discharge chamber. The spectrally dispersed absolute intensities were used to construct an empirical volume rate function. The function was integrated along a typical instrument field of view, and the resulting apparent brightness was compared with instrument sensitivities to evaluate the extent of optical interference. Most of the emitted radiation came from UV lines of excited mercury atoms and ions, with no observable continuum emission. The intensity levels degraded rapidly with distance from the thruster so that optical interference was negligible for fields of view not intercepting the beam axis. The operation of only one instrument, a zodiacal photopolarimeter, was considered incompatible with simultaneous thruster operation

A Public Option for Employer Health Plans

Following the 2020 presidential election, health care reform discussions have centered on two competing proposals: Medicare for All and an individual public option (“Medicare for all who want it”). Interestingly, these two proposals take starkly different approaches to employer-provided health coverage, long the bedrock of the U.S. health care system and the stumbling block to many prior reform efforts. Medicare for All abolishes employer-provided coverage, while an individual public option leaves it untouched.This Article proposes a novel solution that finds a middle ground between these two extremes: an employer public option. In contrast to the more familiar public option proposal, which would offer government sponsored health insurance directly to individuals, our plan creates a public option for employers, who can select a public plan—based on Medicare and altered to meet the needs of working populations—instead of a private health plan for their employees. Employer-based private health coverage is in decline and increasingly leaves workers vulnerable. Our proposal offers a gradual way to loosen reliance on this system.We review the policy, regulatory, fiscal, and business arguments in favor of this form of public option, which we argue is less disruptive than Medicare for All but more impactful than an individual public option. Because employer take up would be gradual and voluntary, our plan has lower fiscal costs and should face less resistance from employees and vested interests than Medicare for All. Over time, if the plan meets employers’ and employees’ needs, more people would be covered by a public option, moving away from over-reliance on private employer plans and toward something akin to Medicare-for-Many in a less politically, legally, and fiscally fraught way