Bootstrapping a Malice Requirement into ADEA Liquidated Damage Awards—Dreyer v. ARCO Chemical, 801 F.2d 651 (3d Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 55 U.S.L.W. 3586 (U. S. Mar. 2, 1987) (No. 86-1062)

In Dreyer v. ARCO Chemical, the Third Circuit announced a standard for double damage awards under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) that departs radically from the standard the Supreme Court deemed acceptable in Trans World Airlines v. Thurston. The ADEA protects employees over forty from discrimination on the basis of age. In order to enforce the Act, Congress created a two-tier remedy scheme: one, equitable and legal remedies to reimburse discrimination victims; and two, liquidated damages (hereinafter double damages ) to punish and deter employers from committing willful violations. Although the Third Circuit correctly identified a possible internal inconsistency in Thurston, it employed the wrong analytic framework. The Dreyer standard creates a remedy system inconsistent with ADEA purposes, and, by design, avoids punishing intentional discrimination cases. After examining the Dreyer standard, this Note concludes that the Thurston standard should be followed and that double damages should be awarded based on conscious and unconscious violations of the ADEA

The new Kindergarten: Developmentally Appropriate Practice and Academic Rigor

Kindergarten has changed drastically since it was introduced to the United States in the 1850s. Recent changes in curriculum and government involvement in educational policy such as the No Child Left Behind Act lead to increased rigor in Kindergarten classrooms. Among other curricular expectations, Kindergarteners are expected to be strong readers at the end of the year. In order to determine how teachers perceive these changes and how they affect their classrooms, 91 teachers were surveyed from across the state of Minnesota. Teachers were asked about the basic demographics and structure of their classroom as well as their familiarity with developmentally appropriate practice guidelines as defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Results showed that teachers who were more familiar with developmentally appropriate practice guidelines gave their children more free play, did not feel that the amount of curriculurr was too much and their students were perceived to have better academic progress

The Myers-Briggs Personality System and its Moderating Effects on the Relationship Between Job Characteristics and Job Satisfaction

In this research, I examined how characteristics of the job, namely task significance and task identity, predicted job satisfaction and how those relationships were moderated by one’s Myers-Briggs type. It was hypothesized that the thinking/feeling dichotomy would moderate the relationship between task significance and job satisfaction and the sensing/intuition dichotomy would moderate the relationship between task identity and job satisfaction. In the study, I sought to understand how these moderated relationships would differ for people with good and poor psychological health. There were 945 people who participated which required them to answer questions about their job, personality, psychological health, life, and demographic information of which 788 participants with usable data were included in the analysis. Results indicated the Myers-Briggs dichotomies did not moderate the relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction for both participants with good and poor psychological health. Job characteristics were predictive of job satisfaction over participants’ personalities, suggesting organizations should prioritize structural change, such as increasing task significance, without regard to individual differences. Implications for organizational culture, policy, job design, employee autonomy, well-being, and societal implications are discussed

Effects of Volcanic Eruption Source Parameters on Radiative Forcing and Sulfate Deposition

Explosive volcanic eruptions can inject sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere, which forms stratospheric sulfate aerosol that can significantly impact the climate. The radiative forcing of an eruption depends on several eruption source parameters: the mass of SO2 emitted, the latitude and the emission height. However, the combined effects of these parameters are not well understood. Reconstructions of historic volcanic radiative forcing, which are essential for understanding the role of volcanism on climate variability, are derived from ice core sulfate records, but rely on relationships between ice sheet deposition, stratospheric aerosol burdens and radiative forcing from limited observations. The aim of this thesis is to understand the impact of explosive volcanic eruptions on radiative forcing and volcanic sulfate deposition. The role of individual and combined eruption source parameters are comprehensively investigated using interactive stratospheric aerosol models, perturbed parameter ensembles and statistical emulation. The results demonstrate that radiative forcing is primarily determined by the SO2 emission magnitude, is stronger for tropical eruptions and has a greater dependency on the injection height if the eruption is tropical. The ice sheet deposition is relatively independent of the injection height. The results reveal complex combined effects of the eruption parameters and illustrate the importance of explicitly simulating aerosol microphysical processes to determine aerosol mass, size and lifetime. A wide range of eruption-realisations is found that produce ice sheet deposition that is consistent with ice-core-derived estimates for historic eruptions in the last 2500 years. These eruptions have a range in time-integrated radiative forcing (> ~300 MJ m-2) that is not considered in reconstructions. Sulfate deposition differs considerably between models for the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora. The results suggest there is a large uncertainty in radiative forcing derived from ice cores. Consequently, the efficacy of volcanic radiative forcing derived from previous reconstructions may be incorrect

Association between fire-safe cigarette legislation and residential fire deaths in the United States

Abstract: Background: Cigarettes and other tobacco-related smoking products have traditionally been a major ignition source for residential fire deaths. In the United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws requiring that cigarettes self-extinguish if they are not being smoked (so-called fire-safe cigarette laws). The purpose of this study was to quantify the association between state-level implementation of fire-safe cigarette legislation and the rate of residential fire death. Methods: Poisson regression was used to analyze state-years data. Main intervention: Implementation dates for fire-safe cigarette legislation in each state. Outcome: Residential fire mortality rate. Results: Implementation of fire-safe cigarette legislation was associated with a 19% reduction in overall residential fire mortality rates, adjusted for demographic differences between states (rate ratio = 0.81, 95% confidence interval: 0.79, 0.84). This is approximately similar to the estimated proportion of residential fire deaths in which smoking materials are an ignition source (23%). Legislation implementation was associated with a protective effect for every age, sex, race, and ethnicity strata that we examined. State-specific residential fire mortality death rates decreased (defined as a drop of at least 5%) in 32 states after fire-safe cigarette legislation was implemented. In 12 states there was either less than a 5% decrease or an increase, and seven states had insufficient deaths to evaluate state-level changes. Conclusions: Implementation of fire-safe cigarette is associated with reductions in residential fire mortality rates

Heresy and Error

From its inception the early Christian Church sought to suppress books believed to contain heretical or erroneous teachings. With the development of the printing press during the latter half of the fifteenth century, Christian authorities in Europe became increasingly aware of the need to control the mass production of unfamiliar and potentially unacceptable texts. Initially, censorship of the press was enforced locally. However, with the spread of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church required a more centralized and organized approach. Thus, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) ratified the Index librorum prohibitorum(“Index of Prohibited Books”), which listed individual banned titles as well as authors whose writings had been condemned outright. Catholic officials also published lists of expurgations, which identified specific passages to be deleted from every copy of an edition. From the sixteenth century well into the nineteenth, the censorship of books remained a primary, if not entirely effective, means of eradicating heresy and error. It is unusual for Bridwell Library to showcase its damaged volumes. In this exhibition, however, it is necessary to focus not on handsomely preserved rare books, but on the historical evidence offered by the intentional alteration and suppression of books by Christian censors during past centuries. Of the sixty-two books and broadsides in this exhibition, thirty-seven were prohibited, enduring either physical expurgation or the threat of destruction. The remainder are publications that assisted the Church in its battle against heresy and error: several are indexes of prohibited books or expurgations, while others were written in defense of ecclesiastical censorship. Combined, the exhibited books and broadsides contribute to a fuller understanding of the role of post-publication censorship in the religious controversies of the past

Investigating the Use of Pair Programming for Teaching Data Structures and Algorithms

Incoming university students who have not previously studied computer programming often find it a challenging subject, leading to high failure rates (Williams & Upchurch, 2001). As a result, enrolment in computer science courses is declining (Carver et al., 2007), with the participation of female students being particularly affected (Werner, Hanks & McDowell, 2004). Research has suggested that the lack of a formalized structure for collaborative learning may be one of the factors responsible for students’ negative impressions of computer science (Werner et al., 2004). In this study we investigated whether the use of pair programming in labs would facilitate peer learning and enhance students’ confidence in their programming ability. The hypothesis motivating this intervention was that the more experienced programmers would transmit some of their knowledge to the weaker students and that the class as a whole would benefit from having the support of a partner to identify problem solving strategies and to resolve coding bugs. Results showed that the intervention was generally well received, although the weaker programmers were more positive about it than the stronger ones. Students that reported learning from pair programming were less likely to enjoy programming (r = -.496), less likely to enjoy labs (r = -.502), more likely to struggle with understanding lab material (r = .561) and more likely to report a lack of confidence in programming (r = -.415). Although there was no significant increase in final exam grades for male students, there was a significant 9.7% increase for female students. The most frequently reported positive feature of pair programming was that it allowed students to meet more people in the class

A Focused Review of Multidimensional Well-Being Assessments

Introduction: Interest in the topic of well-being continues to grow and has resulted in the creation of a variety of well-being assessments. However, each assessment often brings its own terminology, theories, definitions, and dimensions. This creates a muddled research base that produces inconsistencies in the field of well-being. Therefore, the aim of this review was to identify assessments that measure multiple dimensions of well-being, catalogue and group the dimensions into categories, and develop definitions for the categories based on the conceptualizations in the literature. In doing so, the dimensionality of well-being portrayed in the literature can be better understood. Methods: Web of Science, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO were used to search for journal articles with the key words well-being, wellbeing, and wellness from 1990 to 2020. Two researchers independently reviewed the search results and obtained 30 articles that met the selection criteria for a total of 26 assessments of well-being. From these 26 well-being assessments, 205 dimensions were identified and cataloged. Two researchers sorted the dimensions into categories first based on similar labels, then by definition. Descriptions of the categories were created from the dimensions. Results: The 205 well-being dimensions fit into 12 categories: physical, social, spiritual, emotional, environment, mental / intellectual, occupational, energy, achievement, engagement, purpose, and capability. Most assessments centered around 4 primary categories: social (present in 80% of assessments), emotional (77%), physical (69%), and capability (54%); no measure had dimensions in all 12 categories. The energy category provided a unique measure of well-being meriting further investigation. Conclusions: The literature on the measurement of well-being continues to grow, creating a multitude of assessments from which to choose. There has yet to be a broad multidimensional measure that captures all 12 well-being categories utilized disjointly in the well-being literature. This review provides a better understanding of the dimensions currently in use in the measurement of well-being. Further research is warranted to corroborate these findings and investigate how well-being measurement can be improved