Nicola Lacey, '<i>The Prisoners' Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in Contemporary Democracies</i>': Review

America imprisons a larger portion of its population than any other country on earth, a fact that has been, paradoxically, a source of both reassurance and worry on this side of the Atlantic. It is reassuring because the extraordinary US imprisonment rate is so much higher than in Scotland or England and Wales (or indeed anywhere else) that large increases in prison populations in the UK seem acceptable by comparison. There is the lurking worry, however, that we are moving along the same trajectory as America and will eventually end up in the same place. Nicola Lacey confronts both complacency and alarm about imprisonment in this thorough and insightful book, urging more, and more nuanced, attention to the distinctive political and economic structures that form the context of penal practices

Systems identification technology development for large space systems

A methodology for synthesizinng systems identification, both parameter and state, estimation and related control schemes for flexible aerospace structures is developed with emphasis on the Maypole hoop column antenna as a real world application. Modeling studies of the Maypole cable hoop membrane type antenna are conducted using a transfer matrix numerical analysis approach. This methodology was chosen as particularly well suited for handling a large number of antenna configurations of a generic type. A dedicated transfer matrix analysis, both by virtue of its specialization and the inherently easy compartmentalization of the formulation and numerical procedures, is significantly more efficient not only in computer time required but, more importantly, in the time needed to review and interpret the results

Reducing Reoffending: Review of Selected Countries: Final Review for Audit Scotland

The report reviews reoffending patterns in Scotland, England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway and New Zealand to establish relevant conditions for different rates of reoffending. A significant part of the report, however, is given over to a critical examination of the concept of 'reoffending' itself which is more a measure of criminal justice agency behaviour than individual behaviour. The report concludes with some suggestions for moving beyond such thin, technocratic understanding of reoffending and rehabilitation. This work was commissioned by and submitted to Audit Scotland

Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys

Valid predictions for the direction of nonresponse bias were obtained from subjective estimates and extrapolations in an analysis of mail survey data from published studies. For estimates of the magnitude of bias, the use of extrapolations led to substantial improvements over a strategy of not using extrapolations

Would Mandatory Attendance Be Effective for Economics Classes?

Romer (1993) suggests that universities should undertake experiments that would test the value of mandatory attendance for economics courses. He presents evidence showing that those who attended his classes received higher grades on his exams and concluded that ^San important part of the relationship [to the course grade] reflects a genuine effect of attendance.^T This conclusion is likely to be welcomed by some economics professors. In this note, I address two issues. First, what does prior research imply about a relationship between attendance and learning? Second, does Romer^Rs own evidence support his conclusion that mandatory attendance is beneficial?learning, universities, business schools

Decomposition by Causal Forces: A Procedure for Forecasting Complex Time Series

Causal forces are a way of summarizing forecasters expectations about what will happen to a time series in the future. Contrary to the common assumption for extrapolation, time series are not always subject to consistent forces that point in the same direction. Some are affected by conflicting causal forces; we refer to these as complex times series. It would seem that forecasting these times series would be easier if one could decompose the series to eliminate the effects of the conflicts. Given forecasts subject to high uncertainty, we hypothesized that a time series could be effectively decomposed under two conditions: 1) if domain knowledge can be used to structure the problem so that causal forces are consistent for two or more component series, and 2) when it is possible to obtain relatively accurate forecasts for each component. Forecast accuracy for the components can be assessed by testing how well they can be forecast on early hold-out data. When such data are not available, historical variability may be an adequate substitute. We tested decomposition by causal forces on 12 complex annual time series for automobile accidents, airline accidents, personal computer sales, airline revenues, and cigarette production. The length of these series ranged from 16 years for airline revenues to 56 years for highway safety data. We made forecasts for one to ten horizons, obtaining 800 forecasts through successive updating. For nine series in which the conditions were completely or partially met, the forecast error (MdAPE) was reduced by more than half. For three series in which the conditions were not met, decomposition by causal forces had little effect on accuracy.airline accidents, extrapolation, Holt s exponential smoothing, model formulation, personal computers, revenue forecasting, transportation safety.

Test program to provide confidence in liquid oxygen cooling of hydrocarbon fueled rocket thrust chambers

An experimental program has been planned at the NASA Lewis Research Center to build confidence in the feasibility of liquid oxygen cooling for hydrocarbon fueled rocket engines. Although liquid oxygen cooling has previously been incorporated in test hardware, more runtime is necessary to gain confidence in this concept. In the previous tests, small oxygen leaks developed at the throat of the thrust chamber and film cooled the hot-gas side of the chamber wall without resulting in catastrophic failure. However, more testing is necessary to demonstrate that a catastrophic failure would not occur if cracks developed further upstream between the injector and the throat, where the boundary layer has not been established. Since under normal conditions cracks are expected to form in the throat region of the thrust chamber, cracks must be initiated artificially in order to control their location. Several methods of crack initiation are discussed in this report. Four thrust chambers, three with cracks and one without, should be tested. The axial location of the cracks should be varied parametrically. Each chamber should be instrumented to determine the effects of the cracks, as well as the overall performance and durability of the chambers

The Devil s Advocate Responds to an MBA Student s Claim that Research Harms Learning

Snapshots from Hell describes a first-year student s experience in the Stanford Master of Business Administration (MBA) program in 1989. Peter Robinson, formerly a speech writer for President Reagan, tells about his experiences in applying to business schools, living with other MBA students, taking courses, interacting with faculty, and interviewing for summer jobs. The experience was a hellish one for Robinson for a number of reasons. He found the transition from the White House to business school wrenching. He was, at first, quite lonely. And he was a poet (weak mathematically) which made him feel vulnerable in the quantitative courses. But Robinson also lays a degree of the blame for the uglier aspects of his business school experience on Stanford Business School and, in particular, on the faculty. Much of the teaching was mediocre, Robinson says, and some of it was appalling. The reason? Robinson suggests that the faculty was paying too much attention to research.learning, universities, MBA

The Case for Minimum Teaching Standards

We all share the desire to improve the learning environment at Wharton and to have students who will be satisfied with this environment. While most of the Wharton Teaching Committee's recommendations are consistent with these aims, I believe that recommendation #1, to 'Establish Minimum Standards for Acceptable Teaching,'' will be detrimental to learning. I therefore recommend that we reject proposal #1. This letter describes how I reached this conclusion, suggests alternatives, and recommends a process for resolving tie issues.learning, universities, business schools