Caregivers\u27 Social Capital and Satisfaction with their Children\u27s Service Providers

The authors examine children\u27s access to and caregiver\u27s satisfaction with organizations that provide leisure time activities for children on Saturdays. The authors argue that access and satisfaction are a function of familie\u27s financial, cultural and social capital. Using data on 1,036 households in the Phoenix metropolitan area in 2003-04, the authors found that families\u27 financial and cultural capital affected whether or not children participate din activities organized by organizations, but family ties to the organization directly (e.g., either worked there, volunteered, donated) resulted in caregivers being more satisfied with the services. The authors also found that the benefits of network closure (caregivers knowing the parents of other children on site) were greater the riskier the activities of the child (e.g., sports or cheerleading). Contrary to the authors expectations, having family or friends in the area did not affect caregiver\u27s satisfaction with the child\u27s provider

Foundation Expenses and Compensation: How Operating Characteristics Influence Spending

This report examines the impact of a broader range of operating charateristics on the spending patterns of the 10,000 largest independent, corporate, and community foundations by giving. It provides an overview of the composition of expenses of the three types of foundations and documents how major differences in foundations' operating characteristics have an impact on their expense levels. The appendices include the methodology of the study, the list of variables as well as benchmarking tables

A formally verified compiler back-end

This article describes the development and formal verification (proof of semantic preservation) of a compiler back-end from Cminor (a simple imperative intermediate language) to PowerPC assembly code, using the Coq proof assistant both for programming the compiler and for proving its correctness. Such a verified compiler is useful in the context of formal methods applied to the certification of critical software: the verification of the compiler guarantees that the safety properties proved on the source code hold for the executable compiled code as well

Post-Industrial Pathways: The Economic Reorganization of the Urban Rust Belt

Since the 1970s, waves of deindustrialization have dramatically transformed the urban Rust Belt. The plight of cities in this region is well documented by scholars. The story they present upholds central assumptions in theories of urban growth, mainly new cities grow in new economic regions at the expense of others. This dissertation challenges this notion by addressing the following question: What are the different economic trajectories Rust Belt cities have taken over the course of global economic restructuring from 1970 to 2000? In this research, 69 Rust Belt cities are classified into three different categories based on their performance on a quality of life index over this time period: stable, struggling, and devastated. Then, conventional quantitative methods are used to map changes in employment trends onto the cities in each category. This step provides a general picture of economic restructuring experiences in these cities, which shows all lose manufacturing employment, but increases in business services employment distinguishes stable cities while increases in professional services employment distinguishes devastated cities. Next, an innovative methodology is used to identify different kinds of economic transitions for different types of cities. The analysis shows larger, stable cities have been able to reorganize their local economies into producer service-based economies. It also indicates manufacturing remains central to the local economies in smaller, stable cities, and finally, all devastated cities are developing healthcare-based local economies. Finally, two stable and two devastated cities are examined in-depth to provide a detailed description of local economic transformations. The stable cities have combined local R&D facilities with a strong infrastructure of specialty manufacturers to become high-tech production sites. This change has fueled business services development in these cities. Devastated cities are holding onto old manufacturing while greatly expanding hospital-based employment. Overall, this dissertation makes a contribution by using multiple and innovative methods to develop a rich portrait of the economic reorganization of the urban Rust Belt. This portrait questions central assumptions in theoretical understandings of urban growth and serves as a foundation for an examination of the causes of successful local economic transformation