Workforce Intermediaries: Powering Regional Economies in the New Century

Examines the role of workforce intermediary organizations in developing local strategies and funding, and coordinating the efforts of stakeholders in regional economic development. Outlines the qualities of successful workforce intermediary organizations

The Road to Good Employment Retention: Three Successful Programs From the Jobs Initiative

Looks at long-term job retention by low-skilled individuals. Profiles three job retention initiatives with high success rates -- two in Seattle, and one in St. Louis

Self-Directed Learning and the Impact of Leadership: Analyzing Keys for Success from a Covenental Perspective

The current state of education seems to beg for visionary changes to truly impact students and prepare them for the future. Self-directed learning models purport to do just that, by preparing students to be self-motivated, lifelong learners. While many educators seek to apply self-directed practices, research reveals that there are several obstacles that can hinder self-directed learning. Duby’s 2006 study of schools employing self-directed learning investigated how leaders successfully overcome these hindrances via specific leadership attitudes and behaviors that not only effectively overcame these obstacles, but are also reflected in the covenantal perspective of leadership. Using content analysis, this paper further explores the findings of Duby’s study of educational leaders, analyzing them within the covenantal construct developed by Fischer (2003), in order to better understand the relationship between effective leadership practice and the covenantal perspective. This study revealed intriguing similarities between particulars of the CFA model and the leadership practices exhibited in the self-directed learning schools. These similarities also present opportunities for future study, including whether visionary organizations are more apt to be motivated by covenantal principles and examining the type of for-profit organizations that are more apt to embody the tenets of CFA

The Beta-Hyperbolic Secant (BHS) Distribution

The shape of a probability distribution is often summarized by the distribution's skewness and kurtosis. Starting from a symmetric parent density f on the real line, we can modify its shape (i.e. introduce skewness and in-/decrease kurtosis) if f is appropriately weighted. In particular, every density w on the interval (0; 1) is a specific weighting function. Within this work, we follow up a proposal of Jones (2004) and choose the Beta distribution as underlying weighting function w. Parent distributions like the Student-t, the logistic and the normal distribution have already been investigated in the literature. Based on the assumption that f is the density of a hyperbolic secant distribution, we introduce the Beta-hyperbolic secant (BHS) distribution. In contrast to the Beta-normal distribution and the to Beta-Student-t distribution, BHS densities are always unimodal and all moments exist. In contrast to the Beta-logistic distribution, the BHS distribution is more êexible regarding the range of skewness and leptokurtosis combinations. Moreover, we propose a generalization which nests both the Beta-logistic and the BHS distribution. Finally, the goodness-of-fit between all above-mentioned distributions is compared for glass fibre data and aluminium returns. --

Chance of a Lifetime

Explores how retiring baby boomers can engage New York City's disconnected youth by preparing them to fill upcoming job vacancies. Includes recommendations for developing programs and connecting organizations to employers

Age, growth, mortality, and radiometric age validation of gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus) from Louisiana

The gray snapper (Lutjanus griseus) is a temperate and tropical reef fish that is found along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the southeastern United States. The recreational fishery for gray snapper has developed rapidly in south Louisiana with the advent of harvest and seasonal restrictions on the established red snapper (L. campechanus) fishery. We examined the age and growth of gray snapper in Louisiana with the use of cross-sectioned sagittae. A total of 833 specimens, (441 males, 387 females, and 5 of unknown sex) were opportunistically sampled from the recreational fishery from August 1998 to August 2002. Males ranged in size from 222 to 732 mm total length (TL) and from 280 g to 5700 g total weight (TW) and females ranged from 254 to 756 mm TL and from 340 g to 5800 g TW. Both edge analysis and bomb radiocarbon analyses were used to validate otolith-based age estimates. Ages were estimated for 718 individuals; both males and females ranged from 1 to 28 years. The von Bertalanffy growth models derived from TL at age were Lt = 655.4{1–e[–0.23(t)]} for males, Lt = 657.3{1–e[– 0.21(t)]} for females, and L t = 656.4{1–e[– 0.22 (t)]} for all specimens of known sex. Catch curves were used to produce a total mortality (Z) estimate of 0.17. Estimates of M calculated with various methods ranged from 0.15 to 0.50; however we felt that M= 0.15 was the most appropriate estimate based on our estimate of Z. Full recruitment to the gray snapper recreational fishery began at age 4, was completed by age 8, and there was no discernible peak in the catch curve dome

MPRAnalyze: statistical framework for massively parallel reporter assays.

Massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) can measure the regulatory function of thousands of DNA sequences in a single experiment. Despite growing popularity, MPRA studies are limited by a lack of a unified framework for analyzing the resulting data. Here we present MPRAnalyze: a statistical framework for analyzing MPRA count data. Our model leverages the unique structure of MPRA data to quantify the function of regulatory sequences, compare sequences' activity across different conditions, and provide necessary flexibility in an evolving field. We demonstrate the accuracy and applicability of MPRAnalyze on simulated and published data and compare it with existing methods

Discovery of a New Quadruple Lens HST 1411+5211

Gravitational lensing is an important tool for probing the mass distribution of galaxies. In this letter we report the discovery of a new quadruple lens HST 1411+5211 found in archived WFPC2 images of the galaxy cluster CL140933+5226. If the galaxy is a cluster member then its redshift is $z=0.46$. The images of the source appear unresolved in the WFC implying that the source is a quasar. We have modeled the lens as both a single galaxy and a galaxy plus a cluster. The latter model yields excellent fits to the image positions along with reasonable parameters for the galaxy and cluster making HST 1411+5211 a likely gravitational lens. Determination of the source redshift and confirmation of the lens redshift would allow us to put strong constraints on the mass distribution of the lensing galaxy.Comment: 11 pages including 1 postscript figure, aastex. Accepted to the ApJL. Also available from: http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu:80/users/philf/www/papers/list.htm