Numeracy as Social Practice: Global and Local Perspectives

Edited by Keiko Yasukawa, Alan Rogers, Kara Jackson and Brian Street Routledge, London and New York, 2018, 260 pages. ISBN 978113828444

Local Evidence in Constitutional Interpretation

The Supreme Court frequently relies on state law when interpreting the U.S. Constitution. What is less understood is the degree and manner in which the Supreme Court and other federal courts look not to state law, but to local law. Although it has largely gone unnoticed, there is a robust practice of acknowledging and accounting for local law in the course of constitutional interpretation. To take an example, one area in which the Supreme Court has examined local enforcement patterns is in death penalty jurisprudence. In 2015, Justice Stephen Breyer, dissenting in Glossip v. Gross, cited to empirical data to raise an Eighth Amendment arbitrariness concern with geographic variation in local practice, where in a five-year period, “just 29 counties (fewer than 1% of counties in the country) accounted for approximately half of all death sentences imposed nationwide.” In other rulings, judges seek to minimize constitutional interpretations that might disrupt local law and practice. As is done with respect to states, judges take into account whether local practices are outlying or common. Judges also look to local law and practice to inform the development of constitutional norms. This Article analyzes and defends reliance on local law and practice in constitutional interpretation — not to advocate localism or deference to local government — but as evidence in constitutional interpretation. Using local evidence in constitutional law is particularly important at a time in which empirical research on county-level data is providing a wealth of information that can better inform constitutional law

Does practice make perfect? Debate about principles versus practice in New Zealand local government planning

Legislation and practice are two arms of public policy planning. Legislation empowers or enables; practice is the articulation and implementation of legislative principle. In New Zealand there has been widespread debate in recent years about the relative importance of practice versus legislation in achieving planning outcomes under its key planning legislation, the Resource Management Act 1991. This paper proposes that the effectiveness and efficiency of planning practice may depend on a range of factors, some of which are beyond the control of planners, and outside of legislation. They include political priorities and the countervailing administrative responsibilities of the public agencies involved

"Rewiring" Filterbanks for Local Fourier Analysis: Theory and Practice

This article describes a series of new results outlining equivalences between certain "rewirings" of filterbank system block diagrams, and the corresponding actions of convolution, modulation, and downsampling operators. This gives rise to a general framework of reverse-order and convolution subband structures in filterbank transforms, which we show to be well suited to the analysis of filterbank coefficients arising from subsampled or multiplexed signals. These results thus provide a means to understand time-localized aliasing and modulation properties of such signals and their subband representations--notions that are notably absent from the global viewpoint afforded by Fourier analysis. The utility of filterbank rewirings is demonstrated by the closed-form analysis of signals subject to degradations such as missing data, spatially or temporally multiplexed data acquisition, or signal-dependent noise, such as are often encountered in practical signal processing applications

Local Evidence in Constitutional Interpretation

The Supreme Court frequently relies on state law when interpreting the U.S. Constitution. What is less understood is the degree and manner in which the Supreme Court and other federal courts look not to state law, but to local law. Although it has largely gone unnoticed, there is a robust practice of acknowledging and accounting for local law in the course of constitutional interpretation. To take an example, one area in which the Supreme Court has examined local enforcement patterns is in death penalty jurisprudence. In 2015, Justice Stephen Breyer, dissenting in Glossip v. Gross, cited to empirical data to raise an Eighth Amendment arbitrariness concern with geographic variation in local practice, where in a five-year period, “just 29 counties (fewer than 1% of counties in the country) accounted for approximately half of all death sentences imposed nationwide.” In other rulings, judges seek to minimize constitutional interpretations that might disrupt local law and practice. As is done with respect to states, judges take into account whether local practices are outlying or common. Judges also look to local law and practice to inform the development of constitutional norms. This Article analyzes and defends reliance on local law and practice in constitutional interpretation — not to advocate localism or deference to local government — but as evidence in constitutional interpretation. Using local evidence in constitutional law is particularly important at a time in which empirical research on county-level data is providing a wealth of information that can better inform constitutional law

Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Jails: Recommendations for Local Practice

People of color are overrepresented in our criminal justice system. One in three African American men born today will be incarcerated in his lifetime. In some cities, African Americans are ten times more likely to be arrested when stopped by police. With the national debate national focused on race, crime, and punishment, criminal justice experts are examining how to reduce racial disparities in our prisons and jails, which often serve as initial entry points for those who become entangled in the criminal justice system.This report, which relies on input from 25 criminal justice leaders, pinpoints the drivers of racial disparities in our jails, lays out common sense reforms to reduce this disparity, including increasing public defense representation for misdemeanor offenses, encouraging prosecutors to prioritize serious and violent offenses, limiting the use of pretrial detention, and requiring training to reduce racial bias for all those involved in running our justice system

Early years foundation stage profile: local authority moderation requirements booklet 2010—11

"This guidance explains the requirements and sets out the procedures for local authority moderation of the early years foundation stage profile (EYFS) and identifies key elements of effective practice... QCDA is remitted by the Department for Education (DfE) to ensure that 2011 EYFS profile outcomes are robust and reliable as a result of improved moderation practice. All English local authorities must have regard to any guidance given by the QCDA in exercising its function under the EYFS (Learning and Development Requirements) Order 2007, Section 4.2." - Page 3

Enhancing local community’s involvement and empowerment through practicing Cittaslow: experiences from Goolwa, South Australia

This study attempted to investigate how and the extent to which Cittaslow philosophy and practice enhanced local community’s involvement and empowerment in relation to tourism development from the sustainability’s perspective. As an empirical study, a series of in-depth interviews with key stakeholders including local government, local business, and local community’s members were conducted in Goolwa, the first Australian accredited Cittaslow town since 2007, located in South Australia. The results indicated that to a greater extent the accreditation and practice of Cittaslow philosophy in Goolwa increased a stronger and more effective collaboration amongst local community, business and residents as an essential element for achieving sustainability in tourism development. Not only did it encourage the local community’s participation in decision making process from the beginning of tourism development, but also revitalised the locality and sense of place of Goolwa through promoting local specialities and produces, in particular food and wine products. The results also suggested that psychological and social aspects of local community’s empowerment have been significantly enhanced after the establishment of Cittaslow. Yet, the economic empowerment of the local community was less experienced

Is venture capital a local business? : A test of the proximity and local network hypotheses

Venture capital (VC) investment has long been conceptualized as a local business , in which the VC’s ability to source, syndicate, fund, monitor, and add value to portfolio firms critically depends on their access to knowledge obtained through their ties to the local (i.e., geographically proximate) network. Consistent with the view that local networks matter, existing research confirms that local and geographically distant portfolio firms are sourced, syndicated, funded, and monitored differently. Curiously, emerging research on VC investment practice within the United States finds that distant investments, as measured by “exits” (either initial public offering or merger & acquisition) out-perform local investments. These findings raise important questions about the assumed benefits of local network membership and proximity. To more deeply probe these questions, we contrast the deal structure of cross-border VC investment with domestic VC investment, and contrast the deal structure of cross-border VC investments that include a local partner with those that do not. Evidence from 139,892 rounds of venture capital financing in the period 1980-2009 suggests that cross-border investment practice, in terms of deal sourcing, syndication, and performance indeed change with proximity, but that monitoring practices do not. Further, we find that the inclusion of a local partner in the investment syndicate yields surprisingly few benefits. This evidence, we argue, raises important questions about VC investment practice as well as the ability of firms to capture and lever the presumed benefits of network membership