Exploring parents’ perspectives on their interfaith marriage (Jewish and Christian) and the transmission of religious activities to their children

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to examine the practices, traditions, and religious beliefs that Jewish and Christian spouses are passing onto their children. To further examine the strategies and approaches used in integrating religion into their children’s lives, a total of 16 interfaith spouses were recruited to take part in the study. Subjects responded to a series of audio-recorded questions covering areas related to religion and childrearing. In addition, participants were presented with a demographic questionnaire that assessed basic, measurable attributes such as ethnicity and gender. Comparisons amongst responses indicate that a variety of religious approaches are utilized amongst couples. The religious strategies found in this study ranged from instilling one main religion, combining both religions, to incorporating very little religion at all into the religious upbringing of the child or children. The sample size was too small to draw any definitive conclusions. However, these findings do have implications for future research on the experiences of Jewish and Christian interfaith couples, particularly with regards to raising children together

Source: CSU Northridge

Download full pdf publication: Exploring parents’ perspectives on their interfaith marriage (Jewish and Christian) and the transmission of religious activities to their children

Is The United States Still a Land Of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility

From the Summary

There is a growing public perception that intergenerational income mobility – a child’s chance of moving up in the income distribution relative to her parents – is declining in the United States. We present new evidence on trends in intergenerational mobility in the U.S. using de-identified administrative earnings records. These data have less measurement error and much larger sample sizes than previous survey- based studies and thus yield more precise estimates of intergenerational mobility over time.

Source: Harvard University/University of California-Berkeley

Link to site with papers, maps and data: Equality of Opportunity Project

The Long-Term Unemployed in the Wake of the Great Recession

Abstract:

Using the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey, this brief outlines the demographic and economic characteristics of the long-term unemployed and compares them with their short-term unemployed counterparts. It also describes changes in the composition of the long-term unemployed since the start of the Great Recession. Author Andrew Schaefer reports that the percentage of unemployed workers who were seeking employment for more than six months more than doubled between 2007 and 2013 from 18.4 percent to 39.3 percent and that the long-term unemployed are more likely than the short-term unemployed to live in urban areas. In addition, the urban long-term unemployed are more likely to be older, but less likely to be poor than their rural counterparts. He concludes that, as debate about the extension of Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits continues, it is important to gain an understanding of the long-term unemployed in terms of their demographic and economic characteristics and how those characteristics differ across place in order to help better target strategies for alleviating the negative effects of long-term unemployment.

Source: Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire

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The Economics of Slums in the Developing World

Abstract:

The global expansion of urban slums poses questions for economic research as well as problems for policymakers. We provide evidence that the type of poverty observed in contemporary slums of the developing world is characteristic of that described in the literature on poverty traps. We document how human capital threshold effects, investment inertia, and a "policy trap" may prevent slum dwellers from seizing economic opportunities offered by geographic proximity to the city. We test the assumptions of another theory -- that slums are a just transitory phenomenon characteristic of fastgrowing economies -- by examining the relationship between economic growth, urban growth, and slum growth in the developing world, and whether standards of living of slum dwellers are improving over time, both within slums and across generations. Finally, we discuss why standard policy approaches have often failed to mitigate the expansion of slums in the developing world. Our aim is to inform public debate on the essential issues posed by slums in the developing world.

Source: Journal of Economic Perspectives

Download full pdf of The Economics of Slums in the Developing World

Congressional Research Service Report: Aereo and FilmOn X: Internet Television Streaming and Copyright Law

Description:

Aereo and FilmOn X stream television programming over the Internet for a monthly subscription fee. Aereo and FilmOn’s technology permits subscribers to watch both live broadcast television in addition to already-aired programming. Their use of this development in technology has triggered multiple lawsuits from broadcasting companies alleging copyright violations. These cases reveal not only multiple interpretations of copyright law and its application to new and developing technologies but also a possible “loophole” in the law, which some have accused Aereo and FilmOn of exploiting.

 Source: Congressional Research Service [via Federation of American Scientists]

Download pdf report: Aereo and FilmOn X: Internet Television Streaming and Copyright Law

How Arts Integration Has Helped K-2 Teachers to Boost the Language Development of ELLs

Abstract:

This study looks at the impact of a cost-effective professional development model in which teaching artists helped early elementary teachers master arts-based strategies for boosting the oral language development of English language learners (ELLs). Teaching artists visited K-2 classrooms for 50 minutes weekly for 28 weeks. Student scores on the listening and speaking sections of the California English Language Development Test (CELDT) were used to determine the impact on language development. The experimental group consisted of 267 students; the comparison group consisted of 2981 students. The analysis of the CELDT listening and speaking scores, fall 2010 to fall 2011, showed significantly more improvement for students in the experimental group. This research has implications for school leaders who, in times of tight budgets, seek professional development opportunities that can assist teachers in addressing the language development needs of ELLs.

Source: UC Irvine [via eScholarship Repository]

Download pdf of How Arts Integration Has Helped K-2 Teachers to Boost the Language Development of ELLs

Census Bureau Data Visualization Gallery

Description:

The Census Bureau is working to increase our use of visualization in making data available to the public, and this gallery is an early part of that effort. The first posted visualizations will pertain largely to historical population data, building on prior work done to portray historical changes in the growth and redistribution of the U.S. population. For later visualizations, the topics will expand beyond decennial census data to include the full breadth of Census Bureau data sets and subject areas, from household and family dynamics, to migration and geographic mobility, to economic indicators.

 Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Link to Census Bureau Data Visualization Gallery

Youth Perspectives on Tech in Schools: From Mobile Devices to Restrictions and Monitoring

Abstract:

This research brief is a contribution by the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Center to its Student Privacy Initiative, which seeks to explore the opportunities and challenges that may arise as educational institutions adopt cloud computing technologies. In order to understand the implications of cloud services for student privacy more holistically, it might be helpful to examine how technology that is already implemented in academic contexts is used by youth and to explore how students feel about current practices. Towards this goal and informed by our recent research, the brief aims to make visible the youth perspective regarding the use of digital technology in the academic context, with focus on privacy-relevant youth practices, limitations on access to information, and youth’s relation to educators in a high-tech environment. The brief includes insights and quotes gathered through a series of in-person focus groups as well as data from a questionnaire administered to all focus group participants. In addition, it highlights in a few instances additional research and data. 

The overarching study was conducted by the Youth and Media team between February and August 2013. The team conducted 30 focus group interviews with a total of 203 participants across the greater Boston area, Chicago, Greensboro (North Carolina), Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara. Each focus group lasted 90 minutes, including the 15-minute questionnaire, consisting of 20 multiple-choice questions and one open-ended response. Although the research sample was not designed to constitute representative cross-sections of particular populations, the sample includes participants from diverse ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds. Participants ranged in age from 11 to 19. The mean age of participants is 14.8 (SD=1.96).

Source: Harvard University - Berkman Center for Internet &Society - via SSRN

Download pdf of  Youth Perspectives on Tech in Schools: From Mobile Devices to Restrictions and Monitoring

Analysis of variation in charges and prices paid for vaginal and caesarean section births: a cross-sectional study

From the abstract:

We analysed 76 766 vaginal deliveries and 32 660 caesarean sections in California in 2011. After adjusting for patient demographic and clinical characteristics, we found that the average California woman could be charged as little as US$3296 or as much as US$37 227 for a vaginal delivery, and US$8312–US$70 908 for a caesarean section depending on which hospital she was admitted to. The discounted prices were, on an average, 37% of the charges. We found that hospitals in markets with middling competition had significantly lower adjusted charges for vaginal deliveries, while hospitals with higher wage indices and casemixes, as well as for-profit hospitals, had higher adjusted charges. Hospitals in markets with higher uninsurance rates charged significantly less for caesarean sections, while for-profit hospitals and hospitals with higher wage indices charged more. However, the institutional and market-level factors included in our models explained only 35–36% of the between-hospital variation in charges. 

Source: BMJ Open

Download pdf of Analysis of variation in charges and prices paid for vaginal and caesarean section births: a cross-sectional study.

News item on KQED.org: How much does it cost to have a baby in California?

Penn GSE Study Shows MOOCS Have Relatively Few Active Users, With Only a Few Persisting to Course End

From the Press Release:

The Penn GSE study analyzed the movement of a million users through sixteen Coursera courses offered by the University of Pennsylvania from June 2012 to June 2013. The project aimed to identify key transition points for users – such as when users enter and leave courses – as well as when and how users participate in the courses. The study also considered how engagement and persistence vary based on various course characteristics. The courses studied ranged widely in topic, target audience, length of study, instructional time, use of quizzes and assignment of homework, and other dimensions. While a few courses were oriented toward college preparation (e.g., “Calculus: Single Variable”), most focused on occupational skills (e.g., “Cardiac Arrest, Resuscitation Science, and Hypothermia”) or were geared toward personal enrichment (e.g., “Greek and Roman Mythology”).

Download pdf of findings presented at the MOOC Research Initiative Conference.

Labor Standards and the Reorganization of Work: Gaps in Data and Research

Abstract:

A common but understudied argument is that the reorganization of work has contributed to the deterioration of labor standards in the US over the past four decades. Yet an analysis of existing aggregate data does not show a strong, unambiguous increase in key measures of nonstandard work. This paper therefore identifies data gaps and research questions that need to be answered, in order to better understand trends in workplace restructuring during the era of growing wage inequality.

Source: Bernhardt, Annette. (2014). Labor Standards and the Reorganization of Work: Gaps in Data and Research. UC Berkeley: Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3hc6t3d5

Download full pdf publication: Labor Standards and the Reorganization of Work: Gaps in Data and Research

Using biomarkers to inform diagnosis, guide treatments and track response to interventions in psychotic illnesses.

Commentary:

As the clarification and development of neurophysiological biomarkers continues, shifts in our approach to diagnosis and treatment decisions should follow. After all, the success of precision medicine lies within these neuroscientific advances, and will likely be the roadmap to a next-generation brain-based Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Source: Perez, Veronica B. (2014). Using biomarkers to inform diagnosis, guide treatments and track response to interventions in psychotic illnesses.. UC San Diego: Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4rx584fm

Download pdf of Using biomarkers to inform diagnosis, guide treatments and track response to interventions in psychotic illnesses.

Zooming In: A Practical Manual for Identifying Geographic Clusters

Abstract:

This paper takes a close look at the reasons, procedures, and results of cluster identification methods. Despite being a popular research topic in strategy, economics, and sociology, geographic clusters are often studied with little consideration given to the underlying economic activities, the unique cluster boundaries, or the appropriate benchmark of economic concentration. Our goal is to increase awareness of the complexities behind cluster identification and to provide concrete insights and methodologies applicable to various empirical settings. The organic cluster identification methodology we propose is especially useful when researchers work in global settings where data available at different geographic units complicates comparisons across countries.

Source Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

Download full pdf publication: Zooming In: A Practical Manual for Identifying Geographic Clusters

Book: Mining of Massive Datasets

About the book:

At the highest level of description, this book is about data mining. However, it focuses on data mining of very large amounts of data, that is, data so large it does not fit in main memory. Because of the emphasis on size, many of our examples are about the Web or data derived from the Web. Further, the book takes an algorithmic point of view: data mining is about applying algorithms to data, rather than using data to “train” a machine-learning engine of some sort.

Source: http://infolab.stanford.edu

The entire book is downloadable as one pdf or you can choose to download individual chapters.

Does Household Debt Influence the Labor Supply and Benefit Claiming Decisions of Older Americans?

Abstract:
Americans’ indebtedness has increased dramatically since the 1980s – a trend likely to have important implications for retirement security.  This study finds that older adults with debt are 8 percentage points more likely to work and 2 percentage points less likely to receive Social Security benefits than those without debt.  Not only does the presence of debt influence older adults’ behavior, but so do the amount and type of debt – particularly outstanding mortgages. Increasingly, retirement security will depend on having enough income and assets to pay for basic living expenses and to service debt.

Source: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

Download full pdf publication: Does Household Debt Influence the Labor Supply and Benefit Claiming Decisions of Older Americans?

Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High

From the Summary:

The share of countries with a high or very high level of social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center. A third (33%) of the 198 countries and territories included in the study had high religious hostilities in 2012, up from 29% in 2011 and 20% as of mid-2007. Religious hostilities increased in every major region of the world except the Americas. The sharpest increase was in the Middle East and North Africa, which still is feeling the effects of the 2010-11 political uprisings known as the Arab Spring.1 There also was a significant increase in religious hostilities in the Asia-Pacific region, where China edged into the “high” category for the first time.

Source: Pew Research on Religion and Public Life


 Download full pdf publication: Religious Hostilities Reach Six-Year High

Other data available:

• Appendix : Government Restrictions Index
• Appendix : Social Hostilities Index
• Appendix : Religious Restrictions Index Scores by Region
• Appendix : Summary of Results
• Appendix : Results by Country

A Demographic Snapshot of Disconnected Low-Income Men

Abstract:

In 2008-10, 16.5 million civilian men nationwide age 18-44 lived in families with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level; 15 million of these men lacked college degrees. Low-income men are more likely to have never married than men the same age nationwide, and they are disproportionately African American or Hispanic. Using data from the American Community Survey, this brief presents estimates of the number of low-income men in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, focusing on metropolitan areas with at least 50,000 low-income men.

Source: Urban Institute
Download complete pdf publication: A Demographic Snapshot of Disconnected Low-Income Men

Related publication: The Health of Disconnected Low-Income Men

“How Old Do You Think I Am?”: A Study of Language and Age in Twitter

Abstract: 

In this paper we focus on the connection between age and language use, exploring age prediction of Twitter users based on their tweets. We discuss the construction of a fine-grained annotation effort to assign ages and life stages to Twitter users. Using this dataset, we explore age prediction in three different ways: classifying users into age categories, by life stages, and predicting their exact age. We find that an automatic system achieves better performance than humans on these tasks and that both humans and the automatic systems have difficulties predicting the age of older people. Moreover, we present a detailed analysis of variables that change with age. We find strong patterns of change, and that most changes occur at young ages.

Source: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

Download pdf publication: “How Old Do You Think I Am?”: A Study of Language and Age in Twitter

Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV's 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing

Abstract:
This paper explores how specific media images affect adolescent attitudes and outcomes. The specific context examined is the widely viewed MTV franchise, 16 and Pregnant, a series of reality TV shows including the Teen Mom sequels, which follow the lives of pregnant teenagers during the end of their pregnancy and early days of motherhood. We investigate whether the show influenced teens’ interest in contraceptive use or abortion, and whether it ultimately altered teen childbearing outcomes. We use data from Google Trends and Twitter to document changes in searches and tweets resulting from the show, Nielsen ratings data to capture geographic variation in viewership, and Vital Statistics birth data to measure changes in teen birth rates. We find that 16 and Pregnant led to more searches and tweets regarding birth control and abortion, and ultimately led to a 5.7 percent reduction in teen births in the 18 months following its introduction. This accounts for around one-third of the overall decline in teen births in the United States during that period.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

Download full pdf publication:  Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV's 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing

On Immigration Policy, Deportation Relief Seen As More Important Than Citizenship

A Survey of Hispanics and Asian Americans

From the Overview:

While lopsided majorities of Hispanics and Asian Americans support creating a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, two new surveys from the Pew Research Center also show that these groups believe it is more important for unauthorized immigrants to get relief from the threat of deportation.

By 55% to 35%, Hispanics say that they think being able to live and work in the United States legally without the threat of deportation is more important for unauthorized immigrants than a pathway to citizenship. Asian Americans hold a similar view, albeit by a smaller margin—49% to 44%.

Together Hispanics and Asian Americans account for two-thirds of the 28 million immigrants who are in the U.S. legally,¹ and Hispanics alone account for about three-quarters of the additional 11.7 million immigrants who, according to Pew Research Center estimates, are in the country illegally.

Source: Pew Research Center

Download complete pdf report: On Immigration Policy, Deportation Relief Seen As More Important Than Citizenship

Download topline questionnaire