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|Topic Review (Newest First)
Live a board
I am living on a 35 foot Irwin citation in NJ and think it has enough room for 2-4 people. The boat has a separate aft cabin for additional privacy. You should look for a boat with a walk through transom if you are going to scuba dive. I lived on a Hunter 31 for a year but I wouldn''t recommend it for what you are thinking. The beam should be at least 11 feet if you want to not feel cramped. Bargin boats are more costly unless you really are handy and want to deal with all the aggrivation of fixing things that may almost be impossible. Check out past issues of Crusing World as they give you the breakdown on what things really cost on used boats.
Live a board
i was wondering if someone with live a board experance could help me out. i would like a live aboard but not sure what size boats i would need for this. i would live on it with my girlfriend and would like to have a spare room for 2 guests and enough room not be cramped with 6 or 8 people on board I also do a lot of scuba diving and would like to be able to dive from the boat. i know a sail boat is not the best boat to dive from but i would have to make due. i have no intention on sailing it around the world or across any magor oceans the furthest i would ever try to go would be from south florida to the bahamas and i would not really need to single hand it. both my girlfriend and i have a lot of sailing experance.
Has anyone lived on board with a small children and how does that work out?
- planning for the future there.
also i was thinking about restoring a boat. im thinking if the Hull, Deck and magor parts of the rigging are good i can work with that. but how much would a wreck cost and where would i look?
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Chicago's Daley Says Pension-Overhaul Law Will Bring Record Tax Increase
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley accused his fellow Democrat, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, of imposing "the largest property-tax increase in the history" of the city by signing a pension-overhaul bill into law.
Quinn's action places "a tremendous burden on Chicago taxpayers" to bolster the pension funds of public-safety employees, Daley said yesterday in a statement.
"The governor took away the opportunity to fix the legislation before he signed it," Daley said. "The direct result of the governor's actions will be a massive property-tax hike for Chicago residents of at least $550 million, or about a 60 percent increase in our current property-tax levy."
Under the law Quinn signed yesterday, the city's combined annual contribution for police and firefighter pensions will rise from a projected $309 million in 2015 to about $856 million over the next 25 years, according to the city. The law, which applies to all public-safety workers in Illinois, is meant to protect their retirement benefits by requiring municipalities to boost funding of the plans that cover them, Quinn said.
The legislation requires Chicago to fund its public-safety pensions at 90 percent of projected obligations within 25 years. That is "a higher ratio and shorter timeframe than every other municipality in the state and the state's own employee pension system," according to the statement from Daley's office.
The mayor of the third most-populous U.S. city said he'll push for changes, including increased payments by employees. He said worker contributions haven't risen in more than 34 years.
Any changes to the law would have to pass in the General Assembly's new legislative session, which begins Jan. 12, said Ashley Cross, a spokeswoman for Quinn, and John Patterson, a spokesman for Senate President John Cullerton.
"If there is new legislation proposed, we'll take a look at it," Cross said in an interview yesterday.
The law sets a maximum pension payment to a worker at 75 percent of the individual's average salary, and caps annual cost-of-living raises at 3 percent or half of the "urban consumer price index," whichever is less.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Jones in Chicago at firstname.lastname@example.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at firstname.lastname@example.com

subset: commoncrawl


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This was my first visit to Bridal Beauty Studio which was recommended by my sister, the staff were very polite and helpful, there was a very welcoming and peaceful environment through the shop. I would definatly recommend it to everyone.
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Is the Great Recession Over?
The economy grew 3.5 percent in the third quarter, according to a government report. That's the latest indication the recession has ended.
The Associated Press reports that the increase, which is the best showing in two years, has been fuelled by government-supported spending on cars and homes.
But as the economy slowly climbs back onto its feet, is the recession over?
"It's good to have the economy growing again, we'll take it. But we don't think that rate of growth is sustainable because it is distorted by all the government stimulus," Brian Bethune, economist at IHS Global Insight, told The AP. "The challenge here is to get organic growth — growth that isn't helped by fiscal steroids."
In other financial news, the number of people claiming jobless benefits for the first time dipped by 1,000 last week to 530,000. Economists had expected a larger decline.


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Ancient traditions will meet modern standards in an old world-new world fusion when you take your kitchen on a trip to the Middle East. Geographically, the Middle East covers a fair amount of land, so you'll have plenty of options to choose from when it comes to your culinary choices. The USA Today describes Middle Eastern food as having a quality of homogenous diversity. Certain dishes will be the same — or similar — across regions while others have a distinctly local stamp. Yogurts, cheeses, chicken, beef, lamb, peppers, and lentils are staple ingredients in meals, boosted by spices like cumin, tumeric, and nutmeg. Spicy, strong, and simple to prepare, which of these 10 recipes will you be making?
1. Shakshuka
When providing this recipe to The New York Times, Melissa Clark explains that she had countless versions of shakshuka – eggs baked in tomato sauce — while she was there. You'll only need one skillet to make it, and it can easily transition from breakfast, to lunch, or dinner. Serve with pita bread if desired.
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
- 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
- 1 (28-ounce) can whole plum tomatoes with juices, coarsely chopped
- 3/4 teaspoon salt, more as needed
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, more as needed
- 5 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 1 1/4 cups)
- 6 large eggs
- Chopped cilantro, for serving
- Hot sauce, for serving
Directions: Heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and bell pepper. Cook gently until very soft, about 20 minutes. Add garlic and cook until tender, 1 to 2 minutes; stir in cumin, paprika and cayenne, and cook 1 minute. Pour in tomatoes and season with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; simmer until tomatoes have thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in crumbled feta.
Gently crack eggs into skillet over tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer skillet to oven and bake until eggs are just set, 7 to 10 minutes. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve with hot sauce.


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Results 1 to 3 of 3
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13th June 2012 04:44 AM #1
Did you have an inspiring breastfeeding friend/support person?
As I have been preparing for caring for a newborn baby again, I have been thinking more about when my son was first born. I think back to the difficulties I first had with breastfeeding and how far this is from feeding my now 18 month old these days without a second thought. In those early days, when I felt lonely and overwhelmed, I had a friend who encouraged and inspired me to carry on breastfeeding.
Her name is Liz and she has a daughter two years older than my son who she breastfed. She was the person I could text, email or even call in the middle of the night to ask for help. Liz shared some helpful on-line breastfeeding resources with me and she steered me away from some negative advice I had been given.
I wanted to share this on this post to remind all those breastfeeding mums that we are often encouraging and helping others just by sharing our breastfeeding experiences and knowledge. Also, I wanted to say thank you to Liz! I would love to hear your stories of friends, support workers or professionals who encouraged and supported you in the early days of breastfeeding. What a difference these people can make!
Best wishes,


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Free personalized radio that
plays the music you love
I'm Good
Features of This Trackexaggerated enunciation
gangsta rap influence
east coast rap roots
jazz influences
a knack for catchy hooks
headnodic beats
straight beats
consistent rhyme patterns
explicit lyrics
the use of chordal patterning
a slow moving bass line
mellow piano timbre
subtle use of pianos
an acousti-lectric sonority
production by a respected producer
production and lyrics by respected rap artists
and many other similarities identified in the Music Genome Project
These are just a few of the hundreds of attributes cataloged for this track by the Music Genome Project.show more
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Governor John Kasich expected to sign new budget
(Columbus) - The Ohio Legislature has approved a state budget that cuts personal income taxes, revamps Ohio's school funding system and adds new abortion restrictions, sending the measure to Gov. John kasich.
The Republican-led Ohio House approved the $62 billion, two-year spending blueprint Thursday by a vote 51-43, over the objections of Democrats. The Ohio Senate approved the bill earlier today.
Kasich is expected to sign the measure before a deadline Sunday after exercising his line-item veto power.
House Republicans touted $2.7 billion in overall tax cuts delivered over three years under the bill. They said such breaks benefit all Ohioans and the state's overall economy.
Democrats were particularly critical of a decision to exclude from the bill Medicaid expansion under the federal health care overhaul.
Get breaking news sent to your mobile phone. Text "news" to 21095.
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Update: New interview with Albert can be seen at the bottom of this post. Updated
Last night, Rolling Stone Tweeted "The Strokes talked to us about potential fall US tour/next album. See RollingStone.com Monday morning, watch interview and live footage."
Interview topics in the video below include: How The Strokes rehearse, Strokes V, what it was like to play MSG, what it is like to play to large audiences, Albert and Niko's favorite Strokes songs and a potential fall tour.
Nikolai, when asked about a fall tour, replied "We're going on a very long tour this fall." Albert was more non-committal, but Nikolai's honesty when asked directly is, in my opinion, very telling. Watch…
Watch The Strokes' entire set at Bonnaroo here.


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Choosing To Fight/
I feel like this blog is evolving as I am — or at least I'd like it to, if I could work on it as much as I'd like.
It started (not too long ago, might I add) as a response to feeling judged and insecure. I desperately wanted to find other ambitious, smart, loving mothers who started families a little earlier on the spectrum. I needed to create a community that could inspire and encourage one another (read: inspire and encourage me) to have a strong marriage, successful career, and a full life despite the statistics and nay-sayers. I just wanted to know, to prove, that it was possible.
I envisioned nothing but positivity — partly because I choose to live a positive life, and partly because I felt too much negativity about younger parents/younger marriages/younger decisions.
And while I still very much cling to that original mission, I'm in a different place now.
This has been a difficult year for me.
I haven't talked about it — publicly and even privately — mostly because they're not my stories to tell. (And, believe it or not!, I'm a very private person about private matters.) And nothing that I've been dealing with has anything to do with being a mom. In fact that's the brightest, purest, most grounding part of my life.
Never saw that coming.
I was so blinded by the enormity of being a parent that I figured all roots would lead back to that. Any struggles or road blocks would be attributed to having a child, when really having a child only changes how I cope with the struggles and road blocks that inherently come with growing up. The struggles that I'd be dealing with whether or not I had the title of "mom."
I'm a runner. If we were all reduced down to our flight-or-fight instincts, I'd already be out. At the slightest discomfort, confrontation, or boredom, I pack up boxes and move — literally, figuratively, all of the above. I've transfered school, moved about 83 times, mentally checked out of situations that get rocky. And sometimes, in my darkest moments, I fantasize about packing up my perfect little boy and moving far, far away.
But he wouldn't be my perfect little boy without the people he loves. (The people that I love too, of course.)
So I'm choosing to fight — for my family, my marriage, my career, my sanity — when my gut reaction is to lace up my running shoes. And ultimately that feels like the healthier, more mature, route to take — which I'm taking for him.
It's an interesting place to be in, I think. Deciding to start a family "early" means that we make these huge life decisions — decisions that dictate our lives in the most permanent way — while we're still essentially growing up. And it's not only our own decisions, but the decisions of the people around us that we have to deal with. It's easier to just throw up our hands, right? To get discouraged with our finances or marriage or career goals and just call it a loss. To give up when things get difficult — because we don't have that life experience behind us, telling us to fight through it.
How do we make the right decisions — and can we help one another make the right choices? And when we don't, how do we steer ourselves back on course and encourage each other to fight, not flee? How do we grow as independent women without being confined to all of the new roles that we've been thrown into?
If I didn't have a son, I would most certainly have taken the easy way out of the mess swirling around me. Yet I think I'll be a better person, a happier person, by problem-solving my way through it and committing to fight.


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6 months to go!
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Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 75
230 to 170 in about 6 months? That's going to be pretty challenging. I did something like that in roughly 5 months but I didn't give myself room to mess up nutrition wise, some days I was doing up to 3 hours of cardio and had to force myself to stop, and there was no chance I was going to lose my motivation.
So here's the really short version of what you need to do. If you'd like for me to expand on different things I'd be more than happy to:
You need to be in a caloric deficit, that's the only way you lose weight. It doesn't really matter what you eat as long as you're in a caloric deficit. Your diet could consist of fried twinkies and double quarter pounders, so long as you expend more energy than you take in you will lose weight.
To get into a caloric deficit you need to get an estimate of maintenance calories and subtract from there. Normally 10-20% of your maintenance is sufficient, however, the bigger you are the bigger of a deficit you handle.
Exercise isn't necessary but will greatly improve your likelihood to succeed as well as generally speeding up your results. Cardio is going to be your bread and butter, and don't get lumped into the trap of running the treadmill if you hate it. Swimming, dancing, playing DDR, jump rope, basketball, and so on are all wonderful ways of getting in cardio. Find something you'll enjoy doing otherwise you're going to burn out and quit. You will also benefit greatly from incorporating strength training as well.
Fix your sleep schedule. Make sure you're getting between 6-8 hours every day.
I do photo stuff!:
Around NE OH or NW PA? I'd love to take photos of your cosplay.
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Europa Universalis IV
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July 13th, 2013, 01:54
I personally think that EU and Crusader Kings would qualify for coverage - they both have "hardcore" (I hate that term sometimes
) PC gaming roots, and the gameplay mechanics are very much aligned with "role-playing." In some ways, an argument could be made that the "role-playing elements" in these two series are stronger than many games that are classified as RPGs.
Debates on classification aside, I wouldn't mind seeing PC strategy games of this nature covered on this site because they generally follow the interests of most RPG and PC gamers.
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My Place
My Place, Inc. is for young people, 16-23 year olds, who are in chronic crisis due to homelessness, insufficient education, joblessness, mental health disability and other at-risk factors.
Comprehensive services include:
* Life coaching
* HS/GED completion
* Workforce development wages
* Independent housing
* Matched savings
Thanks to many supporters, My Place had a monumental 2012. The focus shifted from emergency shelter for older homeless and at-risk youth to adulthood modeling.
Through My Place, they are acquiring job skills, life skills and paving the way towards a bright, self-sufficient future!
In order to fund My Place, a social enterprise called My Gluten-Free Bread Co. was launched in March 2012. After much research was gathered along with consultations with local hospitals, dieticians, and the Celiac association, My Place founders decided to open My GF Bread Co to train and/or employ youth, and more importantly, to begin them on a sustainable career path. They don't hire youth to bake bread, but bake bread to hire youth.
This is a ground-breaking, state demonstration project to end youth hopelessness and exodus from rural counties.
My Gluten Free Bread Company
My Gluten Free Bread Company was born in a strategic planning session, not around baking bread, but how to employ young people and sustain the programs of My Place. Launched in March 2012, this social enterprise is based on the Greyston Bakery model.
My Gluten Free Bread Company:
*Has contracts with Ingles and Earthfare in two states (NC and SC)
*Has a culinary training program that's approved as one of only two pre-apprenticeship programs by NC Dept of Labor
*Partners with 10 food service employers for graduate job placement
*Received a state funded contract for 30 job placements by the end of 2013
The bread company is on track to fully fund the youth programs by 2014.
We're close, and your support or continued support is extremely important. All eyes are on Hendersonville because this state demonstration project is a ground-breaking, duplicable initiative to end youth hopelessness and exodus from rural counties.


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Not James Model
Alyssa _MarieModel Female Elmira, New York, US
My MM URL: http://www.modelmayhem.com/Alyssa_Marie
Mayhem # 2634743
About MeEXPECTING MOMMY;) due October 23rd
I love to be in the spot light, even though I don't have a lot of confidence and that's what I'm hoping to get from this site. I'm very hard working, and very dedicated. I understand I'm to short to run way model but I'm determined to be the best I can at what I can do with modeling. I'm out going, and open to new ideas. :) You can message me for my e-mail and number. I look forward to meeting new people and having the chance to do some amazing shoots :)
Have you worked with Alyssa _Marie? Add Credits for Alyssa _Marie! >>
Not James Model
57NO Photography Photographer
R E Baker Photography Photographer
twinn Photography Photographer
Seven The Photographer Photographer
jcharles83 Model
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text: The Bomber–Model Jeremy Matos channels the relaxed attitude of the 1990s with a style spread for T magazine. Featuring one of spring's staples, the bomber, Jeremy is styled by fashion editor Jason Rider. Posing for photos by Arno Frugier, Jeremy easily pulls off the bomber, whether in a trendy metallic or floral print. / Hair by Shin Arima.


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Manual Juice Press for All Citrus Fruits - Orange & Silver Commercial Grade - Frieling USA
Fresh pressed citrus juices provide a sunny pick-me-up with clean smells and perky tastes. Your body responds to the vitamin-packed nutritional boost the juices provide. This commercial grade Manual Juice Press from Frieling has a sturdy and stable base, and a lever-style handle that will allow you to make citrus juices with very little physical effort. The removable parts of the citrus press juicer are dishwasher safe, so you can get on with your day without spending valuable time hand-washing each and every piece. This manual citrus press will give you juices for simple drinking, or mixing together with other beverages for punches, smoothies, and cocktails. Get inventive with the citrus press, and use the yummy juices to create your own sorbets, popsicles, or use it in so many foods to brighten up the dishes with citrus flavors.
Frieling Manual Citrus Press Features
- Commercial grade manual juice press
- For pressing any citrus fruit
- Long, rubberized lever handle
- Manual citrus press requires little physical effort
- Suction cups and heavy unit base for sturdy, stable use
- Some cast aluminum parts
- Orange and silver color citrus press
- Stainless steel funnel and extractor
- Citrus press juicer weighs - 10.6 lbs
- Removable parts are dishwasher safe
- Hand-wash base and integrated parts
- Citrus press measures - 7" L. X 8.5" W. x 17" H.
- Drink citrus juices solo or mixed with other beverages
- Use juices to make sorbet, popsicles, or use in other foods
- Orange Manual Citrus Press from Frieling USA
To See More Kitchen Products from Frieling USA, Please CLICK HERE!
Questions on Frieling Citrus Press Juicer - Orange (C309249)
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- Additional Information
Description Author Alecia K Name Frieling Cilio Manual Citrus Press - Orange GTIIN / UPC Code 4017166309249 Brands Frieling Type Manual Citrus Juicers Home or Commercial Home Material Steel & Aluminum Color Orange Size 17" Quantity Included 1 Manufacturer's Warranty N/A Weight (in Lbs) 10.6


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Sorry, this giveaway has ended. But the review is still perfectly good!
Regular readers here know that I am a big fan of Money Saving Mom, the blog by Crystal Paine that sparked the whole frugal mom blog genre. I learned how to shop CVS from this blog, and although we are so different — I'm a messy, cynical liberal atheist and she's a home-schooling Christian mom who makes sure that everything on her blog is upbeat — I have always been impressed and inspired by Crystal's professional approach to homemaking and mothering. Reading her blog not only showed me a lot of the money-saving techniques that are now regular parts of my life, but it also gave me a window into how a really on-the-ball homemaker grows a successful business while still trying out projects like making her own laundry soap.
And now what has she gone and done? She has gone and wrote a book.
I was lucky enough to receive one of the preview copies of The Money Saving Mom's Budget: Slash Your Spending, Pay Down Your Debt, Streamline Your Life, and Save Thousands a Year.* I didn't read it right away because I was finishing up Ron Santo: A Perfect 10* (and I am probably one of the only people on earth who loves both Crystal Paine and Ron Santo enough to read their books back-to-back). But last week, I got to meet Crystal in person, and that inspired me to hurry the heck up and read the book.
I enjoyed it. A lot of the couponing and budgeting tips in the book will be old hat to readers of this and other frugal Web sites, but even a veteran couponer will find useful advice here. I love that the book starts with a chapter on getting your life organized. I agree that a lot of money is wasted — in my house especially — because of disorganization and clutter. (Just today, we found out that two parking tickets we got last month now have late fees attached because my husband thought he paid them. Grr! I'm sure this would never happen in Crystal's home with all her checklists and systems — it's like Six Sigma over there!)
I'll finish my review below, but first, let's give away some books! Crystal has kindly offered to give two lucky Frugalistic Mom readers copies of The Money Saving Mom's Budget. You can enter this contest up to 3 times:
- For your first entry, please leave a comment telling me if you have checked out Money Saving Mom's blog and if so what you have gotten out of it. This entry is required to win.
- You can get one bonus entry by Tweeting this post. If you Tweet it, leave a separate comment letting me know you did.
- You can get a bonus entry by sharing this post on Facebook. If you share, leave a separate comment letting me know you did.
- Do not leave more than 3 comments per person. I will count entries by counting comments, so if you do any of the bonus entries, you must leave a separate comment to be counted.
Now, more of the review:
I appreciated Crystal's step-by-step description of how she declutters her house twice a year. (Although of course what she does in a week or less in her always-streamlined home would take me a month or more because I am starting with a much, much worse mess.)
Another thing I really enjoyed were the tips from Money Saving Mom readers, scattered throughout the book.
My favorite parts of the book, though, were the personal anecdotes. I am a blog reader because I like to read about people's real lives. I could get all kinds of advice on running a household inexpensively from magazines and Web articles, but I choose to read blogs like MSM because I love seeing people's lives unfold and seeing their practices and beliefs change through their experiences. One of my favorite series that Crystal has ever written was the one that chronicled her family's journey to purchasing their first home with cash.
My only disappointment in this book is that I wish there were more, deeper personal anecdotes. Since I have been reading her blog daily for years, I already knew the Paine family somewhat well and was hoping to get to know more about their motivation to make the choices they have made, and what it felt like to live this frugal path. I'd also love to learn more about what it felt like for Paine to build her Web site into such a huge success, and how the income from that site and the growing workload has affected the family.
However, I have hope that we'll learn more about what it's like to be Crystal Paine in the future. After all, the first book on her reading list for 2012 is titled, "How to Write a Book Proposal."
* Affiliate links — if you click through and shop at Amazon, I'll earn a commission. Also, as stated above, I received a free copy of this book to review.


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Cost Efficiency In Australian General Insurers: A Non-Parametric Approach
Worthington, Andrew C. & Hurley, Emily V. (2002) Cost Efficiency In Australian General Insurers: A Non-Parametric Approach. British Accounting Review, 34(1), pp. 89-108.
|PDF (80kB)
Data envelopment analysis is used to calculate pure technical, scale, allocative and cost efficiency indices for a sample of forty-six Australian general insurers. The inputs used are labour, physical capital (in the form of both information technology and plant and equipment) and financial capital. The outputs are net premium revenues for housing-related, transport-related, indemnity-related, mortgage-related and other insurance, along with invested assets. The results indicate that the major source of overall cost inefficiency would appear to be allocative inefficiency, rather than technical inefficiency, and that the largest twenty percent of insurers are significantly more efficient than the remaining firms. A second-stage analysis uses limited dependent variable regression techniques to relate efficiency scores to firm-specific information. Cost efficiency appears to be closely related to asset size but not to stock exchange listing or product diversification or specialisation.
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science® citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
Full-text downloads:
Full-text downloads displays the total number of times this work's files (e.g., a PDF) have been downloaded from QUT ePrints as well as the number of downloads in the previous 365 days. The count includes downloads for all files if a work has more than one.
|ID Code:
|Item Type:
|Journal Article
|Data envelopment analysis, technical and scale efficiency, general insurance
|Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > COMMERCE MANAGEMENT TOURISM AND SERVICES (150000) > BANKING FINANCE AND INVESTMENT (150200) > Financial Institutions (incl. Banking) (150203)
|Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > QUT Business School
|Copyright Owner:
|Copyright 2002 Elsevier
|Copyright Statement:
|Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.
|Deposited On:
|23 Nov 2005 00:00
|Last Modified:
|05 Jan 2011 13:25
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Gender Reveal Baby Shower Cake
This cake was designed based upon a picture the customer had given me that she wanted duplicated. I attempted to locate the original designer to give them credit, however there are several pictures online of this same cake by different decorators- so, thank you all for the idea~ This was a 12" square cake covered in ABC with fondant decorations.
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text:
Two words stood out from Nikola Mirotic's pregame comments after he re-entered the starting lineup for Saturday's late tipoff against the Jazz.
"It's crazy," Mirotic said.
So is this: It's the 19th lineup used by coach Fred Hoiberg this season. And that volatility is based more on performance than injury.
So many shifting roles certainly represent an unconventional way to make a playoff push, a notion the Bulls are clinging to after an impressive 95-86 victory over the Jazz, just their second in nine games.
Bobby Portis came off the bench to not only play more minutes than Mirotic but score a career-high 22 points on 10-for-13 shooting. Denzel Valentine...


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Category - business
August 30, 2016
May 12, 2015
Politicians like to talk about wealth creators. They are usually referring to very rich individuals we mustn't tax too heavily for fear they will leave the country.
April 1, 2015
For the past five years, the UK business sector and the Department for Work and Pensions have behaved like a sort of tag team, working in concert to erode the pay and conditions of workers.
December 11, 2013
December 5, 2013
September 5, 2013
August 21, 2013
It was the Occupy movement world wide that first coined the phrase "the one per cent" to denote the very small number of exceptionally powerful people who make far too many of the decisions about how our world runs.
July 29, 2013
As the debate continues about about whether and how credit unions and other community-based financial bodies can challenge big banking and immoral, high-interest charging pay-day lenders, the Just Festival in Edinburgh will be looking at moral and sustainable commerce.
February 1, 2013
December 10, 2012
It is not just governments and political opposition movements who are accused of violating human rights, and who need to be pressed to uphold them. The corporate world, which is increasingly dominant in a globalised society, faces major issues in this area.


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Welcome I-Space!August 24th, 2011
In a busy interprofessional simulation center, there is never a good time to renovate. In fact, this summer with the medical student Bridge Course; the orientation of incoming house staff; training of student nurses and physician assistant students; tours for prospective clients and interested community leaders; and training the ProMedica Air & Mobile teams, the IISC has been especially busy – even while we give this 12,000 sq. ft. of space a good face lift. Kudos to Ben Stobbe and Brian Cress who have kept the IISC fully functional as they work around carpenters, painters and delivery people.
The most exciting event of the year for the IISC will surely be the installation of the 3-D Cad Wall and the virtual immersive BARCO I-Space. Now that the factory testing has been done to make sure that the systems operate, the installation began this week. Thank you to all of you who had to use alternate entrances and exits in the Collier Building around the delivery of equipment on Tuesday, August 23!
Dan Brainard from CCI has been working with the 3-D Cad Wall that is on loan from BARCO to create a stunning, beating heart, complete with timed heart sounds. It is amazing to be able to virtually fly through the ventricles of the heart – through the tri-cuspid valves and into the atrium of the heart. All this in living color!
What an incredible learning, teaching and research opportunities this new technology will offer! Our goal is to offer a transformational learning environment that stimulates students and faculty to learn, teach and study. Thank you again for your patience while we renovate the space!


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When Canadians look at their American neighbours, they no longer gaze with envy at a powerful greenback, a low unemployment rate or deep pools of capital sloshing around an entrepreneurial paradise.
Canadians now look south with something closer to pity.
A poll conducted for The Globe and Mail by Nanos Research on attitudes toward the United States reveals that Canadians see an economy in tatters, a paralyzed political system and a volatile American Dream trumped by a stable Canadian version.
Canadians have reached a conclusion that would have been shocking at any other time in the past 50 years: Canada is not just a better place to live, it's a better place to make money.
U.S. woes seem to trigger some sympathy among many Canadians who see us rolling along with lower unemployment, a stronger dollar and a stable political system.
"We've been fortunate not to have been hit quite as hard as our neighbours. But we've all heard about people who have lost their homes or been forced to declare bankruptcy, and our hearts go out to them," said Erin O'Connor, a 34-year-old engineer in the IT industry in Toronto who lived in Arizona for nearly four years. She moved back to Canada in 2008.
When Nanos researchers asked Canadians to describe the state of the U.S. economy, 84 per cent of respondents chose words ranging from "bad" to "a disaster." Nearly 86 per cent of Canadians say they would bet that their country holds more promise for prosperity.
"Most Canadians have long had a case of economic envy," said Nik Nanos, the president of the polling company. "If they were in the U.S., they felt they'd be making more money, they'd have a bigger house. I think what we've seen in the past few months is just completely contrary to what Canadians have believed for the past 50 years."
J.J. McCullough, a Vancouver cartoonist and writer who explores anti-Americanism in his online Guide to Canada, says that Canadians always find a reason to feel smug that they are not in the United States.
The dismal U.S. economy and gridlocked political system have just replaced healthcare and crime as the fuel for a Canadian sense of superiority, he said.
"I feel like the economic situation is leading us to this condescending attitude. America is on its knees so we're sympathetic. Now that's an America we can get behind," said Mr. McCullough. "There's a lot of Schadenfreude right now that they're going down the crapper."
Michael Johnston, a software developer based in Halifax, says Canadians may be getting the wrong idea about the United States losing its status as a land of opportunity. It is still better at encouraging entrepreneurs, he said, with investors willing to take more risks.
He also warns that Canadians shouldn't get too smug about the spread of U.S. economic woes.
"From where I sit, it scares the hell out of me. I'd rather if they were ... going like gangbusters," said Mr. Johnston, a Halifax native who studied at Harvard in the 1990s before founding his software company, TeamSpace.
Canadians not only feel their economic prospects are superior, they also look at U.S. politics and see an inferior, wobbly, hyper-partisan mess.
Mr. Nanos, who conducted the online survey of 1,004 Canadians from Aug. 24 to 29, says Canadians still have a soft spot for U.S. President Barack Obama (he's doing his best, two-thirds of them say), but when they factor in the rise of the intransigent and destabilizing Tea Party, they "give U.S. politics a rather poor rating."
Greg Paulhus, a web strategist and farmer near Kindersley, Sask., puts it more bluntly. "The world is relieved" that the U.S. global dominance may be fading, he says.
"America has gotten much crazier, movements like the Tea Party are just plain wacky," Mr. Paulhus said. "Obama will be an outlier, I think, a one-time phenomenon who rode the social web wave. I hope I'm wrong, though."
Bob Keats, a Saskatchewan native who lived in every province west of New Brunswick before moving to Arizona in the 1980s, runs a wealth management business for Canadian snowbirds. He says Canadian attitudes have mellowed toward the United States.
"George Bush was a bit of a cowboy, a Texan, and rubbed a lot of Canadians the wrong way. Barack Obama, no matter how his policies may have failed, he was the first black president, relatively liberal, so he shortened the gap between Canada and the U.S," Mr. Keats said.
Overall, the Canadian view of what we get out of our relationship with the United States remains a "real mixed bag," Mr. Nanos pointed out. A slim majority of Canadians said our trading relationship is a benefit to Canada, but a similar percentage felt our links to the United States harm our reputation around the world.
In other words, the United States is our best friend and business partner, but it embarrasses us sometimes. "It's classic. It's the fragile Canadian-centric way of looking at things, with hypersensitivity and self-consciousness," Mr. McCullough said.Report Typo/Error
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Estimating the Influence of Financial Aid on Student Retention
Serge Herzog, Ph.D.
January 17, 2008
The greatest limitation in establishing causality in observational studies on the effect of financial aid is the presence of endogeneity or selection bias associated with aid status. To control for this statistical confoundedness that besets the research corpus to date, this study estimates the effect of financial aid on freshmen retention at a moderately selective, public university using propensity score-matching in multi-stage regression analyses. The correlational pattern that emerged from twenty-four logit models suggests higher-income students accrue a retention benefit from financial aid, unlike low-income students, net of first-year academic experience and type and amount of aid received. Conversely, retention of low-income freshmen is more likely due to academic performance compared to those from high-income background. Findings on the effect of aid are consistent with the economics of moral hazard and unobservable behavior.
However, the finding that well-prepared students from economically disadvantaged background cannot afford to enter a higher education institution hinges on the definition of "academically prepared" and on what constitutes "sufficient" enrollment of low-income students. ACSFA defines "college prepared" as "minimally qualified" on the basis of a student's highest score in terms of high school grades (GPA), class rank, college admission test (ACT/SAT score), or the national college-readiness index (ACSFA, 2002; Berkner & Chavez, 1997). Accordingly, a GPA of 2.7 or an ACT score of 19 is considered "minimally qualified" (Greene and Winters, 2005). For example, the University of Nevada, Reno, a moderately selective flagship institution, requires a minimum 2.75 GPA for admission; the California State University system, encompassing the state's less selective universities, requires students with a verbal ACT test score of less than 25 (on a scale of 36) to take remedial courses. Hence, the ACSFA study overestimates the number of college-prepared high school graduates. Applying three, more meaningful criteria to define "college ready," Greene and Winters (2005) estimate that the 4-year college-going rate among US high school graduates surpasses their readiness rate on the basis of 2001 through 2003 national enrollment numbers (NCES, 2005). In short, more high school graduates enter 4-year institutions than are estimated to be prepared. Similarly, closer examination of Gerald and Haycock's data source (Hill and Winston, 2006) reveals that the 50 flagship universities (one per each US state) captured 38% of the nearly 110,000 low income students that took the ACT/SAT nationwide in 2003 and were well prepared according to Gerald and Haycock (i.e., scored at least a 24 on the ACT or 1110 on the SAT). Since the flagships make up less than 2% of the total number of over 2,800 US colleges and universities that confer a Bachelor's or higher degree, their 38% share of well-prepared low income students suggests are rather impressive capture of the materially disadvantaged. Judging an institution's success in catering to low-income solely on the percentage of enrolled students that received a Pell grant (the largest aid program for low-income students) is equally flawed due to institutional variations in program offerings, the proportion of Pell-eligible students enrolled at any given time (e.g., foreign and non-degree-seeking students are ineligible), and demographic differences in the primary geographic recruitment area (Tebbs and Turner, 2005).
A recent analysis of nationally representative enrollment data of college students in the United States fails to identify entry barriers for prepared low-income students and instead stresses the lack of enrollment persistence following initial college matriculation among such students. Lack of continued college participation of low-income students is attributed primarily to inadequate academic preparation and student self-reported reasons other than financial aid (Adelman, 2007). However, the influence of aid on student enrollment persistence is mediated by a complex web of interrelated factors: including the timing, type, and amount of aid and how they correlate with persistence in the presence of other student attributes (Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005). In spite of voluminous research on student success, enrollment retention models yield little insight to evaluate the impact of financial aid. The problem stems from a preoccupation with, first, descriptive studies that fail to control for the multiple influences that govern student behavior; second, studies that employ inferential statistics without subject randomization or controls for treatment selection bias; and third, studies that omit to underpin quantitative findings with qualitative explanations to guide institutional interventions for enhancing student success (St. John, 2006).
where (1) assumes a set of covariates is reduced to a scalar function to yield a propensity score p (X) in treatment assignment D, leading to a condition of ignorable treatment selection, while (2) expresses the balancing property of propensity scores, where observations for both treatment and control group within subclasses (strata) have similar or identical values of p (X).
Scores are estimated via a non-ordered multinomial logistic regression model with aid status as the dependent variable and socio-demographic attributes, pre-collegiate academic preparation, college major, first-year credit load, campus residency, and timing of the university-entry test as independent variables (Table 1).[1] Correlation with the need for financial aid governs the selection of these variables. For example, income background and academic preparation likely influence the need for support and eligibility for different types of aid. Similarly, how early freshmen take the admission test prior to enrollment indicates their intent to enter college and may likely influence the range of available aid as students get admitted.
Though propensity score-matching may not fully account for endogeneity bias in aid status (Lunceford and Davidian, 2004; Rubin, 2004; Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1984; Titus, 2006)—particularly in the presence of omitted variables strongly related to the outcome and uncorrelated with the propensity score—matching based on a minimum of five strata is estimated to remove 90 percent of bias associated with observed covariates (Cochran, 1968). Table 2 shows little imbalance in the propensity for aid and the distribution of observed characteristics associated with aid. Following balance verification techniques by Lee (2006) and Agodini and Dynarski (2004), of the 120 Bonferroni-adjusted t-tests, including tests for each of 20 covariates across 6 strata, only 4.2% (5 out of 120) showed a significant difference between gift-aided and unaided students; slightly larger (9%) is the imbalance in covariates between students with loans and those with no aid. Five percent of all tested covariates may differ by chance alone. Matching students with only gift aid to those with no aid required an extra split in one stratum to ensure sufficient covariate balance without adding interaction or quadratic terms to the scoring model, as recommended by Dehejja and Wahba (2002). To maximize the likelihood of matches, observations were divided into strata of equal score range. The percentage of matched cases ranged from 91 to 97 for models comparing gift-aided to unaided students, and 83 to 93 for models comparing students with loans in their aid package to unaided students. Thus, propensity score pairing resulted in few case deletions due to the large common support area, as illustrated with box plots in Figures 1 and 2. Using observations within the common support area that match aided with unaided students on the basis of their propensity to receive aid, the study is designed to offer a more accurate estimate of the true effect of aid on student persistence compared to conventional multivariate models (e.g., Herzog, 2005; Dowd, 2004; Somers, 1995; Stampen and Cabrera, 1988; Voorhees, 1985).
Results are based on approximately 5,000 first-year students at a public university in the United States and measure the correlation between the likelihood of receiving aid (i.e., the propensity score stratum) and second-year retention both before and after taking into account first-year math experience and cumulative grade point average (GPA).
Stepwise inclusion of these two variables is critical in estimating the influence of aid on student retention, since academic performance and success in math have been identified as key determinants in enrollment persistence (Adelman, 2004, 1999; Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005; Herzog, 2005). Variable entry at the second step also includes controls for the amount and type of money received and the amount of remaining need after accounting for all aid received, which in turn dictated that the cohorts analyzed be limited to spring-retained freshmen that entered the previous fall, since aid is typically allocated on an annual basis. Moreover, students whose income background could not be ascertained from the three data sources used—namely the institutional student information system, ACT's Student Profile Section (SPS), and the College Student Survey administered by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP)—were excluded, as well as foreign students and varsity athletes—yielding 71% of all freshmen in the cohorts. To identify the presence of selection bias, results from matched students are juxtaposed with those from unmatched students. Because merit-based financial aid is awarded to academically stronger students, the analysis included collinearity tests for all variables to ensure regression models were not overspecified.[2] The less intuitive odds ratio is interpreted in terms of percentage change—using a linear transformation of the log odds (p*[1-p]*β) per Morgan and Teachman (1988)—in the probability of second-year re-enrollment in the discussion of model results. All statistical output was generated with SPSS 14.0 for Windows.
The positive effect of aid is cancelled out, however, after taking into account academic performance. Without considering the EFC, a one letter-grade rise in GPA correlates with a 12% increase in persistence probability, while doing well in advanced math raises that probability by an additional 5%. Posing the counterfactual argument, had an aided freshman not received grant and/or scholarship support (the 'matched average treated' column), the chance for persistence would have dropped on average by an estimated 3% (3.06), or slightly more than the average freshman (2.94); conversely, had an unaided freshman received such support (the 'matched average untreated' column), the persistence benefit would have been less than students on average (2.76 vs. 2.94). But in either case, a student's GPA and math performance would have rendered the change in aid status statistically inconsequential on the potential for persistence.
To gauge the influence of financial aid on retention of students from different income background, the study furnishes separate estimates by EFC level.[3] An EFC of less than $4,000 includes students from low-income backgrounds that are eligible for federal need-based grants, such as Pell Grants and Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants. On average, they received between $2,000 and $3,000 in such aid for the first year (Table 8). Middle income students with identified financial need are typically those with an EFC between $4,000 and $10,000 ($9,700 in adjusted 2005-$). They derive need-based assistance from state and institutionally funded sources, receiving on average between $800 and $900 (Table 8). In contrast, students with an EFC of over $10,000 ($9,700 in adjusted 2005-$) have little or no identified financial need and, therefore, rely principally on merit-based aid and unsubsidized loans (Table 8). Notably, low-EFC students face considerably higher remaining need after factoring in all aid received in comparison to their high-EFC peers, likely due to some constraints in taking on greater loan aid. Hence, the following results control for amount and type of aid as well as net remaining need. For 982 freshmen, the EFC could not be determined, since they did not fill out a federal aid application form (FAFSA).
As Table 3 shows, there is no correlation between the chance of receiving gift aid and retention of low-income freshmen (EFC of less than $4,000) net of GPA and math experience, and the propensity for receiving aid remains insignificant regardless of low-income students' level of academic success (i.e., insignificant GPA-propensity score level interaction).[4] Similarly, the amount and type of aid does not correlate with retention of such students after factoring in their academic experience (Table 4). However, a one letter-grade increase in GPA is associated with a 15% rise in retention of low-income freshmen receiving aid, but doing well in math does not enhance their retention when controlling for aid selection bias.
For freshmen expected to carry a greater share of the college attendance cost, namely those with an EFC of $4,000 to $10,000, neither the likelihood of receiving gift aid nor the amount or type of aid correlates with second-year persistence net of GPA and math experience. However, after taking into account aid self-selection bias, doing well in advanced math tends to improve (alpha 0.08; Table 4) their retention probability by almost 10% over non-remedial students of similar income, who only pass a college algebra course. As with low-income students, retention of middle-income freshmen is positively associated with first-year grades, with an estimated 10% change in the probability of second-year return corresponding to a one letter-grade change in the GPA.
Freshmen benefiting from grant and/or scholarship aid are those faced with more than $10,000 ($9,700 in adjusted 2005-$) in EFC and are typically ineligible for need-based financial assistance. Gift aid may improve their persistence chance by 18% (6 x 3.01), after controlling for GPA and math experience (Table 3), and for every $1,000 in Millennium scholarship aid, retention of such students is estimated to rise on average by almost 3% (2.91, Table 4). The counterfactual proposition suggests that without the gift aid, recipients would have experienced a slightly greater drop in persistence than students on average (3.26 vs. 3.01, Table 3). The average potential decline in persistence is only minimally affected by the amount of gift aid high-EFC students received (3.26 vs. 2.98 in Tables 3 and 4). Curiously, high-EFC freshmen who managed to complete only remedial math in their first year were 11% more likely to persist vis-à-vis those with the typical math experience (i.e., who pass a first-year college algebra course).
Retention of freshmen with an unknown EFC shows no correlation with the propensity for receiving grants and/or scholarships. A one letter-grade rise in GPA is associated with a 15% increase in their persistence (Table 3), and performing well in math may further improve their chance to return for the second year (alpha 0.79, Table 4). Notably, a regression-based analysis without propensity score matching suggests a negative correlation between receipt of gift aid and retention, a result that is not supported when matching aided and unaided students on the likelihood of receiving such aid (Table 3).
To test whether these findings on the linkage between ability to pay (EFC) and the influence of gift aid on retention are an artifact stemming from the choice of EFC groupings, separate estimates based on the remaining financial need freshmen faced (i.e. the amount calculated after subtracting the EFC from the total cost of attendance) were calculated. Accordingly, students with no remaining need could not qualify for need-based financial aid, as their EFC covered the entire cost of attendance; those with remaining need were eligible for such aid due to their limited ability to pay for the cost of attendance. A student's financial burden is assessed more accurately after factoring in all aid received. Therefore, grouping freshmen by remaining need controls for the net cost based on all aid received. Freshmen with no remaining need after the EFC exhibit a significant positive relationship between the likelihood of receiving gift aid and second-year retention, net of aid self-selection bias and academic experience. In turn, the propensity for receiving grants and/or scholarships shows no significant association with retention of students with remaining need (Table 5). But, doing well in math correlates with a 9% to 12% increase in retention for those with remaining need; in contrast, freshmen with no remaining need fail to show an association between doing well in math and second-year persistence. Together, these results parallel the correlations found along EFC-grouped students in Tables 3 and 4. Similarly, the finding that remedial math students with a high EFC are more likely to persist is echoed in Table 5, where remedial freshmen with no remaining need are 18% more likely to persist after failing first-year math compared to the typical freshman who passed first-year college algebra.
To extend the analysis to students who borrowed money in order to matriculate, the impact of aid on second-year retention of freshmen with loans in their aid package is estimated in Tables 6 and 5. As is the case with students supported by gift aid only, the probability of receiving aid that includes loan money has no bearing on second-year return of low-EFC freshmen, whether unmatched or matched on propensity for aid support (Table 6). Though institutional grant aid for low-income students is positively correlated with their persistence (a 7% rise per $1,000), as is Millennium scholarship[5] aid and other merit-based aid, the amount and type of aid no longer matters after taking into account first-year grades (GPA) and math experience (Table 7). As before, retention of low-EFC students is significantly associated with GPA and math experience; the latter correlated with a 12% decline in persistence if the student was in need of math remediation and failed to pass a first-year math course, or a 22% decline if the student failed to complete any math course (matched average effect in Table 7). In contrast, math experience does not weigh in on retention of high-EFC students. Both high and low-EFC students are affected similarly by the GPA. Only middle-income students (EFC of $4,000 to $10,000) appear to be influenced by the amount of aid they received. Namely, state-funded grants designed to facilitate university access for needy students are estimated to raise persistence by almost 8% (per $1,000) net of self-selection bias associated with receiving aid that includes loan money (Table 7). Such grants are typically awarded to cover unmet need after receipt of federal grants. Like high and low-EFC students, those in the middle tier exhibit a significant correlation between GPA and retention.
Results show that regression based on unmatched students fails to identify the positive impact of gift aid on retention when academic experience is not considered (Table 3). This estimation bias persists even after controlling for first-year grades and math experience of high-EFC students. Selection bias is present also when gauging the influence of aid that includes loans. That type of aid package appears as a negative correlate in retention (change in p = -7.66) without knowing a student's EFC, propensity for receiving aid, or amount of aid received (Table 6).
A propensity score approach also offers testing of the counterfactual hypothesis on the potential effect of aid, which cannot be ascertained with standard regression. Results reveal that had aided freshmen with a high EFC received no gift aid in the form of grants and scholarships, their probability to return for a second year of study would be lower than students on average (Tables 3 and 4). This potential loss in enrollment persistence is estimated after taking into account first-year grades and math experience. Yet, no potential loss exists for students with gift aid that did not complete a FAFSA (and, hence, for whom the EFC remains unknown), had they not received such aid. This insight contrasts with the finding based on unmatched students without an EFC that shows a significant negative correlation between aid and retention (Table 3). The negative relationship may indicate statistical bias associated with aid selection.
Separate estimates by EFC and remaining need, controlling for first-year grades and math experience, together with propensity score-matched students provides a framework to gauge more accurately the financial aid-retention nexus. Among aided freshmen with no need for loans, those from low-income background (i.e., low EFC) accrue greater retention benefits from academic success than higher-income students (i.e., higher EFC), while the latter are more likely to benefit from financial aid than the former. The data do not suggest allocating more aid to low-income students would result in improved retention; for example, the amount of federal grants to low-EFC freshmen (i.e., those eligible for federal Pell grants) is negatively correlated with retention prior to factoring in their first-year academic experience, and neither the amount nor the type of aid shows any correlation with retention after accounting for academic experience (Table 4). Adding loans into the aid package likewise does not significantly affect the persistence of low-income students. If freshmen retention is an important institutional goal, a dual strategy that emphasizes academic success for low-income students coupled with greater financial assistance to higher income students is estimated to maximize overall retention.
This finding stands in contrast with the cumulative research that indicates aid benefits needy students the most, and where the absence of a positive impact is interpreted as the result of insufficient support (Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005; Carter, 2006; Somers, 1995). Results here are consistent, however, with the moral hazard theory that links asymmetry of information on academic progress between student and donor and the limited cost associated with failure to depressed motivation to excel academically (Bodvarsson and Walker, 2004). Accordingly, grant aid, which does not entail a payback obligation and which is usually not tied to academic merit (e.g., Pell Grant or Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant [SEOG]), reduces a student's cost of investment in the event of failure and hence increases the incentive to engage in academically risky behavior; conversely, scholarships are expected to reduce such risks, as eligibility is a function of academic performance. The absence of a positive retention correlation associated with grant aid for low-EFC students (i.e., less than $4,000) may not be surprising; similarly, the positive association of state grants with retention of students with an EFC of $4,000 to $10,0000 (i.e. those facing higher cost of failure) is consistent with the risk-taking rationale. In turn, students with no loans facing the highest cost of failure (i.e., EFC greater than $10,000) rely principally on scholarship aid that requires satisfactory academic progress, since they are ineligible for low-income grants. It is precisely that group of students, which accrues a significant retention benefit from merit-based aid, lending further credence to the moral hazard explanation. The latter is steeped in contract theory (Mirrlees, 1999; Arrow, 1968; Pauly, 1968), where the assumption of expected utility maximization in people is conditioned by the presence of unobservable behavior, which gives rise to the influence of asymmetric information in an exchange relationship, in this case between donor and student aid recipient. [6]
The finding that money fails to have a significant positive impact on the academic outcome of needy students is echoed in other studies. Examining the effect of short-run credit constraints on college dropout via detailed panel data on students' financial condition, Stinebrickner and Stinebrickner (2004) estimate that 85% of enrollment attrition is caused by factors unrelated to availability of financial resources. Using a nationally representative sample of college-age youth, Keane (2002) finds that easing of financial constraints would have a marginal effect on educational attainment of low-income students. Earlier, Cameron and Heckman (1998) arrived at the same conclusion, stressing that family environmental factors largely account for differences in college outcome. Similar findings emerge in more recent studies that gauge the effect of scholarship support on college participation and completion (Bergin, Cooks, and Bergin, 2007; DesJardins and McCall, 2006; Dynarski, 2005).
In addition to Bodvarsson and Walker (2004), who show that self-financed students are less likely to experience academic failure than those with little or no personal investment, the moral hazard rationale underpins results from Van Long and Shimomura (1999). They argue that anticipation of financial support by the needy, coupled with the aleatory nature of education outcomes—being a product of both innate ability and effort that is largely unobservable—reduces the incentive to excel academically and thus lowers the college completion rate of low-income students. Moral hazard due to low personal investment risk is also cited in Dávila and Mora (2004), who discovered that the level of academic effort among students with self-employed entrepreneurial parents correlated inversely with the level of anticipation to secure employment in a family-owned business.
Though the findings in this study may be limited due to lack of data on students' affective well-being during the freshmen year—information that is typically collected with survey questionnaires, but unavailable here—empirical research shows that actuarial data from institutional databases, as used here, gauge a student's persistence odds more accurately (Caison, 2007). Failure to produce a positive link between financial aid and retention of low-income students does not suggest a lessening of support. Instead, the latter may be procured more effectively in form of academic interventions, given the evidence presented. Second, the results are based on the experience of students at a moderately selective public research university with a sizable segment of first-year commuter students who live off campus. These, and other aspects of the academic and social climate, may vary significantly across institutions. Caution should be exercise, therefore, in drawing inferences about the effect of aid at institutions enrolling distinctly different types of students.
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Footnotes (click on a footnote number to return to the paper)
1. Though a multinomial logit model assumes the independence of irrelevant alternatives, unlike a multinomial probit model, the latter is not well suited for estimating the probability of an underlying nominal, qualitative outcome variable that is unevenly distributed, as is the case in this study (due to the assumption of a cumulative normal distribution). Also, the probit model failed to converge at a global optimum. The logit vs. probit issue is examined in Dow and Endersby (2004) and Pampel (2000).
2. Of twenty-four tested regression models, two models exhibited intolerable collinearity in the variance decomposition matrix (> 0.80; condition index > 15) associated with first-year GPA; removal of that variable did not affect the statistical significance threshold or direction of the other predictors.
3. EFC-based groupings correspond to the institution's need to better understand how a change in aid may influence retention of freshmen at the selected EFC levels.
4. Second-order interaction regression results are not listed in tables, but available from the author.
5. The Millennium scholarship is available to all in-state high school graduates with a 3.0 GPA (on a 4-point scale). The scholarship covers tuition only and is the largest source of merit-based aid to in-state students.
6. Zeckhauser's (1970) formal model of contingent contracts in medical insurance, where payments are a function of expenditures, provides the intellectual foundation of moral hazard theory (Mirrlees, 1999).
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text:
Well check valve problem, well question
3 Attachment(s)
A have a very noisy check valve on the line coming out of my well right before the blue water tank (see picture - whole_thing).
It is sending VERY annoying clicking noise throughout the house when the well pump is on. I want to replace it and have a few questions:
1. I bought a check valve a Lowe's (American valve M31SL - new valve) the original one is Flomatic (see pics - old valve). Is it OK to replace the original with the one I got if not what valve should I get?
2. I was able to unscrew the the valve off the main assembly but I could not get it off of the black pipe. Not sure what kind that pipe is... should I just cut it and replace? The valve rotates in the black pipe but I could not get it off. Any thoughts?
3. My well pump turns on when pressure is up to about 3.5 and turns off at 3. I thought it should be 5 and 3. Should I do something about it? Is there an easy way to make the adjustment?
Thanks in advance!
The hi,+ low pressure is changed by turning the screws or nuts inside that little grey box...
If you don't like what your getting, Change it...
Otherwise, leave it alone...
take a torch and heat the plastic waterline the fitting should just pull out. Inside the lid of the press switch should be a diagram to adjust high and low press cuts, turn the power off. as for the part you have couldnt say good or bad
After you get it out don't replace it. There is a check valve at the pump. Running double checks is a bad idea.
I'd try it without and see if your system holds pressure. If not, then you have one of the other two situations.
Re: Well check valve problem, well question
I am 76 and I have agreed with that quote for quite some time now. :)
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text:
Smart Textbooks Tell Teachers If Students Have Done Their Homework
CourseSmart allows professors to monitor reading patterns.
First, technology made students' lives easier by enabling them to read wikis instead of their textbooks. Now, technology is recommending that students return to their textbooks or their professors will find out.
CourseSmart, a digital course material publisher and platform, has created a new analytics program for e-textbooks that will enable teachers to check students' usage of the e-textbook. The analytics tool allows instructors to monitor their students' reading progress, page views, the time they spent reading, and their highlighting and note-taking habits within the e-book. Additionally, the program will provide teachers with an overall engagement score based on students' use and activity within the e-book.
The tool was developed to allow professors to see which students were accessing and completing the readings, and intervene with 'at risk' students who were showing low engagement with the class material. It also enables college administrators to evaluate the efficacy of the textbooks they employ in classrooms and their investment in digital materials. Ellen Wagner, Executive Director, WICHE, Cooperative for Educational Technology (WCET) said,
The higher education community is hungry for actionable data that links student engagement to their learning content. With the CourseSmart dashboard, professors will be better able to fine-tune lesson plans, critique student performance, and even tailor suggestions for specific students on how to study more effectively to help them stay on track and stay in school.
Students who are concerned about their privacy or do not want their instructors digitally looking over their shoulder have the ability to opt out of the reporting feature.
The CourseSmart Analytics tool has been piloted in three higher education schools, Villanova University, Rasmussen College, and Texas A&M University at San Antonio, with broad release expected for 2013.


text:
Yao still involved in basketball, just not on the court
By Steve Ginsburg
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Yao Ming looks like he could still tangle with Dwight Howard under the basket but the former National Basketball Association number one draft pick clearly has put his playing days in the rear-view mirror.
The eight-time Houston Rockets All-Star left the game following the 2010-11 season after the final five years of his career were filled with injuries, most notably to his foot and ankle.
"I'm not going to try to come back, I'm not Grant Hill," he told Reuters with a laugh, referring to the 40-year-old Los Angeles Clippers forward who has returned to the court following a series of career-threatening injuries.
"He's unique. He keeps coming back no matter how many surgeries he's had."
Yao, 32, was a judge for the NBA Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday in the run-up to Sunday's All-Star game, returning to the city where he played since being selected as the number one overall pick in the 2002 NBA Draft.
A 7-foot-6 center with soft hands, Yao still works with the NBA, promoting the game in his native China, and owns a team in the Chinese Basketball Association. But he is also involved with his foundation, which helps needy children in the western part of China.
The third Chinese to play in the NBA, he is also back in college to complete his degree and lives in Shanghai.
Without the injuries that derailed his career, Yao might have ultimately landed a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was not crushed, however, when he left the game. Continued...