Wow, this is some important context... the industry is unequally distributed and doesn't help the less fortunate tribes!

The 'plight' rhetoric.

Same rationalization as in some of the readings!

In this context, the Tribes being unfairly barred from this new market is not so surprising, but how is this implemented, and by whom?

Casino failed, locals had to adapt.

Gambling -> Marijuana

This is interesting, and highly unexpected! Tribes not allowed to grow, but the rest of the state IS!

Example of gambling linked to marijuana as a concept of tribal different legal restrictions to federal law.

policy change index - machine learning on corpus of text to identify and predict policy changes in China

housing market policy conflict

Not sure how accurate this characterization is, but it does seem that Intuit has been lobbying to keep things less than straightforward for taxpayers for some time. Unfortunate. https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-these-taxprep-companies-lobby-hard-to-keep-tax-day-a-torture-for-you-20150414-column.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TurboTax (see controversies)

to consider applying for this for Admin Data Coalition work.

Fund-raising conducted by satellite / affiliates

策略学习也是对话过程很重要的一环。 最近的策略学习过程有用基于有监督的预训练然后线上强化学习再训练的来提高学习的方案。但是这种方案有个潜在的毛病，在离线的数据中受限于数据量，线上一旦碰到了不常见的情况，容易直接恢复不来。(这个问题应该只是推断吧？有什么实证么？)

所以本文其实想说的是用一种方法来减轻线上和离线的差距。

Good reminder of how essential it is to take time from the evangelism of OER to write and enact some policy to ensure sustainability of our OER efforts.

Some possible new items to add, relevant to module 5.5, Opening Up Your Institution:

1. OER Africa has an in-depth OER policy review and development toolkit. It looks at issues around developing OER policies from the perspective of students, faculty, institutions, government context, and more. It includes case studies relevant to the regional context with probing questions to consider after each case study. It is from 2012, but many of the considerations about developing and implementing an OER policy that are included in the toolkit are still relevant. This resource can be valuable when thinking about possibly instituting an OER policy at one's own institution. The toolkit is licensed CC BY 4.0, South Africa Institute for Distance Education.

The next two resources are relevant to the section on OER policies because it provides examples of policies along with case studies and challenges that differ in different parts of the world. It can help people see how what works in one place may not work well elsewhere.

1. There is a global open policy report from 2016, ed. Kelsey Wiens and Alek Tarkowski, published by the open policy network: https://openpolicynetwork.org/solving-some-of-the-worlds-toughest-problems-with-the-global-open-policy-report/ It includes reports on open policies in Africa & the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Europe, and North America. There is an overview in each section along with case studies. This report is also housed on the CC website: https://creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/StateofOpenPolicyFullReport_FINAL-1-1-1-1.pdf The report is licensed CC BY 4.0.

2. The ROER4D project (research on OER for development) produced a report in 2017 called Spotlight on OER policy in the Global South: Case studies from the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project. The main questions addressed include: "What is the state of OER policy development in the Global South?" "To what extent do developing countries need OER policies for OER adoption to flourish there?" The report discusses ROER4D research in four countries: Colombia, South Africa, Afghanistan and Mongolia. The report is licensed CC BY 4.0

The other key area of alignment: with learners.

Institutional alignment is absolutely critical so the policies can be shaped for the institution and so leadership can provide aligned support.

Debate over drug policy has been a long history in the United States. More drugs are starting to be legal in the United States because some may be used for prescription for to treat a disease. There has been a bad side against prescription drugs because many Americans are abusing prescription drugs. Prescription drug abuse is a social problem in the United States. Some prescription drugs are leading to health issues because many people do not care about the side effects. Overall the annotation reminded me of todays issue against drugs and how we are using it against many different diseases.

a good case of too much "top down"

Not having a code of ethics seems to be a big miss!

This is the main reason our responsive ads were disapproved.

Biological evidence supports an early and complex emergence of the Isthmus of Panama, Christine D. Bacon, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1423853112

https://phys.org/news/2015-04-evidence-isthmus-panama-earlier-thought.html

According to phys.org, a newly published paper suggests that the Isthmus of Panama was formed earlier than conventionally believed. The article states that the isthmus was formed in a stop and go manner over 20 million years ago; meaning that migration of organisms could have also followed the same trend. If migration of animals between North and South America started earlier, then the minimum time required for strong reproductive isolation may actually be longer than 3.5 million years. (JP)

Genetic divergence was observed to have occured at different moments when oceanic changes like the haulting of certain currents across the Panama seaway and the shallowing of certain areas. (DV)

The intolerant behavior that has been observed in snapping shrimp known as snapping is the production of a water jet created by the larger claw that creates a loud "pop" sound. Although, it has been discovered that the actual threat in this behavior is the subsequent shock wave that comes after the water jet. (DV)

Read more in Shrimp shootouts end with a shock wave bang: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/shrimp-shootouts-end-shock-wave-bang?utm_campaign=news_daily_2017-10-30&et_rid=17774509&et_cid=1632982

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0224_040225_evolution.html Adaptations result in changed phenotype. As the Tibetan highlanders adapted to their high altitude environment, they underwent changes to their physiology as to better acclimate to their environment.

The economic value of grassland species for carbon storage is one of the first papers to monetarily quantify the gain or loss of a species from an ecosystem. Even slight additions (as little as one additional species) to the current U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve program could save hundreds of millions of dollars.

Read more in Michigan News: http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/24732-diversity-dividends-the-economic-value-of-grassland-species-for-carbon-storage

SC

Grasslands with greater biodiversity were found to feature greater biomass than grasslands with fewer species diversity.

Read more in ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170419091536.htm

SC

This article by Hungate et. al applies its findings to the Conservation Reserve Program, attempting to estimate species richness of CRP. This article ( D. L. Carter, J. M. Blair, Recovery of native plant community characteristics on a chronosequence of restored prairies seeded into pastures in West-Central Iowa. Restor. Ecol. 20, 170–179 (2012). ) is cited, yet this cited paper specifically does not use CRP grasslands, suggesting an error on the part of Hungate et. al.

Read more at PrarieBotanist: https://prairiebotanist.com/2017/04/11/a-brief-comment-on-the-economic-value-of-grassland-species-for-carbon-storage/

SC

Promising Alzheimer’s ‘drug’ halts memory loss (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130626184019.htm) I found this article interesting because it talked about p38 alpha. At the beginning of the article by Arne Ittner (2017) mice with depletion of p38 alpha, beta, gamma, and delta were all tested. Only p38 gamma depletion had an effect on PTZ seizures, so they tested p38𝛾 and its effect on mice with AD. This article from Northwestern University focuses on how p38 alpha becomes overactive in AD patients. Overactive p38 alpha leads to damage in the synapses by impairing glial cells protective abilities, disrupts the signal between neurons, and releases toxic molecules that can lead to more damage.

Discovery opens door to new Alzheimer’s treatments (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161117151205.htm) This article connected with our paper in many ways. Alzheimer’s patient have two things, protein plaques made from amyloid-beta, and tau tangles that are phosphorylated by the kinase. When tau is phosphorylated, it forms tangles. So we thought. What the study found is that when tau is initially phosphorylated, it is for protection. They focused on a protein kinase, p38𝛾, and found that is assists in phosphorylating tau and interferes with the amyloid-beta toxicity. When removed, Alzheimer's progresses. When reintroduced, it was therapeutic and helped halt Alzheimer’s progression.

Vietnam have been trade with EU among the 11 months of 2016, $40.76bn according to Vietnam custom.

Earlier in the year, researchers were using mollusks to derive a non addicting painkiller in the hopes of solving the U.S. opioid epidemic. Read more at salon: https://www.salon.com/2017/03/04/a-little-mollusk-may-lead-to-a-big-discovery-in-helping-solve-the-u-s-opioid-epidemic/ EM

Histone functions can go as far as being key gene silencers in normal embryo development. Read more in ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170830202141.htm EM

I'm missing something about making policies themselves more FAIR, which we had included in an earlier version of these draft principles.

In Africa, there is a food crisis leaving millions of people without corn, a very important crop for Africa. The reason for these crops not being edible is that a certain species of worm invaded a field of corn and rapidly spread to neighboring farms, killing millions of corn crops leaving thousands hungry. This proves the point how insects differ from each-other depending on what type of plants are around, since this worm is always flocking to this one crop.

Link:A table showing variation in herbivore communities and relative abundance of leaf secondary metabolites

-Otniel Gonzalez

The levels of phosphorus in Lake Coeur d’Alene have doubled since the 1990's. This worries authorities about the potential growth in algae and increase in heavy metals in the lake.

Read more in The Spokesman-Review: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/nov/15/phosphorus-pollution-flowing-into-lake-coeur-dalen/

A city releases water contaminated by agriculture which will have an adverse effect on local ecosystems.

Read more in Lawrence-Journal World: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2017/nov/15/short-notice-citys-release-nitrogen-contaminated-w/

Poultry producer is fined by $1.4 million for polluting a local stream.

Read more in WJCT: http://news.wjct.org/post/live-oak-poultry-producer-environmental-groups-reach-deal-over-suwannee-river-pollution

William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science are studying oysters to see if they could be used to reduce nitrogen levels.

Read more in the Williamsburg Yorktown Daily: https://wydaily.com/2017/11/05/study-suggests-oysters-offer-hot-spot-for-reducing-nutrient-pollution-tek/

Nutient pollution is affecting the production of fisheries in the ocean by creating dead zones in the ocean where there are low levels of oxygen.

Read more in the Iowa Public Radio: http://iowapublicradio.org/post/farmers-sea-say-livelihood-dying-midwest-ag-pollution#stream/0

An increase on nutrients in nearby river has led to an increase in the levels of algae in these rivers, some of these which are toxic to people.

Read more in nwi.com: http://www.nwitimes.com/business/toxic-algae-once-a-nuisance-now-a-severe-nationwide-threat/article_2b1decfa-43c9-5d80-bf64-173e51a95248.html

Biological evidence supports an early and complex emergence of the Isthmus of Panama, Christine D. Bacon, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1423853112

https://phys.org/news/2015-04-evidence-isthmus-panama-earlier-thought.html

According to phys.org, a newly published paper suggests that the Isthmus of Panama was formed earlier than conventionally believed. The article states that the isthmus was formed in a stop and go manner over 20 million years ago; meaning that migration of organisms could have also followed the same trend. If migration of animals between North and South America started earlier, then the minimum time required for strong reproductive isolation may actually be longer than 3.5 million years. (JP)

The formation of the Isthmus of Panama has been attributed to the ceasing of currents and changes to the depths of certain areas and levels of sand. It has been reinforced by a similar and more recent research that these changes are some of the major influences of divergence within the snapping shrimps species. (DV)

Read more in New dates and new rates for divergence across the Isthmus of Panama: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/265/1412/2257

The intolerant behavior that has been observed in snapping shrimp known as snapping is the production of a water jet created by the larger claw that creates a loud "pop" sound. Although, it has been discovered that the actual threat in this behavior is the subsequent shock wave that comes after the water jet. (DV)

Read more in Shrimp shootouts end with a shock wave bang: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/shrimp-shootouts-end-shock-wave-bang?utm_campaign=news_daily_2017-10-30&et_rid=17774509&et_cid=1632982

Ednrb antagonists could potentially be used for the treatment of melanoma. Read more: www.theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/content/20/10/1121.full.pdf (DB)

Exposure to UV radiation increases the risk of melanoma development. Read more: www.skincancer.org/media-and-press/press-release-2013/kids (DB)

The progression of cancer is characterized by features that can be seen during development. Read more: https://www.cancerquest.org/cancer-biology/cancer-development (DB)

And even those three pages use non-standard terms, which requires more lawyers to assess the compatibility of these terms with those of any other database one might wish to combine with WWARN data.

1. Public involvement in commercially-driven sphere
2. Address inequality
3. Indicators/data on digital skills
4. OER

Neomi Rao, newly confirmed administrator of White House Information and Regulatory affairs attempts here to renounce personal ownership of deregulation efforts instead framing the current move as the continuation of an existing motion present in previous leadership. She attempts to insure the rational saliency of deregulation through this logic of a theoretical continuum.

Värnandet om ett fritt internet", helt klart borde detta stå i centrum för allt vi gör inom digidel, MIK och utvecklingen av digitala tjänster. Dock är det svårt att vara en aktör för digital frihet när man själv inte är fri. Inlåsta kommunala IT-miljöer, hämmande upphandlingsregler, policyregler som motverkar digital integritet, monolitisk syn på hårdvara och mjukvara, allt detta skapar en ofri miljö där medarbetarnas möjligheter att utveckla digital kompetens motverkas. Biblioteken är arenor som talar om digital delaktighet för medborgarna utan att först ge medarbetarna själva att bli digitalt delaktiga. Kanske borde vi tala om digital egenmakt, inte bara delaktighet. Då blir det tydligare att vår uppgift är att facilitera digital frihet, inte bara introducera medborgarna i en IT-miljö som formas och definieras över deras huvuden. En levande digitaliserad demokrati förutsätter medborgare som kan bli autonoma medskapare på internet, inte enbart konsumenter av det redan etablerade.

This is the institute's major 2013 report on oil sands development, with recommendations to address concerns about the environment, the economy, and tax implications.

irrespective of the fact that the consumer has consumed the message that message is kept in kafka for the entire retention policy duration.

You can have two or more consumer groups: 1 -> real time 2 -> back up consumer group

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

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This may be a front group. Investigate, find additional sources, and leave research notes in the comments.

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There is still very little thinking about digital education from a policy/discourse/politics-of-education perspective. Interesting work by Ben Williamson, Greg Thompson, Ian Cook.

"Trump’s campaign promise to “maximize flexibility for states via block grants so that local leaders can design innovative Medicaid programs that will better serve their low-income citizens.” "

Again, the use of the phrase "will better serve our low income citizens" tried to sound like they are coming from a humanistic basis. They are also trying to frame this in a way that seems to give flexibility and freedom to innovate to local leaders...that by doing this they are facilitating this potentially more innovative and fliexible approach. It "sounds" good framing in this way, but it's not taking some of the realities of how horribly this can effect the states who might be left holding the bag financially and the citizens who may wind up left with out much needed services.

This article acknowledges the lack of research in understanding how children of incarcerated parents are impacted. The authors discuss the multitude of consequences that can affect children in the present and future; including delinquent behavior, learning barriers, unemployment, and antisocial behavior. With the expansion of criminality, the problem is vastly growing.

The authors didn’t find evidence to the claim that “children of prisoners are five to six times more likely to be convicted or imprisoned” compared to their peers. They blame variables and use of methodological approaches insufficiently as reasons why findings may have been exaggerated. The authors do present evidence that shows that children are more likely to be arrested, antisocial, and the like, but maintain that data is limited and needs more research to have a definitive answer. The authors referenced the new Cambrdge study and did discuss that it found antisocial behavior to be more apparent in those who had parents incarcerated.

After discussing five studies that addressed children’s behavior patterns with incarcerated parents, they conclude that parental imprisonment puts a risk on children to develop antisocial behavior patterns. However, they attribute this not to it being a cause, but rather the imprisonment of a parent to be a predictor of child outcomes. They believe that these consequences are from disadvantages of the parents’ imprisonment, rather than the imprisonment itself. Therefore, they conclude that damage was done to the child before the parents was imprisoned.

The authors do not dismiss that trauma theory, popular in small-scale studies of the affects of children of prisoners. They cite that the longer or more often a parent is incarcerated can have negative affects on the child’s emotional state.

Overall, the authors cite many mediating factors in the study of children with imprisoned parents. They seem to hold the standards exceptionally high for the methodological approaches to this study and dismiss the studies previously done based on rigor and mediating variables.

A Summary of Housing and Wealth Inequality: Racial-Ethnic Differences in Home Equity in the United States By: B. Stebbins

Home equity is the largest component of wealth for most households. Therefore, persons who “have previously owned a house are able to use the money earned from its sale to invest in and increase the equity of subsequent housing” (Krivo, Kaufman). However, minorities who already face substantial obstacles in buying homes because of residential segregation and other forms of discrimination in housing and mortgage markets are less capable of accumulating equity to bankroll previous purchases into the next one.

For example, minorities face discrimination from brokers, racial-ethnic steering, redlining, and other forms of mortgage-lending discrimination. This in turn limits access to communities with greater status and amenities, such as good quality schools, parks, and shopping which have important ramifications for long-term health and well-being. Since social and historical contexts disadvantage minorities prior to their entrance into the housing market, the inequalities reproduced as a result of their active participation in the housing market only compound existing disparities further in their accumulation of housing wealth.

The microeconomic factors identified above were found to be central determinants of the acquisition and value of housing. The impact being that the social, locational, and financial characteristics of mortgage and housing markets systematically disadvantage minorities in comparison to whites. The social and historical contexts of racial and ethnic groups also strongly influence their ability to obtain more financially and socially advantageous housing. Minority groups were found to be dealt with less favorably throughout each stage of the housing process in comparison to whites, which reduces their overall accumulation of wealth and makes it more difficult to purchase homes, obtain favorable mortgage terms, and break into areas with high home values and levels of appreciation.

Additionally, it was noted that minority groups are more susceptible to FHA, VA, or FMHA loans which have low down payments but high interest rates contributing to their slower accumulation of equity. While low down payments are beneficial and encourage minorities to enter the market, these loans put minority households at risk as they may not be able to afford the house payments over the long run. Lastly, Krivo and Kaufman noted that it is important to recognize that historical and contemporary processes of discrimination in schools, labor markets, and other social institutions help explain the socioeconomic differences among groups and the reproduction of intergenerational inequality.

Citation: Krivo, L., & Kaufman, R. (2004). Housing and Wealth Inequality: Racial-Ethnic Differences in Home Equity in the United States. Demography, 41(3), 585-605. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1515194

The Need for Local Flexibility in U.S. Housing Policy: A Summary. By. B. Stebbins

The point of the article is that national housing programs ignore the diversity of urban housing markets across the U.S. While some communities do well, others suffer from unforeseen and undesirable side effects on a substantial scale as a result. The demand for housing in a metropolitan area is driven by the following trends: price of housing, income growth and distribution, population growth, and household formation. These trends vary dramatically within cities as well as over time which can cause sharp shifts in demand. Since newly built units provide a price ceiling for the rest of the housing market, the poor pay a higher price per unit of housing than others do.

This is problematic because the supply of housing services from existing units is less price-responsive and particular groups can be constrained by resistance to neighborhood change. Additionally, most household consume more than the minimum amount generally accepted as necessary because they can afford it which further impacts lower income households as they will respond little to price changes and devote an increasing portion of their incomes to housing. Since housing demand is responsive to housing pricing, demand will generally shift more quickly than supply; thus, the market will be in a continuous state of disequilibrium. While the four types of government policies (general filtering strategy, local housing code enforcement and urban renewal, housing allowances, and Section 8) seek to address these concerns, they do so inadequately.

Struyk argues that broadening the Section 8 program to include low-income homeowners would help eliminate inequities between communities in which low-income households are predominantly renters. Furthermore, creating a dozen or so market types for HUD to provide general guidance to communities as to the likely consequences of alternative housing strategies that included projections of income and population trends would help each city formulate its own housing and community development plans. In conclusion, Struyk sees this as an opportunity to give more flexibility at the local level to address each community's needs through the combination of supply-augmenting subsidies and demand-increasing subsidies.

Citation: Struyk, Raymond J. “The Need for Local Flexibility in U.S. Housing Policy.” Policy Analysis, vol. 3, no. 4, 1977, pp. 471–483., www.jstor.org/stable/42783231.

Affordable Housing: The Case for Demand-Side Subsidies in Superstar Cities Summary by Radhika Raj

In this article, Adam Zeidel examines locally funded affordable housing programs in what he calls, “superstar cities”. A superstar city “is defined by Gyourko et al.; a superstar city is one ‘[in which] demand exceeds supply and supply growth is limited” (Zeidel, 135). Other characteristics of superstar cities include people wanting to pay a large premium to live there, and a disproportionate distribution of wealth. 

Zeidel studies New York City. This is done because of the large amount of money ($6.4 billion, Zeidel, 136) taken from local resources for affordable housing. Zeidel believes that the academics, policy-makers, and developers have an unclear goal for affording housing policy. It is implied that this is the reason programs do not line up with their policies.

The most common demographic that benefited from affordable housing policies in New York was seniors. “The existence of senior housing programs indicates that a charitable motive underlies some affordable housing programs” (Zeidel, 138). In this paper, the types of programs that are examined are “government-run public housing, regulation, price controls, subsidies, and tax incentives” (Zeidel, 140). Subsidy programs in New York mainly involve the city giving loans to private developers in order to make affordable housing. “…the Housing Development Corporation (“HDC”) reports that it has committed “$578 million dollars of its corporate reserves to finance the preservation and creation of 25,000 apartments for low, moderate, and middle-income New Yorkers” (Zeidel, 140). Supply side subsidies give incentives such as tax benefits, bonuses, and financing assistance for the preservation of affordable housing. Zeidel also examines demand side subsidies in New York City. It was found that very little of their resources were used compared to the supply side subsidies.

Even though supply side subsidies were more likely to be favored and funded by the city, Zeidel found that demand side subsidies were more efficient, effective, flexible, and transparent. It was found that “virtually every empirical study performed over the past twenty-five years has found that demand-oriented subsidies are more efficient than supply side subsidies” (Zeidel, 143). It was also found that the demand side subsidies could help more citizens equally rather than helping few substantially. They also scored high in equity. This means that there was a more equal treatment in similar scenarios. Demand side subsidies also were more beneficial because there was a clear cost and benefit. These characteristics were found to be more beneficial overall to the population.

Zeidel, Adam. “Affordable Housing: The Case for Demand-Side Subsidies in Superstar Cities.” The Urban Lawyer, vol. 42, no. 1, 2010, pp. 135–169., www.jstor.org/stable/27895769.

Eroding the Wealth of Women: Gender and the Subprime Foreclosure Crisis By Amy Castro Baker Summary by Radhika Raj

In this article, Baker talks about how mortgage markets have evolved to create a policy gap which creates new forms of gender inequality in the housing and lending markets. This article seeks to analyze how single women are affected by gender inequality in the lending market where their loans are characterized by high levels of default and foreclosure.

The article begins by defining certain key characteristics between traditional prime mortgages and subprime mortgages. Baker explains that “home owners with a subprime mortgage are six to nine times more likely than those with a traditional prime mortgage to be in foreclosure (Renuart 2004; Schloemer et al. 2006)” (59-60). Subprime mortgages are high cost and high risk because they depend on the state of the market. Baker claims that subprime mortgages “tend to be more prevalent in neighborhoods of color where women are predominately the heads of households” (60). This implies that mostly women, specifically women of color, are the ones affected by the risks associated with subprime mortgages.

Subprime mortgages were not always as prevalent in the market. Baker explains how subprime mortgages only represented a fraction of mortgages until the 1990’s. During this time, there was a shift in focus where a policy window could open and lenders began to create opportunity for the groups that were historically excluded from the mortgage process such as women, people of color, and the elderly.

In Baker’s article, she claims that single women, particularly those of color, are the ones most affected by mortgage strain in the market. Baker states that, “Single women experience higher rates of subprime lending than their male peers, even when controlling for risk factors such as credit, income, and neighborhood location” (61-62). The article talks about how the gender gap within mortgages creates a risky lending market for women, and how despite the problems of mortgage strain, there has not been much research into the sexism involved in the housing market. Baker also goes on to discuss how these risky mortgages sometimes end in homelessness. Even in this situation, it was found that women had a more difficult time with homelessness compared to men.

Overall, Baker’s article seeks to explain the reason why women experience gender inequality in housing markets. These inequalities are characterized by the number of subprime mortgages loaned to women, and the amount of mortgage strain that these women have to endure.

No Renters in My Suburban Backyard: Land Use Regulation and Rental Housing A Summary by Radhika Raj

In this article Schuetz talks about how low and moderate income families are unable to move to more desirable suburban areas because of high cost housing and rental prices. A key point to this article is how certain forms of local zoning and land use regulations are increasing housing prices because of a reduced supply of housing in desirable areas. She uses literature from Anthony Downs to examine how land use, zoning, and rent prices affect equal housing opportunity.

Schuetz introduces this topic by bringing up a point made in Anthony Downs’ book Opening Up the Suburbs. Downs makes a point that the achievement of society cannot go forward without equal opportunity for all social classes. He claims that the exclusion of lower social classes from living in more desirable suburban areas “will eventually undermine achievement of one of our fundamental goals: true equality of opportunity” (Downs, 1973, p. vii). Starting with this idea, Schuetz makes the point that excluding low-income families could lead to a gap in opportunity for less affluent families. For example, she talks about how by being excluded from a neighborhood can lead to poor families living in areas where they have less employment opportunities, less access to good quality schools, and even less access to public services as well as physical environment. While it may be argued that these families may not have access to these resources because of poor employment potential, lack of skills, or financial irresponsibility, Schuetz makes the argument that zoning codes have a large impact on who can afford to live in improved suburban areas.

The article examines these claims by looking at the prices of rent and how they are affected by zoning policies. The results of the analysis state that housing regulations hinder production of multifamily housing. This causes a small decrease in rents, but there was no significant association between the increase of multifamily housing and rent prices. Another zoning regulation that is discussed is the increase of greenbelts correlating with increased housing prices. Growth control policies such as greenbelts increase rent prices because they decrease the amount of land available to zone for housing. Traditional zoning policies such as minimum lot size also have an impact on rent prices. These zoning policies are known to raise rent prices by creating a demand of high income housing, with high income resources. Schuetz examines how the small amount of land is zoned for multifamily housing to restrict rental housing. Municipalities can also restrict rentals by creating barriers to development such as special permits.

Overall, these restrictions suggest that regulations impede the development of new rental housing, which causes housing prices to increase. The effects of zoning are less clear based on the research but it is suggested that the requirement of special permits hinders the ability for multifamily homes to have access to better suburban areas.

The Role of Private Agents in Affordable Housing Policy: A Summary

By: B. Stebbins

In the article, Graddy and Bostic analyze the consequences of our increasing reliance on private agents in the formulation and implementation of affordable housing policy and conclude that these private agents do respond to policy incentives - albeit to varying degrees - mitigating concerns about the loss of public control in this policy area. They state that although the federal government has a set of broad policy goals of providing safe, affordable, and quality housing for all, it has not always been able to implement such policy goals well. The widespread dissatisfaction with public production due to its high cost, often poor design and administration led the federal government to move away from and rely on lower levels of government for implementation. This devolution of affordable housing policy has brought a dispersion of authority across state, regional, and local governments and diffuse accountability. Not only do local governments have little incentive to meet federal or regional goals but to the extent that oversight is left at the local level, accountability and coordination will end up being narrowly focused (Graddy & Bostic).

Compounding these challenges of authority and accountability, Graddy and Bostic state that the primary problem in providing affordable housing is that in the places it is needed most, the rents and sale prices required to make a residence affordable do not support financially feasible projects. Multiple policy instruments like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Program, HOME Investment and Partnership Program, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program, Section 8 housing vouchers, tax-exempt bonds, density bonus permits, and inclusionary zoning practices are used to incentivize private developers to produce affordable housing. However, the response from private developers to these incentives are different based upon the framework in which they operate and lead to varying degrees of power and influence among the various institutions and actors. Adding to this primary problem is what these affordable housing projects will look like and how they align with local community needs (Graddy & Bostic).

According to Graddy and Bostic, in both of their case studies of the Massachusetts and New Jersey frameworks, affordable housing production clearly differs, and degrades, once the jurisdictional threshold, as defined by each state, for acceptable housing performance is achieved. This is obviously problematic because jurisdictional changes do not have to be addressed once the acceptable housing performance is achieved, even though the problem of affordable housing may not have been fully addressed. This is because developers recognize and do not seek out jurisdictions for housing projects that would significantly increase their affordable housing share, leaving little incentives for jurisdictions above the threshold to permit more affordable housing. In sum, the most important consequence of our current affordable housing policy is that private developers take a leading role in deciding when and where affordable housing will be built. Thus, the structure of governance of affordable housing policy is of utmost importance in mitigating these concerns of private agents acting in their own self-interest (Graddy & Bostic).

Citation: Graddy, E., & Bostic, R. (2010). The Role of Private Agents in Affordable Housing Policy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART, 20, I81-I99. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20627910

The freshwater that falls on LA is lost.

What are TORCHS factors? Learn more by reading the following links:

https://usa.healthcare.siemens.com/clinical-specialities/womens-health-information/laboratory-diagnostics/torch/risk-factors

http://www.medicineonline.com/articles/t/2/torch-infections.html

Let's just highlight a root problem here, then: "statewide budget cuts".

Why should any public school ever have to do fundraising?

POLICY Statement describing the use of assuming poverty to address the issue.

• Do these activities create other problems?
• Is there change in politician's beliefs following experiences?

POLICY Statement for change: politicians should encounter and experience poverty.

POLICY Statement clarifying that solutions suggested are a start but larger economic trends need to be altered.

POLICY Statement that personal experience is paramount to change.

The city of Detroit faces a catch-22: It must modernize to attract residents, but in order to modernize, it needs residents as a tax and community base.

That is the premise of Bill Adler’s article for Grist, which takes Detroit’s conundrum a step further in recognizing an important trend for growth: Going green.

Adler compares Detroit to other cities across the country, including Portland, Oregon, in analyzing how Detroit can grow and attract more residents, in particular Millennials — the new young urban professional.

Detroit’s weather, crime rate, lack of adequate emergency services, high tax rates, and lack of transportation — among other things —conspire to keep the city unattractive. So how to change that?

Greening is important, Adler writes. Part of that is urban density, now recognized as an environmental good for reducing carbon emissions. Detroit has a density of about 5,100 people per square mile, closer to suburban-style cities like San Jose than it is to other industrial-era cities, like Chicago (12,000) or Washington, D.C. (10,000). Its current density is slightly higher than Portland, Oregon, which has been recognized for its urban planning and its attractiveness to Millennials and entrepreneurs.

Detroit has existing infrastructure to support greater density, and can do more — expanding public transportation, investing in urban neighborhoods like Midtown and Corktown, expanding renewal efforts to other potentially up-and-coming areas, and turning itself into an incubator or business hub for certain business segments, such as biotechnology — could help the city become attractive to new residents.

Residents also need jobs, and Detroit does have them, with 232,000 existing jobs and just 169,000 employed Detroit residents. The problem there is that many of Detroit’s high income workers commute into the city from suburbs, while Detroit’s urban poor commute out for minimum-wage positions. Further, the city’s transportation structure is car-centric due to its early years, and it is behind the times in implementing public transit.

Detroit does have one thing in stock that could be very attractive to home buyers: Architecture. The city has Tudors and Italianate and Romanesque Revival mansions in stock and for sale. However, the surplus of beautiful homes is actually another detriment, right now, as homes are bulldozed lest they become a magnet for crime or fire hazards.

All hope is not lost, Adler writes, noting that other cities (he calls them Legacy cities) facing similar problems have managed to bounce back, or are in the process of doing so, among them Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Brooklyn.

But first, Detroit needs to figure out how to bring in people who want to live in the urban core, and provide them with the services necessary to stay.

Websites using Content Security Policy can be annoted with hypothes.is in Firefox by switching (in about:config ) security.csp.enable to false

44-45 Ingelfinger rule: won't publish articles that have been presented, discussed with reporters, or published in any form elsewhere--including data. Once a paper is under consideration and production, it can't be discussed with reporters.

This clearly harms science in the interest of journals.

Find more open policies via links on Open Policy Network

ROARMAP is more Open Access, others are more OER as suggested by titles. And Civic Commons has more to do with Open Data.

I'm sure other DISC members have interesting resources and lists they like.

no policy at Yale

data requirements

UK policy = mandate

Cornell = no policy

Challenges relating to policy adoption, particularly administrative policy. What type of "policy" typically encourages the most participation in open initiatives?

statement of principles, not policy. Baby steps.

Open (access) policy

Policy. Adopted by only four units.

Detroit may be America’s largest broke city; it may have experienced tremendous population and job loss — but against the odds, there are still people who want to move to this former industrial hub.

This long feature story and series of personality profiles in the Detroit Free Press identifies five specific types of people moving into Motor City: Urban explorers, property seekers, native sons and daughters, entrepreneurs, and empty nesters.

This article profiled individuals who fit all of those categories in trying to create a picture of what Detroit is now, post-bankruptcy filing, and the kinds of people dedicated to bringing it back.

One pair of entrepreneurs moved to Detroit to open a restaurant, planning to capitalize on Detroit’s local food and urban agriculture movements. Deveri Gifford said: "The DIY attitude is what we really loved about the city. The fact that the city is broke really contributes to that DIY attitude because there's this perspective of 'No one else is going to do this, so if I see a problem I'm just going to fix it.' "

Another couple is moving home to Detroit, where they both went to high school. Although they’ve lived elsewhere, they wanted to return home and be part of the rebuilding effort in their city. One works for Teach for America, and the other is in manufacturing.

Retiree Maria Urquidi saw an opportunity to be part of the change in the city, and help it come back. She liked the idea of “coming up with brand new solutions” to fix problems. Detroit was also a much more affordable option for Urquidi, who worked in New York state. She was also attracted to the city’s architecture, and multitude of available, beautiful homes.

Lesley Daley, a Londoner, was also attracted to the city’s architecture, and its history. Daley called the city “a secret” and said that she has not experienced many of the negatives perceived by outsiders, such as packs of stray dogs.

Other people had varying reasons for moving to Detroit — from civic duty to a sense of opportunity and a desire to be closer to the urban core. They have experienced negatives — one couple had their car stolen, crime is a problem, and social services are lacking. But this group overwhelmingly says their experiences have been positive, and feel it is a good moment to influence change.

One young mother, who boomeranged back to the city after college, said she sees opportunity for her child.

"… He sees a lot of things he shouldn't be exposed to, especially at such a young age. But what I'm going to instill in him is that you have the power to change this. Are you going to be the one to complain about this, or are you going to be the one to change this?" she said.

Edit: Although this is a personality profile/feature piece and not a hard policy topic, it is important to our group's work in that by identifying the people who are moving to the city, we can isolate some potential policy areas to emphasize as recommendations for Detroit. For example, the restaurant-owning couple values urban and local agriculture. The city can then implement policies to foster that culture, and with those policies in place potentially attract more people. By recognizing the values and priorities of potential residents, the city can shape its policy to be more attractive.

G.Nelson

In their article, “Cartographies of Race and Class: Mapping the Class-Monopoly Rents of American Subprime Mortgage Capital,” Elvin Wyly, Markus Moos, Daniel Hammel, and Emanuel Kabahizi illustrate that in order to understand the subprime housing crisis of twenty-ought, one needs to understand the structural inequalities of class-monopoly rent. The understanding of class-monopoly rent has not gone away, but has shifted from a local landlord to an international landlord that regulates the renter upon the predatory practices of subprime lending. Variable rates, expensive fees, and asymmetrical information controls the tenants, like that of the 1960s land-installment contracts.

The group quickly illustrates the process of creating and packaging subprime loans. A bank or mortgage company to a borrower draws up a mortgage; that loan is quickly sold off to a Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE); in return, the bank or mortgage company receives cash to make more loans. The original loan is, then, pooled into Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) –which are backed by Wall Street Investment Banks—and are sold around the world to various public and private institutions. The group highlights that at the time of rising home prices, the risk of a default is limited and the financial impact on the bond (MBSs and CDOs) is relatively mute. The bank could force a new mortgage, and the equity that was in the home would go to generate more income for the bank or, essentially, drop the homeowner and force them to become a renter.

In 1995, the Subprime markets accounted for $65 billion, but by 2006, the markets mushroomed to $625 billion. In 2007 a rush of delinquencies, defaults, and foreclosures, along with decreasing home values, created a credit crunch in the economy and chipped away at the confidence of the investors of MBSs and CDOs. This left the U.S. government vulnerable in which the Federal Reserve took dramatic action to buy up MBSs and of unknown values and government bonds to free up banks’ balance sheets.

Instead of taking blame within the financial markets, industry-defenders blamed the imperfect markets, the consumers for taking out more than they could manage, and the attempt by institutions to help more individuals then the markets could handle. The group illustrates, however, that institutionalized racial inequality because of credit-worthiness and lending practices are to blame for the systemic credit crunch of the twenty-ought.

Risk-based pricing --a theory that determines that an individuals ability to borrow and at what rate—has been the basis philosophy of financial markets of the last twenty years. However, the group illustrates how the philosophy has come under attack recently, and provides anything but the rosey picture that it once promised. The theory only deters moneylenders from lending to minorities and low-income individuals by providing a justification of denial to entry.

A social problem of the lack of access to homeownerships for the “underserved” (minorities and low-income individuals) gradually brought about State and Federal regulations and programs to assist homeownership for the underserved. Within the 1960s, for minorities to build up credit worthiness and equity for a bank to justify a mortgage --even if the minority already had the sufficient income to justify a mortgage—the minority would utilize a land-installment contract. This path towards homeownership often carried higher premiums. Within the 1980s, a series of laws made specific types of loans and lenders exempt from regulatory practices (337). Through the 1990s, federal and state regulators maintained the effort of providing traditional mortgages to the underserved, but at the turn of the century, small lending firms, which were backed by Wall Street, began to provide loans that were not restricted by state and federal regulations. Asymmetrical information, lack of knowledge by the consumers, led many to believe that this is the only way for them to own a home. These small lending firms were bought up by national banks and accounted them as subsidiaries, which allowed the bank to carry the exempt status in its subsidiary firm and continue the predatory practices, but now at this time, in a much grander scale. The loan restriction of the 1960s –which stems from racism-- has only transformed itself back to loan restrictions of today because of the predatory lending that is justified by the risk-based pricing theory.

I am illustrating the foresaid points of the article in my annotation to emphasize the foundation of racial-lending practices that span decades within the U.S. financial system. This will be imperative to tie into the financial credit crisis of 2008, and how municipalities suffered from this sort of practice.<br> G.Nelson

Parental Incarceration, child homelessness, and the invisible consequences of mass imprisonment

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, the author “investigates average and race-specific effects of paternal and maternal incarceration on the risk of child homeless (p.74).” Authors of this study use the “analytic sample,” of children who had “at least one parent complete both the 30- and 60 month interview (p.79).” Although number of observations was large (N=3,774) it only represented about 75% of the children identified in the sample. Missing data is a noteworthy limitation. The main argument author makes is that the effects of paternal and maternal incarceration have different effects on children. Families with incarcerated fathers tend to lose family finances. Due to this consequence, families lose access to institutional and informal supports. Mothers left to take care of families often suffer from depression (due to losing their partner) and their ability to take care their child(ren) suffers. Maternal incarceration, author theorizes, results in foster care or other forms of housing, but it reduces chance of child homelessness. Therefore, increase in paternal imprisonment increases child homelessness, while female imprisonment increases foster care placements (p.75). The results in the study “support the hypothesis that paternal but not maternal incarceration increases the risk of child homelessness, and show that nearly all these effects are concentrated among African American children (p.75).” According to National Center on Family Homelessness 2009, “two percent of children are now homeless annually, with rates higher in cities (p.76).” According to the research, “shifts in social policies, deindustrialization, increases in single parenthood, and the housing squeeze played a role in increasing the risk of homelessness for black children (p.76).” This article attempts to shed light on the parental incarceration and child homelessness but more research needs to be developed. Its three limitations are (1) little discussion of potential mechanisms, (2) “data used preclude controls for confounders such as prior homelessness, eviction and incarceration, (3) it doesn’t test for disparate effects by race nor takes account for whether paternal and maternal incarceration increase the risk of child homelessness. Authors offer that further research should focus on “disproportionately detrimental effects of paternal incarceration on black children (p.92).”<br> The study concludes that “results from logistic regression and propensity score models consistently indicate that recent paternal incarceration increases the risk of child homelessness; maternal incarceration, on the other hand, was never associated with a significant change in risk (p.92).” The results provide three implications in regards to the effects of mass imprisonment on social inequality; 1) paternal and maternal incarceration lead to parallel paths of marginalization; this study is the first to show paternal incarceration increases risk of child homelessness. Second, these small effects have large implications; when combined with “increases and disparity in the risk of paternal imprisonment, they imply the prison boom accounted for 65% increase in black-white inequality of child homelessness (p.92).” Finally, as children of prison boom come of age, an expectation of increasing black-white gaps in civil preparedness and political participation. Children homelessness is once again in the light, because as mentioned previously, Social Construction Framework suggests that children are low on political power and higher on deserving scale. As innocent, or unable to fend for themselves it is easy to request social attention to their needs, especially when they are exposed to homelessness without any reason of their own but because they’re born to parents who are incarcerated. The challenge lies with incarcerated parents however, since social construction and power typology chart shows criminals on low power, underserving part of the scale which in effect reflects poorly on their children. By creating a reputation for incarcerated parents; limit their employment once they’re out, access to public assistance, heavy fines to pay back, the children are exposed to a limited amount of help and therefore more exposed to homelessness.

“Can Detroit Rebuild Its Middle Class?” from the National Journal, Tim Alberta (2014) http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-economy/america-360/can-detroit-rebuild-its-middle-class?mref=scroll

In this fascinating article by Tim Alberta (2014) from the National Journal, there is a focus on rebuilding the middle class of Detroit with the image of diversity and self-sustainability. The underlying ideology is that a strong middle class is the key to a thriving city. There are currently 2 Detroit’s: one that portrays a downtown revival with new condos, business, and breweries, and the other that resembles a “zombieland,” completely lacking inhabitants (Alberta, 2014). Alberta (2014) says that the city’s biggest problem is a lack of residents. People are needed to build the middle class and restore the economy. Even though there is a boom of new businesses, it has not been enough to draw people to live in the depressed and abandoned neighborhoods. Reasons that young and educated workers do not want to live in Detroit is because crime is off the charts, the public school system is one of the worst in the nation, and the city’s public services are significantly lacking (Alberta, 2014).

The rebuilding attempts that are taking place are multi-faceted. City and state officials are trying to rebuild the middle class by luring educated, professional immigrants to the area. Non-profits are working to retain the graduates of Michigan’s universities. Additionally, non-profits are providing job-training and connecting employees with in-demand industries. Business organizations and coalitions are diversifying and trying to destigmatize Detroit as a manufacturing only city. Rebranding the city is considered an especially important step (Alberta, 2014). Doing this will reinforce the importance of education that was once not unnecessary to get a manufacturing job in the city. Millions in investment dollars are going into technology and the energy industry to attract a young and diversely educated workforce. “To build a long-term economic base, Detroit, like a low budget baseball team, must develop and retain homegrown talent” (Alberta, 2014). Once the middle-class is stronger, more money will be available for governmental services like schools and public works, and the city will fully start to heal.

Breunig, C., Koski, C., & Mortensen, P. B. (2009). Stability and punctuations in public spending: A comparative study of budget functions. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 20:703-722.

This article published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory by Breunig, Koski, and Morentsen presents a longitudinal study of stability and punctuations of public spending in the United States and Denmark. Breunig et al apply Baumgarnter and Jones’ disproportionate information processing model as a theoretical basis for this research. (The disproportionate information processing model was presented in 2005 by Baumgartner and Jones as a more general model of their punctuated equilibrium model/theory). In addition to the two countries being compared in this quantitative study, the spending patterns across different subcategories of public budgets in the areas of health, education, transportation, military, etc. are analyzed (Brenig et al, 2009). Their findings align with what Baumgartner and Jones predicted would occur universally with spending punctuations; “political decision makers either ignore or overact to information signals from their surroundings. This results in a distinct pattern of both stability and punctuated change in policy outputs often measured in terms of public spending indices” (Brenig et al, 2009, p. 704). A pattern of kurtosis was reflected across multiple subcategories of public budgets in both countries. Kurtosis is represented in a diagram as long periods of flat, incremental change with sharp punctuations that spike rapidly and then quickly return to equilibrium (Brenig et al, 2009).

The usefulness of this study in looking at the situation in Detroit, Michigan and its fiscal crisis is that it helps explain the unprecedented fiscal punctuation that occurred in 2013. Because the policy makers did not make the small, incremental changes to respond to the changing demographics and economic environment that affected the city’s budget subcategories, the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history occurred. Who knows if the crisis could have been averted? However, punctuated equilibrium theory does help us understand why. The data presented in this article by Breunig et al (2009) reminds me of a pressure cooker; if the incremental changes do not occur- to let off steam, then there will be an explosion. This article also made me realize that a good way to study public policy is through budgetary punctuations; these punctuations are either the result of an overreaction or poor planning on the part of policy makers.