Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/302222446?client_source=feed&format=rss
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৭:০৫ AM
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Department of Veterans Affairs is withholding bonuses for senior officials who oversee disability claims, citing a failure to meet performance goals for reducing a sizable backlog in claims processing.
The backlog has increased dramatically over the past three years, and the department has come under intense criticism from veterans groups and members of Congress who have asked President Barack Obama to try to speed the process.
VA spokesman Josh Taylor said Monday the savings would be used to help reduce the backlog. He didn't provide specifics, nor could he say how many people would be affected or how much the savings would be. The withholdings apply only to Veterans Benefits Administration executives.
"We remain confident that VBA senior executives are dedicated to our nation's veterans, and they will continue to lead our drive toward VA's goal: eliminating the claims backlog in 2015," Taylor said.
In all, records show the department paid its senior executives a total of $2.8 million in bonuses in fiscal year 2011. Three staff members received the top payment of $23,091 each.
The amount of the bonuses was first reported by the Center for Investigative Reporting.
The number of disability claims pending for longer than 125 days jumped from less than 200,000 to nearly 500,000 in fiscal 2011.
"How does the department expect to turn things around when it is rewarding employees and managers for falling behind?" said Rep. Jeff Miller, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
The VA and other federal departments routinely give bonuses to Senior Executive Service workers and other non-political employees. The Office of Personnel Management put new limits into place in June 2011. The VA's total spending for executives bonuses reflected those restrictions and dropped about 25 percent that year.
Miller said he was pleased the bonuses were halted.
"One can only wonder what effect this sort of policy may have had if VA had instituted it years ago," he said.
Political appointees such as Allison Hickey, who oversees the Veterans Benefits Administration, are not offered the bonuses.
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ১:২৭ AM
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Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/amanda-bynes-check-out-my-cray-cray-new-twitter-video/
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৫:৩৯ PM
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MADRID (AP) ? A Dutch citizen arrested in northeast Spain on suspicion of launching what is described as the biggest cyberattack in Internet history operated from a bunker and had a van capable of hacking into networks anywhere in the country, officials said Sunday.
The suspect traveled in Spain using his van "as a mobile computing office, equipped with various antennas to scan frequencies," an Interior Ministry statement said.
Agents arrested him Thursday in the city of Granollers, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Barcelona, complying with a European arrest warrant issued by Dutch authorities.
He is accused of attacking the Swiss-British anti-spam watchdog group Spamhaus whose main task is to halt ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills reaching the world's inboxes.
The statement said officers uncovered the computer hacker's bunker, "from where he even did interviews with different international media."
The 35-year-old, whose birthplace was given as the western Dutch city of Alkmaar, was identified only by his initials: S.K.
The statement said the suspect called himself a diplomat belonging to the "Telecommunications and Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Republic of Cyberbunker."
Spanish police were alerted in March by Dutch authorities of large denial-of-service attacks being launched from Spain that were affecting Internet servers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the U.S. These attacks culminated with a major onslaught on Spamhaus.
The Netherlands National Prosecution Office described them as "unprecedentedly serious attacks on the nonprofit organization Spamhaus."
The largest assault clocked in at 300 billion bits per second, according to San Francisco-based CloudFlare Inc., which Spamhaus enlisted to help it weather the onslaught.
Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm a server with traffic, jamming it with incoming messages. Security experts measure the attacks in bits of data per second. Recent cyberattacks ? such as the ones that caused persistent outages at U.S. banking sites late last year ? have tended to peak at 100 billion bits per second, one third the size of that experienced by Spamhaus.
Netherlands, German, British and U.S. police forces took part in the investigation leading to the arrest, Spain said.
The suspect is expected to be extradited from Spain to face justice in the Netherlands.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-cyberattack-suspect-had-bunker-spain-043117174.html
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৩:৫৭ PM
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The speed of light is constant, or so textbooks say. But some scientists are exploring the possibility that this cosmic speed limit changes, a consequence of the nature of the vacuum of space.
The definition of the speed of light has some broader implications for fields such as cosmology and astronomy, which assume a stable velocity for light over time. For instance, the speed of light comes up when measuring the fine structure constant (alpha), which defines the strength of the electromagnetic force. And a varying light speed would change the strengths of molecular bonds and the density of nuclear matter itself.
A non-constant speed of light could mean that estimates of the size of the universe might be off. (Unfortunately, it won't necessarily mean we can travel faster than light, because the effects of physics theories such as relativity are a consequence of light's velocity). [10 Implications of Faster-Than-Light Travel]
Two papers, published in the European Physics Journal D in March, attempt to derive the speed of light from the quantum properties of space itself. Both propose somewhat different mechanisms, but the idea is that the speed of light might change as one alters assumptions about how elementary particles interact with radiation. Both treat space as something that isn't empty, but a great big soup of virtual particles that wink in and out of existence in tiny fractions of a second.
Cosmic vacuum and light speed
The first, by lead author Marcel Urban of the Universit? du Paris-Sud, looks at the cosmic vacuum, which is often assumed to be empty space. The laws of quantum physics, which govern subatomic particles and all things very small, ?say that the vacuum of space is actually full of fundamental particles like quarks, called "virtual" particles. These matter particles, which are always paired up with their appropriate antiparticle counterpart, pop into existence and almost immediately collide. When matter and antimatter particles touch, they annihilate each other.
Photons of light, as they fly through space, are captured and re-emitted by these virtual particles. Urban and his colleagues propose that the energies of these particles ? specifically the amount of charge they carry ? affect the speed of light. Since the amount of energy a particle will have at the time a photon hits it will be essentially random, the effect on how fast photons move should vary too.
As such, the amount of time the light takes to cross a given distance should vary as the square root of that distance, though the effect would be very tiny ? on the order of 0.05 femtoseconds for every square meter of vacuum. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second. (The speed of light has been measured over the last century to high precision, on the order of parts per billion, so it is pretty clear that the effect has to be small.)
To find this tiny fluctuation, the researchers say, one could measure how light disperses at long distances. Some astronomical phenomena, such as gamma-ray bursts, produce pulses of radiation from far enough away that the fluctuations could be detected. The authors also propose using lasers bounced between mirrors placed about 100 yards apart, with a light beam bouncing between them multiple times, to seek those small changes.
Particle species and light speed
The second paper proposes a different mechanism but comes to the same conclusion that light speed changes. In that case, Gerd Leuchs and Luis S?nchez-Soto, from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen, Germany, say that the number of species of elementary particle that exist in the universe may be what makes the speed of light what it is.
Leuchs and Sanchez-Soto say that there should be, by their calculations, on the order of 100 "species" of particle that have charges. The current law governing particle physics, the Standard Model, identifies nine: the electron, muon, tauon, the six kinds of quark, photons and the W-boson. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]
The charges of all these particles are important to their model, because all of them have charges. A quantity called impedance depends on the sum of those charges. The impedance in turn depends on the permittivity of the vacuum, or how much it resists electric fields, as well as its permeability, or how well it supports magnetic fields. Light waves are made up of both an electric and magnetic wave, so changing those quantities (permittivity and permeability) will change the measured speed of light.
"We have calculated the permittivity and permeability of the vacuum as caused by those ephemeral virtual unstable elementary particles," Soto-Sanchez wrote in an email to LiveScience. "It turns out, however,?from such a simple model one can discern?that those constants contain essentially equal contributions of the different types of electrically charged particle-antiparticle pairs: both, the ones known and those so far unknown to us."
Both papers say that light interacts with virtual particle-antiparticle pairs. In Leuchs' and Sanchez-Soto's model, the impedance of the vacuum (which would speed up or slow down the speed of light) depends on the density of the particles. The impedance relates to the ratio of electric fields to magnetic fields in light; every light wave is made up of both kinds of field, and its measured value, along with the permittivity of space to magnetic fields, governs the speed of light.
Some scientists are a bit skeptical, though. Jay Wacker, a particle physicist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, said he wasn't confident about the mathematical techniques used, and that it seemed in both cases the scientists weren't applying the mathematical tools in the way that most would. "The proper way to do this is with the Feynman diagrams," Wacker said. "It's a very interesting question [the speed of light]," he added, but the methods used in these papers are probably not sufficient to investigate it.
The other issue is that if there really are a lot of other particles beyond what's in the Standard Model, then this theory needs some serious revision. But so far its predictions have been borne out, notably with the discovery of the Higgs boson. This doesn't mean there aren't any more particles to be found ? but if they are out there they're above the energies currently achievable with particle accelerators, and therefore pretty heavy, and it's possible that their effects would have shown up elsewhere.
Follow us @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/speed-light-may-not-constant-phycisists-133539398.html
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ১:৫৩ PM
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Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/ashton-kutcher-fights-security-guy-at-stagecoach-festival/
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ১২:০৪ PM
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On the diamond jubilee of the double helix, we should admit that we don't fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level, suggests Philip Ball
Image: Wikimedia Commons/Yikrazuul
This week's diamond jubilee of the discovery of DNA's molecular structure rightly celebrates how Francis Crick, James Watson and their collaborators launched the 'genomic age' by revealing how hereditary information is encoded in the double helix. Yet the conventional narrative ? in which their 1953 Nature paper led inexorably to the Human Genome Project and the dawn of personalized medicine ? is as misleading as the popular narrative of gene function itself, in which the DNA sequence is translated into proteins and ultimately into an organism's observable characteristics, or phenotype.
Sixty years on, the very definition of 'gene' is hotly debated. We do not know what most of our DNA does, nor how, or to what extent it governs traits. In other words, we do not fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level.
That sounds to me like an extraordinarily exciting state of affairs, comparable perhaps to the disruptive discovery in cosmology in 1998 that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating rather than decelerating, as astronomers had believed since the late 1920s. Yet, while specialists debate what the latest findings mean, the rhetoric of popular discussions of DNA, genomics and evolution remains largely unchanged, and the public continues to be fed assurances that DNA is as solipsistic a blueprint as ever.
The more complex picture now emerging raises difficult questions that this outsider knows he can barely discern. But I can tell that the usual tidy tale of how 'DNA makes RNA makes protein' is sanitized to the point of distortion. Instead of occasional, muted confessions from genomics boosters and popularizers of evolution that the story has turned out to be a little more complex, there should be a bolder admission ? indeed a celebration ? of the known unknowns.
DNA dispute
A student referring to textbook discussions of genetics and evolution could be forgiven for thinking that the 'central dogma' devised by Crick and others in the 1960s ? in which information flows in a linear, traceable fashion from DNA sequence to messenger RNA to protein, to manifest finally as phenotype ? remains the solid foundation of the genomic revolution. In fact, it is beginning to look more like a casualty of it.
Although it remains beyond serious doubt that Darwinian natural selection drives much, perhaps most, evolutionary change, it is often unclear at which phenotypic level selection operates, and particularly how it plays out at the molecular level.
Take the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, a public research consortium launched by the US National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. Starting in 2003, ENCODE researchers set out to map which parts of human chromosomes are transcribed, how transcription is regulated and how the process is affected by the way the DNA is packaged in the cell nucleus. Last year, the group revealed that there is much more to genome function than is encompassed in the roughly 1% of our DNA that contains some 20,000 protein-coding genes ? challenging the old idea that much of the genome is junk. At least 80% of the genome is transcribed into RNA.
Some geneticists and evolutionary biologists say that all this extra transcription may simply be noise, irrelevant to function and evolution. But, drawing on the fact that regulatory roles have been pinned to some of the non-coding RNA transcripts discovered in pilot projects, the ENCODE team argues that at least some of this transcription could provide a reservoir of molecules with regulatory functions ? in other words, a pool of potentially 'useful' variation. ENCODE researchers even propose, to the consternation of some, that the transcript should be considered the basic unit of inheritance, with 'gene' denoting not a piece of DNA but a higher-order concept pertaining to all the transcripts that contribute to a given phenotypic trait.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=33f5adfe772bfdaa60803b0ad5f25773
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৫:৪৭ AM
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THE JOBS HUNT: Weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell 16,000 to 339,000, the second-lowest in more than five years, according to the Labor Department. U.S. job creation plunged in March, however.
CENTERING IN: Some investors say the stock market's gains this week are being driven not by confidence in the economy but by the belief that the major central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, will continue their easy-money policies.
MORE WITH LESS: So far most S&P 500 companies have beat analysts' estimates for first-quarter earnings, but many have also missed on revenue. That's a sign that companies are making do with less, not that customers are buying.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news-summary-jobless-claims-earnings-213701628.html
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ১১:৪২ AM
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It's that time of year again -- the gadgets of CES are finally starting to march into stores. Today's newest catalog item comes from Panasonic in the form of the 16.1-megapixel Lumix DMC-XS1 compact. Equipped with a 24mm wide-angle 5x optical zoom lens, this $200 point and shoot targets people looking to move beyond the hazy world of cellphone photography. Unlike some high-end smartphone cameras the DMC-XS1's 1/2.33-inch CCD sensor is limited to 720p video capture at 30 fps. It won't likely win over the hardcore paparazzo, but this compact's 10 flashy designs may manage to score some points with fledging shutterbugs.
Filed under: Cameras
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/BmllZAEsmg0/
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৯:৫০ AM
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Bush at his new library on Wednesday (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
DALLAS?More than four years after George W. Bush left the White House, there seems to be one word the former president has adopted to describe how he feels about the decisions he made in office: ?comfortable.?
Bush has repeatedly used the word in interview after interview over the last several days as he returned to the spotlight to promote Thursday?s opening of his presidential library here on the campus of Southern Methodist University.
"I'm comfortable with what I did," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in an interview published last week. "I'm comfortable with who I am."
Asked about one of the most controversial aspects of his presidency?his decision to invade Iraq?Bush upped the ante even further, telling ABC?s Diane Sawyer that he?s ?very comfortable? with that decision.
?I am comfortable in the decision-making process. I think the removal of Saddam Hussein was the right decision for not only our own security but for giving people a chance to live in a free society,? Bush declared.
Indeed, those closest to him insist Bush is not someone who second-guesses the decisions he made as president. But that doesn?t mean he is not concerned about his legacy and the way the public perceives him.
Aides say the 43rd president personally played a role in choosing what went into ?every single exhibit? at his library. He and his supporters hope the facility will encourage the public to reassess his presidency?particularly on domestic issues that were overshadowed by controversy over his handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
?He literally looked at every exhibit and said, ?I want this, I want that,'? said Mark Langdale, who, as head of Bush?s private foundation, oversaw construction of the library. ?He views this as a way for the public to get all the facts so that they can make an educated decision about how they regard him and what he did in office.?
In some ways, it appears that at least some of that reassessment has already started. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier this week found 47 percent of those polled approve of Bush. That?s the highest approval rating he?s received in seven years. Still, the former president?s numbers remain dismal at best. A CNN poll released Wednesday found that 55 percent of those polled believe Bush?s presidency was a ?failure.? That is, however, an improvement over 2009, when 68 percent thought he was a ?failure.? When he left office, Bush dismissed his low poll numbers and insisted history would be his ultimate judge?a statement he?s repeated again this week as he prepares to open the doors of his library.
While those close to him insist Bush does not ?fret? about how the public regards him, he is concerned about Americans having what he sees is an ?accurate picture? of his presidency, one aide says.
?If you know George W. Bush, you know that he?s comfortable in his skin,? says Margaret Spellings, a longtime Bush adviser who served as his secretary of education. ?Does he fret and worry about this stuff? I would say very, very little. He really believes that history in its full context, if it?s understood, will certainly bode well for the era and the decisions that he made. And that?s what he wants.?
Still, there have been signs of the tension the Bush family has felt as Democrats and even some Republicans have continued to trash his presidency. While the family has mostly stayed silent about the attacks, Jeb Bush, the president?s brother, last summer used his speech at the Republican National Convention to condemn President Barack Obama for blaming his brother for the nation?s struggling economy instead of taking responsibility for what he had done over the last four years.
"Mr. President, it's time to stop blaming your predecessor for your economic problems," the former Florida governor declared. "You were dealt a tough hand, but your policies have not worked."
In an emotional voice, he added, ?I love my brother. He is a man of integrity, courage and honor. And during incredibly challenging times, he kept us safe."
Jeb Bush?s remarks were giving voice to what those close to George W. Bush say is frustration among his friends and family that the former president hasn?t gotten his due credit on some issues. Those include education reform, his work to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, and his successful push to offer prescription drug coverage to those covered by Medicare?an accomplishment that was initially unpopular but has come to be praised by both Democrats and Republicans. The library touts all of these issues, as well as Bush?s efforts to prod his party to be friendlier to Latinos by embracing immigration reform.
But Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush adviser, says the new library should not be viewed as a ?defense? of her former boss?s presidency?though she said she?s glad that its opening might prompt a reassessment of his legacy.
?I am glad that?s happening,? Hughes said. ?Obviously those eight years of the Bush presidency were very consequential years full of lots of shock?from the financial shock of 2008 to the shock and horror of the September 11th attacks to the worst natural disaster with Hurricane Katrina. They were very consequential years for our country.?
But, she added, ?I think as time passes and emotions even out that people will take a much more objective look, especially as they walk through this museum, of the many, many, very incredibly positive and good things that President Bush did to both meet the threat of terrorism but also shape the future.?
But even Bush has acknowledged it may take years, possibly even decades, for the public to view his presidency in a more positive light.
In his interview with ABC, Bush insisted he feels he made the right calls with the information he had at the time?especially on the war in Iraq.
?But history will ultimately decide that, and I won't be around to see it,? he said.
?
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৮:০৩ AM
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Sen. John McCain, speaking at a Monitor breakfast Thursday, said it is 'criminal and scandalous' that Congress is ignoring the effect of the 'sequester' on national defense.
Senator John McCain speaks at a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Michael Bonfigli/The Christian Science Monitor
EnlargeSen. John McCain (R) of Arizona says it is ?criminal and scandalous? that Congress is ignoring the effect of budget cuts on national defense, while actively hunting for a way to offset spending cuts at the Federal Aviation Administration.
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?We?ve got our priorities upside down,? Senator McCain said Thursday at a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters. ?If we are going to take care of airline passengers, why don?t we take care of our national security? The world is a more dangerous place than I have seen ... in many respects.?
The "sequester" ? the across-the-board spending cuts that took effect last month ? has posed budget dilemmas for the Pentagon and other government agencies providing national security, and it has also meant delays at airports. Starting this week, the FAA has furloughed some control-tower staff, resulting in widespread flight postponements.
?I am terribly uncomfortable with the delays of FAA. I think it is a terrible thing. I have been subject to it myself,? Arizona senator said. But McCain, a decorated war hero and longtime member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also said, ?Every one of our uniformed service chiefs have said they can?t defend the nation if we continue with this sequester.???
Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York, vice chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus, was also a guest at the breakfast. When asked what action should be taken regarding the FAA delays, he said, ?My best solution is to undo sequester and replace it with more rational types of cuts.? ?
He noted, ?Last night Jay Carney, the president?s spokesperson, said that he would be open to a solution just for FAA.? The White House and top Democrats had been holding out for a comprehensive solution to the sequester as opposed to piecemeal relief.
At Wednesday?s White House briefing, Mr. Carney said that if Congress ?wants to address specifically the problems caused by the sequester with the FAA, we would be open to looking at that.?
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D) of West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee; and the panel?s ranking Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, met Wednesday with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, seeking a solution. ?I would certainly be open? to any proposal they develop, Senator Schumer said.
McCain said, ?I will go along with whatever the FAA thing is, but it is criminal and scandalous that we are ignoring the effect of sequestration on our national security."
? Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৩:৩৪ AM
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Alongside Monday's coverage of the Boston bombing, The New York Times online home page ran an ad featuring a bloodied man, presumably dead, to promote a new show on the Sundance Channel:
The Times' top ad exec, vp Todd R. Haskell, says it's acceptable: ?This did not feel like it crossed the threshold.?
Many of the site's readers, however, found the placement to be in poor taste.
One reader, David J. Eilbott, commented:
"Looking at both images side by side simultaneously is almost gut-wrenching ? I would urge the The Times in the future to be more sensitive to readers and use better judgement in deciding what goes on the home page."
Another readers, Carol H. Sawyer, also weighed in: "Take that Sundance ad down right now!"
Some who saw the ad likely assumed it was an accident, an oversight. But that's not really how ad placement works.?Given the value of the industry, major advertisements on high-traffic sites are generally planned to a tee.
And that's exactly the case with the ad in question, which was promoting the premiere of a new show, "Rectify." Haskell explained how the conclusion was reached to run the "Rectify" ad on the home page despite the bombing coverage.
"We try to be as respectful as we can but these are subjective calls that we make in real time," said Haskell. In his defense of the ad placement, he noted that coverage of the bombing had shifted from breaking to analytical, which supposedly deemed the ad acceptable.
Jim Rogash/Getty Images
One of the horrifying images the New York Times website ran in its Boston Marathon bombing coverage.
Richard J. Meislin, who is a liaison between the newsroom and the ad department, reacted as well, saying that the juxtaposition was "unfortunate, but it did not cross the line to the point where we would ask that the ad be taken down."According to Margaret Sullivan, a public editor for The Times, the website also had "justifiable business reasons" to go ahead with the sale of the premium home page space. Ad space like this is often planned months in advance, making a last-minute change difficult.
Nevertheless, the decision to follow a week of horrific images of the bombing aftermath with a gruesome ad depicting a violent death elicited "a lot of letters," said Steph Jesperson, The Times' director of advertising acceptability.
In the future, The Times might go about this sort of decision differently, Mr. Jesperson said. When something like this happens and consumers react, ad strategists "learn from it" for next time.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/nytimes-bloody-ad-by-bombing-coverage-2013-4
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ১০:২০ PM
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The U.S. restaurant industry is beginning to sizzle, according to the 23rd edition of the Chain Restaurant Industry Review, which was released Tuesday at the Restaurant Leadership Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona by GE Capital, Franchise Finance (GEFF). According to GE Capital?s findings, merger and acquisition activity increased to $3.9 billion from $3.7 billion, and the total volume of syndicated leveraged loans in the restaurant space increased almost 21 percent last year.
PRESS RELEASE:
The U.S. restaurant industry is beginning to sizzle, according to the 23rd edition of the Chain Restaurant Industry Review, which was released today at the Restaurant Leadership Conference by GE Capital, Franchise Finance (GEFF). Merger and acquisition activity increased to $3.9 billion from $3.7 billion, and the total volume of syndicated leveraged loans in the restaurant space increased almost 21 percent last year.
In a sign that the American consumer was feeling more confident about disposable income levels, nominal restaurant sales rose 4.2 percent to $425.6 billion in 2012. Sales are projected to increase 3.8% to $441.9 billion this year.
The Top 100 restaurant chains? system-wide sales were nearly $210 billion, representing more than half of all restaurant sales last year, and gaining 0.5 percent market share from 2011. Their sales grew 4.7 percent year-over-year, outperforming both the foodservice and the restaurant industries, as well as nominal GDP. Total unit growth for the Top 100 at 1.8 percent was the highest since 2007. Franchised unit growth jumped 180 basis points to 77.3 percent of the total ? the largest share since the survey?s inception 23 years ago.
Institutional investors were eager to get a piece of the pie. Private equity firms paid premium purchase prices ? multiples of eight to 10 times revenues ? for growth companies and franchisors. Non-sponsor deals jumped 46.0% to $11.2 billion in 2012, while sponsor deals declined 11.2%. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of the total volume was driven by refinancing activity.
After two years of single initial public offerings, four were successfully completed in 2012. Three companies went private.
?In contrast to the slow but promising recovery in the global financial markets, the U.S. restaurant industry has been very focused on growing and expanding,? said Agustin Carcoba, president and CEO of GEFF. ?The activity has been driven by the improving economy, changing consumer habits and shifting U.S. demographics. People who are investing in the restaurant industry understand the importance of three factors ? operational performance, financial metrics and asset strategy ? and how they have changed through the latest cycle.?
Full service restaurant (FSR) sales increased 3.1 percent to $202.2 billion, while quick service restaurant (QSR) sales increased 5.6 percent to $179.3 billion. The FSR category includes family, casual, high-end casual and fine dining restaurants, typically those that provide table service. The QSR category includes limited service, fast casual or take-out restaurants with limited menus and, typically, no table service.
QSR menu prices increased at a 3.2 percent annual rate in 2012 compared to 2.2 percent in 2011. FSR menu prices increased 2.6 percent in 2012 compared to 2.3 percent in the prior year.
With the cost of goods sold (COGS) and labor costs comprising more than 60 percent of operating expenses at both FSRs and QSRs, it?s important for operators to understand how to achieve higher margins. By carefully managing COGS as well as advertising, rent, royalties, etc., operators may be able to achieve substantial savings and, thus, increase profits.
?Restaurants typically have relatively limited profit margins, so operators are always trying to adapt to changing consumer tastes while balancing their other costs,? Carcoba said. ?Ultimately, these are successful entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their businesses by enhancing their endangered brand equity and pleasing their customers. When they?re able to reinvest, they can make capital expenditures ? for example, investing in new technologies or making equipment purchases ? and eventually open new locations and hire more employees. It?s the American dream in action.?
GEFF assembles its proprietary Top 100 Chains and Largest 150 Operators lists annually for publication in the Chain Restaurant Industry Review. Industry sales figures included here are attributable to the National Restaurant Association.
About GE Capital, Franchise Finance
GE Capital, Franchise Finance is a leading lender for the U.S. franchise finance market via direct sales and portfolio acquisitions. With more than 30 years of experience and $9 billion in served assets, it provides financing to more than 2,000 customers and 16,000 property locations. The business specializes in financing mid-market operators with multiple stores in the restaurant and hospitality industries. Its team of industry experts works with entrepreneurial customers to help them develop individualized growth plans. GE Capital, Franchise Finance customers also receive access to its proprietary industry research and cutting-edge digital tools. For more information, visit http://www.gefranchisefinance.com or follow company news via Twitter (https://twitter.com/GELendLease).
GE Capital offers consumers and businesses around the globe an array of financial products and services. For more information, visit www.gecapital.com or follow company news via Twitter (https://twitter.com/GECapital).
GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company?s website at www.ge.com.
Source: http://www.pehub.com/197952/ma-u-s-restaurant-industry-begins-sizzle-says-ge-capital/
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৭:২৯ AM
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Apr. 24, 2013 ? New research from the University of Southampton has found that working or travelling on an underground railway for a sustained period of time could have health implications.
Previously published work suggests that working in environments such as steel mills or welding plants, which are rich in airborne metals, like iron, copper and nickel, can have damaging effects on health. However, little research has been done on the effects of working in an underground railway environment -- a similarly metal-rich environment -- and results of studies that have been conducted are often inconclusive.
New research published in Environmental Science and Technology shows that the small dust particles in the air in an underground railway is quite different to the dust that you breathe in every day and that could have health implications.
Matt Loxham, PhD student at the University of Southampton, explains: "We studied the ultrafine dust (or particulate matter) found in an underground station in Europe. Typically, ultrafine dust is composed of inert matter that does not pose much of a risk in terms of its chemical composition. However, in the underground station we studied, the ultrafine dust was at least as rich in metals as the larger dust particles and therefore, taken together with their increased surface area to volume ratio, it is of potential significance in understanding the risks of working and travelling in the underground. These tiny dust particles have the potential to penetrate the lungs and the body more easily, posing a risk to someone's health."
While coarse dust is generally deposited in the conducting airways of the body, for example nasal passages and bronchi; and the fine dust generally can reach the bronchioles (smaller airways), it is almost exclusively the ultrafine dust which is able to reach the deepest areas of the lungs, into the alveoli, where oxygen enters the blood and waste gases leave, to be exhaled. There is evidence that this ultrafine dust may be able to evade the protective barrier lining the airways (the epithelium), and enter underlying tissue and the circulation, meaning that the toxicity of ultrafine particles may not be limited to the airways but may involve the cardiovascular system, liver, brain, and kidneys.
Mr Loxham adds: "Underground rail travel is used by great numbers of people in large cities all over the world, for example, almost 1.2 billion journeys are made per year on the London Underground. The high level of mechanical activity in underground railways, along with very high temperatures is key in the generation of this metal-rich dust, and the number of people likely to be exposed means that more studies into the effects of particulate matter in the underground railway environment are needed, as well as examining how the levels of dust and duration of exposure might translate to effects on health."
The Southampton team, which included the Geochemistry Group at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and the Inhalation Toxicology Group at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in Bilthoven, initially collected airborne dust from a mainline underground station underneath an airport in Europe. The metal content of the dust was analysed and a detailed elemental profile was established for each dust sample. These profiles were then compared to profiles from other dusts analysed at the same time, for example dust from wood-burning stoves and a heavily-trafficked road tunnel, showing that underground particles were very rich in metals, especially iron and copper. The shapes of individual particles were examined and gave clues as to how the particles were generated. The team then showed that the dust was capable of generating reactive molecules which are fundamental to their toxic effects, and that this was dependent on the metal content of the particles and, importantly, occurred to a greater extent as the size of the individual particles decreased. Further work is now being performed to examine the effects of underground dust on airway cells in more detail and the potential mechanisms by which cells may be able to protect themselves.
The study was funded through the Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership studentship provided by the Medical Research Council UK.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/miuz_MLtnK0/130424081330.htm
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৬:৪৬ AM
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By Pablo Garibian
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro named a new acting head of its U.S. diplomatic mission in Washington on Tuesday and sent an offer of dialogue after attacking the United States for "interference" in a row over his election.
Disputes between Venezuela and the United States were common during Hugo Chavez's 14-year socialist rule of Venezuela, leaving both nations without ambassadors in each other's capitals.
Maduro, who won an election this month to replace Chavez after his death from cancer, has wavered between reaching out to the U.S. government and condemning its policies in the same uncompromising terms as his predecessor.
In an address on live on TV, Maduro called for "respect" and "dialogue" while naming Calixto Ortega, an ally and member of Venezuela's delegation to the Latin American parliament, to the post of charge d'affaires in Washington.
"We want to have the best ties with all the world's governments, and the U.S. government, but on the basis of respect. There can be no threats," said Maduro.
Last week, Maduro blasted the United States for "brutal" and "vulgar" meddling in supporting opposition calls for a vote recount after the April 14 election.
Maduro won the vote by less than 2 percent, leaving opposition leader Henrique Capriles fuming at what he said were thousands of irregularities that skewed the result.
"As we don't have ambassadors, we have for a while been considering naming a new charge d'affaires to our embassy in Washington," Maduro said.
"I have decided to name Calixto Ortega so that dialogue with U.S. society may increase, with the universities, the academic world, the social and union world, the Afro-American community, the Latino community, Congress, senators, representatives, the economic, trade and energy sectors."
Despite the years of diplomatic spats, oil has continued to flow north unabated.
Venezuela, an OPEC member with the world's largest oil reserves, sends between 900,000 and one million barrels per day to the United States, its biggest export market.
"We hope one day to have respectful relations with the United States, a dialogue between equals, state-to-state," Maduro said. "Sooner rather than later, the elites running the United States will have to realize there is a new, independent, sovereign and dignified Latin America."
While filling in for the cancer-ridden Chavez last year, Maduro had opened a back-channel with a U.S. State Department official, but ended that after perceived criticism by Washington of Venezuela's democratic credentials.
Chavez came to replace Cuba's Fidel Castro as Latin America's main U.S. critic in the region - a mantle up for grabs since his death.
(Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga.; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; editing by Christopher Wilson)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelas-maduro-sends-conciliatory-message-u-235954058.html
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৪:৫৫ AM
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By Caren Bohan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When a bipartisan group of U.S. senators began writing legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws in January, many Republican leaders embraced the effort as a savvy strategy for fixing the party's tattered image with Hispanic voters.
But since the bill was rolled out last week, a rift has emerged among conservatives that has played out in Senate hearings on Capitol Hill, on conservative talk shows and in social media such as Twitter and blogs.
The immigration effort has brought together an unusual coalition of Republicans, led by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential prospect, Arizona Senator John McCain, a former presidential candidate who has broken ranks with his party on some issues, and conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
But it has also put a spotlight on longstanding opposition to immigration reform within the party, potentially blunting the message party leaders had hoped to send in their efforts to remake the party's image, begun in earnest by the Republican National Committee after President Barack Obama swept to victory with 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012.
Opponents of immigration reform include some traditional conservatives such as Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama as well as some relative newcomers, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite. Another opponent of the immigration reform bill is Jim DeMint, a former South Carolina senator who is now president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Luke Frans, executive director of Resurgent Republic, an organization that conducts polling and research for Republicans, said his group has met with Capitol Hill Republicans on the subject, advising them to avoid allowing the debate over immigration to become a "circular firing squad" in which Republicans are attacking their own.
"Conservatives have certainly seen in past debates where it's veered off the policy and become more of a personal tone. That's what we're really trying to avoid this time around," he said.
Critics of the legislation have labeled as "amnesty" a provision at the heart of the bill that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants. They also warn that the legislation would drive up the federal debt as immigrants eventually become eligible for federal benefits such as Social Security.
Supporters say providing legal status for the undocumented would bring people out of the shadows and ensure that they are working and paying taxes. Advocates also say the bill, which would establish new guest worker programs for both highly skilled and low-skilled workers, would boost the economy by making the labor market more flexible.
The debate is still in its early stages and many Republicans say the rancor is still far from the level that it reached in past immigration debates, such as one in 2006 and 2007 when criticism of comprehensive immigration reform on talk radio jammed phone lines at the Capitol.
But it may not be far beneath the surface either, to judge from some of the exchanges in the past week.
In a posting that highlighted the divisions among conservatives, Erick Erickson of the influential RedState political blog accused Rubio staffers and other supporters of the immigration bill of trying to paint critics as bigoted and racist.
Elsewhere, especially on Twitter, some conservative opponents of the immigration bill accused Rubio - falsely - of supporting the distribution of free phones to illegal immigrants.
Rubio has spent much of the last week appearing on conservative radio and TV stations to defend the legislation.
"We always realized that this was a complicated issue and that we were going to have to spend a lot of time explaining it," Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said. Conant described the response so far in conservative media as "mixed."
The bomb attack at the Boston Marathon last week that was allegedly carried out by two immigrant brothers of Chechen descent intensified the debate among Republicans over the immigration bill.
Some Republicans, including Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, said the Boston attack, which killed three people and injured more than 250, were a reason to be cautious on immigration reform.
But other Republicans, including House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, argued that the Boston bombing showed the need to fix and modernize the immigration system.
While DeMint of the Heritage Foundation has been a vocal skeptic of the immigration reform bill, many of the scholars at two other influential conservative research organizations, the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, have been supportive of broad reform.
Charlie Black, a longtime adviser to Republican candidates who is now chairman of Prime Policy Group, a public affairs consulting firm, said the divisions among Republicans do not break down "along traditional lines" of conservative and moderate.
Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who backs immigration reform, said Republican voters who may be skeptical of the effort are persuadable if proponents use the right message on immigration reform.
He said the strongest argument is that the current immigration system amounts to a "de facto amnesty" and that reforming the system is "better than anything (Democratic President) Barack Obama, left to his own devices, is likely to come up with."
Some conservative activists may be easier to persuade than others on immigration reform.
Chris Littleton of the Tea Party group Ohio Rising, said he did not understand what was behind all of the criticism of immigration reform.
"There are clearly employers who need low-cost labor and immigrants who want jobs, so there is clearly a functioning market here. Everybody's benefiting from the situation so I don't know why we need this debate," he said.
But David Crow of the Arkansas Conservative Caucus, another Tea Party group, said the proposed immigration bill would "simply create a magnet for more and more people to come across the border."
"In my opinion it is a huge mistake to go down this path when it's evident it will attract more and more illegal aliens," Crow added
(This story is refiled to correct reference to Chechen brothers in 16th paragraph)
(Additional reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Fred Barbash and Lisa Shumaker)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-split-immigration-blunts-party-rebranding-051419750.html
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ১১:৫৯ PM
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ? The federal government is going after Lance Armstrong's money. As much as it can get.
The Justice Department unveiled its formal complaint against Armstrong on Tuesday, saying the cyclist violated his contract with the U.S. Postal Service and was "unjustly enriched" while cheating to win the Tour de France.
The government had previously announced it would join a whistle-blower lawsuit brought by former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis under the federal False Claims Act. Tuesday was the deadline to file its formal complaint.
The Postal Service paid about $40 million to be the title sponsor of Armstrong's teams for six of his seven Tour de France victories. The filing in U.S. district court in Washington, D.C., says the USPS paid Armstrong $17 million from 1998-2004.
The lawsuit also names former team Armstrong team director Johan Bruyneel and team management company Tailwind Sports as defendants.
"Defendants were unjustly enriched to the extent of the payments and other benefits they received from the USPS, either directly or indirectly," the complaint said.
The financial costs for Armstrong and Bruyneel could be high. The government said it would seek triple damages assessed by the jury. Armstrong has been dropped by his personal sponsors and left the cancer-fighting foundation he started in 1997.
Armstrong had previously tried to negotiate a settlement, but those talks fell through before the government announced it would join the Landis lawsuit. Settlement talks could resume as the case proceeds to trial.
Armstrong, who in January admitted using performance-enhancing drugs after years of denials, has argued that the Postal Service's endorsement of his team earned the government agency far more than it paid him.
Armstrong attorney Elliot Peters called the government's complaint "opportunistic" and "insincere."
"The U.S. Postal Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of the cycling team. Its own studies repeatedly and conclusively prove this," Peters said. "The USPS was never the victim of fraud. Lance Armstrong rode his heart out for the USPS team, and gave the brand tremendous exposure during the sponsorship years."
The government must prove not only that the Postal Service was defrauded, but that it was damaged somehow.
Previous studies done for the Postal Service concluded the agency reaped at least $139 million in worldwide brand exposure in four years ? $35 million to $40 million for sponsoring the Armstrong team in 2001; $38 million to $42 million in 2002; $31 million in 2003; and $34.6 million in 2004.
Landis attorney Paul Scott dismissed the idea that money gained by the Postal Service should negate the claims of fraud. Scott the Postal Service is tainted by the drug scandal.
"Even if the USPS received some ephemeral media exposure in connection with Mr. Armstrong's false victories, any illusory benefit from those times will be swamped over time immemorial by the USPS forever being tied to the largest doping scandal in the history of sports," Scott said.
The formal complaint against Armstrong appears to rely heavily on evidence and statements supplied by Landis and gathered by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for its 2012 investigation that exposed a doping program on the USPS team. Armstrong has been banned from sports for life and stripped of his seven Tour de France victories.
As Armstrong's teammate, Landis participated in the doping program. He was later stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title won with another team because of his own doping violations.
Bruyneel, who lives in London, also has been charged by USADA with doping violations but is fighting that case in arbitration.
The government notes the contract with the Postal Service required riders to follow the rules of cycling, which included bans on performance-enhancing drugs and methods. Armstrong now admits using steroids, blood boosters and other illegal performance-enhancing drugs and measures to win.
By breaking the rules and covering it up, Armstrong and Bruyneel committed fraud against the U.S. government, the complaint said.
The complaint said that for years, team officials assured the Postal Service that the team wasn't doping.
Armstrong had been the target of a federal criminal grand jury, but that case was closed without charges in February 2012. Armstrong has previously tried to settle the Landis whistleblower lawsuit, but those talks broke down before the government announced its intention to join the case.
Armstrong also is fighting a lawsuit from Dallas-based promotions company SCA to recover about $12 million it paid him in bonuses, and a lawsuit from the London-based Sunday Times, which wants to get back $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel case.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/justice-says-armstrong-unjustly-enriched-223928621--spt.html
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৮:১২ PM
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SYDNEY (AP) ? Australian police have arrested a man they say is affiliated with international hacking collective Lulz Security on a charge of attacking and defacing a government website, officials said Wednesday.
The 24-year-old senior IT worker, whose name was not released, was arrested on Tuesday night at his Sydney office, the Australian Federal Police said. The man, who police say has claimed to be a high-level member of the hacking group, was charged with two counts of unauthorized modification of data to cause impairment, and one count of unauthorized access to, or modification of, restricted data. If convicted, he could face up to 12 years in jail.
Lulz Security, or LulzSec, is an offshoot of the hacking group Anonymous. LulzSec was formed in 2011 and quickly grabbed headlines after claiming responsibility for a series of high-profile cyberattacks against the CIA, Sony Pictures, the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service and Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency.
Several members of the group have been arrested in recent years, including its reputed leader, known as Sabu. Sabu turned out to be FBI informant Hector Xavier Monsegur, who federal officials said helped them build a case against several other hackers. Two weeks ago, British LulzSec hacker Ryan Ackroyd pleaded guilty to several cyberattacks.
Australian Federal Police Superintendent Brad Marden said the man arrested on Tuesday hacked into an Australian government website and defaced it earlier this month. Marden would not say which website was attacked, but said it did not belong to a federal agency. Police don't believe any sensitive data stored on the site was accessed in the attack, and don't believe anyone else was involved in the hack.
The man, from Gosford ? about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Sydney ? claimed to be the Australian leader of LulzSec, Australian Federal Police Commander Glen McEwen said. But Anonymous Australia appeared to laugh off those claims on Twitter. In response to a follower asking if anyone knew who the man was, the group tweeted: "Nope not part of the usual suspects on any of our chans of communication."
Police began investigating the man two weeks ago after they discovered the government website had been hacked.
"This individual was operating from a position of trust who had access to sensitive information from clients including government agencies," McEwen said. "The AFP believes this man's skill sets and access to this type of information presented a considerable risk for Australian society."
The man was released on bail and ordered to appear in court next month.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/australian-charged-hacking-government-051700657.html
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৬:১৭ PM
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It seems like just yesterday when we were first introduced to a young singer named Kelly Clarkson from Burleson, Texas. It was almost 11 years ago when the singer auditioned for the very first season of American Idol back in 2002 and stole everyone's hearts.
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lagerkilan পোস্ট করেছে @ ৫:১৩ PM
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![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 23-Apr-2013
Share ] Contact: Daniel Fowler
pubinfo@asanet.org
202-527-7885
American Sociological Association
WASHINGTON, DC, April 23, 2013 Even within the same school, lower-achieving students often are taught by less-experienced teachers, as well as by teachers who received their degrees from less-competitive colleges, according to a new study by researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the World Bank. The study, using data from one of the nation's largest school districts, also shows that student class assignments vary within schools by a teacher's gender and race.
In a paper published in the April issue of Sociology of Education, the researchers present the results of a comprehensive analysis of teacher assignments in the nation's fourth-largest school district, Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Their findings identify trends that may contribute to teacher turnover and achievement gaps nationwide.
Previous research indicates that high-quality teachers can significantly improve education outcomes for students. However, not all students have equal access to the best teachers.
"It is well-known that teachers systematically sort across schools, disadvantaging low-income, minority, and low-achieving students," said Demetra Kalogrides, a research associate at the Graduate School of Education's Center for Education Policy Analysis and one of the study's three authors. "Our findings are novel because they address the assignment of teachers to classes within schools. We cannot assume that teacher sorting stops at the school doors."
The authors note that more research needs to be done to see whether such patterns exist within schools across the country.
The assignment of teachers to students is the result of a complex process, involving school leaders, teachers, and parents. While principals are constrained by teachers' qualifications not all high school teachers, for instance, can teach physics they also may use their authority to reward certain teachers with the more desirable assignments or to appease teachers who are instrumental to school operations.
Teachers with more power, due to experience or other factors, may be able to choose their preferred classes. Parents, particularly those with more resources, also may try to intervene in the process to ensure that their children are taught by certain teachers.
"We wanted to understand which teachers are teaching which students," said Susanna Loeb, a Stanford professor of education, the director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis, and an author of the study. "In particular, are low-achieving students more likely to be assigned to certain teachers, and if so, why?"
Using extensive data from Miami-Dade, the authors compared the average achievement of teachers' students in the year before the students were assigned to them. They discovered that certain teachers those with less experience, those from less-competitive colleges, female teachers, and black and Hispanic teachers are more likely to work with lower-achieving students than are other teachers in the same school.
They found these patterns at both the elementary and middle/high school levels.
According to the researchers, teachers who have been at a school for a long time may be able to influence the assignment process in order to secure their preferred classes for instance, classes with higher-achieving students. The study found that teachers with 10 or more years of experience, as well as teachers who have held leadership positions, are assigned higher-achieving students on average.
Assigning lower-achieving students to inexperienced teachers could have significant repercussions. According to the researchers, it could increase turnover among new teachers, since novice teachers are more likely to quit when assigned more low-achieving students.
In addition, it could exacerbate within-school achievement gaps for example, the black-white gap. Since they are lower-achieving on average, minority and poor students are often assigned to less-experienced teachers than white and non-poor students. Less-experienced teachers tend to be less effective, so this pattern is likely to reinforce the relationships between race and achievement and poverty and achievement, the researchers said.
The study also found that lower-achieving students are taught by the teachers who graduated from less-competitive colleges, based on test scores for admission and acceptance rates. This trend is particularly evident at the middle school and high school levels, possibly due to the more varied demands of middle and high school courses. Teachers from more competitive colleges may have deeper subject knowledge than their colleagues from less-competitive colleges, leading principals to assign them to more advanced courses, the researchers said.
The researchers noted that assignment patterns vary across schools. Experienced teachers appear to have more power over the assignment process when there are more of them in a school; senior teachers are assigned even higher-achieving students when there is a larger contingent of experienced teachers in the school.
At the same time, schools under more accountability pressure are less likely to assign higher-achieving students to more-experienced teachers than schools that are not under accountability pressure.
Finally, according to the findings, class assignments vary depending on a teacher's gender and race. Since female teachers are more likely to teach special education than male teachers, on average they work with lower-achieving students than their male colleagues. Also, black and Hispanic teachers, when compared with white teachers in the same schools, work with more minority and poor students, who tend to be lower-achieving.
Unlike sorting based on experience, the authors said that teacher-student matching based on race could improve student achievement because previous research suggests that minority students may learn more when taught by minority teachers.
"Our analyses are a first step in describing within-school class assignments, an important, yet often overlooked, form of teacher sorting," said Kalogrides.
###
The other co-author is Tara Bteille of the World Bank. The research was supported by a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences.
About the American Sociological Association and the Sociology of Education
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. Sociology of Education is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the ASA.
The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.
For more information about the study, members of the media can also contact Jonathan Rabinovitz, Stanford Graduate School of Education, at (650) 724-9440 or jrabin@stanford.edu and Dan Stober, Stanford News Service, at (650) 721-6965 or dstober@stanford.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
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Public release date: 23-Apr-2013 Share ] Contact: Daniel Fowler
pubinfo@asanet.org
202-527-7885
American Sociological Association
WASHINGTON, DC, April 23, 2013 Even within the same school, lower-achieving students often are taught by less-experienced teachers, as well as by teachers who received their degrees from less-competitive colleges, according to a new study by researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the World Bank. The study, using data from one of the nation's largest school districts, also shows that student class assignments vary within schools by a teacher's gender and race.
In a paper published in the April issue of Sociology of Education, the researchers present the results of a comprehensive analysis of teacher assignments in the nation's fourth-largest school district, Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Their findings identify trends that may contribute to teacher turnover and achievement gaps nationwide.
Previous research indicates that high-quality teachers can significantly improve education outcomes for students. However, not all students have equal access to the best teachers.
"It is well-known that teachers systematically sort across schools, disadvantaging low-income, minority, and low-achieving students," said Demetra Kalogrides, a research associate at the Graduate School of Education's Center for Education Policy Analysis and one of the study's three authors. "Our findings are novel because they address the assignment of teachers to classes within schools. We cannot assume that teacher sorting stops at the school doors."
The authors note that more research needs to be done to see whether such patterns exist within schools across the country.
The assignment of teachers to students is the result of a complex process, involving school leaders, teachers, and parents. While principals are constrained by teachers' qualifications not all high school teachers, for instance, can teach physics they also may use their authority to reward certain teachers with the more desirable assignments or to appease teachers who are instrumental to school operations.
Teachers with more power, due to experience or other factors, may be able to choose their preferred classes. Parents, particularly those with more resources, also may try to intervene in the process to ensure that their children are taught by certain teachers.
"We wanted to understand which teachers are teaching which students," said Susanna Loeb, a Stanford professor of education, the director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis, and an author of the study. "In particular, are low-achieving students more likely to be assigned to certain teachers, and if so, why?"
Using extensive data from Miami-Dade, the authors compared the average achievement of teachers' students in the year before the students were assigned to them. They discovered that certain teachers those with less experience, those from less-competitive colleges, female teachers, and black and Hispanic teachers are more likely to work with lower-achieving students than are other teachers in the same school.
They found these patterns at both the elementary and middle/high school levels.
According to the researchers, teachers who have been at a school for a long time may be able to influence the assignment process in order to secure their preferred classes for instance, classes with higher-achieving students. The study found that teachers with 10 or more years of experience, as well as teachers who have held leadership positions, are assigned higher-achieving students on average.
Assigning lower-achieving students to inexperienced teachers could have significant repercussions. According to the researchers, it could increase turnover among new teachers, since novice teachers are more likely to quit when assigned more low-achieving students.
In addition, it could exacerbate within-school achievement gaps for example, the black-white gap. Since they are lower-achieving on average, minority and poor students are often assigned to less-experienced teachers than white and non-poor students. Less-experienced teachers tend to be less effective, so this pattern is likely to reinforce the relationships between race and achievement and poverty and achievement, the researchers said.
The study also found that lower-achieving students are taught by the teachers who graduated from less-competitive colleges, based on test scores for admission and acceptance rates. This trend is particularly evident at the middle school and high school levels, possibly due to the more varied demands of middle and high school courses. Teachers from more competitive colleges may have deeper subject knowledge than their colleagues from less-competitive colleges, leading principals to assign them to more advanced courses, the researchers said.
The researchers noted that assignment patterns vary across schools. Experienced teachers appear to have more power over the assignment process when there are more of them in a school; senior teachers are assigned even higher-achieving students when there is a larger contingent of experienced teachers in the school.
At the same time, schools under more accountability pressure are less likely to assign higher-achieving students to more-experienced teachers than schools that are not under accountability pressure.
Finally, according to the findings, class assignments vary depending on a teacher's gender and race. Since female teachers are more likely to teach special education than male teachers, on average they work with lower-achieving students than their male colleagues. Also, black and Hispanic teachers, when compared with white teachers in the same schools, work with more minority and poor students, who tend to be lower-achieving.
Unlike sorting based on experience, the authors said that teacher-student matching based on race could improve student achievement because previous research suggests that minority students may learn more when taught by minority teachers.
"Our analyses are a first step in describing within-school class assignments, an important, yet often overlooked, form of teacher sorting," said Kalogrides.
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The other co-author is Tara Bteille of the World Bank. The research was supported by a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences.
About the American Sociological Association and the Sociology of Education
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. Sociology of Education is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal of the ASA.
The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.
For more information about the study, members of the media can also contact Jonathan Rabinovitz, Stanford Graduate School of Education, at (650) 724-9440 or jrabin@stanford.edu and Dan Stober, Stanford News Service, at (650) 721-6965 or dstober@stanford.edu.
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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/asa-sft042313.php
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