The Available Bit Rate (ABR) service has been developed to support 21st century data applications over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). The ABR service uses a closed-loop rate-based traac management framework where the network divides left-over bandwidth among contending sources. The ATM Forum traac management group also incorporated open-loop control capabilities to make the ABR service robus...

This article provides a critical look into national trends of the achievement gaps between Whites and Blacks and between Whites and Hispanics over the last 3 decades based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress mathematics assessments. It examines multiple facets of inequity underlying the racial and ethnic achievement gaps from 3 perspectives: equality, adequacy, and reciprocity. A...

Instructional policy reforms that focus on standards and assessments have gained popularity in the last two decades. State governments, which had previously left most instructional matters to local governance, set challenging learning standards and developed related assessments and curricular frameworks. Despite their popularity and persistence, standards-based reforms face the challenge of suc...

AIM This research examined 1) the extent and nature of smokefree outdoor area (SFOA) policies in New Zealand, and 2) the process of developing, implementing and promoting compliance with a SFOA policy. METHOD An online survey was carried out with 43 of the 67 Local and District Councils, supplemented by other means. The survey assessed whether the council had a smokefree policy and if so, wha...

The impact of women's education on fertility is of interest to researchers, particularly in China. However, few studies have provided well-founded assessments of how women's education, workforce experience, and birth control policy jointly affect fertility in China. This study, conducted in Guangdong Province, aimed to analyze how these three factors influenced the timing of births and affected...

This paper reviews the analysis of fiscal policy in the new open economy macroeconomics literature, in view of increasing interest in the question of transmission and coordination of policies across countries, stirred by developments in this literature and by the formation of the euro area. The analysis focuses on two main points: (i) the identification of welfare spillover effects to third cou...

ISSUES ADDRESSED Community-based programs that affect healthy environments and policies have emerged as an effective response to high obesity levels in populations. Apart from limited individual reports, little is currently known about these programs, limiting the potential to provide effective support, to promote effective practice, prevent adverse outcomes and disseminate intervention results...

This paper relates the Agence Française de Développement's experience with respect to impact evaluations. Our purpose is to assess the extent to which such studies, when designed before an actual program implementation can provide the type of summative evidence that donors still seek for when promoting such studies. Specifically, we rely on three large scale randomized control trials, and scrut...

BACKGROUND Evidence-informed policymaking is more likely if organisations have cultures that promote research use and invest in resources that facilitate staff engagement with research. Measures of organisations' research use culture and capacity are needed to assess current capacity, identify opportunities for improvement, and examine the impact of capacity-building interventions. The aim of t...

Renewed interest in fiscal policy has increased the use of quantitative models to evaluate policy. Because of modelling uncertainty, it is essential that policy evaluations be robust to alternative assumptions. We find that models currently being used in practice to evaluate fiscal policy stimulus proposals are not robust. Government spending multipliers in an alternative empirically estimated ...