The problem of future contingents: scoping out a solution

Various philosophers have long since been attracted to the doctrine that future contingent propositions systematically fail to be true—what is sometimes called the doctrine of the open future. However, open futurists have always struggled to articulate how their view interacts with standard principles of classical logic—most notably, with the Law of Excluded Middle. For consider the following two claims: Trump will be impeached tomorrow; Trump will not be impeached tomorrow. According to the kind of open futurist at issue, both of these claims may well fail to be true. According to many, however, the disjunction of these claims can be represented as p ∨ ~p—that is, as an instance of LEM. In this essay, however, I wish to defend the view that the disjunction these claims cannot be represented as an instance of p ∨ ~p. And this is for the following reason: the latter claim is not, in fact, the strict negation of the former. More particularly, there is an important semantic distinction between the strict negation of the first claim [~] and the latter claim. However, the viability of this approach has been denied by Thomason, and more recently by MacFarlane and Cariani and Santorio, the latter of whom call the denial of the given semantic distinction “scopelessness”. According to these authors, that is, will is “scopeless” with respect to negation; whereas there is perhaps a syntactic distinction between ‘~Will p’ and ‘Will ~p’, there is no corresponding semantic distinction. And if this is so, the approach in question fails. In this paper, then, I criticize the claim that will is “scopeless” with respect to negation. I argue that will is a so-called “neg-raising” predicate—and that, in this light, we can see that the requisite scope distinctions aren’t missing, but are simply being masked. The result: a under-appreciated solution to the problem of future contingents that sees and as contraries, not contradictories

Automatic Closure of Low-Performing Public Charter Schools

The National Alliance advocates for the growth and expansion of high-quality charter schools. While we believe it is important to foster the growth of charter schools achieving great academic results for students, it is equally important to close charter schools that are not improving student outcomes.We are pleased to see that over the past several years, state lawmakers have increasingly enacted legislation, often based on our model law, to better support the growth of high-quality public charter schools -- including strengthening accountability provisions for these innovative public school options. At the same time, a growing number of states have passed laws that require charter schools to close if they do not meet certain performance benchmarks.This week we released a state policy snapshot that provides an overview of automatic closure policies in the 15 states that have such laws, which is an increase of four states since we last released this snapshot in 2014.As state lawmakers consider these policies, they should give serious thought to several issues, including authorizers' track records in closing low-performing public charter schools, the sophistication of their states' accountability systems, and how to handle public charter schools that serve high percentages of at-risk students.We commend policymakers who have acted to enforce the quality of their state's charter school landscape through strong accountability measures. We also strongly encourage lawmakers to work closely with the local public charter school stakeholders who are committed to quality as they investigate this policy issue

2015 State Legislative Session Highlights for Public Charter Schools

2015 has proved to be another successful year for public charter school legislation across the country. Some of the biggest developments of the 2015 state legislative sessions include:Alabama became the 43rd state to enact a public charter school law.Connecticut defeated a proposed two-year moratorium on opening of new charter schools.Indiana increased school autonomy, strengthened school and authorizer accountability, and funded facilities and finance programs.Nevada improved funding opportunities and modified its automatic closure requirements for low-performing public charter schools.New York increased flexibility for teacher certification and adjusted its cap to allow more public charter school growth in New York City.Ohio increased per-pupil funding for charter facilities and expanded the ability of traditional districts to levy taxes for charter schools that are sponsored by "exemplary" sponsors.Oklahoma overhauled law, including provisions to allow charter schools statewide, strengthening school and authorizer accountability, and allowing charter schools to borrow money.Wisconsin overhauled its law to allow more entities to authorize independent public charter schools, strengthening school and authorizer accountability, and providing additional funding to independent public charter schools

An annotated bibliography of the choral works of Robert A. Hobby

The purpose of this dissertation is to organize, summarize, and present the choral works of Robert A. Hobby in an annotated bibliography. These annotations, along with seven appendices, serve as a reference tool with church musicians and other choir directors in mind. Robert A. Hobby is a native Indiana composer who now resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and has over seventy choral works in publication. A biographical chapter about Robert A. Hobby, including his musical education and influences; and a chapter about his style characteristics, including analyses of selected choral works, precedes the annotations. Much of the information obtained for this study came directly through interviews and meetings with Mr. Hobby. The annotations themselves are detailed entries that address a variety of criteria including, but not limited to, year of composition, voicing, instrumentation, meter, key, difficulty, and a general description of the work. Much of this information is included concisely in six of the appendices, in a variety of quick reference formats.School of MusicThesis (D.A.

Modeling the History of Astronomy: Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho

This paper describes a series of activities in which students investigate and use the Ptolemaic, Copernican, and Tychonic models of planetary motion. The activities guide students through using open source software to discover important observational facts, learn the necessary vocabulary, understand the fundamental properties of different theoretical models, and relate the theoretical models to observational data. After completing these activities students can make observations of a fictitious solar system and use those observations to construct models for that system.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Employer Size Effects in Russia

As early as 1911, Henry L. Moore documented that the wages of female textile workers in Italy were higher in larger establishments. In the last thirty years a large number of studies have demonstrated the presence of employer size-wage effects (at both the plant and firm level) in numerous different countries and across different time periods. This paper analyzes the labor market effects of employer size in Russia during the years 1994-98. Using the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, a four year nationally representative panel of the Russian population, I investigate the relationship between enterprise size and the characteristics of employees, wage levels and wage growth, on-the-job training, tenure and turnover. My findings indicate that employer size effects in Russia exhibit similar characteristics to those observed in the U.S. and a variety of other countries.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39684/3/wp300.pd

The Promising Viral Threat to Bacterial Resistance: The Uncertain Patentability of Phage Therapeutics and the Necessity of Alternative Incentives

Bacteriophages, or “phages,” are a category of highly adept and adaptable viruses that can infect and kill bacteria. With concerns over the burgeoning antibiotic-resistance crisis looming in recent years, scientists and policymakers have expressed a growing interest in developing novel treatments for bacterial infections that utilize bacteriophages. Because of the great expense associated with bringing a new drug to market, patents are usually considered the gold standard for incentivizing research and development in the pharmaceutical field. Absent such strong protection for a developer’s front end investment, pharmaceutical development remains financially risky and unattractive. Unfortunately, recent Supreme Court jurisprudence analyzing patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has cast doubt on whether phage therapeutics would be eligible for strong patent protection. In order for the promise of phage therapeutics to become a reality, alternative protections or incentives are likely necessary. Such a framework would likely include trade secrecy, regulatory exclusivities, research support, alternative payment models, or some combination thereof