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In this paper, we introduce a new class of heterogeneous spatial autoregressive models (heterogeneous SAR models) where the variance parameters are modeled in terms of covariates. In order to estimate the model parameters, as well as their corresponding standard error estimates, we proposed a computational efficient MCMC method which combines the Gibbs sampler with Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. The proposed estimate method is illustrated through numerous simulations and is applied to the Boston housing data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper solves a question raised in the paper of Huong, Yao, and Yen [Optimal processes in a parametric optimal economic growth model. Taiwanese J Math. 2020. Available from: ] about optimal economic growth problems with production functions and utility functions being all in the form of AK functions. By using a solution existence theorem from the paper of Huong [Solution existence theorems for finite horizon optimal economic growth problems. Preprint arXiv:2001.03298v2. Submitted] and a maximum principle from the book of Vinter [Optimal control. Boston (MA): Birkhäuser; 2000], we prove that the problem in question has a unique solution and give a comprehensive synthesis of the optimal processes. Our results show that if the value of total factor productivity is enough high and the planning time is short, then expanding the production facility does not lead to a higher total consumption satisfaction of the society. Meanwhile, if the value of total factor productivity is enough high and the planning time is relatively long, then the highest total consumption satisfaction of the society is attained only if the largest expansion of the production facility is made until a special time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the unofficial runner-up in the 1961–62 design competition for Boston City Hall—the scheme by the Philadelphia-based team of Mitchell/Giurgola Architects (MGA) in association with David A. Crane and Thomas R. Vreeland Jr.—reveals not the creation of an isolated monument but a humanist restructuring of a city's urban spaces at the heart of a modernist-inspired post-war government centre. Unusually for the time, this scheme was developed through deep dialogue with an existing urban morphology, historic buildings, and the literal "ground" of the city. This paper highlights the scheme as the first in a series of significant urban design projects undertaken by MGA in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. These projects sought to directly engage with the structure, spaces, and artefacts of the historic American city. Further, MGA's City Hall also crystallised compositional themes that would be pursued and developed by the practice in subsequent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The name John Cookson is associated with Lorenzoni-type magazine repeating flintlocks of high quality, assumed to have been made in London during the last decade or so of the 17th century. Nothing is known of this gunmaker. A John Cookson is known to have been a gunsmith in Boston during the first half of the 18th century and, while he is given credit in the US for inventing the magazine repeater, there is no evidence that he ever made such a gun in America. Over the years, there has been much speculation about a connection between these John Cooksons but none has ever been established. A recently discovered flintlock fowler signed Cookson appears to be late 17th century and shares a number of features which suggest manufacture by the same John Cookson who made the magazine repeaters. The paper examines the details of this fowler, comparing them to those of the known magazine repeaters and argues that they were all made by the same maker. An extensive archival search was also made of the John Cooksons of the UK and of Boston, the results of which are summarized here. While no direct connection could be established, the evidence strongly suggests that they were the same person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Elatina glaciation of Snowball Earth, at least four distinct glacial advances and sea-level retreats punctuated Ediacaran time: Gaskiers glaciation (580 Ma), Fauquier glaciation (571 Ma), Bou-Azzer glaciation (566 Ma) and Hankalchough glaciation (551 Ma). Tillites or diamictites are commonly controversial, but periglacial paleosols with distinctive physical structure and degree of chemical weathering offer supporting evidence of glaciation and sea-level change useful for stratigraphic correlation. This paper reviews glacial advances of the Ediacaran stratotype and other sequences, and also reveals the value of paleosols and chemical index of alteration to understand the upper Squantum and Brookline members of the Roxbury Conglomerate near Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Bay ice wedges are periglacial paleosols, and evidence of maritime glacial climate like that of modern coastal Greenland and Arctic Canada. Simple discoidal vendobiont fossils (Aspidella terranovica) in the Dorchester Member of the Roxbury Conglomerate and in the Cambridge Argillite are in heterolithic shale–siltstone facies that are interpreted as intertidal to shallow marine environments. Local marine transgressions and other paleosols showing significant chemical weathering represent temperate interglacial paleoclimates. Short glacial advances affecting climate and sea-level enable subdivision of the Ediacaran Period. Four distinct glacial advances and sea-level retreats punctuated Ediacaran time: Gaskiers (580 Ma), Fauquier (571 Ma), Bou-Azzer (566 Ma), Hankalchough (551 Ma). Paleosols with distinctive structures such as ice wedges were periglacial. Squantum Member diamictites near Boston, Massachusetts are Gaskiers age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper reveals a significant under-reported emergent phenomenon: the graduates of the well-established 'Elite Traditional International Schools' worldwide are beginning to cluster in certain universities, in certain 'global cities'. As one might expect, New York and London are central to this clustering, alongside Boston, Toronto and Vancouver. Surprisingly, these destinations are not the world's top, elite universities, showing that the forms of class reasoning which we might expect of the 'Trans-National Capitalist Class' do not seemingly apply to this model of elite education. We explore the emerging evidence, and discuss its character and implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wavelet shrinkage estimators are widely applied to analyse datasets in wavelet domain from several fields of science. They typically act by reducing magnitudes of empirical coefficients in a discrete wavelet transformation to estimate wavelet coefficients. In nonparametric regression problems, most of the shrinkage rules are derived from models composed of an unknown function with additive Gaussian noise. Although Gaussian noise assumption is reasonable in several real data analysis, mainly for large sample sizes, it is not general. Contaminated data with positive noise can occur in practice and nonparametric regression models with positive noise bring challenges in wavelet shrinkage point of view. In this sense, this work proposes bayesian shrinkage rules to estimate wavelet coefficients from a nonparametric regression framework with additive and strictly positive noise under exponential and lognormal distributions. Computational aspects are discussed and simulation studies to analyse the performances of the proposed shrinkage rules and compare them with standard techniques are done. An application for winning times Boston Marathon dataset is also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the availability of high-dimensional genetic biomarkers, it is of interest to identify heterogeneous effects of these predictors on patients' survival, along with proper statistical inference. Censored quantile regression has emerged as a powerful tool for detecting heterogeneous effects of covariates on survival outcomes. To our knowledge, there is little work available to draw inferences on the effects of high-dimensional predictors for censored quantile regression (CQR). This article proposes a novel procedure to draw inference on all predictors within the framework of global CQR, which investigates covariate-response associations over an interval of quantile levels, instead of a few discrete values. The proposed estimator combines a sequence of low-dimensional model estimates that are based on multi-sample splittings and variable selection. We show that, under some regularity conditions, the estimator is consistent and asymptotically follows a Gaussian process indexed by the quantile level. Simulation studies indicate that our procedure can properly quantify the uncertainty of the estimates in high-dimensional settings. We apply our method to analyze the heterogeneous effects of SNPs residing in lung cancer pathways on patients' survival, using the Boston Lung Cancer Survival Cohort, a cancer epidemiology study on the molecular mechanism of lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Project Asthma In-home Response (AIR) is a multilevel, home-based intervention to address childhood asthma. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of the community-driven, multilevel Project AIR intervention. We hypothesize that children participating in the Project AIR intervention will have reduced asthma-related emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and asthma exacerbations. Methods: Seventy-Five participants of an in-home asthma intervention were surveyed at the onset of intervention and six months after the intervention. Results: The mean age of clients in the sample population was ten years. Most clients in the sample population were 11–15 years old (34.7%), followed by 6–10 years old (29.3%) and 3–5 years (26.0%). Participation in the Project AIR intervention resulted in significant reductions in asthma attacks (p-value 0.0003), asthma-related emergency room visits (p-value > 0.0001), and asthma-related hospitalizations (p-value 0.008).Conclusion: The results of this study support that in-home environmental asthma programs are an efficient method of treating asthma in a smaller metro area. Our findings reinforce prior studies in larger metropolitan areas such as New York and Boston. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish-speaking Latinx are currently the second largest racial/ethnic group in the United States however, general understanding of their use of libraries, museums and archives (LAMs) is limited. This study seeks to understand the level of use and perceptions of LAMs by members of the Spanish-speaking Latinx community. The results presented in this study stem from phenomenological interviews conducted with 13 individuals who identify as Latinx and live in the Boston metropolitan area. The interviews identified a wide array of experiences with LAMs in Boston. In general, libraries were the most used by the participants, followed by museums; archives were the least used. Participants who have or have had children living in the household indicated that their use of libraries and museums was mainly driven by the educational needs of the school-aged children in the household. This work demonstrates the need to create relationships with the Latinx community in order to encourage stronger and more sustained use of LAMs. The different areas of focus for the LAMs considered here are; the need for libraries to foster more consistent use among Latinx, for museums to explore ways in which they can encourage more visits to a greater variety of museums and for archives to create more awareness of the organization itself and its usefulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Findings: We examined the association between neighborhood median income, child race/ethnicity, and parental perspectives and practical considerations regarding preschool program location. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of parents in Boston, Massachusetts planning to enroll in preschool (N = 1171). Questions measured parental preferences regarding program location, number of care transitions, safety, and transportation. We used adjusted logistic regression models to calculate the association between these factors and race/ethnicity and zip code median household income. Compared to the second quartile, parents living in zip codes within the two highest quartiles of median neighborhood income were more likely to prefer preschool near home. Parents living in zip codes within the highest quartile were less likely to be willing to use school transportation. Compared to parents identifying their child's race as white, parents of Asian, Black, and Hispanic children were more likely to prefer preschool near work and parents of Black children were less likely to prefer preschool near home. Practice or Policy: Neighborhood median income had a graded association with preference for preschool near home. Transportation and location preferences varied by neighborhood context and socio-demographic factors. These findings can inform efforts to address disparities in preschool enrollment, preschool program design, and family engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on an urban living laboratory that designed a suite of play-based prototypes, as an attempt to "institution" collaborative smart city governance in the city of Boston. This project was called "Beta Blocks," and it geographically defined "Exploration Zones," governed by local residents and business owners, who decided whether, where, and why to temporarily install technologies in the public realm. To recruit and facilitate the participation of Zone Advisory Group members, the authors fabricated a lavender, parking-space-sized, inflatable art exhibition (Beta Blob) that hosted a suite of public-facing activities. Although the composite model failed at "institutioning" itself into Boston's government through this prototype, the discrete components succeeded in centering play in public learning situations and prototyping a model for collaborative governance between publics, and the public and private sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dance, as a mode of physical interaction, offers opportunities to care and be cared for, but this does not mean that dancers will, in fact, care. There may be no moral motivation underlying a lift, dip or intricate sequence of coordinated action. Choreographic scores may (knowingly or not) encourage merely perfunctory movements that are a poor simulacrum to care. Moreover, the caring that is expressed through dance need not transfer to other walks of life. I am not alone in knowing spectacularly talented dancers whose behaviour off the dance floor is far from ethical – from the arrogant and petty to the flagrant abuse that plagues institutions of art and culture. This article considers how dance can illuminate both the acts and sentiments of care, conveying particular ethical orientations that trouble straightforward, absolute moral reasoning. The article frames an enquiry into the relation between ethics and aesthetics of care, drawn from feminist epistemologists Joan Tronto, Maurice Hamington, and Nel Noddings, as well as my own performance research on partnering. I frame a zone between technique and competence, foregrounding care in dance as both a technical and ethical issue. I will consider the necessary conditions by which dancing together can manifest care, rather than suggest blanketly that it always does or even that it should. To make this argument, I will describe and analyse Considered Care, a duet I created in the autumn of 2021 in collaboration with Boston Ballet. This performance research project provided the material from which to consider the concept of need, a condition of care in a dancing situation. I will conclude by considering the relationship between needs and trust in conceptualizing care within partnering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how the recent marketing campaigns of three Boston church plant communities reflect the straight-forward design style of direct-to-consumer "blands," like Harry's razors or Casper mattresses. While this hip and simple approach has brought success to companies looking to stand out in an over-saturated ad market, this article centers on the challenges for churches to evangelize through minimalistic, bland design. These three churches envision a personalized, comforting, less institutional version of Christianity with messages like "Love. Jesus. Simple." At the same time, this simple and individualistic message obscures the denominational affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention and the promotion of Bible-based teachings, traditional gender roles, and conservative sexual ethics. While the return on investment of these ads is unclear, I propose that these marketing campaigns represent a contemporary "city on a hill" approach, to use the oft-cited phrase from Puritan John Winthrop. In a similar manner to how the 17th Century Puritans broadcast their triumphs through printing, these churches publicize their apparent success in planting Christian communities in secular Boston. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication infrastructure theory (CIT) suggests that an ethnic enclave's communication infrastructure (CI) shapes the community's unique social processes that give rise to social determinants of health. A well-integrated CI in ethnic enclaves that includes community-based organizations (CBOs), local ethnic media, and resident networks is positively associated with residents' health outcomes. Through storytelling, CBOs and other community actors obtain and disseminate information, develop a sense of belonging to the community, and participate in problem-solving activities, including health-related ones. Local ethnic media can play an important role in building a network of neighborhood storytellers by catalyzing storytelling about local resources and problems. We propose three main categories of "catalyzing storytelling" by local ethnic media: 1) CBO stories, 2) geo-ethnic stories, and 3) presentation of root causes and solutions for community problems. This study examines the content of Boston Chinatown's local ethnic news media outlet, Sampan, to assess the three categories of catalyzing stories. We analyzed a total of 340 news articles and one interview with the editor. The findings showed that Sampan tells stories in all three categories. Based on our findings, we further develop the concept of catalyzing as a communication process in CIT. This new concept in CIT has practical implications for public health communication as it demonstrates a process through which local ethnic media can foster community engagement and health. Health communicators should seek opportunities to work collaboratively with local ethnic media in ways that will serve to catalyze community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers statistical inference for restricted semiparametric varying-coefficient spatial autoregressive(SVCSAR) models. We propose a restricted estimation method for parametric and nonparametric components, and a Lagrange-multiplier-type test for testing hypotheses on the parametric component restrictions of SVCSAR models. Under mild conditions, we obtain the asymptotic normality for the resulting estimator of the parametric vector and the optimal convergence rate for that of nonparametric functions. Simulation studies are carried out to investigate the finite sample performance of the proposed method. The method is exemplified with Boston housing price data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous high-profile efforts have sought to "turn around" low-performing schools. Evidence on the effectiveness of school turnarounds, however, is mixed, and research offers little guidance on which models are more likely to succeed. We present a mixed-methods case study of turnaround efforts led by the Blueprint Schools Network in three schools in Boston. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that Blueprint raised student achievement in ELA by at least a quarter of a standard deviation, with suggestive evidence of comparably large effects in math. We document qualitatively how differential impacts across the three Blueprint schools relate to contextual and implementation factors. In particular, Blueprint's role as a turnaround partner (in two schools) versus school operator (in one school) shaped its ability to implement its model. As a partner, Blueprint provided expertise and guidance but had limited ability to fully implement its model. In its role as an operator, Blueprint had full authority to implement its turnaround model but was also responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the school, a role for which it had limited prior experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big data promises new insights for planning but threatens to exclude community expertise from knowledge creation and decision-making processes. Participatory methods are needed to ensure that big data is marshaled to address problems of importance to communities, that hypotheses and interpretations are shaped by evidence from lived experience, and that results are ultimately useful to residents. In this study we used a participatory action research (PAR) framework to engage Boston (MA)–area residents in leveraging a longitudinal consumer credit database to understand shared planning challenges. We describe how residents, community organizations, and academic researchers collaborated to co-design an interactive map of residential moves across Massachusetts. The resulting estimates were largely consistent with residents' understandings of local moving patterns, providing a case of big data analysis confirming, and further specifying, phenomena identified through centering lived experience. Collaborative data analysis also generated new insights; for example, showing misalignment between regional planning boundaries and low-credit movers' moving patterns. This work shows how sustained PAR partnerships can combine the strengths of community expertise and big data analyses to inform planning. PAR with big data is feasible, combines the power of lived experience and large-scale quantitative analysis, and can mitigate the risks of exclusion that threaten emerging uses of big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the relationship between Catholic priests and Latino parishioners, we explored how five clergy understood their roles in easing the way for immigrants to the Boston area. Just as the Catholic Church welcomed European immigrants of an earlier period, priests believed that their parishes continued to embrace a newer wave of immigrants during a time when Latinos experienced heightened fear of deportation under the immigration policies that took place between 2017 and 2021. However, an alternative narrative emerged in this study, in which priests acknowledged their own reliance on Latino parishioners to revitalise their church and fill their pews as their numbers of white members were dwindling. We argue that priests' descriptions of their interactions with Latino worshippers highlight their move to elasticise the Catholic Church to accommodate the needs of new immigrant families. Priests then seek to establish a loyalty among Latino parishioners which serves to shield them from the criticism of white Americans in the wake of the child sexual abuse scandal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid fraudulent practices, LC-Orbitrap and FT-NIRS combined with multivariate analysis was used to distinguish between 53 Korean and foreign Boston butt samples; forty were used to establish the calibration model and 13 were used as an external validation set. Twenty metabolites were determined to be good indicators of geographic origin. Both LC-Orbitrap with CDA model based on 20 metabolites and FT-NIRS with PLS achieved 100% efficiency in identifying Korean and foreign samples; overall predictive rates for LC-Orbitrap (94.9%) and FT-NIRS (100%). Thus, combined use of LC-Orbitrap and FT-NIRS could be proposed to determine reliably discriminate geographic origins of pork samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With cities continuing to grow at rapid rates across the globe, daily exposure to traffic, noise, crowding, information overload and other stressors have exacerbated urban dwellers' need for restoration. Yet, how to enhance the restorative potential of urban environments remains a vastly understudied research topic. This article explores the perceived restorative potential of commercial streets in the Boston metropolitan area (US) and Belo Horizonte (Brazil). Triangulation of data (derived from face-to-face interviews, unstructured observations, and social media) and cross-cultural analysis indicate that commercial streets can be planned, designed and managed as destinations for restoration. This study shows that immediate social context, urban design qualities, land use, managerial strategies, meaningful aspects, built and natural elements, in certain combinations, tend to enhance the perceived restorative potential of the commercial streets. While there were numerous similarities in output from the two countries, there were also significant differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prominent Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel, who was president of the conference, and together with Charny co-founder of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, was alarmed by the threats to Jews. Two answers put forward in this book are Israel's realpolitik - denying the genocide so as not to harm relations with Turkey - and a conviction that recognising any other genocide diminishes the singularity of the Holocaust. In 1982, the author, an Israeli psychology professor and genocide expert, was among the organizers of the first international conference exploring the Holocaust and genocide. [Extracted from the article]

In October 1926 Shliapnikov had to accept the view of the Party Control Commission that 'neglecting to distance themselves from the United Opposition was sufficient evidence of a [Workers' Opposition] bloc [with the United Opposition]' (p. 657). The Workers' Opposition, under the leadership of Alexander Shliapnikov, were concerned at the concessions made to the peasantry under NEP and the pressure this put on industrial workers. Firmly under Zinoviev's control, the Comintern executive condemned the Letter of the 22 as a factional statement by the former Workers' Opposition and I Pravda i began, as Kollontai put it, "to smear" (p. 620). [Extracted from the article]