Search

Private school leaders weigh costs and benefits when deciding whether to participate in school voucher programs. Regulatory costs associated with accepting voucher funding could reduce private school leaders’ willingness to participate. We test this hypothesis through the first random assignment analysis of the effects of various regulations on the expressed willingness of private school leaders to participate in hypothetical voucher programs that draws upon national data. We randomly assign different regulations to U.S. private school leaders and ask them whether they would participate in a hypothetical school voucher program during the following school year. Relative to no regulations, we find that open-enrollment mandates reduce the likelihood that private school leaders report being certain to participate in a hypothetical choice program by about 14 percentage points, or 67 percent. The requirement that private schools accept the voucher funding amount as payment-in-full reduces the likelihood that private school leaders report being certain to participate by 16 percentage points, or 77 percent. Some regulations are more likely to deter private schools with higher reported tuitions, higher enrollment trends, more specialization, and more climate problems.

Language maintenance has been a central point in different linguistic disciplines, responding to an increasing degree to immigrant minority languages (IML) and the micro-level of language policies. However, while frameworks such as ethnolinguistic vitality theory account for general factors of language maintenance and loss, the individual factors of the respective cases are difficult to work out and challenge comparative studies. This article aims to compare situations of language contact, analysing two language biographies in two settings that have never been read in context: Turkish as an IML in Germany and German as an IML in Chile. Our aim is to investigate emerging factors for language maintenance in these settings, focusing on policies and attitudes, and examining their consequences within the families. Through the qualitative analysis, the importance of sociolinguistic factors from the individuals’ perspectives becomes apparent. The data reveal that the role of parental strategies in language exposure, use and policies is crucial but not sufficient in both contexts, indicating that the appreciation of an IML as a medium of instruction constitutes an insuperable condition fostering efficient language maintenance.

Private school choice policies have been enacted and expanded across the United States since the 1990s. Why have some states adopted and expanded this education reform while others have demurred? Which states are more likely to adopt specific types of private school choice initiatives in the coming years? We present the results of an exploratory empirical analysis of data through 2016 examining these questions. The results from our most preferred statistical model further predict which states are more and less likely to take action towards such policies in subsequent years. The political factors involving Republican control of the governorship and legislature, prevalence of minority students in the K-12 population and share of private school enrollment in the state prove to be highly predictive factors in school choice adoption. The economic factor of a comparatively low state per-capita GDP also consistently predicts school choice policy adoption in our models.

The present paper analyzes development patterns in research networks and technology as well as their co-evolution by the example of the currently highly transformative German automotive industry. We therefore introduce a consistent network-based approach for measuring change in research networks and the technological composition of patents. Our results show that the applied method is particularly useful for identifying structural similarities and main structural changes in research and patent networks. Further, the investigation of the co-evolutionary processes indicates that, regarding the German automotive industry, changes in technology lead to structural changes in the research network.

The water gas shift reaction (WGSR) is catalyzed by supported ionic liquid phase (SILP) systems containing homogeneous Ru complexes dissolved in ionic liquids (ILs). These systems work at very low temperatures, that is, between 120 and 160 °C, as compared to >200 °C in the conventional process. To improve the performance of this ultra-low-temperature catalysis, we investigated the influence of various additives on the catalytic activity of these SILP systems. In particular, the application of methylene blue (MB) as an additive doubled the activity. Infrared spectroscopy measurements combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculations excluded a coordinative interaction of MB with the Ru complex. In contrast, state-of-the-art theoretical calculations elucidated the catalytic effect of the additives by non-covalent interactions. In particular, the additives can significantly lower the barrier of the rate-determining step of the reaction mechanism via formation of hydrogen bonds. The theoretical predictions, thereby, showed excellent agreement with the increase of experimental activity upon variation of the hydrogen bonding moieties in the additives investigated.

A monolithic membrane reactor combining the supported ionic liquid-phase (SILP) catalyzed ultra-low temperature water–gas shift reaction (WGSR) with in situ product removal is presented. The SILP catalyst consists of the transition metal complex [Ru(CO)3Cl2]2 homogeneously dissolved in 1-butyl-2,3-dimethylimidazolium chloride [C4C1C1Im]Cl and supported on alumina pellets. These Ru-SILP pellets are deposited inside the channels of a silicon carbide monolith. The resulting monolithic catalyst is very active and stable in the WGSR in the temperature range between 120 and 160 °C, thereby making full use of the high equilibrium conversion at these conditions. A facilitated transport membrane was coated onto the smooth outside of the SiC monolith to allow preferential removal of CO2 compared to H2. The proof of this concept has been shown under industrially relevant conditions using a biogas feed. These results demonstrate, for the first time, the combination of homogeneous SILP catalyzed WGSR with enhanced in situ removal of one of the products (here: CO2) via facilitated transport membrane separation.

The present article looks into language biographies of young German-Chilean speakers between 16 and 25 years of age, with a special interest in the role of those languages other than German and Spanish. By combining approaches of language island studies with those of “sociolinguistics of mobile resources” as established by Blommaert (2010), linguistic profiles of young speakers of a minority language are being acquired, going beyond the dichotomy of immigration language vs. surrounding language. This shows how young German-Chileans are in a globalized world just as much as other young speakers. On this level, different language contact situations can be made comparable.

Chemical Science, 11 (29), ISSN:2041-6520, ISSN:2041-6539

Kurzfassung Industrial Data Science eröffnet produzierenden Unternehmen innovative Möglichkeiten zur Optimierung von Produkten und Prozessen sowie der Initiierung neuer Geschäftsmodelle in Wertschöpfungsnetzwerken. Um Unternehmen zum zielgerichteten Einsatz moderner Analysetechnologien zu befähigen, werden in diesem Beitrag das Konzept eines integrierten, datengetriebenen Referenzbaukastens zur industriellen Datenanalyse sowie dessen Realisierung als kollaborative Service-Plattform vorgestellt und beispielhaft Anwendungsfälle skizziert.

Kurzfassung Zur Wahrung ihrer Wettbewerbsfähigkeit ist von Unternehmen mit kundenauftragsspezifischer Produktion ein hohes Maß an Flexibilität zum Umgang mit wertschöpfender und nicht wertschöpfender Variabilität erforderlich. Der vorliegende Beitrag definiert 14 Variabilitätskriterien inklusive mathematischer Beschreibungen dieser, die im Folgenden den Input einer auf die Bedürfnisse der kundenauftragsspezifischen Produktion angepassten variabilitätsberücksichtigenden Maschinenbelegungsplanung darstellen.

The Cu-exchanged zeolite SSZ-13 is a highly active material in the selective catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides and the conversion of methane to methanol. In this material, a distribution of ac...