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In this writer’s view, the building of social capital starts with the development of personal individual capital. The author posits that an individual may not be optimally effective in building meaningful social relationships and networks, or in influencing results in one’s community that serve the individual and others well, unless the individual has the prerequisite personal attributes and skillsets to do so. Therefore, in this chapter, the author identifies four key personal capital attributes that he sees as foundational to the building of social capital from the inside out. The dynamic synergistic interface among these four core attributes (Control, Empathy, Awareness, and Resolve), is referred to in this chapter as “Intrapower that is seen as a potent facilitative force in the effective building of social capital.

The Balanced Curriculum is a web-based tool that school districts use to create, align, assess, and manage their curriculum development and implementation. The courses are divided into time-bound units with significant tasks (or assured activities) that local district teachers develop and promise to teach. The significant tasks are aligned to standards and assessment specifications. District curriculum authors also develop assessments for all to use when implementing the curriculum. Results of more than 15 years of implementation show that all districts that have developed curriculum using this model, and ensured implementation, have had significant improvement on their test scores. Implications for teachers, principals, and central office staff are given at the end of the article. © The Author(s) 2013.

In this study, we examine the relationship between contextual variables related to teachers and student performance in Advanced Algebra classrooms in the USA. The data were gathered from a cluster-randomized study on the effects of SimCalc MathWorlds®, a curricular and technological intervention as a replacement for Algebra 2 curriculum, on student learning of Algebra 2 content. Conditional measures (teacher background characteristics) and instructional measures (self-reported instructional preferences, stances, and classroom practices) were subjected to a variety of empirical analyses to discern their relationship to student learning. Researchers examined both the overall effect of teacher contextual variables on student learning and the specific effect of SimCalc on both teacher instructional measures and student performance. There is evidence to support that teachers who use the SimCalc curriculum value classroom communication, deep understanding of math concepts, and support for both routine and non-routine problems. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.

We report on two large studies conducted in advanced algebra classrooms in the US, which evaluated the effect of replacing traditional algebra 2 curriculum with an integrated suite of dynamic interactive software, wireless networks and technology-enhanced curriculum on student learning. The first study was a cluster randomized trial and the second was a quasi-experimental replication study using a subset of the original treatment teachers. Both studies demonstrated significant impact on student learning of core algebra concepts including both procedural and conceptual problems. Various variables were modeled to understand the impact of such an intervention including demographic factors and class level. We found that being in an honors class significantly predicts learning gains but being in a non-honors SimCalc class significantly predicts learning gains versus all other groups. We also found significant effects of treatment on difference scores for problems which demanded simple procedural approaches and those that demanded complex conceptual understanding.

We investigated prospects for reported sustainable adoption and sharing of an educational innovation through survey research including online questionnaires and telephone interviews. This investigation is part of the Scaling-Up SimCalc experimental program, which combines dynamic representational algebra software (SimCalc MathWorlds) with integrated curriculum and small professional development workshops focused on how to use the software and how to integrate this intervention into the larger year-long curriculum. Teachers who (1) perceived the usefulness of the SimCalc professional development as being consistent with personal aims and (2) perceived specific affordances of the software/curriculum to be valuable were more likely to report continued use of the innovation after the research had ended and that they had shared it with colleagues over time.

The paper investigates how some drivers of technology diffusion shape the volatility and irregularity of the diffusion process. It presents an agent-based simulation model of technology diffusion that includes variables to control technology generations, social pressures, market size, and network randomness. Several variable combinations are defined, technology diffusions are simulated, and the volatility and irregularity of the process are measured. The paper explores scenarios with unusually high volatility and/or irregularity in more detail. It shows that technology generations mostly affect volatility, social pressures impact irregularity, while network randomness and market size amplify the other two factors' effects. Also, the paper argues that market structure changes generated by the factor combinations in question indirectly affect diffusion volatility and irregularity and these indirect effects may explain very high levels of, and unexpected changes in the volatility and irregularity of the technology diffusion process. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc All.rights reserved.

This study investigates the relationship between bank ownership structure, non-interest income and risk in an emerging market setting. Our analysis shows that the relationship between product diversification and bank risk is significantly influenced by asset size and ownership structure. In contrast to large banks, small banks are exposed to higher risk when the income share of non-traditional banking activities rise. We also find strong evidence of differences in risk exposure of banks to non-interest income after controlling for ownership structure. Private domestic and private foreign banks experience lower risk with higher non-interest income while the converse is true for public domestic banks. Furthermore, we show that the speed with which risk adjust to non-income activities is faster for domestic private banks than for foreign banks. These results could provide useful information to investors and regulators of banking institutions as they seek to reconcile the important issues of bank ownership structure, income diversification and size on the one hand with the level of risk exposure on the other hand. © 2016, Banking and Finance Review.

This paper examines sustainability conditions when the stock effects of renewable resources prevail, and characterizes the maximal critical level of initial pollution emissions such that Pigovian tax alone ensures sustainable growth. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The recent evidence from Eastern Europe suggests that one of the major obstacles towards the adoption of euro may lie in the impact that the recession of 2008 exerted on the trajectory of real exchange rates in new member countries (European Commission, 2015). This paper aims to establish and explain the relationship between the external shocks derived from the global financial crisis and recession of 2008 and equilibrium real exchange rate in advanced transition economies of Eastern Europe. The interplay between the external and internal balances is explained by developing an inter-temporal optimizing model of the real exchange rate determination in a small open economy with structural distortions. The results of our model suggest that, in the aftermath of recession, if the Eastern European economies attempt to restore and maintain the balance between the consumption, saving, and investment, the equilibrium real exchange rate will tend to reverse its trajectory from appreciation to depreciation over time in order to encourage a greater production in the future. The equilibrium real exchange rate depreciation in the future may obtain either as a result of an increase in the direct subsidies on investment or as a result of reduced subsidies on the "net-of-investment" income. The deprecation of countries’ real exchange rate, however, may continue to act as an effective constraint against the adoption of euro. © 2015, Institute of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. All rights reserved.