Blogs

Alyssa Annunziata 10/10/10 New Visions Education- Economics Blog #1- Grasping Reality with Both Hands


 * What Government Expansion?**

In this blog, Bradford Delong refers to Paul Krugman's commentary on Obama's supposed government expansion. Obama's intention was for government expansion to alleviate the issue of unemployment and the falling economy in the United States. Big federal spending programs, such as health care reform, were intended to solve many of these problems. Many people assumed that his plan did not work since unemployment rates have remained high and "government spending" has not created the necessary jobs. To date, no one has seen substantial evidence of these programs being implemented. The only visible spending that has been evident is regarding Medicaid and unemployment insurance. This is only due to the increased number of unemployed people. The intended plan was correct in theory, but was not implemented to the fullest extent. I have seen people directly affected by the lack of execution on the government's part. The first way in which I have seen the effects of this is with young college graduates who cannot find a job in their field due to the lack of job availability. The second evidence of this is a family friend who has lost a job and has had to collect unemployment. They are now uninsured. Thus, I do not see the benefits of the so-called government expansion that Obama had promised. His original plan did not exactly fail, but was never fully carried through.

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Alyssa Annunziata 10/11/10 New Visions Education-Economics Blog #2- Grasping Reality with Both Hands


 * Can I PLEASE Go Back To My Home Timeline Now?**

This blog is all about the slow growth of the economy and its affects on long-term unemployment. Our economy is experiencing hysteresis. Hysteresis is the lagging of an effect behind its cause. Normal unemployment, or cyclical unemployment is a problem. Cyclical unemployment is due to the business cycle and becomes a bigger problem when it turns into structural unemployment. Structural unemployment is when someone who has been unemployed for such a long time that they become unmarketable for the jobs that are currently being offered. Unemployment causes a chain reaction and creates even more unemployment. People are unemployed so they cannot spend, which causes businesses to suffer. An example of this in the real world could be the closing of a hair salon, putting the stylists out of work. If she cannot get another job, she will eventually become structurally unemployed, as there may not be available jobs that fit her skills. The more the unemployment rate deviates from it's natural cycle, the bigger and more complex the problem becomes. Ideally, the solution would be to stimulate the economy and create more jobs and growth, but these goals are not always attainable.

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Alyssa Annunziata 10/24/10 New Visions Education- Economics Blog #3- Grasping Reality with Both Hands

In this blog, the video clip depicts the physics of wet dogs and how they shake to dry themselves. Many furry mammals shake when wet, yet the size of the animal is directly correlated with how hard and fast they must shake. When dogs get wet, surface tension binds the water to the dog's fur. Upon shaking, centripetal forces then pull it away. Smaller animals must shake faster to achieve comparable drying, which is expected. Shaking begins with the head and works it's way down to the tail. Bigger animals shake more slowly and shake frequencies sually approach 4 Hz as animals get bigger. Lastly, looseness of skin increases the amplitude and speed of shaking. I found this video to be very interesting because when my dog gets wet and shakes water off, I always wondered how it scientifically worked. This video was interesting because everything was in slow motion and it displayed the physics of wet dogs very well.
 * The Physics Of Wet Dogs**

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Alyssa Annunziata 11/1/10 New Visions Education- Economics Blog #4- Grasping Reality with Both Hands


 * Liveblogging World War II: October 31, 1940**

This blog discusses the last day of the Battle of Britain. This day, the RAF lost 915 fighters and 544 airmen. 1733 Nazi planes were shot down. The weather this day was very cloudy, hazy and drizzly. This bad weather hampered overnight bombing. London was bombed from 6:30 – 9:00 PM. The Midlands were bombed from 2:45 – 6:00 AM. A total of 544 people were killed in the Battle of Britain. 795 people died later in the war. 1597 people survived World War II. Roughly, 100 of those people are still alive today.

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__2ND QUARTER__
Alyssa Annunziata New Visions- Economics Blog#1 The New York Times: Grasping Another’s Point of View at an Early Age

This article is about infant's abilities to grasp another person's point of view at the early age of 7 months. Before this study, it was previously thought that children did not have the "theory of mind" ability until age 3 or 4. The "theory of mind" is a child's ability to understand and perceive another person's point of view or perspective. Dr. Ansgar Endres, a cognitive psychologist at M.I.T., had the infants put into a simple scenario. It is clear that young children have difficulty understanding complex situations. Because of this reason, the researchers kept it very simple. They showed infants and adults an animated video of a ball rolling behind a wall. In the animations, the ball either rolls behind the wall and stays there, rolls out of view, or rolls out of view and returns. There was a cartoon character that was also present in the animation, but they did not always see where the ball ended up. The study showed that the adults knew where the ball would end up when they took the character's perspective of where the ball would end into account. The infant study was harder to draw conclusions on, but the researchers did find that the infants stared at the screen longer when the character's perspective of where the ball would end did not actually match where it ended. They said that these results showed evidence of the children putting people's point of view into account. In my opinion, this study is not extremely reliable since there is no way to tell if the infants truly took the character's perspective into account. However, it is interesting that they stared longer when the facts did not match up. I think it was a very interesting study to conduct. []

Alyssa Annunziata New Visions- Economics Blog #2 The New York Times: Competitive Nature That Is Nurtured in Soil

This blog is about trees in temperate climates that grow excess roots. These excess roots are actually not needed to take more nutrients from the soil, which was previously thought by researchers. Since the reasoning was not apparent, Dr. Ray Dybzinski, a plant ecologist at Princeton University, used computer software to predict the root's growth patterns over time. After reviewing the records, he came to the conclusion that the trees grew excess roots to play a part in "survival of the fittest". The "extra" roots did not help these trees collect more nutrients or grow taller, but helped prevent other trees from growing. Trees that produce too many roots however, are not at an advantage anymore because of the fact that they use too much energy on it. This is true for the opposite end of the spectrum, regarding trees that do not produce enough roots, because they will not receive enough nutrients from the soil. This is similar to the process of trees growing taller to get more sunlight than their surrounding trees. I think it is really interesting how the trees know the best way to make their stay in nature. []

Alyssa Annunziata New Visions- Economics Blog #3 The New York Times: Diet: Fried Fish Is Seen as a ‘Stroke Belt’ Culprit

The 'Stroke Belt' is a common nickname for many of the Southern states in the United States. It has earned itself this name because this region has a higer rate of stroke and cardiovascular illnesses than the rest of the entire country. Researchers are saying that fried fish might be a contributing reason. Fish contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are proven to reduce the risk of stroke. While the American Heart Assosciation recommends that we should eat two fish meals a week, Americans are getting it wrong by frying the meals. Deep frying the fish removes the fatty acids that are beneficial, and replaces them with cooking oil. This not only takes away the precautionary measures to prevent stroke, but it actually increases the risk, since it is replaced with fats. While certain states of the Stroke Belt have been recorded as eating two fish meals per week, they are 32 percent more likely to eat them fried. Nationally, African-Americans ate twice as much fried fish than whites. Fried fish is not the only reason for the Stroke Belt, but it is definitely a factor that stands out. []

Alyssa Annunziata New Visions- Economics Blog #4 The New York Times: Behavior: Distracted Eating Adds More to Waistlines

This blog is about the effects of eating meals while distracted with another activity. There has been speculation that eating while distracted causes overeating. In this study, researchers had 22 volunteers eat a meal while playing computer solitaire and 22 others eat the same meal in the same amount of time while undistracted. 30 minutes later, they had a "taste-test" which was really to see how much the subjects would eat after their meal. They told the test subjects that the test was a test of the effect of food on memory. In reality, they were testing how full they felt after their meal, how much they ate thirty minutes later, and how successfully they could recall what they ate at their meal. The results revealed that the distracted eaters were worse at remembering what they ate, they felt significantly full immediately after lunch, and at the taste-test they ate twice as much as the undistracted eaters. This study proved the fact that distracted eaters do not get as "full" from their food as undistracted eaters, and they are more likely to eat more afterwards. I think this was a good study to conduct and they controlled it very well. If the test subjects knew what they were actually being tested for, the results could have strayed from the truth. []

Alyssa Annunziata New Visions- Economics Blog #5 The New York Times: More Schools Embracing iPad as Learning Tool

This article is about the new adoption of iPads as amazing learning tools in some schools. Roslyn High School on Long Island gave out 47 Apple iPads on December 20, 2010. The students and teachers of two humanities classes received them. Eventually, the high school hopes to provide iPads to all 1,100 of its' students. The teachers of Roslyn High School think the adoption of the iPad is genius and predict that it will be an amazing new way of learning. The iPad has applications that help teach students through games and animated programs. The iPads are also replacing textbooks for those students, are useful in filing papers and homework assignments, corresponding with teachers, and keeping a digital record of the students work. It also takes away traditional excuses for not handing in homework, and Larry Reiff, an english teacher at Roslyn, now expects a higher rate of homework completion. At a time when schools do not have the best budgets, some parents and scholars are raising suspicion about the effectiveness of iPads in schools. They are very expensive, and some people believe that the school would be better off hiring and training teachers, instead of spending the money on the expensive items. However, schools have enough faith in the iPads to give them a try. New York City public schools including Kingsbridge International High School in the Bronx, 200 Chicago public schools, California middle schools, and even an Arizona kindergarten class have already purchased or are planning on purchasing the new invention. I think the addition of the iPad to schools is a very good idea and will only encourage students to want to learn more. []

Alyssa Annunziata New Visions- Economics Blog #6 The New York Times: Outlawed, Cellphones Are Thriving in Prisons

This blog is about how prisoners use their cell phones while they are in jail. Most of the phones are sneaked in, while other inmates claim that they bought their phones from guards in the cell. Many of the phones inside are smartphones, which are extremely dangerous to have inside a jail. This is a harmful situation because smartphones have not only the ability to call and text, but the ability to surf the web, send and receive emails, and communicate in many other ways. Also, gang violence and drug trafficking are increasinly being done online. The smartphone has been compared to the Swiss Army Knife because you can "do a lot of other things with it". In Oklahoma, a convicted killer was caught posting photographs on his Facebook of drugs, knives and alcohol that had been smuggled into his cell. Gang members in a Maryland prison were caught using their smartphones to approve targets for robberies. Inmates in a Georgia prison organized a protest via their cell phones. There has always been protests, but the difference is that they had the opportunity to organize it on their phones.President Obama has signed a law making possession of a phone or a wireless device in a federal prison a felony, but phones are still getting smuggled in. I think that this is a serious problem and there should be extensive and daily checks on the inmates. []