BiblioVault - Books by Rogers, James

A Descriptive Approach to Language-Theoretic Complexity

James Rogers

CSLI, 1998

Early formal specifications of natural language syntax were quite closely connected to the notion of abstract machines for computing them. This provided a very natural means of gauging the relative difficulty of processing various constructions, as well as offering some insight into the abstract properties of the human language faculty. More recently, this approach has been superseded by one in which languages are specified in terms of systems of constraints on the structure of their sentences. This has made complexity results difficult to obtain. This book introduces a way of obtaining such results. It presents a natural and quite general means of expressing constraints on the structure of trees and shows that the languages that can be specified by systems of such constraints are exactly those computable by a particular standard class of abstract machines. Thus the difficulty of processing a construction can be reduced to the difficulty of expressing the constraints that specify it. The technique is demonstrated by applying it to a fairly complete treatment of English within the framework of Government and Binding theory, with the result of showing that its complexity is much less than has heretofore been assumed.

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The Impact of Policy Analysis

James M. Rogers

University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988

Government agencies spend billions of dollars each year for policy analysis with the expectation that improved policy will follow. Although civil servants conduct some analysis themselves, more frequently they contract with research organizations to assess the probable consequences of new social policies and to answer other policy questions.

Jams M. Rogers develops a theory that explains and predicts the impact of policy analysis. He illustrates his theory through welfare reform, where policy analysis is caught in political warfare and has little chance to improve actual policy.

During the 1960s and 1970s over $108 million was spent on four unprecedented social scientific experiments to test the effectiveness of a major proposal to reform the welfare system. Now out of favor, the negative income tax was thn considered to be an appealing alternative to welfare. Starting in New Jersey and Pennsylvania during the Johnson administration, the experimental research continued through Carter's term and helped to keep reform proposal and research organizations alive. This book examines the results of these experiments and their effect on Carter's reform attempt—the Program for Better Jobs and Income.

One of the author's main conclusions concerns the role of value conflict. If there is strong disagreement within society over the goals of policy, analysis will seldom change the minds of decision makers or influence policy. Policy analysis is more likely to influence thinking and policy if the issue involves low conflict.

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Irish-American Autobiography

James Silas Rogers

Catholic University of America Press, 2016

Irish-American Autobiography opens a new window on the shifting meanings of Irishness over the twentieth century, by looking at a range of works that have never before been considered as a distinct body of literature. Opening with celebrity memoirs from athletes like boxer John L. Sullivan and ballplayer Connie Mack - written when the Irish were eager to put their raffish origins behind them - later chapters trace the many tensions, often unspoken, registered by Irish Americans who've told their life stories. New York saloonkeepers and South Boston step dancers set themselves against the larger culture, setting a pattern of being on the outside looking in. Even the classic 1950s TV comedy The Honeymooners speaks to the urban Irish origins, and the poignant sense of exclusion felt by its creator Jackie Gleason. Catholicism, so key to the identity of earlier generations of Irish Americans, has also evolved. One chapter looks at the painful diffidence of priest autobiographers, and others reveal how traditional Irish Catholic ideas of the guardian angel and pilgrimage have evolved and stayed potent down to our own time. Irish-American Autobiography becomes, in the end, a story of a continued search for connection - documenting an "ethnic fade" that never quite happened.

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Smart Power Anniversary Edition

Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities

Peter Fox-Penner

Island Press, 2014

Few industries in the U.S. are as stuck in the past as our utilities are. In the face of growing challenges from climate change and the need for energy security, a system and a business model that each took more than a century to evolve must now be extensively retooled in the span of a few decades. Despite the need, many of the technologies and institutions needed are still being designed or tested. It is like rebuilding our entire airplane fleet, along with our runways and air traffic control system, while the planes are all up in the air filled with passengers.

In this accessible and insightful book, Peter Fox-Penner considers how utilities interact with customers and how the Smart Grid could revolutionize their relationship. Turning to the supply side, he considers the costs of, and tradeoffs between, large-scale power sources such as coal plants and small-scale power sources close to customers. Finally, he looks at how utilities can respond to all of these challenges and remain viable, while financing hundreds of billions of dollars of investment without much of an increase in sales.

Upon publication, Smart Power was praised as an instant classic on the future of energy utilities. This Anniversary Edition includes up-to-date assessments of the industry by such leading energy experts as Daniel Estes and Jim Rogers, as well as a new afterword from the author. Anyone who is interested in our energy future will appreciate the clear explanations and the in-depth analysis it offers.

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