Educational standards have figured prominently in debates over educational policy all over the world. Two abiding themes emerge from these contributions to the debate. The first is that the very notion of a standard has to be viewed in its historical and social context. Different countries have widely varying views of what constitutes a standard and how necessary such a concept is for the adequate functioning of their educational systems. And, secondly, it is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at an objective definition of educational standards. Policies based upon comparisons of...

More than half of the 116 research parks now operating in the United States were established during the 1980s, with the aim of boosting regional economic growth. But until now no one has systematically analyzed whether research parks do in fact generate new businesses and jobs. Using their own surveys of all existing parks and case studies of three of the most successful--Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Stanford Research Park in California, and the University of Utah Research Park--Michael Luger and Harvey Goldstein examine the economic impact of such facilities.

As the...

Throughout the social, medical and other sciences the importance of understanding complex hierarchical data structures is well understood. Multilevel modelling is now the accepted statistical technique for handling such data and is widely available in computer software packages. A thorough understanding of these techniques is therefore important for all those working in these areas. This new edition of Multilevel Statistical Models brings these techniques together, starting from basic ideas and illustrating how more complex models are derived. Bayesian methodology using MCMC has been extended...