But measuring student learning isn't like measuring the vacancy rate of a motel -- or the gross sales of a retailer or the degree to which productivity in a factory is affected by a new policy.
The travails and triumphs of the factory, as it was affected by the shifting currents of modern history, is the subject of a finely tuned show, "Hungarian Ceramics From the Zsolnay Manufactory, 1853-2001" athehe Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture.
To MacArthur's credit, he has tried his best to make a potentially dull subject interesting by treating himself as a character in his narrative; by interspersing long interviews with lobbyists, politicians and affected workers; and by telling the story of one factory in New York that was affected by Nafta.
While 18 workers at one factory had died of cholera, none in the brewery next door was affected.
Under the international agreement, a great number of Bangladesh's more than 5,000 apparel factories could be affected.
Siemens has said that the worm was found in only 15 plants around the world using its equipment and that no factory's operations were affected.
And it's not just factory jobs that are affected; in 2009 employment among U.S. scientists and engineers fell by 6.3% compared to the overall drop of 4.1%.
The first outbreak occurred in 1999 in a factory; 20 persons were affected (12 women, 8 men; median age 45 years, range 22 53 years).
The factories themselves had been affected by an exodus of shoe manufacturing from Italy, where a number of brands left to go to cheaper markets in order to improve their margins.
Factory output and sales were affected in regions including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St . Louis and Dallas, where the weather was blamed for utility outages, disrupted supply chains and upset production schedules.
