962,844 research outputs found

    Growing Bigger Better: Lessons from Experience Corps' Expansion in Five Cities

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    Going to scale often entails replicating a program in new locations, but it can also involve efforts to expand a programs reach in existing locations, enabling it to have a greater effect on communities already being served. This was the case with Experience Corps, a Civic Ventures program that enlists older adults as volunteers to help strengthen literacy and other skills of elementary school students in low-income neighborhoods. Beginning in 2001, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies, Experience Corps embarked on a four-year initiative to expand in five cities. P/PV examined the five sites efforts to increase the size of their volunteer pool and expand to additional schools, manage their larger and more complex programs, and raise sufficient funds to meet annual goals and sustain growth.Growing Bigger Better considers how the sites initial readiness to expand, the organizational resources they possessed, and the receptivity of the external environment (i.e., the local school districts) shaped the sites progress. The report reflects on whether and how the local sites, and the program as a whole, benefited from the expansion effort, drawing out lessons that are relevant to other programs considering expansion. It concludes that while program expansion is a major undertaking, the Experience Corps expansion initiative clearly demonstrates how programs can become stronger, more energized and even more innovative through carefully planned and managed growth, and thus extend the benefits of their services to larger numbers of individuals and communities

    Molecular Structure of the Uranyl Mineral Zippeite - An XRD, SEM and Raman Spectroscopic Study

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    Raman spectra at 298 and 77 K and infrared spectra of the uranyl sulfate mineral zippeite, K2[(UO2)6(SO4)3O(OH)6]. 4 H2O, were studied. Observed bands were tentatively attributed to the (UO2)2+ and (SO4)2- stretching and bending vibrations, the OH stretching vibrations of water molecules and hydroxyls, H2O bending vibrations and libration modes, and ¦ U-OH bending vibrations. Empirical relations were used for calculation of U-O bond lengths in uranyl R = f(○3 or ○1 (UO2)2+) Å. This was found in agreement with U-O bond lengths from the single crystal structure analysis. The number of observed bands supports the conclusion from single crystal structure analysis that at least two symmetrically distinct U6+ (in uranyl) and S6+ (in sulfate), and water molecules and hydroxyls may be present in the zippeite crystal structure. Some O-H…O bond lengths were attributed to the hydrogen-bonding network in zippeite crystal structure

    Laminar Cortical Dynamics of Visual Form and Motion Interactions During Coherent Object Motion Perception

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    How do visual form and motion processes cooperate to compute object motion when each process separately is insufficient? A 3D FORMOTION model specifies how 3D boundary representations, which separate figures from backgrounds within cortical area V2, capture motion signals at the appropriate depths in MT; how motion signals in MT disambiguate boundaries in V2 via MT-to-Vl-to-V2 feedback; how sparse feature tracking signals are amplified; and how a spatially anisotropic motion grouping process propagates across perceptual space via MT-MST feedback to integrate feature-tracking and ambiguous motion signals to determine a global object motion percept. Simulated data include: the degree of motion coherence of rotating shapes observed through apertures, the coherent vs. element motion percepts separated in depth during the chopsticks illusion, and the rigid vs. non-rigid appearance of rotating ellipses.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-01-1-0397); National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NMA201-01-1-2016); National Science Foundation (BCS-02-35398, SBE-0354378); Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409, N00014-01-1-0624

    Evaluation of \u3ci\u3ePaederus Littorarius\u3c/i\u3e (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) as an Egg Predator of \u3ci\u3eChrysoteuchia Topiaria\u3c/i\u3e (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae in Wisconsin Cranberry Bogs

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    A preliminary study was conducted to determine if the rove beetle, Paederus littorarius Grav., would exhibit a feeding preference for the eggs of the pyralid moth, Chrysoteuchia topiaria Zeller, a pest in Wisconsin cran­berry bogs. Individuals were offered a choice of C. topiaria eggs or Drosophila sp. adults for four days. Total number of prey items eaten was converted to weight using a multiplier based on the mean weight of 20 individuals of each prey item, respectively. A significant preference for Drosophila adults was observed in the preference trial; however as many as 24 C. topiaria eggs in addition to Drosophila offerings were consumed by P. littorarius individuals within a 24 h period. Additionally, laboratory and field observations suggests P. littorarius is a polyphagous predator

    Sejong Open Cluster Survey (SOS) - IV. The Young Open Clusters NGC 1624 and NGC 1931

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    Young open clusters located in the outer Galaxy provide us with an opportunity to study star formation activity in a different environment from the solar neighborhood. We present a UBVI and H alpha photometric study of the young open clusters NGC 1624 and NGC 1931 that are situated toward the Galactic anticenter. Various photometric diagrams are used to select the members of the clusters and to determine the fundamental parameters. NGC 1624 and NGC 1931 are, on average, reddened by = 0.92 +/- 0.05 and 0.74 +/- 0.17 mag, respectively. The properties of the reddening toward NGC 1931 indicate an abnormal reddening law (Rv,cl = 5.2 +/- 0.3). Using the zero-age main sequence fitting method we confirm that NGC 1624 is 6.0 +/- 0.6 kpc away from the Sun, whereas NGC 1931 is at a distance of 2.3 +/- 0.2 kpc. The results from isochrone fitting in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram indicate the ages of NGC 1624 and NGC 1931 to be less than 4 Myr and 1.5 - 2.0 Myr, respectively. We derived the initial mass function (IMF) of the clusters. The slope of the IMF (Gamma_NGC 1624 = -2.0 +/- 0.2 and Gamma_NGC 1931 = -2.0 +/- 0.1) appears to be steeper than that of the Salpeter/Kroupa IMF. We discuss the implication of the derived IMF based on simple Monte-Carlo simulations and conclude that the property of star formation in the clusters seems not to be far different from that in the solar neighborhood.Comment: 79 pages, 21 pages, 7 tables, Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

    Constituting monetary conservatives via the 'savings habit': New Labour and the British housing market bubble

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    The ongoing world credit crunch might well kill off the most recent bubble dynamics in the British housing market by driving prices systematically downwards from their 2007 peak. Nonetheless, the experience of that bubble still warrants analytical attention. The Labour Government might not have been responsible for consciously creating it, but it has certainly grasped the opportunities the bubble has provided in an attempt to enforce a process of agential change at the heart of the British economy. The key issue in this respect is the way in which the Government has challenged the legitimacy of passive welfare receipts in favour of establishing a welfare system based on incorporating the individual into an active asset-holding society. The housing market has taken on new political significance as a means for individuals first to acquire assets and then to accumulate wealth on the back of asset ownership. The ensuing integration of the housing market into an increasingly reconfigured welfare system has permeated into the politics of everyday life. It has been consistent with individuals remaking their political subjectivities in line with preferences for the type of conservative monetary policies that typically keep house price bubbles inflated

    Teaching National Security Law

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    A Spiritual Stretch

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