Use of ERTS imagery for natural resources research and development in Lesotho

The author has identified the following significant results. As far as the geological aspects of the project were concerned, the project was a success. It was concluded that: (1) It is possible to trace the lithological boundaries between sedimentary rocks and basaltic rocks, both extrusive and intrusive. (2) It was possible to localize sponges in the mountain areas, some of which may conceal undiscovered diamond pipes. (3) Possible main structural axes were localized within the framework of lineaments. Due to drought which occured at the time the images were gathered by ERTS-1, the usefulness of the data was limited for agricultural purposes

Rigidity of Frameworks Supported on Surfaces

A theorem of Laman gives a combinatorial characterisation of the graphs that admit a realisation as a minimally rigid generic bar-joint framework in \bR^2. A more general theory is developed for frameworks in \bR^3 whose vertices are constrained to move on a two-dimensional smooth submanifold \M. Furthermore, when \M is a union of concentric spheres, or a union of parallel planes or a union of concentric cylinders, necessary and sufficient combinatorial conditions are obtained for the minimal rigidity of generic frameworks.Comment: Final version, 28 pages, with new figure

We Provided Psychological First Aid After the Las Vegas Shooting – Here’s What We Learned.

What is “psychological first aid”? How do mental health experts like you work side by side with traditional first responders? The goal of psychological first aid is to sooth, assist and help people function and cope in a healthy way in the wake of a traumatic event. It’s employed in the hours and days following the event, when people’s immediate needs, including medical care, as well as basic needs like food, shelter and water, must be met, along with their psychological and physical safety needs

Addressing Minority Health Disparities in Richmond: Results from a Health Needs Assessment of a Southside Community

Background: Evidence shows the effectiveness of integrating community health workers (CHWs) into care models serving high-risk patients to reduce emergency department (ED) use, increase primary care use, and address adverse social determinants of health (SDH). The Southwood Resource Center, part of a network of clinics established by Richmond City Health Department, utilizes CHWs to address disparities affecting underserved populations through primary care referrals and additional resource linkages. Local student-volunteers in partnership with CHWs conducted a community needs assessment to identify patient resource gaps, aid in design and implementation of SDH interventions, and examine the relationship between chronic disease management and ED use reductions. Methods: English and Spanish-language surveys were conducted during patient visits to the SRC, in addition to other settings to facilitate representative sampling. A total of 134 responses were received, with Blacks (34%) and Hispanic/Latinos (65%) well represented. Results: Significant social determinants identified by the needs assessment included housing stability, and transportation and food access. Respondents indicated need for support managing chronic conditions including heart disease, diabetes, mental health and asthma. 1 in 3 respondents (31%) reported using the ED for primary care, and nearly 2 in 3 (66%) reported not having a family doctor. Barriers to health care included cost (35.6%), insurance status (50.4%) and transportation access (29.6%). Conclusions: CHWs play an important role in identifying community strengths and resource gaps and linking patients to additional resources. Opportunities for service improvements include bilingual care coordination, chronic care management, health insurance navigation, food subsistence resources, and transportation support.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1104/thumbnail.jp

Screening of the transcriptional regulatory regions of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Background Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has neurotrophic activity which is mediated by its main agonist receptor, VEGFR2. Dysregulation of VEGF causes motor neurone degeneration in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and expression of VEGFR2 is reduced in motor neurones and spinal cord of patients with ALS. Methods We have screened the promoter region and 4 exonic regions of functional significance of the VEGFR2 gene in a UK population of patients with ALS, for mutations and polymorphisms that may affect expression or function of this VEGF receptor. Results No mutations were identified in the VEGFR2 gene. We found no association between polymorphisms in the regulatory regions of the VEGFR2 gene and ALS. Conclusion Mechanisms other than genetic variation may downregulate expression or function of the VEGFR2 receptor in patients with ALS

Dynamic trust models for ubiquitous computing environments

A significant characteristic of ubiquitous computing is the need for interactions of highly mobile entities to be secure: secure both for the entity and the environment in which the entity operates. Moreover, ubiquitous computing is also characterised by partial views over the state of the global environment, implying that we cannot guarantee that an environment can always verify the properties of the mobile entity that it has just received. Secure in this context encompasses both the need for cryptographic security and the need for trust, on the part of both parties, that the interaction is functioning as expected. In this paper we make a broad assumption that trust and cryptographic security can be considered as orthogonal concerns (i.e. an entity might encrypt a deliberately incorrect answer to a legitimate request). We assume the existence of reliable encryption techniques and focus on the characteristics of a model that supports the management of the trust relationships between two entities during an interaction in a ubiquitous environment

The SECURE collaboration model

The SECURE project has shown how trust can be made computationally tractable while retaining a reasonable connection with human and social notions of trust. SECURE has produced a well-founded theory of trust that has been tested and refined through use in real software such as collaborative spam filtering and electronic purse. The software comprises the SECURE kernel with extensions for policy specification by application developers. It has yet to be applied to large-scale, multi-domain distributed systems taking different application contexts into account. The project has not considered privacy in evidence distribution, a crucial issue for many application domains, including public services such as healthcare and police. The SECURE collaboration model has similarities with the trust domain concept, embodying the interaction set of a principal, but SECURE is primarily concerned with pseudonymous entities rather than domain-structured systems