Building Financially Secure Futures: An Approach for Boys and Men of Color

This research brief examines the economic and financial challenges facing boys and men of color and lifts up asset-building strategies that can be integrated with targeted services for this group. It also highlights successful practices that are already addressing financial challenges at a community level and draws from these practices to inform policy recommendations

Classifying fossil Darwin wasps (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) with geometric morphometrics of fore wings.

Linking fossil species to the extant diversity is often a difficult task, and the correct interpretation of character evidence is crucial for assessing their taxonomic placement. Here, we make use of geometric morphometrics of fore wings to help classify five fossil Darwin wasps from the Early Eocene Fur Formation in Denmark into subfamilies and often tribes. We compile a reference dataset with 342 fore wings of nine extant subfamilies and nine relevant fossil species. Since geometric morphometrics was mostly ignored in the past in Darwin wasp classification, the dataset is first used to examine differences and similarities in wing venation among subfamilies. In a next step, we used the reference dataset to inform the classification of the fossil species, which resulted in the description of one new genus and five new species, Crusopimpla weltii sp. nov., Ebriosa flava gen. et sp. nov., Entypoma? duergari sp. nov., Lathrolestes? zlatorog sp. nov., and Triclistus bibori sp. nov., in four different subfamilies. Carefully assessing data quality, we show that the fore wing venation of fossil Darwin wasps is surprisingly suitable to assign them to a subfamily or even lower taxonomic level, especially when used in conjunction with characters from other parts of the body to narrow down a candidate set of potential subfamilies and tribes. Our results not only demonstrate a fast and useful approach to inform fossil classification but provide a basis for future investigations into evolutionary changes in fore wings of ichneumonids. The high informativeness of wing venation for classification furthermore could be harvested for phylogenetic analyses, which are otherwise often hampered by homoplasy in this parasitoid wasp family

Behaviour of thick concrete members with unbonded transverse reinforcement

One commonly used method to increase the shear capacity of existing concrete structures consists of adding vertical steel bars anchored to the structure by means of mechanical anchorages, such as expansion torque controlled anchorages or steel anchorage plates. If the drilled holes are not filled with adhesive then the bars are unbonded along their length. In order to study the behaviour of concrete members with unbonded transverse reinforcement, thick concrete beams (width of 610 mm and height of 750 mm) were loaded until shear failure. It has been observed that their shear capacity is closely related to the shear cracking behaviour. At shear cracking, the propagation of one large diagonal crack is required to activate the vertical unbonded bars, thereby reducing the aggregate interlock shear capacity along the cracks. Beams containing at least minimum amounts of conventional stirrups experience several diagonal cracks at shear failure, whereas a beam with unbonded bars tends to have one dominant crack and can therefore experience the size effect in shear. A finite element (FE) model was also used to study the parameters influencing the behaviour of concrete members with unbonded transverse bars. The finite element results show very good agreement with the experimental results

Behaviour of thick concrete members with unbonded transverse reinforcement

One commonly used method to increase the shear capacity of existing concrete structures consists of adding vertical steel bars anchored to the structure by means of mechanical anchorages, such as expansion torque controlled anchorages or steel anchorage plates. If the drilled holes are not filled with adhesive then the bars are unbonded along their length. In order to study the behaviour of concrete members with unbonded transverse reinforcement, thick concrete beams (width of 610 mm and height of 750 mm) were loaded until shear failure. It has been observed that their shear capacity is closely related to the shear cracking behaviour. At shear cracking, the propagation of one large diagonal crack is required to activate the vertical unbonded bars, thereby reducing the aggregate interlock shear capacity along the cracks. Beams containing at least minimum amounts of conventional stirrups experience several diagonal cracks at shear failure, whereas a beam with unbonded bars tends to have one dominant crack and can therefore experience the size effect in shear. A finite element (FE) model was also used to study the parameters influencing the behaviour of concrete members with unbonded transverse bars. The finite element results show very good agreement with the experimental results

Advancing Employment Equity in Alabama

This report, Advancing Employment Equity in Alabama, offers a framework to guide policymakers as they consider how to best connect residents to good jobs that pay family-sustaining wages and remove the barriers that have held back far too many for far too long. The Alabama Asset Building Coalition is prepared to be a partner in this effort and further our mission of building an economic foundation that allows underserved Alabamians to reach their highest potential and secure their financial future

Boosting Economic Growth in Mississippi through Employment Equity

This brief describes why employment equity is critical to Mississippi's economic future and lays out a policy roadmap toachieve employment equity. It is based on data analysis and modeling of a "full-employment economy" (defined as when everyone who wants a job can find one), which was conducted by the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) at the University of Southern California, and on policy research and focus groups conducted by PolicyLink and the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative (MLICCI)

Advancing Employment Equity in Rural North Carolina

This brief describes why employment equity in rural North Carolina is critical to the state's economic future and lays out a policy roadmap to achieving employment equity. This roadmap is based on data analysis and modeling of a "full-employmentfor-all economy" (defined as an economy in which everyone who wants a job can find one) that was conducted by the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) at the University of Southern California as well as policy research and focus groups conducted by PolicyLink, Rural Forward, and the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center

Hash Functions for Episodic Recognition and Retrieval

Episodic memory systems for artificially intelligent agents must cope with an ever-growing episodic memory store. This paper presents an approach for minimizing the size of the store by using specialized hash functions to convert each memory into a relatively short binary code. A set of desiderata for such hash functions are presented including locale sensitivity and reversibility. The paper then introduces multiple approaches for such functions and compares their effectiveness