The Flowerings Project: A Library in Transformation

This final report from the JMU Libraries and Furious Flower Poetry Center to the Mellon Foundation describes in detail the activities undertaken as part of a 2020-2021 planning grant, “Furious Flowerings: Developing a Partnership Model for Digital Library Support of a Living Center for Black Poetry,” funded by the Mellon Foundation. The grant explored and developed a partnership model for integrated library support of a living, academic center for the arts with archival, scholarly, digital, educational, and performance components. Nine key areas were addressed, including three overarching areas: development of cultural competencies, exploring how an exemplar project can be used to manage organizational and cultural change, and fostering partners\u27 understanding of library processes, systems, expertise, and goals, as well as six domain and application areas: inclusive archival workflows, frameworks for multimedia preservation and performance capture, teaching-and-learning collaborations, and policies and platforms for sustainable digital publications. The report describes model development, activities, findings, recommendations, challenges, lessons learned, future goals, evaluations, publications, and the grant timeline and logistics

Denying humanness to victims: How gang members justify violent behavior

The high prevalence of violent offending amongst gang-involved youth has been established in the literature. Yet the underlying psychological mechanisms that enable youth to engage in such acts of violence remain unclear. 189 young people were recruited from areas in London, UK, known for their gang activity. We found that gang members, in comparison to non-gang youth, described the groups they belong to as having recognized leaders, specific rules and codes, initiation rituals, and special clothing. Gang members were also more likely than non-gang youth to engage in violent behavior and endorse moral disengagement strategies (i.e., moral justification, euphemistic language, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, attribution of blame, and dehumanization). Finally, we found that dehumanizing victims partially mediated the relationship between gang membership and violent behavior. These findings highlight the effects of groups at the individual level and an underlying psychological mechanism that explains, in part, how gang members engage in violence

Investigation of guided wave propagation in pipes fully- and partially-embedded in concrete

The application of long-range guided-wave testing to pipes embedded in concrete results in unpredictable test-ranges. The influence of the circumferential extent of the embedding-concrete around a steel pipe on the guided wave propagation is investigated. An analytical model is used to study the axisymmetric fully embedded pipe case, while explicit finite-element and semi-analytical finite-element simulations are utilised to investigate a partially embedded pipe. Model predictions and simulations are compared with full-scale guided-wave tests. The transmission-loss of the T(0,1)-mode in an 8 in. steel pipe fully embedded over an axial length of 0.4 m is found to be in the range of 32–36 dB while it reduces by a factor of 5 when only 50% of the circumference is embedded. The transmission-loss in a fully embedded pipe is mainly due to attenuation in the embedded section while in a partially embedded pipe it depend strongly on the extent of mode-conversion at entry to the embedded-section; low loss modes with energy concentrated in the region of the circumference not-covered with concrete have been identified. The results show that in a fully embedded pipe, inspection beyond a short distance will not be possible, whereas when the concrete is debonded over a fraction of the pipe circumference, inspection of substantially longer lengths may be possible

Observations of Past Lunar Landing Sites by the D-CIXS X-Ray Spectrometer on SMART-1

D-CIXS initial observations show a first unambiguous remote sensing of calcium in the lunar regolith. Data obtained are broadly consistent with current understanding of mare and highland composition. Ground truth is provided by the returned Apollo and Luna sample sets

Early Identification of Type 2 Diabetes: Policy should be aligned with health systems strengthening

This article does not have an abstract

Modeling and optimization of a combined cooling, heating and power plant system

In this paper, we develop a modeling and optimization procedure for minimizing the operating costs of a combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) plant at the University of California, Irvine, which uses co-generation and Thermal Energy Storage (TES) capabilities. Co-generation allows the production of thermal energy along with electricity, by recovering heat from the generators in a power plant. TES provides the ability to reshape the cooling demands during the course of a day, in refrigeration and air-conditioning plants. Therefore, both cogeneration and TES provide a potential to improve the efficiency and economy of energy conversion. The proposed modeling and optimization approach aims to design a supervisory control strategy to effectively utilize this potential, and involves analysis over multiple physical domains which the CCHP system spans, such as thermal, mechanical, chemical and electrical. Advantages of the proposed methodology are demonstrated using simulation case studies. © 2012 AACC American Automatic Control Council)

Promotion of access to essential medicines for Non-Communicable Diseases: Practical implications of the UN Political Declaration

Access to medicines and vaccines to prevent and treat non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is unacceptably low worldwide. In the 2011 UN political declaration on the prevention and control of NCDs, heads of government made several commitments related to access to essential medicines, technologies, and vaccines for such diseases. 30 years of experience with policies for essential medicines and 10 years of scaling up of HIV treatment have provided the knowledge needed to address barriers to long-term effective treatment and prevention of NCDs. More medicines can be acquired within existing budgets with efficient selection, procurement, and use of generic medicines. Furthermore, low-income and middle-income countries need to increase mobilisation of domestic resources to cater for the many patients with NCDs who do not have access to treatment. Existing initiatives for HIV treatment offer useful lessons that can enhance access to pharmaceutical management of NCDs and improve adherence to long-term treatment of chronic illness; policy makers should also address unacceptable inequities in access to controlled opioid analgesics. In addition to off-patent medicines, governments can promote access to new and future on-patent medicinal products through coherent and equitable health and trade policies, particularly those for intellectual property. Frequent conflicts of interest need to be identified and managed, and indicators and targets for access to NCD medicines should be used to monitor progress. Only with these approaches can a difference be made to the lives of hundreds of millions of current and future patients with NCDs

Suprasellar Ganglioglioma: Expanding the Differential Diagnosis

This case study describes a young man with symptoms suggestive of the presence of a space-occupying lesion within the cranial cavity. Imaging studies confirmed a lesion in the suprasellar region and surgical intervention to remove the tumor yielded an unexpected diagnosis. Neuroimaging characteristics and histopathology including immunohistochemistry are described. Gangliogliomas are uncommon CNS neoplasms and are most commonly found in the temporal and frontal lobes of young, male adults. They are rarely seen in the suprasellar region and only a handful of cases have been reported to date. The differential diagnoses associated with these suprasellar region lesions can be dependent on the age of the patient and neuroimaging characteristics. The present report highlights the importance of histopathological examination and the need to consider a wide range of diagnostic entities in the differential diagnosis of lesions in this topographic distribution, including rarely encountered tumors such as gangliogliomas

Simulation of Guided Wave Propagation in Isotropic and Composite Structures using LISA

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97117/1/AIAA2012-1387.pd