Nonprofit Leadership: A Sampler of Networks, Fellowships, and Workshops

The Leadership Working Group of the Nonprofit Congress (a major initiative of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations) began meeting in February 2007 to examine the status of leadership development throughout the nonprofit sector and attempt to draw conclusions based on what they observed. The product of their research is the report Nonprofit Leadership: A Sampler of Networks, Fellowships, and Workshops. The purpose of this document is to provide information and guidance to those building or growing leadership programs. It includes qualitative reviews of 12 leadership programs throughout the country. This report was just the first step in a larger effort to identify the leadership needs of the sector and provide resources to help fill those needs. The Leadership Working Group has also developed curriculum pieces for nonprofits to use in encouraging intergenerational dialogue and building leadership among all staff. This document, titled "Work With Me: Intergenerational Conversations for Nonprofit Leadership," seeks to provide a means for nonprofit staffers of all generations to discuss the organizational, structural, and emotional barriers to true leadership transfer. For more information on that document, please visit our website: http://www.nonprofitcongress.org/workwithme

Programming for energy monitoring/display system in multicolor lidar system research

The Z80 microprocessor based computer program that directs and controls the operation of the six channel energy monitoring/display system that is a part of the NASA Multipurpose Airborne Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) system is described. The program is written in the Z80 assembly language and is located on EPROM memories. All source and assembled listings of the main program, five subroutines, and two service routines along with flow charts and memory maps are included. A combinational block diagram shows the interfacing (including port addresses) between the six power sensors, displays, front panel controls, the main general purpose minicomputer, and this dedicated microcomputer system

Temperature dependence of the nonlocal voltage in an Fe/GaAs electrical spin injection device

The nonlocal spin resistance is measured as a function of temperature in a Fe/GaAs spin-injection device. For nonannealed samples that show minority-spin injection, the spin resistance is observed up to room temperature and decays exponentially with temperature at a rate of 0.018\,K$^{-1}$. Post-growth annealing at 440\,K increases the spin signal at low temperatures, but the decay rate also increases to 0.030\,K$^{-1}$. From measurements of the diffusion constant and the spin lifetime in the GaAs channel, we conclude that sample annealing modifies the temperature dependence of the spin transfer efficiency at injection and detection contacts. Surprisingly, the spin transfer efficiency increases in samples that exhibit minority-spin injection.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Quark mass hierarchy in 3-3-1 models

We study the mass spectrum of the quark sector in an special type I-like model with gauge symmetry $SU(3)_c \otimes SU(3)_L \otimes U(1)_X$. By considering couplings with scalar triplets at large ($\sim TeV$) and small ($\sim GeV$) scales, we obtain specific zero-texture mass matrices for the quarks which predict three massless quarks ($u,d,s$) and three massive quarks ($c,b,t$) at the electroweak scale ($\sim$ GeV). Taking into account mixing couplings with three heavy quarks at large scales predicted by the model, the three massless quarks obtain masses at small order that depends on the inverse of the large scale. Thus, masses of the form $m_u \lesssim m_d < m_s \sim MeV$ and $m_{c,b,t} \sim GeV$ can be obtained naturally from the gauge structure of the model

Teleconnection in the martian atmosphere during the 2001 planet-encircling dust storm

Introduction: In July 2001 (Martian year 25), Mars was enshrouded by a thick veil of dust which lasted for several months and obscured the observation of its surface to spacecraft cameras and ground-based telescopes. The emergence and rapid evolution (within a few days) of multiple, isolated, regional dust storms which eventually attained planetary scale extent were observed by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft using high resolution camera images and the thermal profiles and dust opacity measurements pro-vided by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) [1, 2]. We have applied a technique used in Terrestrial meteorology (sequential data assimilation, [3]) to ob-tain a complete, four-dimensional evolution of all the atmospheric variables during the period of this planet-encircling dust storm, even those which were not di-rectly observed by the MGS satellite, such as surface pressure and winds. We assimilated TES nadir-pointing thermal profiles and total dust opacities in a global circulation model of the Martian atmosphere, developed jointly by the University of Oxford and the Open University in the United Kingdom, with the col-laboration of the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dyna-mique in Paris (UK-MGCM) [4, 5, 6]

Supraspinal reorganization after pediatric-onset spinal cord injury.

Pediatric spinal cord injury (SCI) disrupts the efferent and afferent flow of the developing brain, leading to devastating functional impairments below the injury site, yet our understanding of its impact on the brain remains limited. This study examines supraspinal reorganization in children with SCI using electrophysiology and neuroimaging techniques to understand the relationship between residual spinal transmission and supraspinal reorganization. Chapter 2 discusses the development of a child-centric approach using ‘learn, play, and practice’ to foster a trusting relationship with each child and increase compliance with experimental protocols. Chapter 3 evaluates the residual neural transmission of three spinal pathways in children with SCI, revealing that supraspinal inputs onto spinal motor circuitry persist despite a clinical diagnosis of complete SCI. This finding supports the concept of discomplete injuries and suggests that clinical assessments may not fully capture the extent of residual sensorimotor function in this population. The neural conduction of the corticospinal tract (CST), the primary mediator of volitional motor function, was assessed via functional neurophysiological assessment (FNPA). Reticulospinal tract (RST) activity, crucial for movement coordination, was evaluated using acoustic startle response (ASR). Finally, the functional transmission of the dorsal column-medial lemniscus (DCML) pathway, which conveys touch information from the periphery to the brain, was evaluated by analyzing somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP). In Chapter 4, the impact of SCI on the pediatric brain was investigated using neuroimaging techniques. Analysis of 8 children with SCI and 18 age- and gender-matched typically developing controls showed reduced gray matter morphometry and functional connectivity in cortical and subcortical sensorimotor structures and lower CST microstructural integrity in the brains of children with SCI. Additional analysis reveals that higher cortical and subcortical neuroimaging measures were associated with a higher probability of volitional muscle activation, and higher RST activity levels were correlated with better measurements of subcortical morphometry and functional connectivity. These findings provide valuable insights into the effects of pediatric SCI on the brain and their underlying relationships to motor pathways activity, suggesting the potential of supraspinal neuroimaging to serve as biomarkers to assess recovery and track the efficacy of interventions targeting spinal translesional connectivity