COVID-19 Youth Ambassador Corp, a Community-based Program to Address Vaccine Hesitancy

With over one million confirmed deaths from COVID-19, the United States (U.S.) continues to battle the public health crisis arising from the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on our economic, social, and health systems. Social distancing efforts and other precautionary measures such as mask-wearing have not sufficiently reduced morbidity and mortality from COVID-19; thus, COVID-19 vaccinations are an important tool for substantially alleviating the effects of the pandemic. Although COVID-19 vaccines are available to all Americans aged six months and older, many individuals are hesitant to receive vaccines. The two most common reasons for vaccine hesitancy are some individuals do not think the vaccine is safe and some believe it’s not effective. Vaccine hesitancy is more common among disadvantaged communities of color and Latinos. In order to decrease vaccine hesitancy, the government and larger healthcare agencies must invest in local community-based programs. These organizations play an important role in educating hard-to-reach and vulnerable communities to deliver factual and scientific information in a culturally appropriate manner. This capstone paper addresses the role of community based organizations to increase vaccine confidence. Specifically, a COVID-19 youth ambassador corps program is being implemented at Health Education Council (HEC), a non-profit organization based in South Sacramento, to recruit trainees from target communities to provide scientific and evidenced- based education on COVID-19 vaccination. HEC utilized funding from a local Medicaid Managed Care Plan, Partnership Health Plan’s (PHP’s) COVID19 Community Grant Incentives program to target the unvaccinated population in PHC’s Medi-Cal service region. Using principles from HEC’s Peers Helping Peers Program, HEC created and launched a “Youth Vaccine Ambassador Corps\u27\u27 which mobilized and trained local PHC/Medi-Cal youth ages 17-24 to develop and share pro-vaccine messages to educate their local community

Classical ideals theory of maximal subrings in non-commutative rings

Let $R$ be a maximal subring of a ring $T$. In this paper we study relation between some important ideals in the ring extension $R\subseteq T$. In fact, we would like to find some relation between $Nil_*(R)$ and $Nil_*(T)$, $Nil^*(R)$ and $Nil^*(T)$, $J(R)$ and $J(T)$, $Soc({}_RR)$ and $Soc({}_RT)$, and finally $Z({}_RR)$ and $Z({}_RT)$; especially, in certain cases, for example when $T$ is a reduced ring, $R$ (or $T$) is a left Artinian ring, or $R$ is a certain maximal subring of $T$. We show that either $Soc({}_RR)=Soc({}_RT)$ or $(R:T)_r$ (the greatest right ideal of $T$ which is contained in $R$) is a left primitive ideal of $R$. We prove that if $T$ is a reduced ring, then either $Z({}_RT)=0$ or $Z({}_RT)$ is a minimal ideal of $T$, $T=R\oplus Z({}_RT)$, and $(R:T)=(R:T)_l=(R:T)_r=ann_R(Z({}_RT))$. If $T=R\oplus I$, where $I$ is an ideal of $T$, then we completely determine relation between Jacobson radicals, lower nilradicals, upper nilradicals, socle and singular ideals of $R$ and $T$. Finally, we study the relation between previous ideals of $R$ and $T$ when either $R$ or $T$ is a left Artinian ring

Motor Control Quantification and Necessary Improvements for Individuals with Post-stroke Gait: Implications for Future Customizable Rehabilitation Approaches

Although often taken for granted, walking is an extremely complex motor skill that requires sensory inputs, neural communication, advanced control strategies, and coordination of the muscles and joints. Electrical signals traveling from the brain to the muscles are transformed to mechanical forces to achieve desired motion. A stroke damages the central nervous system and neural pathways, limiting the ability of survivors to walk. Walking speed is significantly decreased and asymmetrical walking patterns emerge. A crucial component of stroke rehabilitation is gait training, a therapeutic intervention to help individuals to improve their walking ability, as walking is essential for functional independence and long-term survival. Walking speed is often used as a gold standard for assessing the walking capabilities of stroke survivors, however, it’s important to note that a higher walking speed may not always indicate true recovery and may be a result of compensatory mechanisms. Monitoring the neurological impairment can improve our understanding of the walking disorder associated with stroke, guide the treatment according to patient’s specific needs, and contribute to development of new rehabilitation paradigms to improve the neuromuscular impairment. In this work, we aim to establish a computational framework for real-time monitoring of walking ability of stroke survivors at a neural level, applicable for both gait laboratories and real-world settings. Additionally, we will investigate the capability of using such framework to improve the rehabilitation techniques for maximizing motor control complexity. We unite biomechanical modeling, simulations, statistics, and machine learning to achieve the goals of this research. First, we will investigate various quantitative measures of walking to understand their association with neurological impairment, and assess their potential for neuromuscular impairment monitoring purposes. Second, we will examine the utility of wearable sensors for assessing motor control complexity of stroke survivors during walking, with the aim of making assessments accessible beyond the gait laboratory. Lastly, we will investigate the muscle activity changes corresponding to motor control improvements of stroke survivors, in order to identify new rehabilitation paradigms to enhance the motor control complexity of post-stroke gait