8,727 research outputs found
Impact of Organizational Networks on the Cost of Core Services in Ohio’s Local Health Departments
Introduction: Although several studies have linked population size to the cost of service delivery in local health departments, none have looked at the network position of the LHD. This study expands the understanding of how the position of an LHD in Ohio’s local health department network affects its expenditures in providing core, or nonclinical, services.
Methods: In 2014, 44% (55 of 124 eligible) of Ohio’s health officers responded to the PARTNER survey, a web-based network analysis program, with the analysis completed by the spring of 2015. Network data were then included in a regression analysis of the Core Plus-Scale model developed by Bernet and Singh using the 2008 and 2010 National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) Profile of LHDs, Ohio’s 2011 Annual Financial Report of LHDs, and the 2010 U.S. Census.
Results: The results demonstrated that higher levels of network interaction are associated with higher expenditures in the delivery of core services. A linear regression was conducted to predict core expenditures based on closeness centrality. A significant regression was found F(1,116) = 21.557, p \u3c0.001 with an R2 = 0.157.
Implications: While population size of a jurisdiction remained the best predictor of expenditures on core services, the addition of closeness centrality and value caused a significant increase in the adjusted R2 of the entire model. The results suggested that the more central a local health department was within its own peer network, the greater its resources and expenditures on core services
Collective action for innovation and small farmer market access: The Papa Andina experience
"The Andean highlands are home to some of the poorest rural households in South America. Native potato varieties and local knowledge for their cultivation and use are unique resources possessed by farmers in these areas. As the forces of globalization and market integration penetrate the Andes, they present both challenges and opportunities for farmers there. This paper reports on how the Papa Andina Regional Initiative is promoting the use of collective action to reduce poverty in the Andes, by developing market niches and adding value to potatoes, particularly the native potatoes grown by poor farmers. Since 1998, Papa Andina has worked with partners in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru to stimulate pro-poor innovation within market chains for potato-based products. Market chain actors (including small-scale potato producers, traders, and processors), researchers, and other service providers have engaged in innovation processes via two principal tools for facilitating collective action: the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) and Stakeholder Platforms. The PMCA fosters commercial, technological, and institutional innovation through a structured process that builds interest, trust, and collaboration among participants. Stakeholder Platforms provide a space for potato producers, other market chain actors, and service providers to come together to identify their common interests, share knowledge, and develop joint activities. The PMCA and Stakeholder Platforms have empowered Andean potato farmers by expanding their knowledge of markets, market agents, and business opportunities. Social networks built up among producers, market agents, and service providers have stimulated commercial innovation, which in turn has stimulated technical and institutional innovation. These innovations have allowed small farmers to market their potatoes on more favorable terms and other market chain actors to increase their incomes. This paper describes experiences with collective action in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, via the PMCA and Stakeholder Platforms. Based on these experiences, a number of lessons are formulated for using collective action to stimulate innovation, market access, and poverty reduction in other settings." authors' abstractCollective action, Small farmers, Potato, Participatory methods, Innovation, stakeholders, Markets,
Atomic matter wave scanner
We report on the experimental realization of an atom optical device, that
allows scanning of an atomic beam. We used a time-modulated evanescent wave
field above a glass surface to diffract a continuous beam of metastable Neon
atoms at grazing incidence. The diffraction angles and efficiencies were
controlled by the frequency and form of modulation, respectively. With an
optimized shape, obtained from a numerical simulation, we were able to transfer
more than 50% of the atoms into the first order beam, which we were able to
move over a range of 8 mrad.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Sum Rules and Moments of the Nucleon Spin Structure Functions
The nucleon has been used as a laboratory to investigate its own spin
structure and Quantum Chromodynamics. New experimental data on nucleon spin
structure at low to intermediate momentum transfers combined with existing high
momentum transfer data offer a comprehensive picture of the transition region
from the {\it confinement} regime of the theory to its {\it asymptotic freedom}
regime. Insight for some aspects of the theory is gained by exploring lower
moments of spin structure functions and their corresponding sum rules (i.e. the
Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn, Bjorken and Burkhardt-Cottingham). These moments are
expressed in terms of an operator product expansion using quark and gluon
degrees of freedom at moderately large momentum transfers. The sum rules are
verified to a good accuracy assuming that no singular behavior of the structure
functions is present at very high excitation energies. The higher twist
contributions have been examined through the moments evolution as the moments
evolution as the momentum transfer varies from higher to lower values.
Furthermore, QCD-inspired low-energy effective theories, which explicitly
include chiral symmetry breaking, are tested at low momentum transfers. The
validity of these theories is further examined as the momentum transfer
increases to moderate values. It is found that chiral perturbation calculations
agree reasonably well with the first moment of the spin structure function
at momentum transfer of 0.1 GeV but fail to reproduce the neutron
data in the case of the generalized polarizability .Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures, review for Modern Physics Letters A. Minor
modifications in text and improved quality for one figure. Corrected mistakes
in section
Study of timing characteristics of a 3 m long plastic scintillator counter using waveform digitizers
A plastic scintillator bar with dimensions 300 cm x 2.5 cm x 11 cm was
exposed to a focused muon beam to study its light yield and timing
characteristics as a function of position and angle of incidence. The
scintillating light was read out at both ends by photomultiplier tubes whose
pulse shapes were recorded by waveform digitizers. Results obtained with the
WAVECATCHER and SAMPIC digitizers are analyzed and compared. A discussion of
the various factors affecting the timing resolution is presented. Prospects for
applications of plastic scintillator technology in large-scale particle physics
detectors with timing resolution around 100 ps are provided in light of the
results
Dynamics in the ordered and disordered phases of barocaloric adamantane
High-entropy order-disorder phase transitions can be used for efficient and
eco-friendly barocaloric solid-state cooling. Here the barocaloric effect is
reported in an archetypal plastic crystal, adamantane. Adamantane has a
colossal isothermally reversible entropy change of 106 J K-1 kg-1 . Extremely
low hysteresis means that this can be accessed at pressure differences less
than 200 bar. Configurational entropy can only account for about 40% of the
total entropy change; the remainder is due to vibrational effects. Using
neutron spectroscopy and supercell lattice dynamics calculations, it is found
that this vibrational entropy change is mainly caused by softening in the
high-entropy phase of acoustic modes that correspond to molecular rotations. We
attribute this behaviour to the contrast between an 'interlocked' state in the
low-entropy phase and sphere-like behaviour in the high-entropy phase. Although
adamantane is a simple van der Waals solid with near-spherical molecules, this
approach can be leveraged for the design of more complex barocaloric molecular
crystals. Moreover, this study shows that supercell lattice dynamics
calculations can accurately map the effect of orientational disorder on the
phonon spectrum, paving the way for studying the vibrational entropy, thermal
conductivity, and other thermodynamic effects in more complex materials.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
Role of Dicer1-DependentFactors in the Paracrine Regulation of Epididymal Gene Expression
Dicer1 is an endoribonuclease involved in the biogenesis of functional molecules such as microRNAs (miRNAs) and endogenous small interfering RNAs (endo-siRNAs). These small non-coding RNAs are important regulators of post-transcriptional gene expression and participate in the control of male fertility. With the knowledge that 1) Dicer1-dependent factors are required for proper sperm maturation in the epididymis, and that 2) miRNAs are potent mediators of intercellular communication in most biological systems, we investigated the role of Dicer1-dependent factors produced by the proximal epididymis (initial segment/caput)-including miRNAs-on the regulation of epididymal gene expression in the distal epididymis regions (i.e. corpus and cauda). To this end, we performed comparative microarray and ANOVA analyses on control vs. Defb41(iCre/wt); Dicer1(fl/fl) mice in which functional Dicer1 is absent from the principal cells of the proximal epididymis. We identified 35 and 33 transcripts that displayed significant expression level changes in the corpus and cauda regions (Fold change > 2 or 2 or < -2; p < 0.01). These miRNAs are secreted via extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from the DC2 epididymal principal cell line, and their expression correlates with target transcripts involved in distinct biological pathways, as evidenced by in silico analysis. Albeit correlative and based on in silico approach, our study proposes that Dicer1-dependent factors trigger-directly or not-significant genes expression changes in distinct regions of this organ. The paracrine control of functions important to post-testicular sperm maturation by Dicer1-dependent factors may open new avenues for the identification of molecular targets important to male fertility control
Exact theory of kinkable elastic polymers
The importance of nonlinearities in material constitutive relations has long
been appreciated in the continuum mechanics of macroscopic rods. Although the
moment (torque) response to bending is almost universally linear for small
deflection angles, many rod systems exhibit a high-curvature softening. The
signature behavior of these rod systems is a kinking transition in which the
bending is localized. Recent DNA cyclization experiments by Cloutier and Widom
have offered evidence that the linear-elastic bending theory fails to describe
the high-curvature mechanics of DNA. Motivated by this recent experimental
work, we develop a simple and exact theory of the statistical mechanics of
linear-elastic polymer chains that can undergo a kinking transition. We
characterize the kinking behavior with a single parameter and show that the
resulting theory reproduces both the low-curvature linear-elastic behavior
which is already well described by the Wormlike Chain model, as well as the
high-curvature softening observed in recent cyclization experiments.Comment: Revised for PRE. 40 pages, 12 figure
How to return to subjectivity? Natorp, Husserl, and Lacan on the limits of reflection
This article discusses the recent call within contemporary phenomenology to return to subjectivity in response to certain limitations of naturalistic explanations of the mind. The meaning and feasibility of this call is elaborated by connecting it to a classical issue within the phenomenological tradition concerning the possibility of investigating the first-person perspective through reflection. We will discuss how this methodological question is respectively treated and reconfigured in the works of Natorp, Husserl, and Lacan. Finally, we will lay out some possible consequences of such a cross-reading for the conception of subjectivity and the concomitant effort to account for this dimension of first-person experience in response and in addition to its omission within the standard third-person perspective of psychological research
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