Stories for Change

This compendium of nearly 50 best practices showcases the notable strategies that increase access to arts and culture for older adult and immigrant populations. Newcomers and older adults (65 +) are two of the fastest growing populations -- communities across the country are grappling with a demographic makeup that is increasingly diverse and proportionally older than in the past. Arts and cultural organizations have the opportunity to reach-out, to increase resources in the community, and to engage populations that are at risk for being overlooked."Stories for Change" is a compelling collection, brimming with new ideas brought to fruition by many types of organizations including: museums, libraries, community development organizations, theaters, orchestras, dance ensembles, area agencies on aging, transportation bureaus, parks, botanic gardens, universities, and more. Organizations that hope to enhance the lives of their older and immigrant residents can find approaches portrayed in these Stories that can be adapted to meet the needs of their communities.Best practices include the well-known Alzheimer's Project of the Museum of Modern Art, which has been adapted to museums around the country, and Circle of Care, a unique ride share program that partners young people with older adults to attend free arts performances in Boulder, Colorado. Stories are located in rural, mid-size, and metropolitan settings; many can be easily implemented, and do not require a major overhaul of staffing, operations, or an organization's mission

Efficient separation of small microparticles at high flowrates using spiral channels: Application to waterborne pathogens

Detecting waterborne pathogens is a challenging task because of their low concentration in water and their wide diversity. In order to ease this detection process, the potential of microfluidics is investigated in this paper. Spiral channels are designed for separating particles, in a single device and without any external forces or additional buffer, depending on their size at high flowrates. This paper focuses first on the impact of the channel length, flowrate, particle concentration and size on the separation efficiency of polystyrene beads of relevant sizes . The system is then tested with viable and non-viable pathogens (Cryptosporidium parvum  ) with an average size around

Using Sparse Semantic Embeddings Learned from Multimodal Text and Image Data to Model Human Conceptual Knowledge

Distributional models provide a convenient way to model semantics using dense embedding spaces derived from unsupervised learning algorithms. However, the dimensions of dense embedding spaces are not designed to resemble human semantic knowledge. Moreover, embeddings are often built from a single source of information (typically text data), even though neurocognitive research suggests that semantics is deeply linked to both language and perception. In this paper, we combine multimodal information from both text and image-based representations derived from state-of-the-art distributional models to produce sparse, interpretable vectors using Joint Non-Negative Sparse Embedding. Through in-depth analyses comparing these sparse models to human-derived behavioural and neuroimaging data, we demonstrate their ability to predict interpretable linguistic descriptions of human ground-truth semantic knowledge.Comment: Proceedings of the 22nd Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning (CoNLL 2018), pages 260-270. Brussels, Belgium, October 31 - November 1, 2018. Association for Computational Linguistic

A liberated NHS – but will it lead Health and Social Care together or force them apart?

This article is based on a leadership seminar held by the National Skills Academy (Social Care) in July 2010 at which delegates representing local authorities, the independent social care sector, voluntary organisations, central government and academia considered the impact of integrated working on social care leadership. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the authors

Rotational spectrum of cis–cis HOONO

The pure rotational spectrum of cis-cis peroxynitrous acid, HOONO, has been observed. Over 220 transitions, sampling states up to J(')=67 and K-a(')=31, have been fitted with an rms uncertainty of 48.4 kHz. The experimentally determined rotational constants agree well with ab initio values for the cis-cis conformer, a five-membered ring formed by intramolecular hydrogen bonding. The small, positive inertial defect Delta=0.075667(60) amu A(2) and lack of any observable torsional splittings in the spectrum indicate that cis-cis HOONO exists in a well-defined planar structure at room temperature

Americas Nonprofits Get Out the Vote

This report not only gives an unprecedented look at the scale of nonprofits doing nonpartisan voter engagement across the nation, but also reveals a crucial link between democracy building and racial equity.Using data from a 2021 Urban Institute survey, the report shows that 1-in-5 surveyed nonprofits do voter engagement, but that share climbs to 1-in-3 for nonprofits that serve Black, Hispanic, and low-income communities. Most encouraging is the discovery that nearly half of nonprofits led by People of Color do voter engagement work.Whether you are a nonprofit looking for inspiration to engage the communities you serve or eager to support those at the intersection of democracy and equality, this report offers next steps to fostering a more inclusive electorate