The Effect of Community Involvement on Disaster Relief

The response to the March 22, 2014 landslide in Oso, Washington offers an opportunity to examine a new approach to disaster relief. This community based participatory research analyzes responses obtained from a focus group composed of Oso residents. While there is much in the literature on responding to the physical community, little has been discussed on responding to the less tangible but equally important social aspect of community. Successfully addressing issues of relief and rebuilding requires both elements of community to be considered. Following the Community-Driven Development model, successfully implemented in the developing world by The World Bank, this paper looks at the benefits that could have resulted from the inclusion of a community-driven approach to disaster planning and policy

Expression of DNA transposable elements during nervous system development: A discussion about its possible functions

Transposable elements (retrotransposons and DNA transposons) comprise a large proportion of animal genomes, for example 20% in D. melanogaster, 36% in X. tropicalis and 45% in humans. After invading a new genome, the transposable element increases its copy number and subsequently accumulates mutations. These may eventually result in inactive copies. Until recent days transposons have been considered “junk” DNA and no clear function have been assigned for this important amount of information on genomes

"Deciding" to kill: understanding homicide offenders’ decision making

This chapter examines the cognitive, affective, and situational factors that influence the decision-making processes of those who kill. With little existing research that specifically focuses on homicide offender decision making, this chapter brings together criminological and psychological research on violence-related cognition, affect, and the situational dynamics of violent encounters. The authors make the case for combining perspectives in order to better understand decision making and homicide. Four case studies, two cases of homicide and two of sublethal encounters, illuminate offenders’ thoughts and feelings prior to and during the commission of the offense and illustrate the complex interplay of cognitive, affective, and situational factors in lethal and near-lethal events. The chapter concludes with proposed avenues for future research

Extension of the flux fit method for estimating power deposition profiles

The flux fit method is used to self-consistently estimate the power deposition profile and heat transport profiles from temperature measurements originating from perturbative experiments with a modulated source. This Letter improves on this method by addressing the limitations and assumptions. The most crucial improvement is the additional freedom in the source deposition profile. Allowing for a variable central deposition location and height and including a skewness parameter produces deposition profiles more consistent with the measurement data, but still wider than equilibrium ray tracing in two different DIII-D discharges. Moreover, we show that the quality of the estimated deposition profile is key to the accuracy of diffusivity and convectivity estimates, but inversely, the estimated transport parameters hardly affect the quality of the power deposition estimate. Using this method, we show that the power deposition profile estimate is broadened with respect to ray-tracing by about 1.7–1.8 times in two DIII-D discharges.</p

Nuclear mitochondrial DNA sequences in the rabbit genome

Numtogenesis is observable in the mammalian genomes resulting in the integration of mitochondrial segments into the nuclear genomes (numts). To identify numts in rabbit, we aligned mitochondrial and nuclear genomes. Alignment significance threshold was calculated and individual characteristics of numts were analysed. We found 153 numts in the nuclear genome. The GC content of numts were significantly lower than the GC content of their genomic flanking regions or the genome itself. The frequency of three mammalian-wide interspersed repeats were increased in the proximity of numts. The decreased GC content around numts strengthen the theory which supposes a link between DNA structural instability and numt integration

Clinician and Parent Perspectives on Parent and Family Contextual Factors that Impact Community Mental Health Services for Children with Behavior Problems

The present study employed qualitative methods to examine multiple stakeholder perspectives regarding the role of parent and family contextual factors on community child mental health treatment for children with behavior problems. Findings suggest agreement between clinicians and parents on the number, types and importance of parent and family factors in children’s mental health services; however, stakeholders differed in reports of which factors were most salient. Specifically, clinicians endorsed most factors as being equally salient, while parents described a few salient factors, with parental stress and inadequate social support being the most frequently discussed. These qualitative data further elucidate the context of community services and have implications for evidence-based practice implementation and improving community care

Categorias da motivação na aprendizagem

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Garduação em Engenharia de Produção.Trata-se de um estudo do construto motivacional no campo da psicologia e das ciências da educação. O trabalho parte da análise crítica das teorias motivacionais, principalmente no que se refere aos aspectos da dicotomia entre o carácter intrínseco e extrínseco da motivação. Os elementos associados à lógica da recompensa são analisados como impedidores da motivação. A teoria psicanalítica e o cognitivismo sustentam a hipóteses da constituição do fenômeno motivacional a partir das categorias pulsional e cognitiva. A categoria social irrompe na construção teórica como a finalidade última da motivação. Do desenvolvimento teórico resulta o quadro hipotético de categorias e fatores da motivação na aprendizagem que serve de parâmetro à pesquisa empírica. Os elementos metodológico-epistêmicos e metodológico-técnicos são discutidos à luz da visão qualitativa de investigação. Através da interpretação social dos discursos (nível de aproximação das abordagens da análise do discurso), tornou-se possível a reformulação do quadro hipotético de categorias e fatores da motivação na aprendizagem, bem como, a definição dos fatores com base na sua forma de atuação nos discurso

A novel Doppler backscattering (DBS) system to simultaneously monitor radio frequency plasma fluctuations and low frequency turbulence

A novel quadrature Doppler Backscattering (DBS) system has been developed and optimized for the E-band (60-90GHz) frequency range using either O-mode or X-mode polarization in DIII-D plasmas. In general, DBS measures the amplitude of density fluctuations and their velocity in the lab frame. The system can simultaneously monitor both low-frequency turbulence (f < 10MHz) and radiofrequency plasma density fluctuations over a selectable frequency range (20-500 MHz). Detection of high-frequency fluctuations has been demonstrated for low harmonics of the ion cyclotron frequency (e.g., 2fci~23MHz) and externally driven high-frequency helicon waves (f = 476MHz) using an adjustable frequency down conversion system. Importantly, this extends the application of DBS to a high-frequency spectral domain while maintaining important turbulence and flow measurement capabilities. This unique system has low phase noise, good temporal resolution (sub-millisecond) and excellent wavenumber coverage (k_{\theta} ~ 1-20cm^{-1} and k_r ~ 20-30cm^{-1}). As a demonstration, localized internal DIII-D plasma measurements are presented from turbulence (f = 20MHz) as well as fluctuations around 476MHz driven by an external high-power 476 MHz helicon wave antenna. In the future, helicon measurements will be used to validate GENRAY and AORSA modeling tools for prediction of helicon wave propagation, absorption and current drive location for the newly installed helicon current drive system on DIII-D.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figs, journal pape