Syringe Exchange Program Outreach

It is estimated that 1 in 5 people infected with HIV are unaware that they are infected and most of the new sexually transmitted HIV infections in the US originate from HIV-infected persons who are unaware of their infection. Access Support Networks (ASN), is a community based nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide support to neighbors and loved ones living with HIV or Hep C. ASN offers harm reduction and prevention education to reduce the increase in HIV rates in Monterey County. The contributing factors affecting the increase in HIV cases in Monterey County are attributed to people’s socioeconomic status, substance use, and lack of knowledge about Prep. Some of the consequences the community in Monterey will face are: increase in medical debt, deterioration of mental and physical health, and ultimately death. The project is a syringe exchange program outreach designed to reach the homeless population living in the cities of Seaside and Monterey. With each program outreach, there was a lack of awareness noted about the services offered by ASN among the people in the peninsula. The results of the program outreach recommend an expansion of ASN in the peninsula in order to continue serving the needs for HIV education, prevention, as well as referrals for care and treatment services

Towards a model of long‐run capital substitution : a conceptual contribution and proof of concept analysis with future scenarios through to 2050

The idea of "overcoming" natural resource scarcity by substituting man-made capital for natural capital separates classical from modern economic thought. Today, "valuing nature" is deemed essential to warrant capital "trade offs" that are consistent with sustainability (defined as constant capital over time). While the explicit valuation of nature via non-market techniques is difficult and often controversial, its implicit - often zero- valuation puts us into an uncertain path whereby discussing substitution as a legitimate means to attain sustainability can be futile. This suggests supplementary ways to understand long-run capital substitutability are now in demand. The exploratory notion of "runaway capital" is thus introduced into a hypothetical "sustainable society" model. Runaway capital accounts for" capital" which, far from yielding services people prefer, yields services that "escape" those institutional arrangements that a society on its way to sustainability would demand, hence inducing a sort of "production failure" into the economy. The result is an "appreciative" heuristic model of long-run substitutability that is tested against four "empirical" scenarios to the year 2050 featuring cars, food and green homes as topical entry points. Scenario storylines are assembled to exhibit contrasting degrees of policy implementation of the Hartwick-Solow rule of investment as relevant to a low-energy-density carrier transition. A preliminary proof of concept analysis shows four scenario patterns of substitutability. These are interpreted and followed by model refinements and discussion. Overall, the study stresses the need to grasp long-run substitutability alongside the social legitimation and governance of capital inputs. This may in turn improve the quality of expectations about the internalisation of externalities agenda.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Group IV functionalization of low index waveguides

Low fabrication error sensitivity, integration density, channel scalability, low switching energy and low insertion loss are the major prerequisites for future on-chip WDM systems and interfacing with optical fibres. A number of device geometries have already been demonstrated that fulfil these criteria, at least in part, but combining all of the requirements is still a difficult challenge.Two contenders that could fulfil these criteria are the low loss nitride waveguiding platform and the high index group IV compounds for active photonic devices. Silicon Oxynitride (SiON) and Silicon Nitride (SiN) based waveguides are extremely powerful and central to today’s optical communications networks. The intermediate refractive index provides low footprint devices but eases the fabrication demands that can result in phase errors and repeatability problems in the all silicon approach. This enables multiplexers and demultiplexers with very low crosstalk and insertion loss and extremely low loss long range waveguides, making them very attractive for the optical backplanes and rack to rack links inside supercomputers and data centers. Group IV Photonics GeSi has a number of attractive optical characteristics for modulation, absorption and detection in a small volume area enabling low power and high density integration.Here, we propose and demonstrate a novel architecture consisting of the interfacing of a range of deposition method using low temperature PECVD and HWCVD nitride waveguides, Photonic crystal modulators [1] but also detectors [2] connected by a silicon nitride bus waveguide. The architecture features very high scalability due to the small size of the devices (~100 micrometre square) and the modulators operate with an AC energy consumption of less than 1fJ/bit

Y0.76Ho0.24FeGe2O7: a new member of thortveitite-like layered compounds

Y0.76Ho0.24FeGe2O7 (yttrium holmium iron digermanate) was synthesized by solid-state reaction at 1573 K. This thortveitite-like compound presents a crystallographic group–subgroup isotranslational (klassengleiche) relation with some other pyrogermanates, such as FeInGe2O7, In1.08Gd0.92Ge2O7 and InYGe2O7, which are configurationally isotypic with the Sc2Si2O7 thortveitite structure first reported by Zachariasen [(1930 ▶). Z. Kristallogr. 73, 1–6]. Holmium cations share with yttrium the 4f Wyckoff position at the center of a seven-coordinated pentagonal bipyramid, while Fe atoms also occupy one site with Wyckoff position 4f at the center of the octahedron. All these sites have the point symmetry C 1. Two types of Ge2O7 diorthogroups with point symmetry C 1h are present in the structure, each one of them defining a layer type which alternates with the other. These diorthogroups have their tetrahedral groups in an eclipsed conformation

Dependence and Value at Risk in the Stock Markets from the Americas: A Copula Approach

This work applies copula modeling to estimate the degree of dependence among the nine major equity markets from the Western Hemisphere, seven emerging markets from Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico) and the two mature markets from North America (Canada, United States). The relevance of copula-measured dependence is assessed estimating Value at Risk for bilateral portfolio investments, comparing it with conventional VaR methodologies. The data encompass daily time series for the 1992-2009 period