Family Reflections on the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program: Final Summary Report

During the spring of 2004, the first federally funded voucher program – the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) - was established. The School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) recognized that publicly-funded school vouchers represent a relatively new and unstudied approach to school choice and education reform. To address this need, the SCDP requested and received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to capture the “Parent and Student Voices on the OSP.” A total of 110 families, representing 180 students, that applied during the first two years of the Program volunteered to participate in this study. As the last installment in a four-part annual series that began in 2005, this report summarizes key findings from the previous reports and provides a general overview of the respondents’ “reflections” upon their three or four years in the Program. Using a phenomenological approach, which includes focus groups, personal interviews and keypad polling information gathering techniques, participants were given multiple opportunities to share or describe their experiences. A consumer framework was often used to contextualize the families’ experiences. Their insights continue to shape the scope and direction of the OSP, and they will help inform other efforts to provide low income families with access to quality school options

3-Methyl-3,4-dihydro-9H-carbazol-1(2H)-one

In the title mol­ecule, C13H13NO, the dihedral angle between the benzene ring and the fused pyrrole ring is 2.03 (5)°. The methyl group at the 3-position has an equatorial orientation. The cyclo­hexene ring adopts an envelope conformation. Three C atoms of the cyclo­hexene ring, with their attached H atoms, and all atoms of the methyl group are disordered over two positions, the site-occupancy factors being 0.883 (2) and 0.117 (2). In the crystal structure, mol­ecules are stabilized by inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds. A C—H⋯π inter­action, involving the benzene ring, is also found

7,8,9,10-Tetra­hydro­cyclo­hepta­[b]indol-6(5H)-one

In the title mol­ecule, C13H13NO, the dihedral angle between the benzene and pyrrole rings is 1.05 (5)°. The cyclo­heptene ring adopts a slightly distorted boat conformation. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds form centrosymmetric dimers. A C—H⋯π inter­action, involving the benzene ring, is also found in the structure

4-Methyl-7,8,9,10-tetra­hydro­cyclo­hepta­[b]indol-6(5H)-one

In the title compound, C14H15NO, the seven-membered ring exhibits a slightly distorted twist-boat conformation. The pyrrole ring forms a dihedral angle of 1.44 (10)° with the fused benzene ring. N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds form a centrosymmetric dimer and weak C—H⋯π inter­actions are also found in the crystal structure

6-Chloro-3,4-di­hydro-9H-carbazol-1(2H)-one

The carbazole unit of the title mol­ecule, C12H10ClNO, is not planar. The dihedral angle between the benzene and pyrrole rings is 1.35 (10)°. The cyclo­hexene ring adopts an envelope conformation. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds form centrosymmetric dimers

The Chernobyl Tissue Bank - A Repository for Biomaterial and Data Used in Integrative and Systems Biology Modeling the Human Response to Radiation

The only unequivocal radiological effect of the Chernobyl accident on human health is the increase in thyroid cancer in those exposed in childhood or early adolescence. In response to the scientific interest in studying the molecular biology of thyroid cancer post Chernobyl, the Chernobyl Tissue Bank (CTB: www.chernobyltissuebank.com) was established in 1998. Thus far it is has collected biological samples from 3,861 individuals, and provided 27 research projects with 11,254 samples. The CTB was designed from its outset as a resource to promote the integration of research and clinical data to facilitate a systems biology approach to radiation related thyroid cancer. The project has therefore developed as a multidisciplinary collaboration between clinicians, dosimetrists, molecular biologists and bioinformaticians and serves as a paradigm for tissue banking in the omics era

High intensity pulse self-compression in short hollow core capillaries

The drive for shorter pulses for use in techniques such as high harmonic generation and laser wakefield acceleration requires continual improvement in post-laser pulse compression techniques. The two most commonly used methods of pulse compression for high intensity pulses are hollow capillary compression via self-phase modulation (SPM) [1] and the more recently developed filamentation [2]. Both of these methods can require propagation distances of 1-3 m to achieve spectral broadening and compression. Additionally, hollow capillary compression requires post compression of the broadened pulse by chirped mirrors. Filamentation trades the efficiency of hollow capillary compression (67%) for ionisation-induced pulse self-compression. A mixture of SPM and plasma generation increases the spectral bandwidth of the pulse; however this occurs only in a small region at the centre of the beam. Spatial filtering is required to achieve the shortest pulses, reducing the efficiency to 20%. Although the majority of hollow core capillary compression requires long propagation distances, compression in short capillaries [3] with significant plasma generation has been demonstrated to be a promising technique

An algebraic Birkhoff decomposition for the continuous renormalization group

This paper aims at presenting the first steps towards a formulation of the Exact Renormalization Group Equation in the Hopf algebra setting of Connes and Kreimer. It mostly deals with some algebraic preliminaries allowing to formulate perturbative renormalization within the theory of differential equations. The relation between renormalization, formulated as a change of boundary condition for a differential equation, and an algebraic Birkhoff decomposition for rooted trees is explicited

On the General Analytical Solution of the Kinematic Cosserat Equations

Based on a Lie symmetry analysis, we construct a closed form solution to the kinematic part of the (partial differential) Cosserat equations describing the mechanical behavior of elastic rods. The solution depends on two arbitrary analytical vector functions and is analytical everywhere except a certain domain of the independent variables in which one of the arbitrary vector functions satisfies a simple explicitly given algebraic relation. As our main theoretical result, in addition to the construction of the solution, we proof its generality. Based on this observation, a hybrid semi-analytical solver for highly viscous two-way coupled fluid-rod problems is developed which allows for the interactive high-fidelity simulations of flagellated microswimmers as a result of a substantial reduction of the numerical stiffness.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

4,8-Dimethyl­pyrano[2,3-a]carbazol-2(11H)-one

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C17H13NO2, is nearly planar, the r.m.s. deviation for all non-H atoms excluding the two methyl C atoms being 0.089 Å. Inter­molecular N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds are found in the crystal structure. C—H⋯π inter­actions are also found. The H atoms of the methyl group attached to the benzene ring are disordered equally over two positions