Collaboration and Community Change in the Children's Futures Initiative

In 2002, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched Children's Futures (CF), a 10-year community change initiative designed to improve the health and well-being of children from birth to age three throughout Trenton, NJ. CF's strategies included efforts to increase residents' access to prenatal and other health services, provide parenting skills education, improve the quality of available childcare and promote preventive healthcare among medical practices. The Foundation engaged P/PV to evaluate the implementation and outcomes of the initiative and to provide ongoing feedback on its progress.This report, and its forthcoming companion, Early Outcomes in a Community Change Effort to Improve Children's Futures, examine the promise of CF strategies. Collaboration and Community Change in the Children's Futures Initiative focuses on program implementation, participant recruitment and collaborations among Trenton's agencies. The second report examines programmatic improvements and early outcomes for CF families. Major findings from both are compiled in Children's Futures' First Five Years

Medical Laboratory Technology (Medical Laboratory Assistant)

This history for the Medical Laboratory Technology program was written to commemorate DMACC\u27s 50th anniversary celebration during the 2015-16 academic year

The complex relationship between weather and dengue virus transmission in Thailand.

Using a novel analytical approach, weather dynamics and seasonal dengue virus transmission cycles were profiled for each Thailand province, 1983-2001, using monthly assessments of cases, temperature, humidity, and rainfall. We observed systematic differences in the structure of seasonal transmission cycles of different magnitude, the role of weather in regulating seasonal cycles, necessary versus optimal transmission "weather-space," basis of large epidemics, and predictive indicators that estimate risk. Larger epidemics begin earlier, develop faster, and are predicted at Onset change-point when case counts are low. Temperature defines a viable range for transmission; humidity amplifies the potential within that range. This duality is central to transmission. Eighty percent of 1.2 million severe dengue cases occurred when mean temperature was 27-29.5°C and mean humidity was > 75%. Interventions are most effective when applied early. Most cases occur near Peak, yet small reductions at Onset can substantially reduce epidemic magnitude. Monitoring the Quiet-Phase is fundamental in effectively targeting interventions pre-emptively

The Integration of Constructive Visualization, Self-Talk, and Relaxation in the Acquisition of Social Skills

The need for teaching social skills, imagery, relaxation, and self-talk was studied and confirmed. Review and use of many of these curriculums revealed overlap among some curriculums, but none fully integrated skills from each of the diverse approaches to teaching social competence. The purpose of this project was to integrate a select body of information addressing social skills, self-talk, relaxation, and imagery into a developmental curriculum for use with children and adolescents

Review of \u3cem\u3eIndividual Voices, Collective Visions: Fifty Years of Women in Sociology.\u3c/em\u3e Ann Goetting and Sarah Fenstermaker (Eds). Reviewed by Karen E. Campbell, Vanderbilt University.

Ann Goetting and Sarah Fenstermaker (Eds.) Individual Voices, Collective Vision: Fifty Years of Women in Sociology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995. $49.95 hardcover,$18.95 papercover

Asymptotic Error Rates Of Classification Procedures When The Response Variable Is Ordinal

When outcome is ordinal, it would be expected that classification procedures which assume ordering will be superior to classification procedures which do not assume ordering. The objective of this research was to quantify this advantage in terms of reduced classification errors. The assumptions of ordinality of y and multivariate normality of x were imposed. The problem was approached geometrically. Equations were derived to express the asymptotic error rate of a classification procedure in terms of the deviation of the estimated classification boundaries from Fisher\u27s optimal boundaries. The asymptotic relative efficiency of two procedures was defined in terms of asymptotic classification error rate. These equations can only be applied to procedures whose classification boundaries are estimates of Fisher\u27s optimal boundaries. Some theoretical limits of asymptotic relative classification efficiency were derived and some evaluations were performed for pairwise combinations of the normal discriminant procedure, the multinomial logistic procedure, the ordinal logistic procedure (Anderson, 1984) and an ordinal normal discriminant procedure (proposed in this thesis). A commonly referenced ordinal procedure is the proportional odds procedure (McCullagh, 1980). The classification boundaries of the proportional odds model are not estimates of Fisher\u27s boundaries, therefore this model could not be compared to the above models in terms of relative classification efficiency. However some theoretical properties of the proportional odds procedure and its classification boundaries were investigated. Specifically, the boundaries associated with two classification procedures associated with the proportional odds model were investigated for properties under the conditions of pooling of adjacent outcome categories