State Agency Promising Practice: Connecticut Showcases Creative Jobs with “Employment Idol”

In 2007, the State of Connecticut’s Department of Developmental Services (DDS) partnered with the self-advocacy group People First of Connecticut to develop Employment Idol, an innovative project for promoting employment as the preferred outcome for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities (ID/DD) in the state. Spinning off the concept of the popular television show American Idol, Connecticut’s Employment Idol showcases the employment success stories of a select group of individuals with ID/DD

State Agency Promising Practice: Oklahoma - Contracting with Industry for the Provision of Job Coaching Supports

Contracts with Industry, implemented in the 1990s as the Natural Supports Initiative, is a program option that allows the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS) Developmental Disabilities Services Division (DDSD) to contract directly with businesses to provide job coaching supports that become a part of the natural workplace. Individuals participating in this program are employed by a business and are paid minimum wage or better. The name change to Contracts with Industry was an effort to distinguish the program from other DDSD employment options that involve employment service providers and paid job coaches

Combinations of lines, planes, and forms that generate eye movement

Leonardo DaVinci once stated: "The eve Is called the window of the Soul and is the chief means whereby the understanding can most fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature." This statement about the importance of the eye in painting by DaVinci, somewhat expresses my concern in painting because of the emphasis I place on infinite perception by the eye. I am concerned with the eye movement as ones eyes move over a complete area, surface, or space that is contained inside designated points or inside four edges of any size dimensioned format. To produce this eye movement, I project lines, planes, and forms (either two-dimensional or three-dimensional) onto two-dimensional surfaces (and within certain surface dimensions) that most positively move the eye rhythmically and automatically from one point to another point as well as backward and forward in space without obstruction

DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF LOW LOSS AND LOW INDEX OPTICAL METAMATERIALS

The study of optics has changed over the past 3000 years. We have developed beyond the early lens technologies of quartz and other types of glass materials and new materials are being engineered to enhance the properties of naturally occurring materials through metamaterials. Scattering and propagation of light through subwavelength scale structures can alter the bulk electromagnetic permittivity and permeability of the constituent materials incorporating these nanostructures. Such metamaterials can be modeled and designed to create desired electromagnetic responses such as having a refractive index less than unity. This is the focus of this research using nanoscale low- loss metallic and semiconductor materials. We investigate a new rigorous scattering model for sub-wavelength sized particles that provides a guide that allows bulk materials with reduced refractive index to be made. We show numerical and experimental results supporting this goal. Using nanoscale low loss semiconductor materials we investigate this scattering model for sub-wavelength sized particles. This approach could lead us to the “Holy Grail” in optical science which is a negative or near zero index material that operates at visible wavelengths

The relative role of previous experience on the recognition and transfer of geometric forms

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of prior tactual, prior visual, and prior tactualvisual experience on the recognition of simple shapes embedded in more complex figures, the length of time needed to recognize the shapes, the transfer to new designs following the recognition task, and the length of time needed to make the transfer. The variables were compared in relation to race and sex. Eighty, five-year-old Head Start Children were randomly selected from all the children attending Head Start in the area covered by the Kentucky River Foothills Development Council. There were forty males and forty females; forty black and forty white children randomly assigned to the four treatment groups. There were twenty children per treatment variable with an equal number of males and females, and an equal number of blacks and whites. A recognition task and a transfer of training task were administered to each child. Response latencies were recorded. Four analyses of variance were computed with subsequent t tests on significant main effects and interaction effects

Five stories

Jeanie stared at the wax figure of Mary Ann Lafferty laid out in a blue satin lined coffin across the room. The body reminded her of a wax, darkly flesh-colored hand that some boy had shown her when she was ten, saying that it had been his grandfather's which he'd kept as a "remembrance." She remembered shuddering with disgust at touching the hand that had looked so real, yet so cold and so very, very impersonal. Even though she had known that the touch of it was too waxen and smooth to be real, she had felt nauseated at the idea of it. (That's why she had refused to save her tonsils, to preserve them in a jar like pickles.) Now she was imagining that Laff was a wax doll up there, and not the real thing at all - just like the hand. Someone had slipped the wax doll into the coffin, fooling them all. It was some kind of a joke to prove the little girl - though four years older now- to be still naive, still frightened at the lack of warmth in death

Iris series

This series of iris paintings has developed from a very real admiration for a plant that has been a favorite of different civilizations for thousands of years. In her volume "The Iris Book" Molly Price has as frontispiece a fresco from the Palace of Knosses on Crete showing a plumed priest-king standing in a mass of waist-high iris.1 This early portrayal dates back 4,000 years. The structure of the flower itself is its most striking feature, a quality contemporary breeders emphasize in the development of black and white forms. The color range apparently is unlimited which invites free manipulation of color. Since there are 200 members of iris species recognized there is ample opportunity to experiment with forms, a challange to grower and artist alike

Superiors' and subordinates' perceptions and expectations of the leader behavior of the dean of instruction : a survey of the North Carolina community college system

The concern of this investigation was chiefly with a description of faculty perceptions of and expectations for the dean of instruction's leader behavior as compared with similar ratings by the president and the dean himself. In this study the faculty were referred to as subordinates and the presidents were referred to as superiors. Perceptions of leader behavior reflect the different styles of leader behavior in which educational administrators engage in interacting with and relating to their various reference groups. Expectations of leader behavior reflect the different roles which administrators must seek to fulfill in the course of their duties. Previous studies suggest that educational administrators adopt different styles of leader behavior in dealing with different groups, and that they experience role conflict stemming from conflicting perceptions and expectations of superiors and subordinates

Connections between linguistic and musical sound systems of British and American trombonists

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to determine whether measurable and perceptible differences between American and British trombonists exist; second, to determine whether any of these measurable differences correlate in any way with established differences between American English and British English speech. The specific correlation between trombone sustain timbre and spoken vowels will be considered using American and British subjects in large groups, smaller dialect subgroups, and individually. In addition, the manufacturing origin of the trombone will be considered, to determine whether any differences are attributable to the instrument rather than the player. Current research that specifically considers instrumental timbre as related to speech does not yet exist. However, the fields of acoustics, linguistics, and music cognition have produced studies that informed the background assumptions of this project. American and British trombone player participants were asked to complete a series of five tasks. These tasks included two playing conditions, two speaking conditions, and one listening test. Following the completion of the project, the data was organized and analyzed to address the two objectives of the study. The first question, that of a perceptible difference, was tested by asking participants to identify whether recordings were performed by American artists or not. Subjects in this project were unable to do so, but did exhibit a preference for those recordings that they believed were performed by artists from their own dialect group. The second question, that of measurable differences relating to language, was addressed by creating a two formant spatial plot for each large dialect group, as well as dialect sub-groups and individuals. These showed that a measurable difference in timbre does exist, and that it can be related to the corresponding differences in speech. When considering whether the player or his/her choice of instrument produced this effect, recordings showed that both the player and the instrument impacted the timbre inventory, although the effect of the player was much stronger than that of the instrument