Criminal Law—Substantive—Completed Acts as an Attempt

People v. Jelke, 1 N. Y. 2d 321, 135 N. E. 2d 213 (1956)

A study of attitudes about school improvement councils as perceived by principals and teachers in selected leadership and non-leadership site elementary schools in southeastern Massachusetts.

This study investigated the impact of School Improvement Councils on the attitudes of principals and teachers in ten selected Leadership and ten selected Non-Leadership site elementary schools. The sample (N = 233) was drawn from selected schools in southeastern Massachusetts, and included all 20 principals of the schools surveyed, and a random selection of teachers from each school totalling 213. A 68 item questionnaire was distributed, which asked the respondents to indicate how they felt School Improvement Councils met their objectives. The findings in this study reveal that principals and teachers strongly support the work of School Improvement Councils in their schools. There was overall agreement that Councils had increased enrichment opportunities, provided appropriate learning experiences for children, and had made for a better school

Self-Perceived Leadership Behaviors Of Collegiate Athletic Trainers And Strength And Conditioning Coaches: A Case Study

The purpose of the case study was to examine the self-perceived leadership characteristics, behaviors, and communication styles of professionals within the pillars of the high-performance sport model, specifically athletic trainers, and strength and conditioning coaches, to gain perspective on their ability to influence student-athletes and colleagues at the NCAA DIII level. A qualitative case study format allowed the researcher to engage with a small sample of participants and explore the differences and similarities between the participant groups. Participants were selected based on their primary job title and setting at over 80 institutions of higher education that participate in NCAA Division III institutions within the extended New England region. A total of 331 individuals were sent an electronic survey by email. Twelve participants (six athletic trainers, six strength and conditioning coaches) agreed to and completed a semi-structured, follow-up interview to gain perspective on their ability to influence student-athletes through their own displayed leadership. Interview audio was transcribed and analyzed through three levels of coding. Six themes were developed from the data analysis (caring/relationship, educate/teaching, culture, leadership, communication, conflict). The data revealed very few differences in the leadership perspective of the certified athletic trainers and strength and conditioning coaches that participated. Participants exhibited a lack of knowledge and experience when it came to leadership theory and leadership training in their professional careers while still aspiring to fulfill their professional obligations of mentoring younger and less experienced staff members. Further research should be conducted to establish a standard for leadership education, development, and implementation within the pillars of high-performance sport, specifically athletic training and strength and conditioning

Monitoring CO2 Storage at Cranfield, Mississippi with Time-Lapse Offset VSP – Using Integration and Modeling to Reduce Uncertainty

AbstractA time-lapse Offset Vertical Seismic Profile (OVSP) data set was acquired as part of a subsurface monitoring program for geologic sequestration of CO2. The storage site at Cranfield, near Natchez, Mississippi, is part of a detailed area study (DAS) site for geologic carbon sequestration operated by the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB). The DAS site includes three boreholes, an injection well and two monitoring wells. The project team selected the DAS site to examine CO2 sequestration multiphase fluid flow and pressure at the interwell scale in a brine reservoir. The time-lapse (TL) OVSP was part of an integrated monitoring program that included well logs, crosswell seismic, electrical resistance tomography and 4D surface seismic. The goals of the OVSP were to detect the CO2 induced change in seismic response, give information about the spatial distribution of CO2 near the injection well and to help tie the high-resolution borehole monitoring to the 4D surface data.The VSP data were acquired in well CFU 31-F1, which is the ∼3200 m deep CO2 injection well at the DAS site. A preinjection survey was recorded in late 2009 with injection beginning in December 2009, and a post injection survey was conducted in Nov 2010 following injection of about 250 kT of CO2. The sensor array for both surveys was a 50-level, 3-component, Sercel MaxiWave system with 15 m (49ft) spacing between levels. The source for both surveys was an accelerated weight drop, with different source trucks used for the two surveys.Consistent time-lapse processing was applied to both data sets. Time-lapse processing generated difference corridor stacks to investigate CO2 induced reflection amplitude changes from each source point. Corridor stacks were used for amplitude analysis to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) for each shot point. Spatial variation in reflectivity (used to ‘map’ the plume) was similar in magnitude to the corridor stacks but, due to relatively lower S/N, the results were less consistent and more sensitive to processing and therefore are not presented. We examined the overall time-lapse repeatability of the OVSP data using three methods, the NRMS and Predictability (Pred) measures of Kragh and Christie (2002) and the signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR) method of Cantillo (2011). Because time-lapse noise was comparable to the observed change, multiple methods were used to analyze data reliability.The reflections from the top and base reservoir were identified on the corridor stacks by correlation with a synthetic response generated from the well logs. A consistent change in the corridor stack amplitudes from pre- to post-CO2 injection was found for both the top and base reservoir reflections on all ten shot locations analyzed. In addition to the well-log synthetic response, a finite-difference elastic wave propagation model was built based on rock/fluid properties obtained from well logs, with CO2 induced changes guided by time-lapse crosswell seismic tomography (Ajo-Franklin et al., 2013) acquired at the DAS site. Time-lapse seismic tomography indicated that two reservoir zones were affected by the flood. The modeling established that interpretation of the VSP trough and peak event amplitudes as reflectivity from the top and bottom of reservoir is appropriate even with possible tuning effects. Importantly, this top/base change gives confidence in an interpretation that these changes arise from within the reservoir, not from bounding lithology. The modeled time-lapse change and the observed field data change from 10 shotpoints are in agreement for both magnitude and polarity of amplitude change for top and base of reservoir. Therefore, we conclude the stored CO2 has been successfully detected and, furthermore, the observed seismic reflection change can be applied to Cranfield's 4D surface seismic for spatially delineating the CO2/brine interface

Applying Compactness Constraints to Differential Traveltime Tomography

Tomographic imaging problems are typically ill-posed and often require the use of regularization techniques to guarantee a stable solution. Minimization of a weighted norm of model length is one commonly used secondary constraint. Tikhonov methods exploit low-order differential operators to select for solutions that are small, flat, or smooth in one or more dimensions. This class of regularizing functionals may not always be appropriate, particularly in cases where the anomaly being imaged is generated by a non-smooth spatial process. Timelapse imaging of flow-induced velocity anomalies is one such case; flow features are often characterized by spatial compactness or connectivity. By performing inversions on differenced arrival time data, the properties of the timelapse feature can be directly constrained. We develop a differential traveltime tomography algorithm which selects for compact solutions i.e. models with a minimum area of support, through application of model-space iteratively reweighted least squares. Our technique is an adaptation of minimum support regularization methods previously explored within the potential theory community. We compare our inversion algorithm to the results obtained by traditional Tikhonov regularization for two simple synthetic models; one including several sharp localized anomalies and a second with smoother features. We use a more complicated synthetic test case based on multiphase flow results to illustrate the efficacy of compactness constraints for contaminant infiltration imaging. We conclude by applying the algorithm to a CO[subscript 2] sequestration monitoring dataset acquired at the Frio pilot site. We observe that in cases where the assumption of a localized anomaly is correct, the addition of compactness constraints improves image quality by reducing tomographic artifacts and spatial smearing of target features.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Earth Resources Laborator

Preseismic Velocity Changes Observed from Active Source Monitoringat the Parkfield SAFOD Drill Site

Measuring stress changes within seismically active fault zones has been a long-sought goal of seismology. Here we show that such stress changes are measurable by exploiting the stress dependence of seismic wave speed from an active source cross-well experiment conducted at the SAFOD drill site. Over a two-month period we observed an excellent anti-correlation between changes in the time required for an S wave to travel through the rock along a fixed pathway--a few microseconds--and variations in barometric pressure. We also observed two large excursions in the traveltime data that are coincident with two earthquakes that are among those predicted to produce the largest coseismic stress changes at SAFOD. Interestingly, the two excursions started approximately 10 and 2 hours before the events, respectively, suggesting that they may be related to pre-rupture stress induced changes in crack properties, as observed in early laboratory studies

American Indian Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs About Smokeless Tobacco: A Comparison of Two Focus Group Studies

The final publication is available at Springer via http://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-017-0362-3.Though smokeless tobacco (SLT) use has decreased in many communities, concern for American Indian (AI) SLT use remains, as this population continues to be disproportionally affected by SLT-related diseases. Tobacco has cultural significance to many AI tribes, therefore tobacco cessation messages portraying tobacco as entirely negative may be ineffective. As a part of our formative research for an SLT cessation intervention, we sought to gain a better understanding of the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about SLT among AI community members. We describe two independent focus group studies conducted in Montana (ten focus groups, 54 participants) and Kansas (six focus groups, 27 participants). Predominant themes emerged from three major topic areas (SLT use, program development, and recreational SLT use) during the discussions from both studies. The formative approach and data from these studies will allow us to more appropriately address SLT-related health disparities across multiple AI communities

The social functioning in dementia scale (SF-DEM): exploratory factor analysis and psychometric properties in mild, moderate, and severe dementia

Introduction: The psychometric properties of the social functioning in dementia scale over different dementia severities are unknown. Methods: We interviewed 299 family carers of people with mild, moderate, or severe dementia from two UK research sites; examined acceptability (completion rates); conducted exploratory factor analysis; and tested each factor's internal consistency and construct validity. Results: Of 299, 285 (95.3%) carers completed questionnaires. Factor analysis indicated three distinct factors with acceptable internal consistency: spending time with other people, correlating with overall social function (r = 0.56, P <.001) and activities of daily living (r = −0.48, P <.001); communicating with other people correlating with activities of daily living (r = −0.66, P <.001); and sensitivity to other people correlating with quality of life (r = 0.35, P <.001) and inversely with neuropsychiatric symptoms (r = −0.45, P <.001). The three factors' correlations with other domains were similar across all dementia severities. Discussion: The social functioning in dementia scale carer version measures three social functioning domains and has satisfactory psychometric properties in all severities of dementia

“AI’s gonna have an impact on everything in society, so it has to have an impact on public health”: a fundamental qualitative descriptive study of the implications of artificial intelligence for public health

Background: Our objective was to determine the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on public health practice. Methods: We used a fundamental qualitative descriptive study design, enrolling 15 experts in public health and AI from June 2018 until July 2019 who worked in North America and Asia. We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews, iteratively coded the resulting transcripts, and analyzed the results thematically. Results: We developed 137 codes, from which nine themes emerged. The themes included opportunities such as leveraging big data and improving interventions; barriers to adoption such as confusion regarding AI’s applicability, limited capacity, and poor data quality; and risks such as propagation of bias, exacerbation of inequity, hype, and poor regulation. Conclusions: Experts are cautiously optimistic about AI’s impacts on public health practice, particularly for improving disease surveillance. However, they perceived substantial barriers, such as a lack of available expertise, and risks, including inadequate regulation. Therefore, investment and research into AI for public health practice would likely be beneficial. However, increased access to high-quality data, research and education regarding the limitations of AI, and development of rigorous regulation are necessary to realize these benefits