Bridging the School-Community Gap

Current studies note that inner city youth face challenging issues which include - violence, drugs, death, poverty, crime, teenage pregnancy, and homelessness. Under these very real circumstances, the value of connecting the school and the community to support and develop urban or at-risk students is inestimable. This thesis project examines what community services are available to urban students and their families, and the best means to make them aware of and participate in these services. It argues the theory that students need to be engaged in positive relationships and experiences both in school and in the community. The literature review explores existing service programs, Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) and Strategic Home Intervention and Early Leadership Development (SHIELD), among several others, reflecting on their approach and success rates. A random-sample survey was conducted with urban high school students, their parents, and any community members (teachers, secretaries, mental health workers, custodians, service providers, etc.) who had experience working with the students. Survey response data affirms the importance of “bridging the gap” between school and community in order to realize more positive outcomes and success for urban students

Effects of the High -Probability Sequence With and Without Extinction in Children With Feeding Disorders.

The effects of the high-probability instructional sequence, with and without extinction, on increasing compliance to eat in three children with severe food refusal and selectivity were evaluated. Pediatric feeding disorders, in which children refuse most or all food and drink, are a rare and life threatening problem that requires intensive treatment. The majority of behavioral techniques used with feeding disordered children manipulate the consequence of food refusal. The use of antecedent procedures in the treatment of food refusal has been limited. One antecedent technique, the high-probability instructional sequence, involves first presenting the individual with a series of instructions that he/she almost always complies with (high-p instructions) and then immediately presenting a task that the individual has a history of low compliance to (low-p instructions). Past research has demonstrated the effectiveness of this technique in increasing compliance to demands, in the absence of competing behaviors. However, in the treatment of feeding disorders and other severe behaviors (where there may be competing refusal behaviors), the addition of an extinction procedure is often found necessary to gain appreciable results. In this evaluation, the high-p sequence was compared against a control sequence (no high-p) under two conditions: extinction and no extinction. Results indicate that the presence of the high-p sequence did not appear to provide beneficial effects in terms of increasing acceptance of food. Although, for two participants, food refusal behaviors were observed to occur less often in phases in which the high-p sequence was utilized. For all participants, increases in acceptance of low-probability foods and decreases in food refusal behaviors were only observed with the addition of the extinction procedure

The Effect of Oil Prices on Exchange Rates: A Case Study of the Dominican Republic

Oil imports represent a significant fraction of the trade balance for energy-dependant economies. In the case of small open economies with floating exchange rates, the variability in oil prices is expected to have a large impact on the relative value of the currency. Since oil contracts are denominated in US dollars, changes in the price of oil have significant implications for the demand and supply of foreign exchange. This relationship between the price of oil and the exchange rate has been established by the literature for oil-producing countries but not for oil-importing countries. This paper uses the case of the Dominican Republic, an energy-dependant small open economy with a floating exchange rate, to illustrate this connection

The Art of Social Justice

As this HJSR special issue on social justice unfolded, it became clear to the editorial team that this publication would be incomplete without addressing the well-documented role of art in social justice movements. We asked two of our managing editors, Jennifer Miles and Laura Dawson, to research and write about this area of social action. They interviewed two artists, a spoken word performer and a visual artist, both of whom understand their art as part of larger social justice projects. These artists raise awareness, highlight obstacles and avenues for change, and create space for solidarity and sanctuary. The following montage situates their artistry within their own biographies and a rich history of social change through art. Mary Virnoche and Jennifer Eichstedt, Editors

Characterization of single-crystal synthetic diamond for multi-watt continuous-wave Raman lasers

A continuous-wave diamond Raman laser is demonstrated with an output power of 5.1 W at 1217 nm. This Raman laser is intracavity pumped by a side-pumped Nd:YLF rod laser: a 43-fold brightness enhancement between the Nd:YLF and diamond Raman lasers is observed, with the M2 beam propagation factor of the diamond Raman laser measured to be <; 1.2. Although higher output powers are demonstrated in a similar configuration using KGd(WO4)2 (KGW) as the Raman laser material (6.1 W), the brightness enhancement is much lower (2.5 fold) due to the poorer beam quality of the KGW Raman laser (M2 <; 6). The Raman gain coefficient of single-crystal synthetic diamond at a pump wavelength of 1064-nm is also measured: a maximum value of 21±2 cm/GW is returned compared to 5.7±0.5 cm/GW for KGW at the same wavelength

Phase Behavior of DPPC in a DNA-Calcium-Zwitterionic Lipid Complex Studied by Small-Angle X-ray Scattering

In the presence of DNA and calcium, multilamellar liposomes of DPPC when in excess form complexes in which two distinct lamellar lipid phases coexist. The structure and phase behavior of both of these have been investigated using high-resolution small-angle X-ray scattering. The coexisting lipid phases exist within the same precipitated condensate with the phase behavior of the unbound lipid being affected by the complexed lipid phase. While the thermotropic phase transitions of the uncomplexed lipid from Lβ‘-Pβ‘-Lα occur as expected, the transitions of the bound lipid are substantially altered. This is manifested as an increase in the main transition temperature, Tm, of the bound lipid, which has been observed before (Tarahovsky, Y. S.; Khusainova, R. S.; Gorelov, A. V.; Nicolaeva, T. I.; Deev, A. A.; Dawson, K. A.; Ivanitsky, G. R. FEBS Lett. 1996, 390, 133. Kharakoz, D. P.; Khusainova, R. S.; Gorelov, A. V.; Dawson, K. A. FEBS Lett. 1999, 446, 27). However, we also observe an apparent disappearance of the ripple phase (Pβ‘) with increasing calcium concentration in the bound lipid phase. In addition we are in a position to comment on the mechanism of formation for complexes prepared in this way

Students take the wheel! How a private blog enabled undergraduate researchers to guide a large project.

There is growing advocacy for including the student voice in educational research and initiatives. Students involved in such projects are often transformed through the process, finishing their participation with new insights and awareness of the curriculum they experience. One way to document the students’ experience and activity is through the use of private blogging software. In 2015, a large discrete learning outcomes project was completed with the help of three undergraduate co-op students. The aim of this project was to map the learning outcomes of eight courses into a learning outcomes framework using real assessments from the courses. The logistics of the project required excellent communication, task delegation, and time management of the students. The students used private online blogging software to document their progress on the project. Through a qualitative secondary data analysis, we analyzed the blogs and identified a number of emergent themes that suggest how the blogging software may have contributed to the students’ success in the project. In this presentation, we will share the main findings of our secondary analysis of the students’ use of the blogging platform. Although the sample of students is small, the dataset itself consists of over 100 blog posts. Our intention was to conduct an in-depth qualitative analysis of the use of the blog for a complex project, to explore how blogs could be used by students to work as a productive team. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their thoughts and reflect on student engagement opportunities within their practice

A quantum mechanical model of the upper bounds of the cascading contribution to the second hyperpolarizability

Microscopic cascading of second-order nonlinearities between two molecules has been proposed to yield an enhanced third-order molecular nonlinear-optical response. In this contribution, we investigate the two-molecule cascaded second hyperpolarizability and show that it will never exceed the fundamental limit of a single molecule with the same number of electrons as the two-molecule system. We show the apparent divergence behavior of the cascading contribution to the second hyperpolarizability vanishes when properly taking into account the intermolecular interactions. Although cascading can never lead to a larger nonlinear-optical response than a single molecule, it provides alternative molecular design configurations for creating materials with large third-order susceptibilities that may be difficult to design into a single molecule.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 1 tabl