The impact of criminal justice involvement: examining experiences in a housing first program.

Individuals who come into contact with the criminal justice system are more likely to experience housing instability and homelessness, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of subsequent criminal justice involvement. Due to a lack of federal funding, as well as disjointed and inconsistent policies regarding eligibility criteria, people with criminal records are unlikely to receive federal rental assistance. While the exclusion of people with criminal histories is presented as necessary to protect communities and residents from crime, improving access to stable housing may reduce recidivism, incarceration rates, and correctional costs and increase public safety. The present study examined the differences between individuals with and without criminal justice involvement who participated in a Housing First program in Louisville, Kentucky. Between 2008 and 2017, Family Health Centers-Phoenix Health Care for the Homeless enlisted individuals with a history of chronic homelessness and co-occurring substance abuse and/or mental health disorder in the Louisville Housing First Program (LHFP). The 368 who completed an intake interview, were placed in housing, and did not enter the program more than once were included in the analyses. Disparities in mental health and risky behavior were identified at earlier intervals of program exposure, but at 24 months, participants with criminal justice involvement at intake did not report more problems with mental health or risky behavior than their counterparts. Despite these improvements, participants with past criminal justice involvement were less likely to remain housed through LHFP and less likely to have a successful program outcome at 24 months compared to those without criminal histories. Criminal justice involvement at intake, social support, age, and education were significant predictors of housing outcomes at 24 months. Rather than indicators of individual attributes, critical race theory suggests that these variables are structural predictors that may reflect the inequality embedded in the institutions and structures of our society, namely the education and criminal justice systems and the economy. Disparities in the criminal justice system are not due to disproportionate engagement in criminal activity, which calls into question normative expectations of justice, neutrality, fairness, and culpability and suggests that criminal justice involvement likely reflects the prevailing values and shortcomings of our society, as opposed to the character of those targeted by these biased practices. Therefore, rather than excluding individuals from housing assistance and other opportunities on the basis of their criminal justice involvement, such histories should be considered indicators of need

Autonomous flight and remote site landing guidance research for helicopters

Automated low-altitude flight and landing in remote areas within a civilian environment are investigated, where initial cost, ongoing maintenance costs, and system productivity are important considerations. An approach has been taken which has: (1) utilized those technologies developed for military applications which are directly transferable to a civilian mission; (2) exploited and developed technology areas where new methods or concepts are required; and (3) undertaken research with the potential to lead to innovative methods or concepts required to achieve a manual and fully automatic remote area low-altitude and landing capability. The project has resulted in a definition of system operational concept that includes a sensor subsystem, a sensor fusion/feature extraction capability, and a guidance and control law concept. These subsystem concepts have been developed to sufficient depth to enable further exploration within the NASA simulation environment, and to support programs leading to the flight test

Scale – Time – Complexity: engaging, entangling, and communicating ecology

This project proposes a forum for discussion that questions how we engage with our ecology. The panel will be framed within an acknowledgment of scale, time, and complexity as an entry point into a conversation about our local ecology and the universe beyond. The panellists’ aim to initiate a dialogue by situating the discussion around their own art and design research practices. These practices have emerged from local investigations into ecological issues that evolved into two overlapping research clusters, Art and Ecology, and Design and Innovation for Sustainability, at AUT University, in Auckland New Zealand. In our first collaborative project we explore how we might connect with and communicate ‘ecology’, in methods and practice that recognizes and embraces scale, time and complexity as a tactic into the subject, rather than as a barrier to engagement and the development of potential solutions

Mixtures of Charged Colloid and Neutral Polymer: Influence of Electrostatic Interactions on Demixing and Interfacial Tension

The equilibrium phase behavior of a binary mixture of charged colloids and neutral, non-adsorbing polymers is studied within free-volume theory. A model mixture of charged hard-sphere macroions and ideal, coarse-grained, effective-sphere polymers is mapped first onto a binary hard-sphere mixture with non-additive diameters and then onto an effective Asakura-Oosawa model [S. Asakura and F. Oosawa, J. Chem. Phys. 22, 1255 (1954)]. The effective model is defined by a single dimensionless parameter -- the ratio of the polymer diameter to the effective colloid diameter. For high salt-to-counterion concentration ratios, a free-volume approximation for the free energy is used to compute the fluid phase diagram, which describes demixing into colloid-rich (liquid) and colloid-poor (vapor) phases. Increasing the range of electrostatic interactions shifts the demixing binodal toward higher polymer concentration, stabilizing the mixture. The enhanced stability is attributed to a weakening of polymer depletion-induced attraction between electrostatically repelling macroions. Comparison with predictions of density-functional theory reveals a corresponding increase in the liquid-vapor interfacial tension. The predicted trends in phase stability are consistent with observed behavior of protein-polysaccharide mixtures in food colloids.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Phase Separation in Charge-Stabilized Colloidal Suspensions: Influence of Nonlinear Screening

The phase behavior of charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions is modeled by a combination of response theory for electrostatic interparticle interactions and variational theory for free energies. Integrating out degrees of freedom of the microions (counterions, salt ions), the macroion-microion mixture is mapped onto a one-component system governed by effective macroion interactions. Linear response of microions to the electrostatic potential of the macroions results in a screened-Coulomb (Yukawa) effective pair potential and a one-body volume energy, while nonlinear response modifies the effective interactions [A. R. Denton, \PR E {\bf 70}, 031404 (2004)]. The volume energy and effective pair potential are taken as input to a variational free energy, based on thermodynamic perturbation theory. For both linear and first-order nonlinear effective interactions, a coexistence analysis applied to aqueous suspensions of highly charged macroions and monovalent microions yields bulk separation of macroion-rich and macroion-poor phases below a critical salt concentration, in qualitative agreement with predictions of related linearized theories [R. van Roij, M. Dijkstra, and J.-P. Hansen, \PR E {\bf 59}, 2010 (1999); P. B. Warren, \JCP {\bf 112}, 4683 (2000)]. It is concluded that nonlinear screening can modify phase behavior but does not necessarily suppress bulk phase separation of deionized suspensions.Comment: 14 pages of text + 9 figure

Weighted-density approximation for general nonuniform fluid mixtures

In order to construct a general density-functional theory for nonuniform fluid mixtures, we propose an extension to multicomponent systems of the weighted-density approximation (WDA) of Curtin and Ashcroft [Phys. Rev. A 32, 2909 (1985)]. This extension corrects a deficiency in a similar extension proposed earlier by Denton and Ashcroft [Phys. Rev. A 42, 7312 (1990)], in that that functional cannot be applied to the multi-component nonuniform fluid systems with spatially varying composition, such as solid-fluid interfaces. As a test of the accuracy of our new functional, we apply it to the calculation of the freezing phase diagram of a binary hard-sphere fluid, and compare the results to simulation and the Denton-Ashcroft extension.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E as Brief Repor

Ionospheric response to the corotating interaction region-driven geomagnetic storm of October 2002

Unlike the geomagnetic storms produced by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), the storms generated by corotating interaction regions (CIRs) are not manifested by dramatic enhancements of the ring current. The CIR-driven storms are however capable of producing other phenomena typical for the magnetic storms such as relativistic particle acceleration, enhanced magnetospheric convection and ionospheric heating. This paper examines ionospheric plasma anomalies produced by a CIR-driven storm in the middle- and high-latitude ionosphere with a specific focus on the polar cap region. The moderate magnetic storm which took place on 14–17 October 2002 has been used as an example of the CIR-driven event. Four-dimensional tomographic reconstructions of the ionospheric plasma density using measurements of the total electron content along ray paths of GPS signals allow us to reveal the large-scale structure of storm-induced ionospheric anomalies. The tomographic reconstructions are compared with the data obtained by digital ionosonde located at Eureka station near the geomagnetic north pole. The morphology and dynamics of the observed ionospheric anomalies is compared qualitatively to the ionospheric anomalies produced by major CME-driven storms. It is demonstrated that the CIR-driven storm of October 2002 was able to produce ionospheric anomalies comparable to those produced by CME-driven storms of much greater Dst magnitude. This study represents an important step in linking the tomographic GPS reconstructions with the data from ground-based network of digital ionosondes

Stability of Colloidal Quasicrystals

Freezing of charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions and relative stabilities of crystals and quasicrystals are studied using thermodynamic perturbation theory. Macroion interactions are modelled by effective pair potentials combining electrostatic repulsion with polymer-depletion or van der Waals attraction. Comparing free energies -- counterion terms included -- for elementary crystals and rational approximants to icosahedral quasicrystals, parameters are identified for which one-component quasicrystals are stabilized by a compromise between packing entropy and cohesive energy.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Vaccine-induced skewing of T cell responses protects against Chikungunya virus disease

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infections can cause severe and debilitating joint and muscular pain that can be long lasting. Current CHIKV vaccines under development rely on the generation of neutralizing antibodies for protection; however, the role of T cells in controlling CHIKV infection and disease is still unclear. Using an overlapping peptide library, we identified the CHIKV-specific T cell receptor epitopes recognized in C57BL/6 infected mice at 7 and 14 days post-infection. A fusion protein containing peptides 451, 416, a small region of nsP4, peptide 47, and an HA tag (CHKVf5) was expressed using adenovirus and cytomegalovirus-vectored vaccines. Mice vaccinated with CHKVf5 elicited robust T cell responses to higher levels than normally observed following CHIKV infection, but the vaccine vectors did not elicit neutralizing antibodies. CHKVf5-vaccinated mice had significantly reduced infectious viral load when challenged by intramuscular CHIKV injection. Depletion of both CD

Density functional theory of freezing for soft interactions in two dimensions

A density functional theory of two-dimensional freezing is presented for a soft interaction potential that scales as inverse cube of particle distance. This repulsive potential between parallel, induced dipoles is realized for paramagnetic colloids on an interface, which are additionally exposed to an external magnetic field. An extended modified weighted density approximation which includes correct triplet correlations in the liquid state is used. The theoretical prediction of the freezing transition is in good agreement with experimental and simulation data.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, submitted 200