A history of the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery and its founders

The E. B. Crocker Art Gallery of Sacramento is the oldest public art museum in the West. The author of this study, a Sacramentan, has long been interested in the history of this institution, how was the collection assembled? What is its value? How did it come to Sacramento? What is the nature of the California museum Association which is the custodian of the collection, This paper is an attempt to answer these questions. The answers are not as complete as the author might wish, but they are as complete as extant records and accounts allow. This study provides a more accurate history of the collection and the gallery than has sometimes been given in previous accounts. A review of past recommendations of authoritative persons acquainted with the institution is also given in order to present an idea of its future possibilities

Using Early Alert Data to Increase Success Rates Among U.S.

More U.S. students are attending college than at any time in history, but many of these students are poorly prepared for college coursework. Higher education institutions are challenged to increase the overall student success rate. The study community college implemented an early alert system to identify students with potential course performance concerns, but it is not known whether other student data might also predict academic performance at the study site. Guided by Tinto\u27s and Astin\u27s respective works on student persistence, the purpose of this correlational study was to investigate the relationships between students\u27 demographic, background, and environmental variables and course success, for students identified by the early alert system. Stratified random sampling of 4 academic years of student data using 50% of the early alert students in the top 25 courses with the highest number of early alert students yielded a sample of 3,873 students. Predictor variables were gender, race/ethnicity, age, income status, campus, faculty status, first generation to college, and course times. The dependent variable was the course outcome. A regression analysis examined the predictive ability of each variable, and race/ethnicity was the only predictor found to be statistically significant. African-American students were the highest risk students for failing a course. A white paper was developed to share the study findings with the administration at the study college regarding the early alert system and other factors related to course success. Increasing student success may produce an overall positive social impact on society by increasing students\u27 job prospects and ability to contribute economically in their communities

Social influences on flood preparedness and mitigation measures adopted by people living with flood risk

This paper aims to analyse evidence, based on one of the largest and most representative samples of households previously flooded or living with flood risk to date, of social patterns in a range of flood resilience traits relating to preparedness prior to a flood (e.g., property adaptations, contents insurance, etc.) and mitigations enacted during and immediately following a flood (e.g., receiving a warning, evacuation into temporary accommodation, etc.). The data were collected from a 2006 survey of 1223 households from a variety of locations across Scotland between one and twelve years after major local floods. Our analysis identifies remarkably few social differences in flood preparedness and mitigation measures, although some aspects of demography, housing and length of residence in an area, as well as personal flood history, are important. In light of this finding, we argue that social differences in vulnerability and resilience to flooding arise from deep-seated socio-economic and socio-spatial inequalities that affect exposure to flood risk and ability to recover from flood impacts. The engrained, but well-meaning, assumption in flood risk management that impoverished households and communities are lacking or deficient in flood preparedness or mitigation knowledge and capabilities is somewhat pejorative and misses fundamental, yet sometimes invisible, social stratifications play out in subtle but powerful ways to affect households’ and communities’ ability to avoid and recover from floods. We argue that general poverty and inequality alleviation measures, such as tax and welfare policy and urban and community regeneration schemes, are likely to be as, if not more, important in alleviating social inequalities in the long-term impacts of floods than social targeting of flood risk management policy

Exploring the Social Impacts of Flood Risk and Flooding in Scotland

No abstract available

Photoreceptor Outer Segment-like Structures in Long-Term 3D Retinas from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells.

The retinal degenerative diseases, which together constitute a leading cause of hereditary blindness worldwide, are largely untreatable. Development of reliable methods to culture complex retinal tissues from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) could offer a means to study human retinal development, provide a platform to investigate the mechanisms of retinal degeneration and screen for neuroprotective compounds, and provide the basis for cell-based therapeutic strategies. In this study, we describe an in vitro method by which hPSCs can be differentiated into 3D retinas with at least some important features reminiscent of a mature retina, including exuberant outgrowth of outer segment-like structures and synaptic ribbons, photoreceptor neurotransmitter expression, and membrane conductances and synaptic vesicle release properties consistent with possible photoreceptor synaptic function. The advanced outer segment-like structures reported here support the notion that 3D retina cups could serve as a model for studying mature photoreceptor development and allow for more robust modeling of retinal degenerative disease in vitro

Internal Stress in a Model Elasto-Plastic Fluid

Plastic materials can carry memory of past mechanical treatment in the form of internal stress. We introduce a natural definition of the vorticity of internal stress in a simple two-dimensional model of elasto-plastic fluids, which generates the internal stress. We demonstrate how the internal stress is induced under external loading, and how the presence of the internal stress modifies the plastic behavior.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure