Partnership and the Politics of Care: Advocates' Role in Passing and Implementing California's Law to Extend Foster Care

This report traces the history of the California's Fostering Connections to Success Act legislation from its introduction in the California State Assembly, through its passage and signing, and ultimately to its innovative and extensive implementation planning process. The report aims to document the California experience, highlighting its successes and challenges, so that other states may benefit, potentially smoothing the legislative and implementation processes there. Beyond telling the story of extended care, this report also focuses on two other issues. The first is the strong role played by a group of stakeholders (e.g., advocates, foundations, county administrators) in passing this bill and seeing it through implementation planning. We find that their central involvement was a result of their own desire to see the policy through to implementation, the limited capacity of state government agencies to implement such complex legislation, and the willingness of foundations to help fund implementation planning. The second is the degree to which research evidence was used in both the legislative and implementation planning phases. Our findings about use of evidence indicate that for research to be effective in shaping legislative decisions, it needs to be more timely and geared to policymakers' concerns. In particular, research on specific state-level contexts is greatly valued. For legislation that concerns sympathetic populations, testimonial or discursive evidence can be just as effective with legislators as research evidence. Moreover, in times of budgetary constraint, research evidence about cost effectiveness may be as important as research evidence about program or policy effectiveness

Data Storage Devices for Air Force Space Command: A Comparative Analysis

Two of Air Force Space Command\u27s primary missions are ballistic missile warning and global navigation, accomplished by commanding and controlling Defense Support Program and Global Positioning System satellites respectively. The computerized ground control system, called the satellite command and control system (CCS) used to perform command and control of the satellites currently uses antiquated peripheral storage devices. These storage devices are critical components, but are often prone to failure, possibly resulting in adverse mission impact. The Air Force must choose an alternative storage device for use in conjunction with CCS in order to accommodate planned operations tempo increases. This thesis compares five alternative storage devices based on seven criteria supplied by the sponsor. The comparison method used in this a thesis is the Analytical Hierarchy Process model. The results of this study indicate that Amdahl\u27s Spectris Platinum storage system will most effectively meet Air Force Space Command\u27s needs in terms of the seven criteria each alternative was evaluated against

In Search of a Class of Representatives for \u3cem\u3eSU\u3c/em\u3e-Cobordism Using the Witten Genus

In algebraic topology, we work to classify objects. My research aims to build a better understanding of one important notion of classification of differentiable manifolds called cobordism. Cobordism is an equivalence relation, and the equivalence classes in cobordism form a graded ring, with operations disjoint union and Cartesian product. My dissertation studies this graded ring in two ways: 1. by attempting to find preferred class representatives for each class in the ring. 2. by computing the image of the ring under an interesting ring homomorphism called the Witten Genus

THE ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN SEXUAL VICTIMIZATION AND HEALTH OUTCOMES AMONG LGBQA COLLEGE STUDENTS: EXAMINING THE MODERATING ROLE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT

Sexual victimization is a prevailing public health concern that differentially impacts sexual minority populations (i.e., people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, or queer) compared with their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts (McCauley et al., 2018). Studies have shown that sexual violence is associated with depressive symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, and alcohol use (Aosved et al., 2011; Bedard-Gilligan et al, 2011; Carey et al., 2018) among heterosexual college students. However, we know less about the potential effects of sexual victimization on health outcomes among sexual minority college students. Understanding these relations are especially important because sexual minority college students often experience unique challenges and are at increased risk of sexual victimization in comparison to their counterparts (Cantor et al., 2015; Edwards et al., 2015). Moreover, few studies to date have examined the moderating role of social support in buffering the links between sexual victimization and health outcomes. Guided by the minority stress framework (Meyer, 2003), the current study examined the extent to which sexual victimization influences health outcomes (i.e., depressive symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, and alcohol use disorder) among sexual minority college students. Furthermore, we examined whether social support moderated the association between sexual victimization and each health outcome. The current study included 234 students who identified as being part of the Queer community (e.g., Gay, Lesbian, Asexual, and Queer) from a larger university-wide study (i.e., Spit for Science; Dick et al., 2014). The participants in the present study were 18-22 years old (M = 18.46, SD = .412) and majority female (i.e., 74%). Fifty-six percent of the participants self- identified as White, 16% as Black or African American, 13% as Asian, and 15% as American Indian, Latinx, Pacific Islander, or Multiracial. Students provided online self-reports of their sexual victimization experiences (Blake et al., 1990), social support (Hays et al., 1995), depressive symptoms (Derogatis et al., 1973), post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms (Weathers et al., 2013) and alcohol use (DSM-V). We used a series of regression models in Mplus v 7.2 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2014) to test our research questions, with multiple imputation to handle missing data. Findings indicated that sexual victimization was positively related to depressive symptoms (b = .21, p = .00), post- traumatic stress disorder symptoms (b = .43, p = .00), and alcohol use disorder (b = .45, p = .00). Furthermore, social support significantly moderated the association between sexual victimization and depressive symptoms, however, in a direction contrary to hypotheses. Specifically, greater sexual victimization was associated with greater depressive symptoms among sexual minority college students with higher levels of social support (b = .29, p = .00), and the association was not significant for sexual minority college students with lower levels of social support (b = .13, p = .26; Figure 1). Discussion will center on the detrimental effects of sexual victimization on health outcomes among sexual minority college students, as well as providing potential explanations and future directions for the nuanced ways social support functions in the lives of sexual minority college students.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1079/thumbnail.jp

Non-dispersive wavepacket solutions of the Schrodinger equation

The free Schrodinger equation has constant velocity wavepacket solutions \psi_{\bf v} of the form \psi= f({\bf r} - {\bf v}t) e^{- i m c^2 t / 2}. These solutions are eigenvectors of a momentum operator {\bf \tilde p} which is symmetric in a positive definite scalar product space. We discuss whether these \psi_{\bf v} can act as basis states rather than the usual plane wave solutions.Comment: 12 pages, parameters amended to yield correct dimension and new section added on relativistic extensio

Coping related variables, cardiac vagal activity and working memory performance under pressure

The aim of this study was to assess the predictive role of coping related variables (trait emotional intelligence and reinvestment, challenge and threat appraisals and cardiac vagal activity) on cardiac vagal activity and working memory under low pressure (LP) and high pressure (HP) conditions. Participants (n = 49) completed trait questionnaires, the Decision Specific Reinvestment Scale, the Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale and Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. They realized the automated span task, which tests working memory, under counterbalanced LP and HP conditions. Cardiac vagal activity measurements were taken at rest, task and post task for 5 min, along with self-reported ratings of stress. Upon completion of the task, self-report measures of motivation, stress appraisal, attention and perceived pressure were completed. Current findings suggest cardiac vagal activity at rest can predict cardiac vagal activity under pressure, decision reinvestment influences cardiac vagal activity in cognitive tasks under LP and working memory performance is predicted by task cardiac vagal activity in HP only. These results show the importance of combining both subjective and objective psychophysiological variables in performance prediction and strengthen the need for this approach to be adopted across samples

Effects of amputation and Corynebacterium parvum on tumour metastases in mice.

The effects of operation (lower-limb amputation) on the growth of the Lewis lung tumour and its metastases were studied. The role of C. parvum in counteracting these effects was investigated. Anaesthesia alone or with amputation did not affect primary tumour growth. C. parvum depressed this growth. Anaesthesia did not affect the number of pulmonary metastases, but amputation caused a significant increase. C. parvum inhibited metastases and completely counteracted the effects of operation on them. Large doses of cortisone acetate significantly increased metastases but small doses had no effect. Experiments with adrenalectomized mice suggested the effects of operation were due to non-specific stress

Intermittent fasting:a dietary intervention for prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease?

Intermittent fasting, in which individuals fast on consecutive or alternate days, has been reported to facilitate weight loss and improve cardiovascular risk. This review evaluates the various approaches to intermittent fasting and examines the advantages and limitations for use of this approach in the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes

Ethnicity, Place, and Policy: The Relationship to Childhood Obesity

Poster presentation of issues surrounding childhood obesity related to race, ethnicity, and public policy