4-H Youth Leaders: Acquisition of Leadership Skills Based on Perceived Influence

This study focuses on youth perceptions of influence on others and leadership skills they may seek to acquire, particularly within the Maine 4-H program. Understanding the relationship between the youth perception of leadership influence and the skills they seek to acquire will enable 4-H club leaders and adult mentors to better facilitate acquisition of leadership skills. This study gains understanding from the perspective of current teen leaders in the Maine 4-H program through the use of personal interviews with active teen leaders. Findings indicate that Maine 4-H Teen Leaders do not necessarily recognize the influence they have with their peers and therefore, do not tend to seek out new leadership skills based on their perceived influence. Though some youths are interested in developing their leadership skills, being able to recognize their positive influence on others appears to be gap in overall leadership understanding

Data Integration and Storage: Managing and Using Home and Community-Based Services Data for Quality Improvement

This paper reports on data integration from a program manager’s perspective. The paper is not meant to be an exhaustive research document, nor does it single out any one correct approach. The paper is meant to facilitate communication between program units and analytic staff and serve as one reference for states as they continue to improve upon data collection techniques and use this information for ongoing quality management and improvement

"The impact of mediation on resolution of disagreements around special educational needs: Effectiveness and cost effectiveness"

Under England’s Children and Families Act 2014, local authorities (LAs) have a statutory responsibility to provide an independent mediation service for cases of disagreement between parents or young people and the LAs where parents or the young person are considering an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal Special Educational Needs (SEN) and DisabilityWe examined the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of mediation in resolving such disagreements without recourse to an appeal to the Tribunal. Our data comprised three national surveys, two supplementary surveys and individual interviews with LA staff and parents to explore implementation of the new mediation system and the impact on appeals and costs over 2014–16 from 109 English LAs who provided data. Our findings indicate that families who took up mediation were significantly less likely to appeal to the Tribunal, absolute risk reduction 13.58% (95% CI: 10.20%, 16.97%). The cost saving across all cases, of different complexity, was £636,462 overall, approximately £500 per case. Overall, mediation was found to be a promising method of disagreement resolution, reducing appeals and producing savings in both financial and human well-being costs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of both the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of mediation as a means of resolution of disputes about meeting children's SEN

A study of snake-like locomotion through the analysis of a flexible robot model

We examine the problem of snake-like locomotion by studying a system consisting of a planar inextensible elastic rod with adjustable spontaneous curvature, which provides an internal actuation mechanism that mimics muscular action in a snake. Using a Cosserat model, we derive the equations of motion in two special cases: one in which the rod can only move along a prescribed curve, and one in which the rod is constrained to slide longitudinally without slipping laterally, but the path is not fixed a priori (free-path case). The second setting is inspired by undulatory locomotion of snakes on flat surfaces. The presence of constraints leads in both cases to non-standard boundary conditions that allow us to close and solve the equations of motion. The kinematics and dynamics of the system can be recovered from a one-dimensional equation, without any restrictive assumption on the followed trajectory or the actuation.We derive explicit formulae highlighting the role of spontaneous curvature in providing the driving force (and the steering, in the free-path case) needed for locomotion. We also provide analytical solutions for a special class of serpentine motions, which enable us to discuss the connection between observed trajectories, internal actuation and forces exchanged with the environment

Novel Characteristics of Valveless Pumping

This study investigates the occurrence of valveless pumping in a fluidfilled system consisting of two open tanks connected by an elastic tube. We show that directional flow can be achieved by introducing a periodic pinching applied at an asymmetrical location along the tube, and that the flow direction depends on the pumping frequency. We propose a relation between wave propagation velocity, tube length, and resonance frequencies associated with shifts in the pumping direction using numerical simulations. The eigenfrequencies of the system are estimated from the linearized system, and we show that these eigenfrequencies constitute the resonance frequencies and the horizontal slope frequencies of the system; 'horizontal slope frequency' being a new concept. A simple model is suggested, explaining the effect of the gravity driven part of the oscillation observed in response to the tank and tube diameter changes. Results are partly compared with experimental findings.Art. no. 22450