The Senior Mentoring Program at VCU’s School of Medicine

Educational Objectives 1. To demonstrate the value of senior mentoring in geriatrics education for medical students. 2. To provide a framework for positively influencing student attitudes toward older adults. 3. To describe the underlying human relationships that contribute to patient-centered care. 4. To describe effective verbal and non-verbal skills to establish and build relationships

UML Deficiencies from the perspective of Automatic Performance Model Generation

A discussion surrounding the use of UML for distributed system design

Exploring Policy Models For Extended Time Off

Whether it’s a personal health condition, the birth of a new child, or the need to address a serious health issue of an aging parent, many, if not most workers, find that at certain points in their lives, they will need an extended amount of time off from work. We refer to this as Extended Time Off (EXTO). In addition, there is a growing body of research that outlines the potential benefits of paid time off for workers, their families (and in particular children), as well as some research suggesting a benefit to employers providing paid EXTO. While the U.S. provides 12 weeks of job protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act to some workers, this time off from work goes largely unpaid for most workers

Generation of optimum vertical profiles for an advanced flight management system

Algorithms for generating minimum fuel or minimum cost vertical profiles are derived and examined. The option for fixing the time of flight is included in the concepts developed. These algorithms form the basis for the design of an advanced on-board flight management system. The variations in the optimum vertical profiles (resulting from these concepts) due to variations in wind, takeoff mass, and range-to-destination are presented. Fuel savings due to optimum climb, free cruise altitude, and absorbing delays enroute are examined

Analysis of turbofan propulsion system weight and dimensions

Weight and dimensional relationships that are used in aircraft preliminary design studies are analyzed. These relationships are relatively simple to prove useful to the preliminary designer, but they are sufficiently detailed to provide meaningful design tradeoffs. All weight and dimensional relationships are developed from data bases of existing and conceptual turbofan engines. The total propulsion system is considered including both engine and nacelle, and all estimating relations stem from physical principles, not statistical correlations

A two-fluid model for tissue growth within\ud a dynamic flow environment

We study the growth of a tissue construct in a perfusion bioreactor, focussing on its response to the mechanical environment. The bioreactor system is modelled as a two-dimensional channel containing a tissue construct through which a flow of culture medium is driven. We employ a multiphase formulation of the type presented by G. Lemon, J. King, H. Byrne, O. Jensen and K. Shakesheff in their study (Multiphase modelling of tissue growth using the theory of mixtures. J. Math. Biol. 52(2), 2006, 571–594) restricted to two interacting fluid phases, representing a cell population (and attendant extracellular matrix) and a culture medium, and employ the simplifying limit of large interphase viscous drag after S. Franks in her study (Mathematical Modelling of Tumour Growth and Stability. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Nottingham, UK, 2002) and S. Franks and J. King in their study (Interactions between a uniformly proliferating tumour and its surrounding: Uniform material properties. Math. Med. Biol. 20, 2003, 47–89).\ud \ud The novel aspects of this study are: (i) the investigation of the effect of an imposed flow on the growth of the tissue construct, and (ii) the inclusion of a mechanotransduction mechanism regulating the response of the cells to the local mechanical environment. Specifically, we consider the response of the cells to their local density and the culture medium pressure. As such, this study forms the first step towards a general multiphase formulation that incorporates the effect of mechanotransduction on the growth and morphology of a tissue construct. The model is analysed using analytic and numerical techniques, the results of which illustrate the potential use of the model to predict the dominant regulatory stimuli in a cell population

An analysis of regional solicitors' attitudes to, and the use of, mediation

Since the Woolf Report of 1996, which led to the wholesale reform of the civil justice system in the late 1990s, mediation has had an important role to play in the UK legal framework of dispute resolution. The landscape of civil justice since the attendant legal aid reforms of the late 1990s and continuing into the early part of the millennium, as well as increased court fees have arguably had an adverse impact on access to justice through court-based solutions. This has in turn placed alternative dispute resolution and particularly mediation in the spotlight. Yet for the majority of civil legal disputes, mediation is still arguably under-used and undervalued as a process of dispute resolution. This study develops the research undertaken into the views and attitudes to mediation of legal practitioners practising in Canterbury, Kent and addresses the associated questions regionally. The report begins with a literature review of important research in this field and then goes on to analyse the responses of a number of legal practitioners who were interviewed for this study from the wider Kent region, practising in both the family and commercial law sectors. The participant responses demonstrate legal practitioners’ views on the perceived advantages and disadvantages of mediation and of the use mediation as an alternative dispute resolution process. Although there were some differences, the findings broadly matched those of the study conducted locally in Canterbury. Overall, the findings of this study reveal that legal practitioners view mediation positively, although there were various concerns about the particular circumstances where mediation would be considered inappropriate

A survey of recent estimates of price elasticities of demand for transport

This paper reviews 70 estimates of the price elasticity of demand for many different transport modes and market situations. The paper presents figures separately for passenger and freight transport and include estimates of both own-price and mode choice elasticities. It also presents some elasticity estimates on demand for gasoline, together with selected cross-price elasticities. In addition, it includes a brief exposition on the different concepts of elasticity - compensated, uncompensated, price, cross-price and mode choice - and discusses the relations between them. This paper shows that, since transportation is a derived demand, it tends to be inelastic. Although the review is confined to estimates of price elasticities, it notes that quality variables are often more important than price, particularly in the air, motor freight, and container markets. Finally, most of the estimates relate to developed countries, reflecting the availabilty of data, research resources, and domicile of the researchers. The elasticity estimates are nevertheless thought to be relevant to developing countries as well. But since intermodal competition is generally less intense in developing countries, this tends to make transport demand more inelastic, although the lower income levels in such countries may partly offset this effect.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Consumption

Communications software performance prediction

Software development can be costly and it is important that confidence in a software system be established as early as possible in the design process. Where the software supports communication services, it is essential that the resultant system will operate within certain performance constraints (e.g. response time). This paper gives an overview of work in progress on a collaborative project sponsored by BT which aims to offer performance predictions at an early stage in the software design process. The Permabase architecture enables object-oriented software designs to be combined with descriptions of the network configuration and workload as a basis for the input to a simulation model which can predict aspects of the performance of the system. The prototype implementation of the architecture uses a combination of linked design and simulation tools