Youth in Treatment Foster Care Homes: Outcomes at Discharge

This exploratory quantitative study examines existing records of 193 youth discharged from treatment foster care homes between January 1, 1997 to December 31, 1997 and whether a correlation exists between the number of youth with mental health issues in a treatment foster care home, and the achievement of positive, non-institutionalized or negative, institutionalized outcomes at discharge. This research was compiled from treatment foster care homes in the Minnesota based Human Service Associates therapeutic foster care agency. According to Public Law 97\u27272 and social work ethical practice, the child welfare system strives to place children in the least restrictive, nurturing living environment. Permanency planning concepts that attempt to reduce the number of children in non-permanent homes are discussed in an ecological systems framework

Calibrating angular momentum transport in intermediate-mass stars from gravity-mode asteroseismology

The physical mechanisms driving the transport of angular momentum in stars are not fully understood, as current models cannot explain the observed stellar rotation profiles across all stages of evolution. By making use of pulsating F-type dwarfs, this work aims at (i) observationally calibrating the efficiency of angular momentum transport, assuming a constant uniform viscosity, and (ii) testing how well state-of-the-art rotating stellar models with angular momentum (AM) transport by rotationally-induced processes can explain observed rotation profiles. In both cases, the aim is to simultaneously reproduce the measured near-core rotation and core-to-surface rotation ratio. Asteroseismic modelling is applied to a sample of seven slowly rotating pulsators, to derive (core) masses and ages from their gravity-mode oscillations. This work focuses on the main sequence, using models that start with an initial uniform rotation frequency at the start of core-hydrogen burning that is a free parameter. Two treatments of AM transport are considered: (i) a constant uniform viscosity, and (ii) rotationally-induced processes. Next, the initial rotation frequency of each star is derived from the observed present-day near-core rotation frequency for both treatments. To explain the near-core rotation rate at the inferred age, initial rotation frequencies at the zero-age main sequence need to be below 10 percent of the initial critical break-up frequency. A diffusive approximation of angular momentum transport can in general explain the observed rotation profiles of the six slowly-rotating F-type dwarfs, for average values of the viscosity between 2x10^5 and 5x10^7 cm^2/s or when the viscosity is computed from rotationally-induced mechanisms. Yet, for three stars in the sample, the core-to-surface rotation fraction from rotationally-induced mechanisms is predicted to be higher than observed.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, 13 page

Stereo Combining NASA Technologies and Partnerships to Transform Current-Day Emergency Response Operations

STEReO brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASAs UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This presentation gives an overview of the STEReO project and introduces a stakeholder workshop as a three-day activity to solicit input from the community of emergency response operators and related industry representatives

STEReO: Combining NASA Technologies and Partnerships to Transform Current-Day Emergency Response Operations

STEReO brings together several technologies in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM), Autonomy, Communications, Human Factors, and Domain Expertise & Tools, aimed at providing scalability and flexibility, as well as operational resiliency to dynamic changes during a disaster event. Some of the concepts STEReO explores are: collaborative tools to ingest remote sensing information and distribute a common mission operating picture, apply ad-hoc communication networks to facilitate timely information sharing and communication of changes, vehicle-to-vehicle and onboard autonomy technologies ensure the safety and resiliency of operations, and apply NASA?s UAS traffic management system (UTM) as a public safety UAS Service Supplier (USS) to access and coordinate use of the airspace by both manned and unmanned operations. The potential benefits of STEReO include: standardized, cross-platform communication means increased interoperability and ease of cooperation/collaboration, increased situation awareness and common operating picture allow for earlier detection and decision making, and scalable to size and complexity of environment, operations, and mission objectives. This presentation gives an informational overview of the STEReO project to attendees of the annual North American Aerial Fire Fighting conference (AFFNA 2020)

Returns, Volatility and Liquidity on the ASX: Undisclosed vs. Disclosed Limit Orders

This paper investigates the information content of the two types of limit orders on the Australian Stock Exchange ASX: undisclosed orders (ULOs) and limit orders. Given the large order quantity contained in ULOs, we attempt to examine the impact of ULO submissions, cancellations and executions on price changes and volatility over differing intervals within a day. Motivation is generated by the ASX decision to abolish the use of ULOs in favour of iceberg orders. Intraday analysis shows that the impact of both ULO and disclosed order submissions are no longer than one day. ULO buying/selling order submissions at the best bid/ask price increase/decrease returns and price volatility significantly more than disclosed orders. The cancellations of ULOs cause significantly larger price volatility than disclosed limit order cancellations. Compared with disclosed limit order submissions, there is an increase in liquidity from the significantly reduced spread upon DLO submissions.Intraday effects, Return volatility, Undisclosed limit orders

High throughput genomic sequencing of bioaerosols in broiler chicken production facilities

Chronic inhalation exposure to agricultural dust promotes the development of chronic respiratory diseases among poultry workers. Poultry dust is composed of dander, chicken feed, litter bedding and microbes. However, the microbial composition and abundance has not been fully elucidated. Genomic DNA was extracted from settled dust and personal inhalable dust collected while performing litter sampling or mortality collection tasks. DNA libraries were sequenced using a paired-end sequencing-by-synthesis approach on an Illumina HiSeq 2500. Sequencing data showed that poultry dust is predominantly composed of bacteria (64–67%) with a small quantity of avian, human and feed DNA (\u3c 2% of total reads). Staphylococcus sp. AL1, Salinicoccus carnicancri and Lactobacillus crispatus were the most abundant bacterial species in personal exposure samples of inhalable dust. Settled dust had a moderate relative abundance of these species as well as Staphylococcus lentus and Lactobacillus salivarius. There was a statistical difference between the microbial composition of aerosolized and settled dust. Unlike settled dust composition, aerosolized dust composition had little variance between samples. These data provide an extensive analysis of the microbial composition and relative abundance in personal inhalable poultry dust and settled poultry dust

Reporter bacteriophage T7NLC utilizes a novel NanoLuc::CBM fusion for the ultrasensitive detection of Escherichia coli in water.

Rapid detection of bacteria responsible for foodborne diseases is a growing necessity for public health. Reporter bacteriophages (phages) are robust biorecognition elements uniquely suited for the rapid and sensitive detection of bacterial species. The advantages of phages include their host specificity, ability to distinguish viable and non-viable cells, low cost, and ease of genetic engineering. Upon infection with reporter phages, target bacteria express reporter enzymes encoded within the phage genome. In this study, the T7 coliphage was genetically engineered to express the newly developed luceriferase, NanoLuc (NLuc), as an indicator of bacterial contamination. While several genetic approaches were employed to optimize reporter enzyme expression, the novel achievement of this work was the successful fusion of the NanoLuc reporter to a carbohydrate binding module (CBM) with specificity to crystalline cellulose. This novel chimeric reporter (nluc::cbm) bestows the specific and irreversible immobilization of NanoLuc onto a low-cost, widely available crystalline cellulosic substrate. We have shown the possibility of detecting the immobilized fusion protein in a filter plate which resulted from a single CFU of E. coli. We then demonstrated that microcrystalline cellulose can be used to concentrate the fusion reporter from 100 mL water samples allowing a limit of detection of \u3c10 CFU mL-1 E. coli in 3 hours. Therefore, we conclude that our phage-based detection assay displays significant aptitude as a proof-of-concept drinking water diagnostic assay for the low-cost, rapid and sensitive detection of E. coli. Additional improvements in the capture efficiency of the phage-based fusion reporter should allow a limit of detection of \u3c10 CFU per 100 mL

A Schumpeterian approach to examine the development boundary of casino tourism

In The Theory of Economic Development, Joseph Schumpeter ([1934] 1983, Chapter II) explicates how the dynamic role of innovative mindset and ability of entrepreneurs, through introducing new methods of production and new economic commodities, leads up to the expansion of the boundary for economic/industrial development. By following Schumpeter’s approach, we explore the development boundary of casino tourism. Through a post facto analysis of the hard evidences derived across the world (e.g., Las Vegas, Macao and Singapore) since the 1980s, the dimensions of innovation to the development boundary of casino tourism are scrutinized and explicated. Besides, we uncovered that the expanding capacity and changing institutions of casino tourism generates positive feedbacks which further stimulates the progressive changes in the innovative process. Nevertheless, different from the industrial world being examined by Schumpeter, casino tourism supplies leisure and related hospitality services by incorporating a unique component of casino gaming. In practice, innovations in casino gaming may promote gambling behavior by various communities which is not necessarily a socially desired consequence. This actually generates a new form of negative externality that may as well set a limit to the industry’s development boundary at both the regional and global levels

Stability of NLO Global Analysis and Implications for Hadron Collider Physics

The phenomenology of Standard Model and New Physics at hadron colliders depends critically on results from global QCD analysis for parton distribution functions (PDFs). The accuracy of the standard next-to-leading-order (NLO) global analysis, nominally a few percent, is generally well matched to the expected experimental precision. However, serious questions have been raised recently about the stability of the NLO analysis with respect to certain inputs, including the choice of kinematic cuts on the data sets and the parametrization of the gluon distribution. In this paper, we investigate this stability issue systematically within the CTEQ framework. We find that both the PDFs and their physical predictions are stable, well within the few percent level. Further, we have applied the Lagrange Multiplier method to explore the stability of the predicted cross sections for W production at the Tevatron and the LHC, since W production is often proposed as a standard candle for these colliders. We find the NLO predictions on sigma_W to be stable well within their previously-estimated uncertainty ranges.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures. Minor changes in response to JHEP referee repor