Editorial: What\u27s Good for Families?

In the midst of the debates in Washington, D.C. over the budget, health care, welfare, and foreign affairs, a central question remains unanswered ~ what is good for families? Part of the ongoing debate has included family preservation which has been both tauted as the solution for society\u27s ills and, simultaneously, as the cause. The reality, of course, is somewhere in between. Family preservation is a new and exciting approach for helping the most basic unit of our society, families, do their job. The principles which guide family preservation grow out of professional helping values and practice experience. Family preservation is a powerful approach to practice which puts the families we are trying to help at the center of the process, not as symptom bearers or dysfunctional systems, but as full partners. While family preservationists enter a family with their eyes wide open to help solve problems, sometimes very serious ones, most of their energy goes to finding strengths and resources in the family in order to meet its needs. It works! And thousands of families who have been helped, along with researchers and other practitioners, sing its praises

Theoretical Investigation of Submerged Inlets at Low Speeds

The general characteristics of the flow field in a submerged air inlet are investigated by theoretical, wind-tunnel, and visual-flow studies. Equations are developed for calculating the laminar and turbulent boundary-layer growth along the ramp floor for parallel, divergent, and convergent ramp walls, and a general equation is derived relating the boundary-layer pressure losses to the boundary-layer thickness. It is demonstrated that the growth of the boundary layer on the floor of the divergent-ramp inlet is retarded and that a vortex pair is generated in such an inlet. Functional relationships are established between the pressure losses in the vortices and the geometry of the inlet. A general discussion of the boundary layer and vortex formations is included, in which variations of the various losses and of the incremental external drag with mass-flow ratio are considered. Effects of compressibility are also discussed

The behaviour of remolded Batu Pahat soft clay with different OCR values under cyclic loading

The Batu Pahat Soft Clay, (BPSC) of Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, (UTHM) were low in shear strength, bearing capacity, and suffer large settlements when subjected to loading. They undergo varies of dynamic cyclic loadings during their design lifetime and the response was typically more complex, requiring engineers to investigate the dynamic behaviour of soils thoroughly in the laboratory. The objectives of this research were to simulate remolded Batu Pahat Soft Clay (RBPSC) samples with different σv’, to study the dynamic shear modulus, G and damping ratio, D of (RBPSC) under cyclic loading with different f, OCRs, σv’ and σc’ and to analyses the correlation between G and D of the (RBPSC) with the OCR values under cyclic loading. As result, the 100 x 50 mm of remoulded samples are succeed simulated by using large strain consolidation apparatus of 50, 80 and 100 kPa of pre consolidation stress, contain moisture ranging within 42 to 55%. The series of remolded consolidated undrained dynamic cyclic triaxial test were ran under OCR of 1, 2, 3.85 and 4. Hence, it could be concluded that the G decreased when increasing of f and OCRs subjected to increasing axial strain while the G corresponding to each σv’ increases slightly as the σv’ becomes higher. The D shows minor increased when increasing of the f, OCRs and σv’ when subjected to increasing axial strain. Thus, input of parameter G and D can be review as technical values to key design structure on top of soil layer

Teacher Evaluation Process In Evangelical Christian Schools

The difficulty in developing an effective program of teacher evaluation is seen in the literature as stemming from the administrators\u27 and teachers\u27 different perspectives of evaluation. In this tenor the problem investigated four facets of an evaluation process: the need, purpose, procedure, and result of a teacher evaluation program found in evangelical Christian schools. The purpose was fourfold: To compare the responses of the experienced, Christian day-school teacher to those of the administrator of the Christian day-school as to the (1) need, (2) purpose, (3) procedure, and (4) result of an evaluation process found in their schools. The study was conducted in sixty-six Christian schools throughout California. Each institution had an enrollment of 400 students or more and a teaching staff of twelve or more members. An instrument based on Redfern\u27s evaluation plan was used to survey the population. One-way analysis of variance procedures was used to test Hypotheses 1-11. The findings showed differences in agreement with respect to responses among Christian educators in terms of their perceptions of a teacher evaluation process. There were many differences with regard to having a need for an evaluation process and its results. Differences were evidenced with respect to purposes of an evaluation process. There were a few differences with regard to guidelines in evaluation procedures. There were many differences in terms of characteristics of and post-activities following an evaluation conference, appropriateness of the criteria for evaluations, and the attempt of the administration to clearly define criteria used. However, the findings evidenced agreement with regard to having a pre-conference and what areas are discussed within that conference. Further replication studies among schools with enrollment of less than 400 and fewer than twelve teachers, studies using other experts\u27 evaluation plans, broadening of the school of the study to a national survey and studies indicating what priorities of evaluation may exist are recommended

The Integration of the Morphological Aspects of Sand to It's Shear Strength and Dilatancy Characteristics.

The integration of geological and morphological features to the geotechnical characteristics of coarse grain soils can lead via statistical methods to determinie correlations between strength and its physical properties. The shape and sizes of sand particles reflect the formation history of the grains where it results from the disintegration of rocks due to water, weather and glaciers. The particle interactions of sand due to shear deformation and also seismic reactions of different shape and sizes would result in various sedimentological macroscale behaviour. Clean sands are cohesionless (c = 0) but have a finite friction angle (Ø) and its shear strength is entirely dependent on the density, normal stress and interlocking particle structure. The latter is associated with the property of the angle of dilatancy (ψ) in particular with sands. Direct shear box testing is done on samples of well graded sand (SW) and poorly graded uniform sand (SPuKahang) from Kahang Malaysia and also (SPuL.Buzzard) uniform Leighton Buzzard sand from the UK. The shapes of the sand particles were quantified using images obtained from a digital microscope. Øpeak, Øcr and ψ are the highest for (SW) when compared with others. SPuL.Buzzard sands showed a significant decrease in the values with similar relative density (Dr). High normal stresses give very little variations in the angle of dilatancy (ψ) between the samples tested as compared to the lower normal stress that was used. This research contributes to furthering the understanding of the engineering behaviour of sand and also helps in predicting the occurrence of dilation based on sand morphology in dynamic soil structure interaction

High-Throughput Classification of Radiographs Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks.

The study aimed to determine if computer vision techniques rooted in deep learning can use a small set of radiographs to perform clinically relevant image classification with high fidelity. One thousand eight hundred eighty-five chest radiographs on 909 patients obtained between January 2013 and July 2015 at our institution were retrieved and anonymized. The source images were manually annotated as frontal or lateral and randomly divided into training, validation, and test sets. Training and validation sets were augmented to over 150,000 images using standard image manipulations. We then pre-trained a series of deep convolutional networks based on the open-source GoogLeNet with various transformations of the open-source ImageNet (non-radiology) images. These trained networks were then fine-tuned using the original and augmented radiology images. The model with highest validation accuracy was applied to our institutional test set and a publicly available set. Accuracy was assessed by using the Youden Index to set a binary cutoff for frontal or lateral classification. This retrospective study was IRB approved prior to initiation. A network pre-trained on 1.2 million greyscale ImageNet images and fine-tuned on augmented radiographs was chosen. The binary classification method correctly classified 100 % (95 % CI 99.73-100 %) of both our test set and the publicly available images. Classification was rapid, at 38 images per second. A deep convolutional neural network created using non-radiological images, and an augmented set of radiographs is effective in highly accurate classification of chest radiograph view type and is a feasible, rapid method for high-throughput annotation

Power assist EVA glove development

Structural modeling of the EVA glove indicates that flexibility in the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint can be improved by selectively lowering the elasticity of the glove fabric. Two strategies are used to accomplish this. One method uses coil springs on the back of the glove to carry the tension in the glove skin due to pressurization. These springs carry the loads normally borne by the glove fabric, but are more easily deformed. An active system was also designed for the same purpose and uses gas filled bladders attached to the back of the EVA glove that change the dimensions of the back of the glove and allow the glove to bend at the MCP joint, thus providing greater flexibility at this joint. A threshold control scheme was devised to control the action of the joint actuators. Input to the controller was provided by thin resistive pressure sensors placed between the hand and the pressurized glove. The pressure sensors consist of a layer of polyester film that has a thin layer of ink screened on the surface. The resistivity of the ink is pressure dependent, so an extremely thin pressure sensor can be fabricated by covering the ink patch with another layer of polyester film and measuring the changing resistance of the ink with a bridge circuit. In order to sense the force between the hand and the glove at the MCP joint, a sensor was placed on the palmar face of the middle finger. The resultant signal was used by the controller to decide whether to fill or exhaust the bladder actuators on the back of the glove. The information from the sensor can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a given control scheme or glove design since the magnitude of the measured pressures gives some idea of the torque required to bend a glove finger at the MCP joint. Tests of this actuator, sensor, and control system were conducted in an 57.2 kPa glove box by performing a series of 90 degree finger bends with a glove without an MCP joint assembly, a glove with the coil spring assembly, and with the four fingered actuated glove. The tests of these three glove designs confirm the validity of the model