The Resilient Village:contribution of regional initiatives to a resilient development of rural areas. A case study using the leader project ”Day of the Village” of the local action group Altmühl-Jura e.V.

Abstract. This Master Thesis offers a contribution for the operationalization of resilience of communities at the local level and aims to make the initiatives of regional development especially LEADER projects evaluable for its contribution to resilience of local communities. In rural areas, the effects of crises and change are particularly visible. This manifests itself in a wide variety of ecological, economic and social symptoms that pose challenges to rural village communities. In regional development, the concept of resilience has therefore become a suitable response concept to constant crises and change and can be seen as a general guideline for handling theses. Through an interdisciplinary and systems theoretical approach to resilience, it is conceptualiszed as the self-controlling capacity of social systems. The LEADER program of the EU is considered to have resilience-promoting potential. The researched question is therefore to what extent LEADER projects can contribute to the resilience of village communities. Using a mixed methods approach, resilience-promoting system characteristics are identified, and an own model is developed for the Resilience of Village Communities. The model is tested on nine villages under investigation of the case study. Furthermore, the contribution of a certain LEADER project called “Day of the Village” of the Local Action Group Altmühl-Jura in the middle of Bavaria, Germany, to the resilience of these village communities is measured. The results show that a positive effect of LEADER projects is determined, which can unfold under certain conditions. The evaluations show that the villages of the Altmühl-Jura region show strengths above all in the resilience dimension of value attitudes, mindset and belief of the individual people and strong bondings of social relationships and networks within the communities. These are resilience dimensions of particular importance for the villages and strengthen the self-organization and self-help ability. They also show a strong identification of the people with their home village. These characteristics are also those that could be strengthened by the LEADER project. In particular, the LEADER project has improved the situation of the social meeting places in the villages, but they still show here an insufficient situation. Weaknesses emerge in those resilience characteristics that describe the villages’ relationships with public institutions and administrations and its representatives, which limits their willingness to cooperate with municipalities and regional development organisations. Overall, it can be concluded that LEADER projects have a positive effect on the resilience of local communities. LEADER, through its creation of an enabling environment and its principles like the bottom up approach achieve resilience-promoting effects

A Participant Model: Predictive Medical and Behavioral Factors of Prostate Cancer Screening Attendees at Markey

Problem Statement The Prostate Cancer Screening Program at the Markey Cancer Center co-sponsors prostate cancer screenings with the Prostate Cancer Education Council. All participation, including African-American attendance, has decreased 38% from years 2006 to 2008 and program managers are seeking insight to improve program participation by acquiring knowledge of behavioral and medical characteristics that may influence screening attendance. Because of the higher incidence of prostate cancer in African-American men (ACS, 2008), a specific program goal is also to increase screening attendance for this minority population. Research Strategy Questions that assess participant behavior, personal, and family medical history are analyzed to determine specific relevant variables that may influence participation. A general description of the data and participation rates, for new and returning participants, is presented. Variable analysis will be conducted for certain behavioral factors and grouped variable analyses will be conducted for urinary, sexual and testosterone health symptoms. Relevant variables with predict returning participant behaviors. Major Findings Personal and family health histories play an important role in participation. Men who consider themselves high risk are more likely to smoke, and returning participant models found that men with these variables are more likely to return. Returning African-American behavior is largely unknown although a small portion of men are suffering from testosterone health symptoms. Sexual health symptoms play an important role in the overall attendance of African-American men. Urinary health symptoms do not play an important role in the attendance of program participants. This might be unfortunate, considering that urinary symptoms are more relevant to prostate cancer than sexual health symptoms. There are no statistically significant differences related to race, but this is a policy problem, given that African-American’s are more likely to have prostate cancer. Most participants report receiving information about the program via: newspaper, friends and family, and by radio and television. Program managers can use the findings about behavioral and medical factors that affect participation to develop targeted marketing strategies. Marketing avenues that are effective and have not been explored are places of work and wives or significant others. Recommendations It is recommended that program managers should focus marketing efforts on men with sexual and testosterone health symptoms, those who believe they are at high risk for prostate cancer to encourage retention. A special marketing effort towards African-Americans is essential in realizing program goals. Program managers should strategize marketing efforts via newspaper, radio, television, and the internet. Different motives underlie decisions to seek or return for screening including: high risk, health consciousness, and pressure from a wife, and marketing initiatives could target all of these. Greater success in attracting returning African-Americans would be relevant and is not, at present, occurring

Steady-state activation and modulation of the synaptic-type α1β2γ2L GABAA receptor by combinations of physiological and clinical ligands

The synaptic α1β2γ2 GAB

Serum anti-Müllerian hormone concentrations before and after treatment of an ovarian granulosa cell tumour in a cat

Case summary A 15-year-old female cat was presented for investigation of progressive behavioural changes, polyuria, polydipsia and periuria. An ovarian granulosa cell tumour was identified and the cat underwent therapeutic ovariohysterectomy (OHE). The cat’s clinical signs resolved, but 6 months later it was diagnosed as having an anaplastic astrocytoma and was euthanased. Serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) concentration prior to OHE was increased vs a control group of entire and neutered female cats. Following OHE, serum AMH concentration decreased to <1% of the original value. Relevance and novel information Serum AMH measurement may represent a novel diagnostic and monitoring tool for functional ovarian neoplasms in cats

Online Popularity and Topical Interests through the Lens of Instagram

Online socio-technical systems can be studied as proxy of the real world to investigate human behavior and social interactions at scale. Here we focus on Instagram, a media-sharing online platform whose popularity has been rising up to gathering hundred millions users. Instagram exhibits a mixture of features including social structure, social tagging and media sharing. The network of social interactions among users models various dynamics including follower/followee relations and users' communication by means of posts/comments. Users can upload and tag media such as photos and pictures, and they can "like" and comment each piece of information on the platform. In this work we investigate three major aspects on our Instagram dataset: (i) the structural characteristics of its network of heterogeneous interactions, to unveil the emergence of self organization and topically-induced community structure; (ii) the dynamics of content production and consumption, to understand how global trends and popular users emerge; (iii) the behavior of users labeling media with tags, to determine how they devote their attention and to explore the variety of their topical interests. Our analysis provides clues to understand human behavior dynamics on socio-technical systems, specifically users and content popularity, the mechanisms of users' interactions in online environments and how collective trends emerge from individuals' topical interests.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 201

Viscous coalescence of droplets: a Lattice Boltzmann study

The coalescence of two resting liquid droplets in a saturated vapor phase is investigated by Lattice Boltzmann simulations in two and three dimensions. We find that, in the viscous regime, the bridge radius obeys a t^{1/2}-scaling law in time with the characteristic time scale given by the viscous time. Our results differ significantly from the predictions of existing analytical theories of viscous coalescence as well as from experimental observations. While the underlying reason for these deviations is presently unknown, a simple scaling argument is given that describes our results well.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures; as published in Phys. Fluid

Shoe rim and shoe buckle pseudotumor of the ankle in elite and professional figure skaters and snowboarders: MR imaging findings

Objective: To review MR imaging of figure skaters and snowboarders presenting with painful soft-tissue swelling of the lateral supramalleolar region with a clinical provisional diagnosis of soft-tissue tumor. Design and patients: MR imaging was prospectively reviewed by two sub-specialized musculoskeletal radiologists. The findings were correlated with a second clinical review and examination of the shoe wear. The patients were four female athletes undergoing heavy training regimes, ranging in age between 16 and 25years. Two patients were elite figure skaters, and two were professional snowboarders. Three patients had unilateral masses with pain, and one patient presented with bilateral clinical findings. Results: MR imaging showed subcutaneous, focal soft-tissue masses of the supramalleolar region in five ankles at the same level above the ankle joint. MR imaging prompted a second clinical review and correlation with the shoe wear. The MR imaging findings correlated to the level of the shoe rim or shoe buckle in all patients, confirming the suspected MR imaging diagnosis of an impingement syndrome. All four sportswomen were training excessively, ignoring safety advice regarding training duration, timing of breaks, and shoe wear rotation. Conclusion: Ice skaters and snowboarders may present with persistent and disabling pain. On MR imaging, this corresponds to a focal soft-tissue abnormality, which may be due to subcutaneous fat impingement between the fibula and the shoe rim or shoe buckl

Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors for Millimeter-Wave Astrophysics

Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors (TKIDs) combine the excellent noise performance of traditional bolometers with a radio frequency (RF) multiplexing architecture that enables the large detector counts needed for the next generation of millimeter-wave instruments. Here we present dark prototype TKID pixels that demonstrate a noise equivalent power NEP = 2×10⁻¹⁷√W/Hz with a 1/f knee at 0.1 Hz, suitable for background-limited noise performance at 150 GHz from a ground-based site. We discuss the optimizations in the device design and fabrication techniques to realize optimal electrical performance and high quality factors at a bath temperature of 250 mK