Poverty and Casino Gambling in Buffalo

The Buffalo Creek Casino will exacerbate Buffalo’s poverty. Casinos, especially urban casinos, attract many gamblers living at or near the poverty line, and problem or pathological gamblers often fall from the middle class into poverty. Proximity to casinos is a major factor in problem gambling. The Buffalo Creek Casino is located in a high-poverty zone. Population’s already facing high poverty rates and inequalities, such as African Americans, have higher rates of problem gambling. By competing with existing businesses, the Buffalo Creek Casino may destroy more jobs in Buffalo than it creates, and many of the jobs it creates will pay low wages. The social costs from gambling addiction, poverty, bankruptcy, mental illness, and crime will outweigh any gains through exclusivity payments to the City. Some of Buffalo’s increased poverty may be offset by reductions in poverty among the Seneca Nation

Review: Gene-Modified Dendritic Cells for Use in Tumor Vaccines

Dendritic cells (DCs) are potent antigen-presenting cells capable of priming activation of naive T cells. Because of their immunostimulatory capacity, immunization with DCs presenting tumor antigens has been proposed as a treatment regimen for cancer. The results from translational research studies and early clinical trials point to the need for improvement of DC-based tumor vaccines before they become a more broadly applicable treatment modality. In this regard, studies suggest that genetic modification of DCs to express tumor antigens and/or immunomodulatory proteins may improve their capacity to promote an antitumor response. Because the DC phenotype is relatively unstable, nonperturbing methods of gene transfer must be employed that do not compromise viability or immunostimulatory capacity. DCs expressing transgenes encoding tumor antigens have been shown to be more potent primers of antitumor immunity both in vitro and in animal models of disease; in some measures of immune priming, gene-modified DCs exceeded their soluble antigen-pulsed counterparts. Cytokine gene modification of DCs has improved their capacity to prime tumor antigenspecific T cell responses and promote antitumor immunity in vivo. Here, we review the current status of genemodified DCs in both human and murine studies. Although successful results have been obtained to date in experimental systems, we discuss potential problems that have already arisen and may yet be encountered before gene-modified DCs are more widely applicable for use in human clinical trials.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63168/1/10430340050015419.pd

Effecting Systemic Change: Critical Strategic Approaches for Social Inclusion

This thematic issue focuses on critical, insightful, and innovative strategic approaches to social inclusion through a change in social systems. Contributions propose effective and responsive approaches, principles, practices, and/or models for impactful systemic change towards meaningful and practical social inclusion in our institutions, communities, and societies, adopting a systemic view - a wide‐angle lens - to explore opportunities for transformation

Creating Local and Global Change: The Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights Project

Community-university research partnerships can enhance both the local and global capacities. All partners who participate have an active role in creating and applying new knowledge that is meaningful and creates real change.York’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit provides services and funding for faculty, graduate students, and community organizations seeking to maximize the impact of academic research and expertise on public policy, social programming, and professional practice. It is supported by SSHRC and CIHR grants, and by the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation. [email protected] www.researchimpact.c

Wavefront Sensor

Wavefront reconstruction techniques have enabled important scientific improvements to corrective imaging in astronomy, optometry, and elsewhere. Here, we describe the design of a wavefront reconstruction-based adaptive optics system designed at Santa Clara University (SCU) in the Department of Physics. Our compact system is based on a modified Shack-Hartmann sensor design and can detect wavefront disturbances on the order of tens of nanometers. The full SCU system includes a 635 nm laser, a collimating lens pair, two mirrors, a microlens array, and a commercial CCD camera. The CCD data is analyzed using a least-squares reconstruction algorithm. Here, we present preliminary wavefront reconstruction results obtained with our setup for wavefront perturbations caused by either lens tilt effects or heat-induced air density fluctuations

Pautas para la proyectación de áreas y juegos infantiles

The children's games area is one of the most important parts of a park, a seemingly solvable problem, but its lack of successis just to think in that way.The game is crucial for children of all ages which contributes to the psychomotor training and establish an appropriaterelationship with the society. Thus, before giving a contribution on how to cope with the design´s part is important tounderstand the educational contribution, and above all the different types of game. Furthermore, I have given an approachon the risk and safety factor as they are important variables in the game´s planning as well as in its maintenance.La zona de juegos para niños es una de las piezas más importantes de un parque, es un problema aparentemente de fácilsolución, pero la falta de éxito de éste está justamente en pensar de esa manera.El juego es fundamental para los niños de todas las edades, contribuye a la formación psicomotora y a establecer unaadecuada relación con la sociedad. Es así que antes de dar un aporte sobre cómo afrontar la parte del diseño es importantetener claro el aporte pedagógico que éste da, y sobre todo las diferentes tipologías de juego. He dado un enfoque también sobreel factor riesgo y la seguridad ya que son variables importantes en la proyectación de un juego como en su mantenimiento

Jardines terapéuticos

Gardens have always been considered only as purely recreational places, like parks or simple garden rooms. The healing power that ornamental plants may have is rarely considered. What effects do they have when located in a medical facility? Those effects have been studied since the 80s and the positive results obtained are scientifically proven. Their use is becoming more indispensable each day in order to lower costs and the hospitalization time of patients, and also to improve their life quality when long-term care is required. The fundamental elements that a landscape designer must know and should take into account to make a good project are the subject matter of this paper.Siempre se piensa en el jardín como un lugar puramente lúdico, como puede ser un parque o el simple jardín de una habitación. Muy pocas veces se piensa en el poder de sanación que pueden  tener las plantas ornamentales, que efecto tienen dentro de una estructura sanitaria? Desde los años 80 se vienen estudiando los efectos que producen en los enfermos y se ha demostrado científicamente los resultados positivos que se obtienen. Su uso se hace cada día más  indispensable para bajar los costes y días de permanencia de los pacientes en los hospitales, y mejorar la calidad de vida de los enfermos en estructuras donde necesitan de cuidados a largo plazo.  Los elementos fundamentales con los que un paisajista puede contar y debería tener en consideración para realizar un buen proyecto son el tema de este artículo

Dopo il Rapporto Unesco Delors: professionalità e competenze del docente nella scuola europea

In this work, 21 years after the publication of the Delors Report, the A. analyzesone of the pillars of education: learning to know, bearing in mind thatthe teacher must have disciplinary skills, education sciences, technical-professional, socio-relational, general teaching and disciplinary teaching, togenerate in future generations the acquisition, updating and use of knowledge.From the study emerge several issues present both in the Italian and international landscape about the existence of a gap between pedagogy and didactics which, although two disciplines are scientifically founded with theirown theoretical and methodological implications, are often very littleknown by curriculum professors.Hence, the urgency of elaborating an epistemological reflection on thetraining of the subject, questioning the models and processes of teachingand training, of in-service training that appear ,today, quite different fromthe past, both in Italy and in Europe.In questo lavoro, a distanza di 21 anni dalla pubblicazione del Rapporto Delors,l’A. analizza uno dei pilastri dell’educazione: imparare a conoscere,tenendo presente che il docente deve possedere competenze disciplinari,di scienze dell’educazione, tecnico-professionali, socio-relazionali, di didatticagenerale e di didattica disciplinare, tali da generare nelle future generazionil’acquisizione, l’attualizzazione e l’uso dei saperi. Dalla disaminaemergono diverse questioni presenti, sia nel panorama italiano che internazionalecirca l’esistenza di un gap tra pedagogia e didattica che pur essendodue discipline scientificamente fondate con proprie implicazioniteoriche e metodologiche, molto spesso sono poco conosciute dai docenticurricolari. Da qui, l’urgenza di elaborare una riflessione epistemologicasulla formazione dell’insegnate, rimettendo in discussione i modelli e i processidi teaching e di training, di formazione in-servizio che appaiono oggipiuttosto diversi rispetto al passato, sia in Italia che in Europa

Estudo energético e ambiental de parque eólico offshore como suplemento à turbina a gás para fornecimento de energia a plataformas de petróleo

A crescente preocupação com o meio ambiente fez com que as indústrias petrolíferas começassem a estudar formas de reduzir os impactos ambientais da atividade de exploração de petróleo. Com a pressão mundial para diminuição da emissão de gases poluentes, o presente estudo propõe analisar a implementação de um parque eólico offshore como complemento a turbinas a gás para eletrificação de uma plataforma marítima de exploração de petróleo. A plataforma escolhida foi a plataforma de PESCADA 1B, localizada no Rio Grande do Norte, com lâmina d’água de 20 metros e distância de aproximadamente 31 km da costa. Foi utilizada a base de dados de reanálise a longo prazo ERA-5 para a verificação do potencial eólico na região, realizando uma simulação de produção de energia com dois aerogeradores GE Haliade-X de 12 MW. Desta forma, analisando o comportamento do vento durante um ano típico, foi possível calcular a quantidade de CO2, SOX e NOX que poderia ser economizado caso a plataforma operasse com os aerogeradores juntamente com duas turbinas a gás e uma terceira como backup. Assim, é visto que a introdução do parque eólico é em geral significativamente positiva em termos de diminuição de emissões de GEE na atmosfera.The growing concern with the environment has encouraged the oil industries to start looking at ways to reduce the negative impacts of oil exploration activity. With the global pressure to reduce the emission of polluting gases, the present study investigated the implementation of an offshore wind farm as a complement to gas turbines to provide power to a marine oil exploration platform. The chosen oil rig is called PESCADA 1B, located in Rio Grande do Norte, with a water depth of 20 meters and about 31 km away from the coast. The ERA-5 long-term reanalysis database was used to verify wind potential in the region, performing an energy production simulation with two GE Haliade-X wind turbines of 12 MW. Thus, analyzing the wind behavior during a typical year, it was possible to calculate the amount of CO2, SOX e NOX that could be reduced if the oil rig operated with the wind turbines together with two gas turbines and a third as backup. So, it is seen that the addition of the wind farm is generally significantly positive in terms of reducing GHG emissions in the atmosphere