JPL initiative on historically black colleges and universities

Executive order number 12320 of September 15, 1981, established a program designed to significantly increase the participation of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU's) in Federal programs. Because of its geographical remoteness and position as a contractor operated center, JPL had not participated in grant and training programs with the HBCU's. In recognition of JPL's responsibility to the national commitment on behalf of the historically black colleges and universities, an initiative with effective, achievable guidelines and early progress for a better and more productive interaction between JPL and the HBCU's is described. Numerous areas of interaction with the historically black colleges and universities have been identified and are being inplemented. They have two broad objectives: research interactions and faculty/student interactions. Plans and progress to date for each specific area are summarized

Setting up a rapid diagnostic clinic for patients with vague symptoms of cancer: a mixed method process evaluation study

Background The study sought to evaluate the impact of a Rapid Diagnostic Clinic (RDC) service designed to improve general practitioner (GP) referral processes for patients who do not meet existing referral criteria yet present with vague - but potentially concerning - symptoms of cancer. We sought to investigate how well the RDC has performed in the views of local GPs and patients, and through analysis of its activity and performance in the first two years of operation.MethodsThe study setting was a single, hospital-based RDC clinic in a University Health Board in South Wales. We used a mixed-method process evaluation study, including routinely collected activity and diagnosis data. All GPs were invited to participate in an online survey (34/165 responded), and a smaller group (n = 8) were interviewed individually. Two focus groups with patients and their carers (n = 7) provided in-depth personal accounts of their experiences.ResultsThe focus groups revealed high rates of patient satisfaction with the RDC. GPs were also overwhelmingly positive about the value of the RDC to their practice. There were 574 clinic attendances between July 2017 and March 2019; the mean age of attendees was 68, 57% were female, and approximately 30% had three or more vague symptoms. Of those attending, we estimated between 42 to 71 (7.3% and 12.3%) received preliminary cancer diagnoses. Median time from GP referral to RDC appointment was 12 days; from GP referral to cancer diagnosis was 34 days. Overall, 73% of RDC patients received either a new diagnosis (suspected cancer 23.2%, non-cancer 35.9%) or an onward referral to secondary care for further investigation with no new diagnosis (13.9%), and 27% were referred to primary care with no new diagnosis.ConclusionsThe RDC appears to enable a good patient experience in cancer diagnosis. Patients are seen in timely fashion, and the service is highly regarded by them, their carers, and referring GPs. Although too early to draw conclusions about long-term patient outcomes, there are strong indications to suggest that this model of service provision can set higher standards for a strongly patient-centred service. <br/

Brief of Defendant-Appellees Catholic Diocese of Cleveland and Bishop Anthony M. Pilla , Hawley v. City of Cleveland, 24 F3d 814 (6th Cir. 1994)

A City of Cleveland Ordinance leasing space in the airport to the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland for use as a chapel, which is available to religious groups and persons of all faiths does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment

Brief of Defendant-Appellees Catholic Diocese of Cleveland and Bishop Anthony M. Pilla , Hawley v. City of Cleveland, 24 F3d 814 (6th Cir. 1994)

A City of Cleveland Ordinance leasing space in the airport to the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland for use as a chapel, which is available to religious groups and persons of all faiths does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment

A Comparison of Mechanical and Electrical Wind-Powered Water Pumps

Worldwide, 783 million people do not have access to clean water; 319 million of them reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this region, the transportation of water from its source to its point-of-use can be arduous to complete using current methods. The men and women in developing communities must exert considerable effort to retrieve the few gallons of water they need to survive. Due to the lack of infrastructure and no external source of energy, new methods to transport the water must be capable of generating their own energy. The Archimedes Initiative has set out to identify a mechanically powered pump that performs as effectively as an electrical pump based on the following criteria: a 5-10L/min flow rate, 1-mile flow distance, and 150 ft. vertical head distance. The team will conduct research into the efficiency and performance of both hybrid and mechanical systems. At the project’s conclusion, The Archimedes Initiative plans to have a fully functioning wind-powered water pump capable of meeting the design criteria. The project is currently ongoing and much progress has been made towards developing preliminary designs and a viable prototype. After several iterations of design review and redesign, the team plans to begin construction of a prototype in January and testing is scheduled for February 2017. A fully functioning and usable prototype will be complete by the conclusion of the 2016-2017 school year

Development of a universal short patient satisfaction questionnaire on the basis of SERVQUAL : Psychometric analyses with data of diabetes and stroke patients from six different European countries

Objective A short questionnaire which can be applied for assessing patient satisfaction in different contexts and different countries is to be developed. Methods Six items addressing tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and communication were analysed. The first five items stem from SERVQUAL (SERVice QUALity), the last stems from the discussion about SERVQUAL. The analyses were performed with data from 12 surveys conducted in six different countries (England, Finland, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain) covering two different conditions (type 2 diabetes, stroke). Sample sizes for included participants are 247 in England, 160 in Finland, 231 in Germany, 152 in Greece, 316 in the Netherlands and 96 in Spain for the diabetes surveys; and 101 in England, 139 in Finland, 107 in Germany, 58 in Greece, 185 in the Netherlands, and 92 in Spain for the stroke surveys. The items were tested by (1) bivariate correlations between the items and an item addressing 'general satisfaction', (2) multivariate regression analyses with 'general satisfaction' as criterion and the items as predictors, and (3) bivariate correlations between sum scores and 'general satisfaction'. Results The correlations with 'general satisfaction' are 0.48 for tangibles, 0.56 for reliability, 0.58 for responsiveness, 0.47 for assurance, 0.53 for empathy, and 0.56 for communication. In the multivariate regression analysis, the regression coefficient for assurance is significantly negative while all other regression coefficients are significantly positive. In a multivariate regression analysis without the item 'assurance' all regression coefficients are positive. The correlation between the sum score and 'general satisfaction' is 0.608 for all six items and 0.618 for the finally remaining five items. The country specific results are similar. Conclusions The five items which remain after removing 'assurance', i.e. the SERVQUAL-MOD-5, constitute a short patient satisfaction index which can usefully be applied for different medical conditions and in different countries.Peer reviewe

The impact of accessibility and service quality on the frequency of patient visits to the primary diabetes care provider : results from a cross-sectional survey performed in six European countries

BackgroundVisits to the primary diabetes care provider play a central role in diabetes care. Therefore, patients should attend their primary diabetes care providers whenever a visit is necessary. Parameters that might affect whether this condition is fulfilled include accessibility (in terms of travel distance and travel time to the practice), as well as aspects of service quality (for example in-practice waiting time and quality of the provider's communication with the patient). The relationships of these variables with the frequency of visits to the primary diabetes care provider are investigated.MethodsThe investigation is performed with questionnaire data of 1086 type 2 diabetes patients from study regions in England (213), Finland (135), Germany (218), Greece (153), the Netherlands (296) and Spain (71). Data were collected between October 2011 and March 2012. Data were analysed using log-linear Poisson regression models with self-reported numbers of visits in a year to the primary diabetes care provider as the criterion variable. Predictor variables of the core model were: country; gender; age; education; stage of diabetes; heart problems; previous stroke; problems with lower extremities; problems with sight; kidney problems; travel distance and travel time; in-practice waiting time; and quality of communication. To test region-specific characteristics, the interaction between the latter four predictor variables and study region was also investigated.ResultsWhen study regions are merged, travel distance and in-practice waiting time have a negative effect, travel time no effect and quality of communication a positive effect on visit frequency (with the latter effect being by far largest). When region specific effects are considered, there are strong interaction effects shown for travel distance, in-practice waiting time and quality of communication. For travel distance, as well as for in-practice waiting time, there are region-specific effects in opposite directions. For quality of communication, there are only differences in the strength with which visit frequency increases with this variable.ConclusionsThe impact of quality of communication on visit frequency is the largest and is stable across all study regions. Hence, increasing quality of communication seems to be the best approach for increasing visit frequency.Peer reviewe

Aeolian Remobilisation of the 2011-Cordón Caulle Tephra-Fallout Deposit: Example of an Important Process in the Life Cycle of Volcanic Ash

Although volcanic eruptions represent short periods in the whole history of a volcano, the large amount of loose pyroclastic material produced, combined with aeolian processes, can lead to continuous, long-lasting reworking of volcanic products. Driven by wind, these processes significantly influence the geomorphology and prolong the impacts of eruptions on exposed communities and ecosystems. Since such phenomena are of interest to scientists from a range of disciplines (e.g., volcanology, atmospheric and soil sciences), a well-defined, common nomenclature is necessary to optimise the multidisciplinary characterisation of both processes and deposits. We, therefore, first describe ash wind-remobilisation processes and provide definitions for appropriate terms consistent with the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO’s) classification of lithometeors. Second, we apply these definitions to investigate aeolian remobilisation of the 2011 Cordón Caulle (Chile) tephra-fallout deposit, which has strongly impacted rural communities in the Argentinian Patagonia steppe. We combine field observations and a physical characterisation of systematically collected ground and airborne material in order to identify the secondary deposits associated with: (i) non-erodible surface roughness elements (e.g., vegetation and rocks) and (ii) pre-existing mounds or similar erodible bedforms. Grainsize analysis shows that wind-remobilised particles have a specific size range, from <0.4 to 500 mm, with a 95% of the material between 1 and 255 mm, median values of 25–135 mm and modes of 30–95 mm. We find that 15– 40% of the remobilised material ranges from 63–125 mm, coinciding with the size range which minimises the wind threshold friction velocity. Interestingly, particle shape analysis shows that for this size fraction, remobilised particles display the largest differences in shape descriptors (convexity, solidity and circularity) with respect to the primary ash, indicating abrasion and rounding due to saltation. Although particle (size and shape) and deposit features (morphology and structures) alone are insufficient to interpret transport mechanisms, their combination suggests that whilst saltation is the most common particle transport mechanism, suspension and creep also play an important role. As well as inferring transport mechanisms from this combined approach, we also demonstrate how the correlation of the primary volcanic source with the associated remobilised deposits is fundamental to our understanding of the life cycle of volcanic ash.Estación Experimental Agropecuaria BarilocheFil: Dominguez, Lucia. University of Geneva. Department of Earth Sciences; SuizaFil: Bonadonna, Costanza. University of Geneva. Department of Earth Sciences; SuizaFil: Forte, Pablo. Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires. Departamento de Ciencias Geologicas; ArgentinaFil: Jarvis, Paul Antony. University of Geneva. Department of Earth Sciences; SuizaFil: Cioni, Raffaello. University of Florence. School of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences. Department of Earth Sciences; ItalyFil: Mingari, Leonardo. Barcelona Supercomputing Center; SpainFil: Bran, Donaldo Eduardo. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Panebianco, Juan Esteban. Universidad Nacional de La Pampa. Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra y Ambientales de La Pampa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cietíficas y Técnicas; Argentin

2013-2014 Chamber Music Palm Beach No. 1

https://spiral.lynn.edu/conservatory_otherseasonalconcerts/1014/thumbnail.jp

Tachyonization of the \LaCDM cosmological model

In this work a tachyonization of the $\Lambda$CDM model for a spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker space-time is proposed. A tachyon field and a cosmological constant are considered as the sources of the gravitational field. Starting from a stability analysis and from the exact solutions for a standard tachyon field driven by a given potential, the search for a large set of cosmological models which contain the $\Lambda$CDM model is investigated. By the use of internal transformations two new kinds of tachyon fields are derived from the standard tachyon field, namely, a complementary and a phantom tachyon fields. Numerical solutions for the three kinds of tachyon fields are determined and it is shown that the standard and complementary tachyon fields reproduces the $\Lambda$CDM model as a limiting case. The standard tachyon field can also describe a transition from an accelerated to a decelerated regime, behaving as an inflaton field at early times and as a matter field at late times. The complementary tachyon field always behaves as a matter field. The phantom tachyon field is characterized by a rapid expansion where its energy density increases with time.Comment: Version accepted for publication in GR