Program Evaluation of Integrated Community Services

This is a quantitative study of the program Integrated Community Services for adults with severe and persistent mental illness. This program evaluation compares a random sample of quality of life surveys of adults (N=14) who have been involved in the assertive community treatment program. The survey results include vocational, housing, financial, and mental health needs of adults with severe and persistent mental illness. A case management staff survey (N=5) reports on perceptions of the quality of life of individuals with severe and persistent mental illness and how the Integrated Community Service team works together. This study is important because it evaluates the effectiveness of the Integrated Community Services staff working together as a team and with the population they serve. Findings and implications for social work practice and policy are discussed

Positive mass theorem for the Paneitz-Branson operator

We prove that under suitable assumptions, the constant term in the Green function of the Paneitz-Branson operator on a compact Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ is positive unless $(M,g)$ is conformally diffeomophic to the standard sphere. The proof is inspired by the positive mass theorem on spin manifolds by Ammann-Humbert.Comment: 7 page

Electrophoretic behavior of streptavidin complexed to a biotinylated probe : A functional screening assay for biotin-binding proteins

The biotin-binding protein streptavidin exhibits a high stability against thermal denaturation, especially when complexed to biotin. Herein we show that, in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), streptavidin is stabilized at high temperature in the presence of biotinylated fluorescent probes, such as biotin-4-fluorescein, which is incorporated within the binding pocket. In nondenaturing SDS-PAGE, streptavidin is detectable when complexed with biotin-4-fluorescein using a UV-transilluminator. Using biotin-4-fluorescein, the detection limit of streptavidin lies in the same range as with Coomassie blue staining. The functionality of streptavidin mutants can readily be assessed from crude bacterial extracts using biotin-4-fluorescein as a probe in nondenaturing SDS-PAGE

A survey of business education in the public high schools of New England

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University

Spatiotemporal Changes in the Structure and Composition of a Less-Abundant Bacterial Phylum (Planctomycetes) in Two Perialpine Lakes

International audienceWe used fingerprinting and cloning-sequencing to study the spatiotemporal dynamics and diversity of Planctomycetes in two perialpine lakes with contrasting environmental conditions. Planctomycetes, which are less-abundant bacteria in freshwater ecosystems, appeared to be structured in the same way as the entire bacterial community in these ecosystems. They were more diversified and displayed fewer temporal variations in the hypolimnia than in the epilimnia. Like the more-abundant bacterial groups in aquatic systems, Planctomycetes communities seem to be composed of a very small number of abundant and widespread operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and a large number of OTUs that are present at low abundance. This indicates that the concept of "abundant or core" and "rare" bacterial phylotypes could also be applied to less-abundant freshwater bacterial phyla. The richness and diversity of Planctomycetes were mainly driven by pH and were similar in both of the lakes studied, whereas the composition of the Planctomycetes community seemed to be determined by a combination of factors including temperature, pH, and nutrients. The relative abundances of the dominant OTUs varied over time and were differently associated with abiotic factors. Our findings demonstrate that less-abundant bacterial phyla, such as Planctomycetes, can display strong spatial and seasonal variations linked to environmental conditions and suggest that their functional role in the lakes studied might be attributable mainly to a small number of phylotypes and vary over space and time in the water column

Apollo experience report: Assessment of metabolic expenditures

A significant effort was made to assess the metabolic expenditure for extravehicular activity on the lunar surface. After evaluation of the real-time data available to the flight controller during extravehicular activity, three independent methods of metabolic assessment were chosen based on the relationship between heart rate and metabolic production, between oxygen consumption and metabolic production, and between the thermodynamics of the liquid-cooled garment and metabolic production. The metabolic assessment procedure is analyzed and discussed. Real-time use of this information by the Apollo flight surgeon is discussed. Results and analyses of the Apollo missions and comments concerning future applications are included

Maneuvers automation for agricultural vehicle in headland

International audienceThis paper addresses the problem of path generation and motion control for the autonomous maneuvers of agricultural vehicle in headland. A reverse turn planner is firstly presented, based on primitives connected together to easily generate the reference motion. Next, the steering and speed control algorithms are considered. To perform accurate path following, the sliding conditions are taken into account with a kinematic model extended with sliding parameters. In addition, predictive actions are developed to anticipate for vehicle steering and speed variations. The capabilities of the proposed algorithms are finally investigated through full-scale experiments. Fish-tail maneuvers are autonomously performed with an experimental mobile robot, and promising results are reported during reverse turn maneuvers with a vehicle-trailer system

Toward a validation process for model based safety analysis

International audienceToday, Model Based Safety Analysis processes become more and more widespread to achieve the safety analysis of a system. However and at our knowledge, there is no formal testing approach to ensure that the formal model is compliant with the real system. In the paper, we choose to study AltaRica model. We present a general process to well construct and validate an AltaRica formal model. The focus is made on this validation phase, i.e. verifying the compliance between the model and the real system. For it, the proposed process recommends to build a specification for the AltaRica model. Then, the validation process is transformed to a classical verification problem between an implementation and a specification. We present the first phase of a method to verify the compliance between the model and the specification

A Population-Level Analysis of Neural Dynamics in Robust Legged Robots

Recurrent neural network-based reinforcement learning systems are capable of complex motor control tasks such as locomotion and manipulation, however, much of their underlying mechanisms still remain difficult to interpret. Our aim is to leverage computational neuroscience methodologies to understanding the population-level activity of robust robot locomotion controllers. Our investigation begins by analyzing topological structure, discovering that fragile controllers have a higher number of fixed points with unstable directions, resulting in poorer balance when instructed to stand in place. Next, we analyze the forced response of the system by applying targeted neural perturbations along directions of dominant population-level activity. We find evidence that recurrent state dynamics are structured and low-dimensional during walking, which aligns with primate studies. Additionally, when recurrent states are perturbed to zero, fragile agents continue to walk, which is indicative of a stronger reliance on sensory input and weaker recurrence

Madagascar's grasses and grasslands:anthropogenic or natural?

Grasses, by their high productivity even under very low pCO2, their ability to survive repeated burning and to tolerate long dry seasons, have transformed the terrestrial biomes in the Neogene and Quaternary. The expansion of grasslands at the cost of biodiverse forest biomes in Madagascar is often postulated as a consequence of the Holocene settlement of the island by humans. However, we show that the Malagasy grass flora has many indications of being ancient with a long local evolutionary history, much predating the Holocene arrival of humans. First, the level of endemism in the Madagascar grass flora is well above the global average for large islands. Second, a survey of many of the more diverse areas indicates that there is a very high spatial and ecological turnover in the grass flora, indicating a high degree of niche specialization. We also find some evidence that there are both recently disturbed and natural stable grasslands: phylogenetic community assembly indicates that recently severely disturbed grasslands are phylogenetically clustered, whereas more undisturbed grasslands tend to be phylogenetically more evenly distributed. From this evidence, it is likely that grass communities existed in Madagascar long before human arrival and so were determined by climate, natural grazing and other natural factors. Humans introduced zebu cattle farming and increased fire frequency, and may have triggered an expansion of the grasslands. Grasses probably played the same role in the modification of the Malagasy environments as elsewhere in the tropics