Beyond the Tunnel Problem, Addressing Cross-Cutting Issues that Impact Vulnerable Youth

Across the country, mayors, commissioners, superintendents, governors, and state policymakers are innovating to address the needs of vulnerable youth. These efforts take many forms: restructuring high schools to improve graduation rates, creating developmentally appropriate interventions to reduce juvenile delinquency, and revamping child welfare practices to keep more youth safely in their homes are just a few of these strategies. Many initiatives, however, are plagued by "crosscutting problems" -- issues that cut across the different agencies that serve youth. Unless crosscutting issues are addressed proactively, they may undermine systemic reforms. This short paper is the first in a series of briefing papers designed to inform officials, practitioners, funders, advocates, scholars and the general public about crosscutting problems and possible solutions to these problems. This paper focuses primarily on the authors' experiences in New York City, though many of the crosscutting problems discussed are known to occur in many jurisdictions large and small. The series starts by presenting a typology of crosscutting issues. The next paper in this series will elaborate on a specific area -- namely, juvenile justice and education. Additional briefing papers will focus on local initiatives that tackle specific problems and more systemic attempts to solve crosscutting issues

First Nesting Record and Status Review of the Glossy Ibis in Nebraska

Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) is believed to be a recent colonist from the Old World whose numbers have increased and range has expanded in North America over the past two centuries (Patten and Lasley 2000). Glossy Ibis range expansion has been described as involving periods of relative stability followed by periods of rapid increase (Patten and Lasley 2000). Prior to the 1980s, Glossy Ibis were primarily found in the southeastern United States and along the Atlantic Coast (Patten and Lasley 2000). In the mid to late 1980s, Glossy Ibis began to rapidly increase and expand into Texas. By the early 1990s they were increasingly reported in the Great Plains (Thompson et a1. 20 11), particularly along the front range of Colorado and New Mexico (Patten and Lasley 2000). In Nebraska, the first documented occurrence of Glossy Ibis was a single adult with 28 White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi) at Wilkins Waterfowl Production Area (WPA), Fillmore County, 24 April 1999 (Jorgensen 2001). Since the initial record, the number of reports of Glossy Ibis has increased. Glossy Ibis status was elevated from accidental to casual by the Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (NOURC) in 2005 (Brogie 2005). Only a few years later in 2014, its status was elevated again from casual to regular and NOURC no longer sought documentation for sightings (Brogie 2014). In 2015, Jorgensen observed this species nesting in the Rainwater Basin. Given the recent observation of nesting, the rapid increase in annual observations, along with field identification challenges as a result of similarity to and hybridization with the White-faced Ibis, the status of the Glossy Ibis in Nebraska is in need of clarification. Here, we provide observational details about the first confirmed nesting by the species in Nebraska, review all reports of Glossy Ibis and apparent Glossy × White-faced Ibis hybrids, and comment on this species’ overall status in the state

Dark matter, the CMSSM and lattice QCD

Recent lattice measurements have given accurate estimates of the light and strange quark condensates in the proton. We use these new results to significantly improve the dark matter predictions in a set of benchmark models that represent different scenarios in the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (CMSSM). Because the predicted cross sections are at least an order of magnitude smaller than previously suggested, our results have significant consequences for dark matter searches.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Gestures of creative recovery for the egocentric actor through performance in Wertenbaker\u27s our country\u27s good.

This document serves as a travelogue for the creation of two roles for the U of L Fall 2017 Production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good. At odds throughout the process were intellect and vulnerability. In an attempt to find openness with my primary scene partner, I tried a variety of techniques including, but not limited to: Konstantin Stanislavski’s “Bits and Tasks”; Michael Chekhov’s “Psychological Gesture”; Carl Jung’s theories on Archetype; F.M. Alexander’s notions of “Inhibition” and “Nondoing” as expounded upon by Betsy Polatin; and Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages.” My original goal of achieving vulnerability on stage became consumed by the very methodologies I had hoped to employ in service of this ambition. By planning the results rather than the actions, I assumed the judgmental position of a director in an effort to manage and control my performance. Devastated by some of the feedback from the faculty, I set out on a journey of creative recovery. Through recapitulations of works such as: Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way; Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now; and the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, I analogize the journey of recovery from alcoholism to my desired approach as a creative practitioner in the theatre. I theorize that the desire for control that dominates alcoholic thinking also plagues egocentric actors. To find freedom, open-mindedness, and willingness as an actor, I resolve to surrender control of the process to the director, a higher power of my own understanding, and shed the need to pre-plan each performance

Neutralino-hadron scattering in the NMSSM

We provide a scan of the parameter space for neutralino-hadron scattering in the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model using an updated value for the strange quark sigma commutator. These results also take into account constraints from WMAP data on the relic density and new constraints from the Large Hadron Collider. We find that the resultant spin-independent cross sections are smaller in magnitude than those found in recent results obtained within the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model, yet still great enough to feasibly allow for detection in the case of bino-like neutralinos.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure

A Simulation Study on Increasing Capture Periods in Bayesian Closed Population Capture-Recapture Models with Heterogeneity

Capture-Recapture models are useful in estimating unknown population sizes. A common modeling challenge for closed population models involves modeling unequal animal catchability in each capture period, referred to as animal heterogeneity. Inference about population size N is dependent on the assumed distribution of animal capture probabilities in the population, and that different models can fit a data set equally well but provide contradictory inferences about N. Three common Bayesian Capture-Recapture heterogeneity models are studied with simulated data to study the prevalence of contradictory inferences is in different population sizes with relatively low capture probabilities, specifically at different numbers of capture periods in the study