Streetplan: Hacking Streetmix for community-based outreach on the future of streets

Riggs, Boswell and Ross describe their pilot street design project deploying Streetplan, a version of the opensource tool Streetmix. As part of the City of San Luis Obispo downtown revisioning project, their efforts inform the process, currently underway, of revising the Downtown Vision Concept Plan. The project was presented at the 2016 Code for America Summit

Death-associated Protein Kinase-1 Expression and Autophagy in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Are Dependent on Activating Transcription Factor-6 and CCAAT/Enhancer-binding Protein-β

Expression of DAPK1, a critical regulator of autophagy and apoptosis, is lost in a wide variety of tumors, although the mechanisms are unclear. A transcription factor complex consisting of ATF6 (an endoplasmic reticulum-resident factor) and C/EBP-β is required for the IFN-γ-induced expression of DAPK1. IFN-γ-induced proteolytic processing of ATF6 and phosphorylation of C/EBP-β are obligatory for the formation of this transcriptional complex. We report that defects in this pathway fail to control growth of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Consistent with these observations, IFN-γ and chemotherapeutics failed to activate autophagy in CLL patient samples lacking ATF6 and/or C/EBP-β. Together, these results identify a molecular basis for the loss of DAPK1 expression in CLL

Parenting interventions for male young offenders: a review of the evidence on what works

Approximately one in four incarcerated male young offenders in the UK is an actual or expectant father. This paper reviews evidence on the effectiveness of parenting interventions for male young offenders. We conducted systematic searches across 20 databases and consulted experts. Twelve relevant evaluations were identified: 10 from the UK, of programmes for incarcerated young offenders, and two from the US, of programmes for young parolees. None used experimental methods or included a comparison group. They suggest that participants like the courses, find them useful, and the interventions may improve knowledge about, and attitudes to, parenting. Future interventions should incorporate elements of promising parenting interventions with young fathers in the community, for example, and/or with older incarcerated parents. Young offender fathers have specific developmental, rehabilitative, and contextual needs. Future evaluations should collect longer-term behavioural parent and child outcome data and should use comparison groups and, ideally, randomization

Contribution of machining to the fatigue behaviour of metal matrix composites (MMCs) of varying reinforcement size

The high cycle constant stress amplitude fatigue performance of metal matrix composite (MMC) components machined by a milling process was investigated in this study as a function of machining speed, feed rate and reinforcement particle size. The presence of reinforcement and particle size were found to be the most influential factors that affected the fatigue life. In contrast to this, the effect of feed and speed on tool-particle interaction, strain hardening and heat generation during milling of MMCs were balanced in such a way that the contributions of feed and speed on fatigue life were negligible. The interactions of different parameters contributed significantly to the fatigue life which indicated that the modelling of fatigue life based on these three parameters was relatively complex. The fatigue life of the machined MMC samples increased with decreasing particle size and increasing feed. However, the fatigue life was not influenced by speed variation. The presence of smaller or no particles induced a complete separation of failed samples, in contrast to that of specimens containing larger reinforcing particles where crack growth was arrested or deflected by the reinforcing particles

Maximum Likelihood Estimation of the Negative Binomial Dispersion Parameter for Highly Overdispersed Data, with Applications to Infectious Diseases

BACKGROUND: The negative binomial distribution is used commonly throughout biology as a model for overdispersed count data, with attention focused on the negative binomial dispersion parameter, k. A substantial literature exists on the estimation of k, but most attention has focused on datasets that are not highly overdispersed (i.e., those with k≥1), and the accuracy of confidence intervals estimated for k is typically not explored. METHODOLOGY: This article presents a simulation study exploring the bias, precision, and confidence interval coverage of maximum-likelihood estimates of k from highly overdispersed distributions. In addition to exploring small-sample bias on negative binomial estimates, the study addresses estimation from datasets influenced by two types of event under-counting, and from disease transmission data subject to selection bias for successful outbreaks. CONCLUSIONS: Results show that maximum likelihood estimates of k can be biased upward by small sample size or under-reporting of zero-class events, but are not biased downward by any of the factors considered. Confidence intervals estimated from the asymptotic sampling variance tend to exhibit coverage below the nominal level, with overestimates of k comprising the great majority of coverage errors. Estimation from outbreak datasets does not increase the bias of k estimates, but can add significant upward bias to estimates of the mean. Because k varies inversely with the degree of overdispersion, these findings show that overestimation of the degree of overdispersion is very rare for these datasets

Effect of cooling methods on dimensional accuracy and surface finish of a turned titanium part

In metal cutting, the choice of cooling method influences the deformation mechanism, which is related to the dimensional accuracy and surface finish of the parts. The deformation mechanism of titanium alloys under machining conditions is known to be very different from that of commonly used industrial materials. Therefore, the effect of cooling methods on dimensional accuracy and surface finish in machining titanium is of particular interest. This paper investigates experimentally and analytically the influence of cooling method and cutting parameters on two major dimensional accuracy characteristics of a turned titanium part—diameter error and circularity, and surface finish. Data were analyzed via three methods: traditional analysis, Pareto ANOVA, and Taguchi method. The findings indicate that the cooling method has significant effect on circularity error (contribution ratio 76.75 %), moderate effect on diameter error (contribution ratio 25.00 %), and negligible effect on surface finish (contribution ratio 0.16 %)