Can models of organizational change help to understand ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in community sentences? Applying Kotter’s model of organizational change to an Integrated Offender Management case study

A number of nationally driven initiatives have led to significant changes in the framework of community sentences, with various agencies being required to work in ‘joined-up’ multi-agency arrangements. Most notable, perhaps, has been the increased working relationship between police and probation, most recently within Integrated Offender Management (IOM). Although these have produced some positive outcomes in relation to crime reduction, success is sporadic and often quite modest. Research has identified a number of barriers to successful implementation, and this article builds on this by drawing upon fresh empirical evidence to argue that the success of such schemes relies on the management of organizational change that will inevitably and necessarily occur. Applying Kotter’s model of organizational change to data generated from an evaluation of two IOM schemes in England, the article offers an explanatory account of the implementation of the schemes and the possible effect this had on efforts to reduce crime

Pieri resolutions for classical groups

We generalize the constructions of Eisenbud, Fl{\o}ystad, and Weyman for equivariant minimal free resolutions over the general linear group, and we construct equivariant resolutions over the orthogonal and symplectic groups. We also conjecture and provide some partial results for the existence of an equivariant analogue of Boij-S\"oderberg decompositions for Betti tables, which were proven to exist in the non-equivariant setting by Eisenbud and Schreyer. Many examples are given.Comment: 40 pages, no figures; v2: corrections to sections 2.2, 3.1, 3.3, and some typos; v3: important corrections to sections 2.2, 2.3 and Prop. 4.9 added, plus other minor corrections; v4: added assumptions to Theorem 3.6 and updated its proof; v5: Older versions misrepresented Peter Olver's results. See "New in this version" at the end of the introduction for more detail

The Measurement of Eye Movements in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: A Structured Review of an Emerging Area

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), or concussion, occurs following a direct or indirect force to the head that causes a change in brain function. Many neurological signs and symptoms of mTBI can be subtle and transient, and some can persist beyond the usual recovery timeframe, such as balance, cognitive or sensory disturbance that may pre-dispose to further injury in the future. There is currently no accepted definition or diagnostic criteria for mTBI and therefore no single assessment has been developed or accepted as being able to identify those with an mTBI. Eye-movement assessment may be useful, as specific eye-movements and their metrics can be attributed to specific brain regions or functions, and eye-movement involves a multitude of brain regions. Recently, research has focused on quantitative eye-movement assessments using eye-tracking technology for diagnosis and monitoring symptoms of an mTBI. However, the approaches taken to objectively measure eye-movements varies with respect to instrumentation, protocols and recognition of factors that may influence results, such as cognitive function or basic visual function. This review aimed to examine previous work that has measured eye-movements within those with mTBI to inform the development of robust or standardized testing protocols. Medline/PubMed, CINAHL, PsychInfo and Scopus databases were searched. Twenty-two articles met inclusion/exclusion criteria and were reviewed, which examined saccades, smooth pursuits, fixations and nystagmus in mTBI compared to controls. Current methodologies for data collection, analysis and interpretation from eye-tracking technology in individuals following an mTBI are discussed. In brief, a wide range of eye-movement instruments and outcome measures were reported, but validity and reliability of devices and metrics were insufficiently reported across studies. Interpretation of outcomes was complicated by poor study reporting of demographics, mTBI-related features (e.g., time since injury), and few studies considered the influence that cognitive or visual functions may have on eye-movements. The reviewed evidence suggests that eye-movements are impaired in mTBI, but future research is required to accurately and robustly establish findings. Standardization and reporting of eye-movement instruments, data collection procedures, processing algorithms and analysis methods are required. Recommendations also include comprehensive reporting of demographics, mTBI-related features, and confounding variables

Using Needs Assessment as a Tool to Strengthen Funding Proposals

In an increasingly competitive funding environment, Extension Services nationwide seek to diversify their funding bases to conduct successful programming and communicate impact to stakeholders. In this article we suggest the use of the Proposal Enhancement Tool, a needs assessment based approach of determining the gap between the current situation and the desired situation, as it applies to a defined audience. This approach requires principal investigators to engage communities in defining the existing problems, determining causes of those problems, and collectively developing solutions to address them. When followed, this approach increases the potential for more successful grant proposals

THE EFFECT OF ALTERING STRENGTH AND APPROACH VELOCITY ON TRIPLE JUMP PERFORMANCE

The triple jump is an athletic event comprising three phases in which the optimal proportion of each phase to the total distance jumped, termed the phase ratio, is unknown. This study used a whole body toque-driven computer simulation model of all three phases of the triple jump to investigate the effect of strength and approach velocity on optimal technique. The strength and approach velocity of the simulation model was increased by up to 30% in 10% increments from baseline data collected from a national standard triple jumper. Increasing strength always resulted in an improved performance, increasing velocity also typically resulted in an improved performance but there was a point past which increasing velocity without increasing strength did not lead to an increase in performance. Increasing both strength and velocity by lo%, 20%, and 30% led to roughly equivalent increases in triple jump distance. The phase ratio employed by the simulation model typically became more balanced when the strength of the model was increased by more than its velocity

Sds22 regulates aurora B activity and microtubule-kinetochore interactions at mitosis

Sds22 defines protein phosphatase 1 location and function at kinetochores and subsequent activity of aurora B in mitosis

A 3D-printed microfluidic-enabled hollow microneedle architecture for transdermal drug delivery.

Embedding microfluidic architectures with microneedles enables fluid management capabilities that present new degrees of freedom for transdermal drug delivery. To this end, fabrication schemes that can simultaneously create and integrate complex millimeter/centimeter-long microfluidic structures and micrometer-scale microneedle features are necessary. Accordingly, three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques are suitable candidates because they allow the rapid realization of customizable yet intricate microfluidic and microneedle features. However, previously reported 3D-printing approaches utilized costly instrumentation that lacked the desired versatility to print both features in a single step and the throughput to render components within distinct length-scales. Here, for the first time in literature, we devise a fabrication scheme to create hollow microneedles interfaced with microfluidic structures in a single step. Our method utilizes stereolithography 3D-printing and pushes its boundaries (achieving print resolutions below the full width half maximum laser spot size resolution) to create complex architectures with lower cost and higher print speed and throughput than previously reported methods. To demonstrate a potential application, a microfluidic-enabled microneedle architecture was printed to render hydrodynamic mixing and transdermal drug delivery within a single device. The presented architectures can be adopted in future biomedical devices to facilitate new modes of operations for transdermal drug delivery applications such as combinational therapy for preclinical testing of biologic treatments

Models incorporating pin joints are suitable for simulating performance but unsuitable for simulating internal loading

Simulation models of human movement comprising pin-linked segments have a potential weakness for reproducing accurate ground reaction forces during high impact activities. While the human body contains many compliant structures such a model only has compliance in wobbling masses and in the foot–ground interface. In order to determine whether accurate GRFs can be produced by allowing additional compliance in the foot–ground interface, a subject-specific angle-driven computer simulation model of triple jumping with 13 pin-linked segments was developed, with wobbling masses included within the shank, thigh, and trunk segments. The foot–ground interface was represented by spring-dampers at three points on each foot: the toe, ball, and heel. The parameters of the spring-dampers were varied by a genetic algorithm in order to minimise the differences between simulated GRFs, and those measured from the three phases of a triple jump in three conditions: (a) foot spring compression limited to 20 mm; (b) this compression limited to 40 mm; (c) no restrictions. Differences of 47.9%, 15.7%, and 12.4% between simulation and recorded forces were obtained for the 20 mm, 40 mm, and unrestricted conditions, respectively. In the unrestricted condition maximum compressions of between 43 mm and 56 mm were obtained in the three phases and the mass centre position was within 4 mm of the actual position at these times. It is concluded that the unrestricted model is appropriate for simulating performance whereas the accurate calculation of internal forces would require a model that incorporates compliance elsewhere in the link system

Optimisation of phase ratio in the triple jump using computer simulation

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. The triple jump is an athletic event comprising three phases in which the optimal proportion of each phase to the total distance jumped, termed the phase ratio, is unknown. This study used a whole-body torque-driven computer simulation model of all three phases of the triple jump to investigate optimal technique. The technique of the simulation model was optimised by varying torque generator activation parameters using a Genetic Algorithm in order to maximise total jump distance, resulting in a hop-dominated technique (35.7%:30.8%:33.6%) and a distance of 14.05. m. Optimisations were then run with penalties forcing the model to adopt hop and jump phases of 33%, 34%, 35%, 36%, and 37% of the optimised distance, resulting in total distances of: 13.79. m, 13.87. m, 13.95. m, 14.05. m, and 14.02. m; and 14.01. m, 14.02. m, 13.97. m, 13.84. m, and 13.67. m respectively. These results indicate that in this subject-specific case there is a plateau in optimum technique encompassing balanced and hop-dominated techniques, but that a jump-dominated technique is associated with a decrease in performance. Hop-dominated techniques are associated with higher forces than jump-dominated techniques; therefore optimal phase ratio may be related to a combination of strength and approach velocity