One Skill at a Time- Friends Outside

Friends Outside is a non-profit organization that provides services to in and out of custody clients with their re-entry into the community. Clients who are in-custody are not learning the adequate skills to integrate back into the community and are not engaged in the classes offered by Friends Outside, which could build these skills. This is due to either seeing the material repeatedly or believing the material does not pertain to them or is uninteresting. When clients don’t engage in the classes it leads to higher rates of recidivism, job insecurity and mental health concerns. The project focused on providing engaging activities to help clients increase their attention and focus and motivate them to practice higher-level critical thinking skills. Activities focused on cognitive restructuring, social skill development and/or problem solving skills to engage clients into participating and developing their skills. The results were that the majority of the clients participated more when engaging activities were implemented into the curriculum. It is recommended to be implemented in the future as it was successful

Photonic nano-structures on (111) oriented diamond

We demonstrate the fabrication of single-crystalline diamond nanopillars on a (111)-oriented chemical vapor deposited diamond substrate. This crystal orientation offers optimal coupling of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center emission to the nanopillar mode and is thus advantageous over previous approaches. We characterize single native NV centers in these nanopillars and find one of the highest reported saturated fluorescence count rates in single crystalline diamond in excess of 10${}^6$ counts per second. We show that our nano-fabrication procedure conserves the preferential alignment as well as the spin coherence of the NVs in our structures. Our results will enable a new generation of highly sensitive probes for NV magnetometry and pave the way toward photonic crystals with optimal orientation of the NV center's emission dipole.Comment: 4 pages original manuscript, 3 pages supplementary materia

Inhibition of Transport of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Random Potential

We observe the suppression of the 1D transport of an interacting elongated Bose-Einstein condensate in a random potential with a standard deviation small compared to the typical energy per atom, dominated by the interaction energy. Numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation reproduce well our observations. We propose a scenario for disorder-induced trapping of the condensate in agreement with our observations.Comment: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Laser Spectroscopy (ICOLS 05), Cairngorms National Park, Scotland, 19-24 June 200

Plan de entrada para vino embotellado de vina "El Aromo" a las ciudades de Hong Kong, Shanghai y Beijing, pertenecientes a la Republica Popular China.

116 p.El objetivo principal de esta investigación fue Desarrollar un Plan de Entrada para Vino Embotellado de Viña “El Aromo” a las ciudades de Hong Kong, Shanghai y Beijing, pertenecientes a la República Popular China. Las razones de la elección del país son principalmente: el alto nivel poblacional (1.295,33 millones de habitantes) y expectativas económicas favorables que presenta China (9,3% de crecimiento durante el 2004) y, la posibilidad de suscribir un Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) con dicho país. Las razones de las ciudades elegidas para el estudio son: Hong Kong, por ser el segundo centro financiero y comercial de Asía y la décima potencia comercial mundial, con un PGB per cápita de 23 mil dólares el año 2004. Shanghai, es uno de los puertos más grandes del mundo y el segundo con mayor movimiento de carga y posee un 1,3 % del total de la población (17 millones de habitantes) y Beijing es la capital de la República Popular China y es la sede del poder político. Las ciudades de Shanghai y Beijing se han convertido en un verdadero motor del mercado de objetos de lujo, donde el vino es mirado como tal en China. Para lograr el objetivo principal, se utilizaron cuatro objetivos específicos: Caracterizar el Mercado Vitivinícola de las ciudades de Hong Kong, Shanghai y Beijing, Evaluar la Situación Competitiva de Viña “El Aromo” ante su Ingreso al Mercado Chino, Determinar la Logística de Exportación y Definir el Mix Comercial para los mercado seleccionados. Metodológicamente en primera instancia, se utilizó una investigación de tipo exploratoria, debido a que este tema ha sido poco estudiado. Posteriormente, a partir de los resultados obtenidos en la primera parte de la investigación, se utilizó una metodología de tipo descriptivo, para desarrollar el Mix Comercial correspondiente. La información se obtuvo a través de fuentes primarias (entrevistas con expertos, entrevistas personales y, contactos telefónicos y vía e mail) y secundarias (mayoritariamente obtenida a través de páginas web de organismos públicos y privados). Al finalizar este estudio se llegó a la conclusión de que Viña “El Aromo” podría ingresar a la industria del vino en China, debido a que el precio estimado al cual llegaría la Viña se encuentra dentro del intervalo de precios promedios normales de los vinos importados, es decir, entre 11 y 20 dólares por botella, precios obtenidos, según la Oficina Económica y Comercial de España en Pekín en su estudio “El mercado del vino en China”, septiembre 2004. Referente al Mix Comercial, el producto debe contar con las exigencias legales del etiquetado que impone la legislación china, además de tomar en cuenta el diseño, el cual debe ser llamativo, para que genere un nivel se status (razón principal del consumo de vino en China), además se puede concluir que la mejor opción para la distribución del vino de esta Viña, es a través de un Importador/distribuidor dirigido al consumidor On Trade (venta de alcohol en el mismo sitio en el que se va a consumir), debido principalmente a que estos poseen experiencia en el sector, conocen el mercado, y pueden dar sugerencias a los productores y, a la vez, ésta es la forma con la que opera la Viña en los mercados internacionales. Por otro lado, la promoción será controlada y diseñada en conjunto con el importador, quien conoce mejor la cultura, el mercado y el comportamiento de los consumidores y considerando que el mercado meta es On Trade, la promoción es más económica y directa que en los mercados Off Trade (venta de alcohol con consumo fuera del establecimiento de compra)

Can Young Adults Accurately Report Sexual Partnership Dates? Factors Associated With Interpartner and Dyad Agreement

Sexual partnership dates are critical to STI/HIV research and control programs, though validity is limited by inaccurate recall and reporting

Association of perceived partner non-monogamy with prevalent and incident sexual concurrency

Concurrency is suggested as an important factor in sexually transmitted infection transmission and acquisition, though little is known regarding factors that may predict concurrency initiation. We examined the association between perception of a partner’s non-monogamy (PPNM) and simultaneous or subsequent concurrency among at-risk heterosexual young adults in the Los Angeles area

Concurrent Sexual Partnerships Among Young Heterosexual Adults at Increased HIV Risk: Types and Characteristics

The impact of concurrency on STI transmission depends upon coital frequency, condom use, duration of relationship overlap, and number of partners. Previous research has identified distinct concurrency types; however, little is known about their risk characteristics

Understanding clinical and biological heterogeneity to advance precision medicine in paediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome

Paediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome (PARDS) is a heterogeneous clinical syndrome that is associated with high rates of mortality and long-term morbidity. Factors that distinguish PARDS from adult acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) include changes in developmental stage and lung maturation with age, precipitating factors, and comorbidities. No specific treatment is available for PARDS and management is largely supportive, but methods to identify patients who would benefit from specific ventilation strategies or ancillary treatments, such as prone positioning, are needed. Understanding of the clinical and biological heterogeneity of PARDS, and of differences in clinical features and clinical course, pathobiology, response to treatment, and outcomes between PARDS and adult ARDS, will be key to the development of novel preventive and therapeutic strategies and a precision medicine approach to care. Studies in which clinical, biomarker, and transcriptomic data, as well as informatics, are used to unpack the biological and phenotypic heterogeneity of PARDS, and implementation of methods to better identify patients with PARDS, including methods to rapidly identify subphenotypes and endotypes at the point of care, will drive progress on the path to precision medicine.</p

High efficient differentiation of functional hepatocytes from porcine induced pluripotent stem cells

Hepatocyte transplantation is considered to be a promising therapy for patients with liver diseases. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provide an unlimited source for the generation of functional hepatocytes. In this study, we generated iPSCs from porcine ear fibroblasts (PEFs) by overexpressing Sox2, Klf4, Oct4, and c-Myc (SKOM), and developed a novel strategy for the efficient differentiation of hepatocyte-like cells from porcine iPSCs by following the processes of early liver development. The differentiated cells displayed the phenotypes of hepatocytes, exhibited classic hepatocyte-associated bio-functions, such as LDL uptake, glycogen storage and urea secretion, as well as possessed the metabolic activities of cytochrome P-450 (CYP) 3A and 2C. Furthermore, we compared the hepatocyte differentiation efficacy of our protocol with another published method, and the results demonstrated that our differentiation strategy could significantly improve the generation of morphological and functional hepatocyte-like cells from porcine iPSCs. In conclusion, this study establishes an efficient method for in vitro generation of functional hepatocytes from porcine iPSCs, which could represent a promising cell source for preclinical testing of cell-based therapeutics for liver failure and for pharmacological applications. © 2014 Ao et al

Complete Genome Sequences of Cluster P1 and Cluster C1 Mycobacterium smegmatis Phages Jung and Ronan

We present the complete genome sequences of Mycobacterium smegmatis phages Jung and Ronan, isolated from soil in Las Vegas, Nevada. The phages were isolated and annotated by students enrolled in a course for undergraduate research experience (CURE). Jung is a cluster P1 mycobacteriophage, while Ronan is in cluster C1