Manufactured housing finance and the secondary market

Manufactured housing, or mobile homes, is often the most attractive housing option for many low- and moderate-income Americans. Reinforcing the concept that it is expensive to be poor, the financing of manufactured housing is often much more expensive than it needs to be. This article reviews how the current financing for manufactured homes functions, explores why it is so expensive, and suggests an important strategy to reduce its costs by pursuing a secondary market for manufactured home mortgages.Housing - Finance

The DELLA-LDL mediated control of germination via DELAY OF GERMINATION 1.

Germination is the process of a seed beginning to grow, and the proper timing of germination is vital to both plants and humans. Further understanding of the control of germination may contribute towards the improvement of human agriculture and the alleviation of major problems, such as pre-harvest sprouting in cereal crops. Seed dormancy ensures that germination occurs in favourable conditions and is regulated by the gibberellins and their repressors, the DELLA proteins. DELAY OF GERMINATION 1 (DOG1) has been labelled the master regulator of germination due to its considerable impact on seed dormancy. There is an emerging role for LYSINE-SPECIFIC DEMETHYLASE LIKE 1 and 2 (LDL1 and LDL2), chromatin remodelling enzymes (CREs) which regulate chromatin dynamics to repress DOG1 expression and seed dormancy. This thesis explored the possibility of interactions between the DELLAs and CREs through protein-protein interaction assays using a screening library designed to identify molecular interactions between hormone signalling genes and chromatin remodelling enzymes. The meaning of these interactions was explored through numerous experiments in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana, including analyses of germination timing combined with analyses of DOG1 expression. These analyses were conducted in multiple conditions, including altering the balance of GAs, and the use of a 5PLE (quintuple DELLA) mutant lacking all five DELLA proteins. This thesis identifies multiple interactions between the DELLA and LDL proteins, amongst further interactions between the DELLAs and other chromatin remodelling enzymes. The combined germination and expression analyses report that the DELLA proteins are important in regulating DOG1, specifically through their role in cold-stratification mediated abolition of seed dormancy. Through integrating novel results reported with current research, this thesis proposes that the DELLA-LDL interactions are implicit in maintaining dormancy in unstratified seeds via DOG1 and that the cold-stratification which breaks seed dormancy may also break the DELLA-LDL reaction, enabling germination

Improvements to the RV Waste-transfer Station Design to Reduce Contaminated Storm Runoff

Mammoth Cave in Central Kentucky is the world’s longest cave system and has been designated an international biosphere. It has unique organisms that live in the cave system and they are dependant upon high quality water supplied through rain recharge. We have documented quaternary ammonia compounds (QAC) levels ranging from 0.2 to 22 mg/L in storm fl ow, as well as, other chemicals coming from the RV waste-transfer station. The objective of this project was to re-design the drain system around the dump station to prevent spillage from washing down into the cave. The first design feature is a v-trench to catch storm runoff and redirect it into the sanitary sewer. The second feature is a gently elevated barrier that will impede the fl ow of runoff from the impacted area. The designs presented in this paper incorporate both features

Local Thermometry of Neutral Modes on the Quantum Hall Edge

Electrons in two dimensions and strong magnetic fields can form an insulating two-dimensional system with conducting one-dimensional channels along the edge. Electron interactions in these edges can lead to independent transport of charge and heat, even in opposite directions. Here, we heat the outer edge of such a quantum Hall system using a quantum point contact. By placing quantum dots upstream and downstream from the heater, we measure both the chemical potential and temperature of that edge to study charge and heat transport, respectively. We find that charge is transported exclusively downstream, but heat can be transported upstream when the edge has additional structure related to fractional quantum Hall (FQH) physics. Surprisingly, this can occur even when the bulk is in an integer quantum Hall state and the edge contains no signatures of FQH charge transport. We also find an unexpected bulk contribution to heat transport at ν = 1.Physic

Uncovering and characterizing splice variants associated with survival in lung cancer patients

Splice variants have been shown to play an important role in tumor initiation and progression and can serve as novel cancer biomarkers. However, the clinical importance of individual splice variants and the mechanisms by which they can perturb cellular functions are still poorly understood. To address these issues, we developed an efficient and robust computational method to: (1) identify splice variants that are associated with patient survival in a statistically significant manner; and (2) predict rewired protein-protein interactions that may result from altered patterns of expression of such variants. We applied our method to the lung adenocarcinoma dataset from TCGA and identified splice variants that are significantly associated with patient survival and can alter protein-protein interactions. Among these variants, several are implicated in DNA repair through homologous recombination. To computationally validate our findings, we characterized the mutational signatures in patients, grouped by low and high expression of a splice variant associated with patient survival and involved in DNA repair. The results of the mutational signature analysis are in agreement with the molecular mechanism suggested by our method. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to build a computational approach to systematically identify splice variants associated with patient survival that can also generate experimentally testable, mechanistic hypotheses. Code for identifying survival-significant splice variants using the Null Empirically Estimated P-value method can be found at https://github.com/thecodingdoc/neep. Code for construction of Multi-Granularity Graphs to discover potential rewired protein interactions can be found at https://github.com/scwest/SINBAD

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples' perceptions of foot and lower limb health : a systematic review

Background: Ongoing colonisation produces inequity in healthcare delivery and inequality in healthcare outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. As a consequence, within the domain of lower limb health, foot disease has severe impacts for First Nations Peoples. Central to developing culturally safe healthcare and driving positive foot health change for First Nations Peoples, is the need for health professionals to develop understanding of First Nations perspectives of foot health. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate studies investigating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ perceptions of foot and lower limb health. Methods: PubMeD, Ovid (Embase, Emcare, Medline), CINAHL, Informit Indigenous collection, and grey literature sources were searched to 23rd July 2021. We included any published reports or studies that examined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ perceptions of foot and lower limb health, or meanings of, or attitudes to, foot and lower limb health. Results: Four studies with a total of 1515 participants were included. Studies found that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people self-assessed foot health with a demonstrated ability to perceive their feet as healthy relative to Western clinical measures of peripheral blood supply and neurological function. Footwear, including ill-fitting or lack of footwear was considered a contributing factor to reduced foot and lower limb health. Foot pain affected up to 60% of participants with up to 70% of foot pain untreated. Lack of access to culturally safe health care delivered by culturally capable health professionals was perceived to contribute to worse foot and lower limb health outcomes. Conclusions: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ perceptions of foot and lower limb health are influenced by multiple complex interrelated factors. The limited number of studies in this area indicates ongoing failings to consult First Nations Peoples regarding their own lower limb and foot health. It is therefore essential that healthcare service and cultural capability implementation is led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in co-design. Urgent need for further research that exemplifies design and delivery of culturally safe care is required

Effect of a culturally safe student placement on students’ understanding of, and confidence with, providing culturally safe podiatry care

Background: For university-based podiatry education there are little data available documenting the delivery method and impact of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health curricula or the use of, and outcomes from, immersive clinical placements generally or specific to podiatry practice. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of undertaking clinical placement in a culturally safe podiatry service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples on podiatry students’ understanding of, and confidence with, providing culturally safe podiatry care. Methods: Final year University of Newcastle undergraduate podiatry students attending a culturally safe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student clinic at a local hospital were purposively recruited to participate. Students completed a custom-made and pilot-tested cultural awareness and capability survey before and after placement. Survey domains were determined from a principle component analysis. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to compare pre-placement scores on each domain of the survey to the post-placements scores. Effect sizes were calculated and interpreted as small (0.1–0.29), medium (0.3–0.49), and large (≥0.5). Results: This study recruited 58 final year University of Newcastle podiatry students to complete baseline and follow-up surveys. For survey domain 1 (level of understanding of power relationships), domain 2 (level of understanding of the interrelationship between culture and self-perceived health), domain 3 (level of understanding of the importance of culture in clinical practice and access to health care), and domain 4 (level of confidence with providing culturally safe care) a statistically significant (p < 0.05) increase in scores was recorded post-placement. The effect sizes were medium to large. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that an immersive student placement at a culturally safe podiatry clinic significantly improved students’ understanding of, and confidence with, providing culturally appropriate care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. This study provides foundation evidence of the role that such placements have on developing students’ cultural capability in a tertiary health care setting, and will help inform future curricula development at both educational institutions and health services, as well as form the basis for ongoing research