Preventing Suicide in Colorado: Progress Achieved & Goals for the Future

This 2009 report, issued jointly by Mental Health America of Colorado and The Colorado Trust, updates both the state's 1998 Suicide Prevention and Intervention Plan to address Colorado's historically high suicide rate, as well as The Trust's 2002 report Suicide in Colorado, which documented the problem of suicide across the state and identified suicide-prevention resources. This report details key facts and figures about the suicide rate in Colorado, many of the prevention achievements in the past 10 years, and recommendations to strengthen suicide prevention and awareness efforts into the future

Sharing news, making sense, saying thanks: patterns of talk on Twitter during the Queensland floods

Abstract: This paper examines the discursive aspects of Twitter communication during the floods in the summer of 2010–2011 in Queensland, Australia. Using a representative sample of communication associated with the #qldfloods hashtag on Twitter, we coded and analysed the patterns of communication. We focus on key phenomena in the use of social media in crisis communication: communal sense-making practices, the negotiation of participant roles, and digital convergence around shared events. Social media is used both as a crisis communication and emergency management tool, as well as a space for participants to engage in emotional exchanges and communication of distress.Authored by Frances Shaw, Jean Burgess, Kate Crawford and Axel Bruns

Non-existence of torically maximal hypersurfaces

Torically maximal curves (known also as simple Harnack curves) are real algebraic curves in the projective plane such that their logarithmic Gau{\ss} map is totally real. In this paper we show that hyperplanes in projective spaces are the only torically maximal hypersurfaces of higher dimensions.Comment: 10 pages. V2 merges the first version of this paper with the first version of arXiv:1510.0026

BEST PRACTICES OF TEAM COHESION IN SMALL SCHOOLS

This study investigates the best practices of team cohesion in small schools. The conclusions from the study assist future educational leaders with using best practices to influence team cohesion within school settings that have small groups of staff. If faculty can achieve team cohesion, goals can be achieved and success can be attained. Research for large organizations and team cohesion is documented; however, this study fills a gap in research by focusing on small schools. The study’s conclusions help prove that small schools benefit from team cohesion and outline the best practices for reaching team cohesion. This study is a quantitative survey-based research study to establish the best practices of team cohesion in small schools. Surveys were given to teachers employed at small private schools in order to investigate perceptions of team cohesion. Though task-oriented cohesion and social-oriented cohesion were a part of the Framework of Cohesive Teams Survey, for study purposes, only those items that were validated to a 100% level in the area of “task” were utilized in the research instrument. The top predictors of team cohesion were the participants’ perception of satisfaction with their organizational leader’s commitment to establishing a cohesive, team-building approach in leading the organization. Avoids secretive behavior in matters pertaining to the team members and the organization was the top practice of team cohesion distinguished by the study

Impact of Young Mothers Program on Lives of Teenage Mothers (Program #2 in Granite District, Salt Lake City, Utah)

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact oi the Young Mothers\u27 Program #2 Granite School District, Salt Lake City, Utah, and the aspects of the program that were responsible for that impact , upon the lives of the Young Mothers who have attended the program since its existence. This study could possibly serve as a guide in evaluating other programs of this nature, locally and nationally. Knowing the value of a program could help establish it more firmly in the education system. A questionnaire was mailed to sixty students who had attended Young Mothers\u27 Program #2 for one term or more. The questionnaire covered all aspects of the Young Mothers \u27 Program. The information compiled from the returned questionnaire was used for data analysis . Twenty-six items, which represented attitudes of the students toward many aspects of the Young Mothers\u27 Program, were used for data analysis on impact of the program. Factor analysis was used with the data from the 26 items and four factors emerged as significant. They were: 1a. Mother Toddler Care Concerns 2b. Good Teacher- Classroom Atmosphere and Opportunities 3c. Mother Baby Care and School Peer Interaction 4d. Teacher Student Trust Dimension The data analysis did support the hypothesis that the Young Mothers Program #2 does have a positive impact on life on the students who have attended . Factor 1a. (Mother Toddler Care Concerns) indicated that if concern for the toddler was high, then impact was low . Factor 2b. (Good Teacher-Classroom Atmosphere and Opportunities) was also significantly high as a predictor of impact . Factor 3c . (Mother Baby Care and School Peer Interaction), while still above the acceptable level of significance, was not as strong a predicting factor as la. and 2b . Factor 4d . (Teacher -Student Trust Dimension) was significant only if the other factors were present and, therefore , did contribute to the overall impact on life . Construct validity was established through factor analysis, while reliability and validity indices were established for each of the four factors . The conclusion of this investigation would suggest , with some additional revisions, the four subscales could be used in further evaluation of Young Mothers Programs

Research student and supervisor evaluation of intertextuality practices

Intertextuality is essential in academic writing but it is governed by quite complex conventions. Different intertextuality practices can be judged evidence of academic com-petence or incompetence, or condemned as plagiarism. Learners can break the conventions with criminal intent, or from ignorance, or because their language proficiency prevents them from doing anything else. This paper reports the results of interviews with academic staff in a British university and their postgraduate students about intertextuality practices. The interviewees ahowed a wide range of – sometimes contradictory – attitudes to quotation, referencing, and copying. Several pointed out the developmental advantages of various types of copying

Survival analysis of DNA mutation motifs with penalized proportional hazards

Antibodies, an essential part of our immune system, develop through an intricate process to bind a wide array of pathogens. This process involves randomly mutating DNA sequences encoding these antibodies to find variants with improved binding, though mutations are not distributed uniformly across sequence sites. Immunologists observe this nonuniformity to be consistent with "mutation motifs", which are short DNA subsequences that affect how likely a given site is to experience a mutation. Quantifying the effect of motifs on mutation rates is challenging: a large number of possible motifs makes this statistical problem high dimensional, while the unobserved history of the mutation process leads to a nontrivial missing data problem. We introduce an $\ell_1$-penalized proportional hazards model to infer mutation motifs and their effects. In order to estimate model parameters, our method uses a Monte Carlo EM algorithm to marginalize over the unknown ordering of mutations. We show that our method performs better on simulated data compared to current methods and leads to more parsimonious models. The application of proportional hazards to mutation processes is, to our knowledge, novel and formalizes the current methods in a statistical framework that can be easily extended to analyze the effect of other biological features on mutation rates

A Probabilistic Risk Analysis for Taipei Seismic Hazards: An Application of HAZ-Taiwan with its Pre-processor and Post-processor

This paper employs probabilistic risk analysis to estimate exceedance probability curves, average annual loss (AAL) and probable maximum loss (PML) for seismic hazards. It utilizes and event-driven loss estimation model, HAZ-Taiwan, and develops its pre-processing and post-processing software modules. First, the pre-processingmodule establishes a set of hazard-consistent scenarios. Then, the HAZ-Taiwan modelextimates hazards, vulnerabilities and economic losses for each scenario. Finally, the aggregate and occurrence exceedance probability curves for losses and theirconfidence intervals are simulated using the Monte Carlo simulation in thepost-processing module. The methodology is then applied to analyze seismic risks in Taipei. It is found that the exceedance probability of an aggregate loss of NT$40.398 billion is 0.001. This amount of loss is approximately 2.78$37.41-43.12 billion. The average annual loss of buildings in Taipei is NT$1.06 billion r approximately 0.07% of the total stock.probabilistic risk analysis, Hazard analysis, vulnerability analysis, exceedance probability curve, HAZ-Taiwan