VA Accountability Act of 2015 (H.R. 1994), as Reported to the House

[Excerpt] This report describes the VA Accountability Act of 2015 (H.R. 1994) as reported to the House by the Committee on Veterans Affairs on July 23 2015 and compares it to current law where appropriate. A press account has reported that Chairman Jeff Miller may meet with all committee members to seek views of the minority before floor action. As a result of this meeting, it is possible that the final bill that will go to the House floor may have some provisions that differ from those that the Committee reported. This report provides a section-by-section description of the act

The Utilization of Client-Based Service-Learning Applications in Emergency Management Graduate Curricula for the 21st Century

This qualitative case study gathered perceptions from alumni, clients, and professors to gain insight into how essential client-based service learning is to the preparedness of emergency management professionals enrolled in the Masters in Public Administration Emergency and Disaster Management program at the Metropolitan College of New York. Criteria for participant selection included employment as emergency managers, three to five years of experience in the field of emergency management, and past direct involvement in a major disaster event. Data was captured using individual in-depth interviews of 13 participants. Two focus groups were utilized: one comprised three faculty members in the role of project manager, and the second comprised three former clients who took part in client-based service learning projects with the college. Two field observations were conducted at client sites to examine the service learning process. Analysis yielded six emergent themes: the development of skills/knowledge, theory to practice, client commitment and engagement, client-based service-learning benefits, reflective thinking, and networking opportunities. Findings offer insight into current delivery practices, strengths of the program, and the challenges needed to address institutions of higher education offering emergency management programs. Recommendations include enhancing networking capabilities for students through client-based service learning, incorporating reflective thinking methods, building leadership capacity through course development using leadership theories, building leadership capacity through client-based learning projects and other experiential learning methods, enhancing client recommendations by implementing a request for proposal process, and ensuring client commitment for client-based service learning projects. Research on a larger scale is recommended to increase the generalizability of the results reported

Insights into ultrafast demagnetization in pseudo-gap half metals

Interest in femtosecond demagnetization experiments was sparked by Bigot's discovery in 1995. These experiments unveil the elementary mechanisms coupling the electrons' temperature to their spin order. Even though first quantitative models describing ultrafast demagnetization have just been published within the past year, new calculations also suggest alternative mechanisms. Simultaneously, the application of fast demagnetization experiments has been demonstrated to provide key insight into technologically important systems such as high spin polarization metals, and consequently there is broad interest in further understanding the physics of these phenomena. To gain new and relevant insights, we perform ultrafast optical pump-probe experiments to characterize the demagnetization processes of highly spin-polarized magnetic thin films on a femtosecond time scale. Previous studies have suggested shifting the Fermi energy into the center of the gap by tuning the number of electrons and thereby to study its influence on spin-flip processes. Here we show that choosing isoelectronic Heusler compounds (Co2MnSi, Co2MnGe and Co2FeAl) allows us to vary the degree of spin polarization between 60% and 86%. We explain this behavior by considering the robustness of the gap against structural disorder. Moreover, we observe that Co-Fe-based pseudo gap materials, such as partially ordered Co-Fe-Ge alloys and also the well-known Co-Fe-B alloys, can reach similar values of the spin polarization. By using the unique features of these metals we vary the number of possible spin-flip channels, which allows us to pinpoint and control the half metals electronic structure and its influence onto the elementary mechanisms of ultrafast demagnetization.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, plus Supplementary Informatio