Disability Accessibility and Inclusion Training for Adults of Minnesota 4-H

Minnesota 4-H is an out of school program that promotes development of leadership skills and active civil participation of youth of all ages through its various programming options. Despite the involvement of thousands of youth participants and adult volunteers in 4-H programs across Minnesota, currently a gap in disability accessibility and inclusion resources for volunteers exists. This quality improvement project aimed to bridge this gap by developing three pre-recorded training modules designed for Minnesota 4-H staff, volunteers, and youth leaders about accessibility and inclusion best practices. Results of a pilot group and accessibility metrics indicated that the developed materials were usable, understandable, actionable, and accessible for the target audience. These results show the benefit of usable accessibility and inclusion education materials to Minnesota 4-H. There is potential that trainings like this could benefit other community-based organizations. Occupational therapy can play a role in continued education and advocacy for accessibility within community-based recreational organizations

THRIVING TOGETHER: JOB SKILLS TRAINING IN PENNSYLVANIA ANIMAL SHELTERS FOR YOUTH AGING OUT OF FOSTER CARE: A FORMATIVE EVALUATION OF THE HAND2PAW PROGRAM & TOOLKIT DEVELOPMENT

Youth aging out of foster care need access to programs that teach translatable job skills. Traditional programs are reported to be ineffective for youth, as they focus on hard job skill development and neglect to focus on developing the whole-person (Edelstein & Lowstein, 2014). If youth lack self-esteem and self-efficacy, they are less likely to perform job duties such as being on time, following directions, trying unknown tasks, and other skills necessary for job retention (Edelstein & Lowenstein, 2014). Programs involving animals have been increasingly utilized in settings that work with people who have experienced adversity and have proven to enhance social/emotional development. Hand2Paw, a Philadelphia non-profit, which provides job skills training to youth through working with shelter animals, identified two community needs: job skills training for youth, and positive training programs for shelter animals. Studies have suggested that at-risk youth are averse to programming that feels paternalistic (Brown & Wilderson, 2010), therefore Hand2Paw utilizes an empowerment approach and encourages youth to become providers of a community service rather than receivers of a service. The following dissertation first seeks to explore the attitudes and beliefs of older foster youth toward participation in the Hand2Paw program. This study utilized structured, qualitative interviews with 7 program graduates and subsequently analyzed findings. Main themes identified included increased self-esteem and feelings of empowerment, development of boundaries, increased patience, empathy, communication skills, introspective skills, and a sense of belonging. Using results from the qualitative study, this dissertation also includes a structured toolkit for programs like Hand2Paw, which outlines group and individual activities embedded in an animal assisted setting, designed to increase job readiness for at-risk youth

The Double Power Law in Consumption and Implications for Testing Euler Equations

We provide evidence suggesting that the cross-sectional distributions of US consumption and its growth rate obey the power law in both the upper and lower tails, with exponents approximately equal to four. Consequently, high-order moments are unlikely to exist, and the generalized method of moments estimation of Euler equations that employs cross-sectional moments may be inconsistent. Through bootstrap studies, we find that the power law appears to generate spurious nonrejection of heterogeneous-agent asset pricing models in explaining the equity premium. Dividing households into age groups, we propose an estimation approach that appears less susceptible to fat tail issues

The Equity Premium and the One Percent

We show that in a general equilibrium model with heterogeneity in risk aversion or belief, shifting wealth from an agent who holds comparatively fewer stocks to one who holds more reduces the equity premium. Since empirically the rich hold more stocks than do the poor, the top income share should predict subsequent excess stock market returns. Consistent with our theory, we find that when the income share of top earners in the U.S. rises, subsequent one year excess market returns significantly decline. This negative relation is robust to (i) controlling for classic return predictors such as the price-dividend and consumption-wealth ratios, (ii) predicting out-of-sample, and (iii) instrumenting with changes in estate tax rates. Cross-country panel regressions suggest that the inverse relation between inequality and returns also holds outside of the U.S., with stronger results in relatively closed economies (emerging markets) than in small open economies (Europe)

The Equity Premium and the One Percent

We show that in a general equilibrium model with heterogeneity in risk aversion or belief, shifting wealth from an agent who holds comparatively fewer stocks to one who holds more reduces the equity premium. Since empirically the rich hold more stocks than do the poor, the top income share should predict subsequent excess stock market returns. Consistent with our theory, we find that when the income share of top earners in the U.S. rises, subsequent one year excess market returns significantly decline. This negative relation is robust to (i) controlling for classic return predictors such as the price-dividend and consumption-wealth ratios, (ii) predicting out-of-sample, and (iii) instrumenting with changes in estate tax rates. Cross-country panel regressions suggest that the inverse relation between inequality and returns also holds outside of the U.S., with stronger results in relatively closed economies (emerging markets) than in small open economies (Europe)

Work Participation Interventions for Individuals with Disabilities: An Evidence-Based Practice Project

This Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) project considered the following question: What are the characteristics of interventions, programs, and services that are effective in supporting work participation for individuals with disabilities and their employers

Scoping studies to establish the capability and utility of a real-time bioaerosol sensor to characterise emissions from environmental sources

A novel dual excitation wavelength based bioaerosol sensor with multiple fluorescence bands called Spectral Intensity Bioaerosol Sensor (SIBS) has been assessed across five contrasting outdoor environments. The mean concentrations of total and fluorescent particles across the sites were highly variable being the highest at the agricultural farm (2.6 cm−3 and 0.48 cm−3, respectively) and the composting site (2.32 cm−3 and 0.46 cm−3, respectively) and the lowest at the dairy farm (1.03 cm−3 and 0.24 cm−3, respectively) and the sewage treatment works (1.03 cm−3 and 0.25 cm−3, respectively). In contrast, the number-weighted fluorescent fraction was lowest at the agricultural site (0.18) in comparison to the other sites indicating high variability in nature and magnitude of emissions from environmental sources. The fluorescence emissions data demonstrated that the spectra at different sites were multimodal with intensity differences largely at wavelengths located in secondary emission peaks for λex 280 and λex 370. This finding suggests differences in the molecular composition of emissions at these sites which can help to identify distinct fluorescence signature of different environmental sources. Overall this study demonstrated that SIBS provides additional spectral information compared to existing instruments and capability to resolve spectrally integrated signals from relevant biological fluorophores could improve selectivity and thus enhance discrimination and classification strategies for real-time characterisation of bioaerosols from environmental sources. However, detailed lab-based measurements in conjunction with real-world studies and improved numerical methods are required to optimise and validate these highly resolved spectral signatures with respect to the diverse atmospherically relevant biological fluorophores

Search for 511 keV Emission in Satellite Galaxies of the Milky Way with INTEGRAL/SPI

Reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics. © 2018 ESO.The positron annihilation gamma-ray signal in the Milky Way (MW) shows a puzzling morphology: a very bright bulge and a very low surface-brightness disk. A coherent explanation of the positron origin, propagation through the Galaxy and subsequent annihilation in the interstellar medium has not yet been found. Tentative explanations involve positrons from radioactivity, X-ray binaries, and dark matter (DM). Dwarf satellite galaxies (DSGs) are believed to be DM-dominated and hence promising candidates in the search for 511 keV emission as a result of DM annihilation into electron-positron pairs. The goal of this study is to constrain possible 511 keV gamma-ray signals from 39 DSGs of the MW and to test the annihilating DM scenario. We use the spectrometer SPI on INTEGRAL to extract individual spectra for the studied objects. As the diffuse galactic emission dominates the signal, the large scale morphology of the MW has been modelled accordingly and was included in a maximum likelihood analysis. Alternatively, a distance-weighted stacked spectrum has been determined. Only Reticulum II (Ret II) shows a 3.1 sigma signal. Five other sources show tentative 2 sigma signals. The mass-to-511-keV-luminosity-ratio shows a marginal trend towards higher values for intrinsically brighter objects, opposite to the V band mass-to-light-ratio, which is generally used to uncover DM in DSGs. All derived flux values are above the level implied by a DM interpretation of the MW bulge signal. The signal from Ret II is unlikely to be related to a DM origin alone, otherwise, the MW bulge would be about 100 times brighter than what is seen. Ret II is exceptional considering the DSG sample, and rather points to enhanced recent star formation activity, if its origins are similar to processes in the MW. Understanding this emission may provide further clues regarding the origin of the annihilation emission in the MW.Peer reviewe