The outcomes of family and consumer leadership education: creating positive change in disability policy and practice

Background When individuals with disabilities are trained in evidenced based practices and how to advocate for themselves and their families, they are best able to ensure that services and supports meet their needs and create and realize a positive vision for their future. Participants and procedure In New Hampshire in the United States a Leadership Series provided seven weekend training sessions to an annual cohort of about 25 family members and 10 adults with disabilities about better practices in service provision, defining a vision for the future, and community organizing and advocacy strategies, using informational sessions and participation in small work groups. Results A total of 100 participants completing the Series over a six-year period completed pre and post surveys consisting of both closed-ended and open-ended questions. Respondents reported highly significant increases in their knowledge about service provision and advocacy strategies, significant increases in their clarity of vision for six out of seven life domains, and significant increases in their membership in community organizations and frequency of advocacy activities. Conclusions The Leadership Series fostered increased efforts to create positive change in the lives of the participants and their family members with disabilities and in the services and supports provided to family members with disabilities

Meaning of homeownership for individuals with developmental disabilities: A qualitative study.

Abstract In-person semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 homeowners selecte

Artificial gut-on-a-disc platform to evaluate PH sensitive coatings of oral drug delivery devices

Rapid testing of pH coatings of oral drug delivery (ODD) devices is often complex and time consuming. A lab-on-a-disc (LoD) platform was developed which enables detection of integrity of pH coatings for up to four different pHs. The platform was designed to perfuse ODD devices through different pH in a sequential manner, mimicking the pH variations in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The disintegration of pH coatings causes release of drugs, which in turn is used to monitor integrity of pH coatings. Combining ‘event-triggered’ flow control, based on dissolvable film with electrochemical detection, enables accelerated, real-time characterization of ODD devices

The C-terminal domain of eukaryotic initiation factor 5 promotes start codon recognition by its dynamic interplay with eIF1 and eIF2 beta

Recognition of the proper start codon on mRNAs is essential for protein synthesis, which requires scanning and involves eukaryotic initiation factors (eIFs) eIF1, eIF1A, eIF2, and eIF5. The carboxyl terminal domain (CTD) of eIF5 stimulates 43S preinitiation complex (PIC) assembly; however, its precise role in scanning and start codon selection has remained unknown. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, we identified the binding sites of eIF1 and eIF2β on eIF5-CTD and found that they partially overlapped. Mutating select eIF5 residues in the common interface specifically disrupts interaction with both factors. Genetic and biochemical evidence indicates that these eIF5-CTD mutations impair start codon recognition and impede eIF1 release from the PIC by abrogating eIF5-CTD binding to eIF2β. This study provides mechanistic insight into the role of eIF5-CTD's dynamic interplay with eIF1 and eIF2β in switching PICs from an open to a closed state at start codons.publishedVersio

Borexino : geo-neutrino measurement at Gran Sasso, Italy

Geo-neutrinos, electron anti-neutrinos produced in beta-decays of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in the Earth, are a unique direct probe of our planet's interior. After a brief introduction of the geo-neutrinos' properties and of the main aims of their study, we discuss the features of a detector which has recently provided breakthrough achievements in the field, Borexino, a massive, calorimetric liquid scintillator detector installed at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory. With its unprecedented radiopurity levels achieved in the core of the detection medium, it is the only experiment in operation able to study in real time solar neutrino interactions in the challenging sub-MeV energy region. Its superior technical properties allowed Borexino also to provide a clean detection of terrestrial neutrinos. Therefore, the description of the characteristics of the detected geo-neutrino signal and of the corresponding geological implications are the main core of the discussion contained in this work

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

The product of a Petrine circle? A reassessment of the origin and character of 1 Peter

© 2002 SAGE PublicationsRecent studies of 1 Peter, especially by John Elliott, have sought to rescue the letter from its assimilation to the Pauline tradition and to establish the view, now widely held, that 1 Peter is the distinctive product of a Petrine circle. After examining the traditions in 1 Peter, both Pauline and non-Pauline, and the names in the letter (Silvanus, Mark and Peter), this essay argues that there is no substantial evidence, either inside or outside the letter, to support the view of 1 Peter as originating from a specifically Petrine group. It is much more plausibly seen as reflecting the consolidation of early Christian traditions in Roman Christianity. Despite the scholarly majority currently in its favour, the view of 1 Peter as the distinctive product of a Petrine tradition from a Petrine circle should therefore be rejected

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO