The City of Morro Bay, California Sign Ordinance Update and Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan

ABSTRACT The City of Morro Bay, California – Sign Ordinance Update and Embarcadero District Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan Erik Berg-Johansen This report includes a Draft Sign Ordinance, a Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan, and a background report for each product. The final products were created thought a process involving extensive research, community outreach, and detailed discussions among City of Morro Bay staff. The Sign Ordinance It was discovered that signs are important to business owners and residents due to their effect on both economic and aesthetic issues in communities. This report documents research of scholarly articles, case studies, and community outreach efforts. This report includes survey results and analysis that reveal the opinions of Morro Bay business owners, and also their ideas in regards to the sign ordinance update. According to many business owners, the current sign ordinance is convoluted, virtually unenforced, and unfairly applied. It was the goal of this project to hear what the community desires, and then apply this knowledge to a proposal that residents and business owners in Morro Bay approve of. The proposed sign ordinance aims to be fair and user-friendly, while ultimately enhancing community character and aesthetic quality in the future. Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan The Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan was created to promote tourism in the City of Morro Bay and negate the need for A-frame sign use in the Embarcadero District. The plan includes three alternatives that are intended to spur discussion among the Planning Commission when the proposal is presented. The background report associated with this plan is intended to provide the reasoning behind the proposals, and give readers of the plan background knowledge on directional signs in general. Similar to the sign ordinance background report, this report documents research of scholarly articles, case studies, and community outreach efforts

Peeling Potatoes as Health Promotion? Self-Perceived Benefits of Volunteering among Older Adult Volunteers in a Norwegian Volunteer Centre

In recent years, voluntary work undertaken by older people has been viewed as a possible way to link aging populations with individual and societal needs related to healthy aging. Based on focus group interviews, the study aims to clarify how volunteering is maintained in older populations and examines how older adults (aged 65+years) in a Norwegian volunteer centre perceived the benefits of volunteering. The results of the study highlight the importance of the volunteer centre as a place in which to participate and be social, for a sense of belonging to a fellowship of co-volunteers, and as an arena for personal growth and adaption to old age. These aspects were described by the volunteers as health promoting. Additionally, the context of the voluntary work, as the volunteer activities and the way they were organized, was significant for their experiences. From these findings, it is a need for in-depth studies of the dynamics of everyday volunteer work in order to gain a better understanding of the relationship between self-rated health benefits and the organizational contexts in which older adults retain to work voluntarily.publishedVersio

Individual differences in white matter microstructure reflect variation in functional connectivity during action choice.

The relation between brain structure and function is of fundamental importance in neuroscience. Comparisons between behavioral and brain imaging measures suggest that variation in brain structure correlates with the presence of specific skills[1-3]. Behavioral measures, however, reflect the integrated function of multiple brain regions. Rather than behavior, a physiological index of function could be a more sensitive and informative measure with which to compare structural measures. Here, we test for a relationship between a physiological measure of functional connectivity between two brain areas during a simple decision making task and a measure of structural connectivity. Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation indexed functional connectivity between two regions important for action choices: premotor and motor cortex. Fractional anisotropy (FA), a marker of microstructural integrity, indexed structural connectivity. Individual differences in functional connectivity during action selection show highly specific correlations with FA in localised regions of white matter interconnecting regions including the premotor and motor cortex. Probabilistic tractography[4, 5], a technique for identifying fibre pathways from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), reconstructed the anatomical networks linking the component brain regions involved in making decisions. These findings demonstrate a relationship between individual differences in functional and structural connectivity within human brain networks central to action choice

En god dag på jobben: evaluering av prosjektet "Trygghet og tillit"

Politiets tillit i befolkningen varierer noe i ulike grupper – og ungdom med minoritetsbakgrunn er av dem som har lavest tillit til politiet. Denne utfordringen ønsket man å gjøre noe med, og i 2008 iverksatte POD prosjektet «Trygghet og tillit». Denne rapporten omhandler evaluering av hovedprosjektet som består av 18 gjennomførte tiltak i fire politidistrikter og et særorgan. Tiltakene er valgt ut og gjennomført lokalt og varierer i innhold, omfang, metode og plassering i organisasjonen. Alle tiltakene har en felles målsetting: Å øke tilliten mellom politi og ungdom med minoritetsbakgrunn. I prosjektet har man ikke vært opptatt av at de enkelte tiltakene nødvendigvis skal videreføres i eget distrikt, eventuelt overføres til andre. Men de arbeidsmetodene som er utviklet i løpet av prosjektperioden er det stor enighet om at fortjener å leve videre i etaten etter at prosjektet er avsluttet

Relevance of Structural Brain Connectivity to Learning and Recovery from Stroke

The physical structure of white matter fiber bundles constrains their function. Any behavior that relies on transmission of signals along a particular pathway will therefore be influenced by the structural condition of that pathway. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging provides localized measures that are sensitive to white matter microstructure. In this review, we discuss imaging evidence on the relevance of white matter microstructure to behavior. We focus in particular on motor behavior and learning in healthy individuals and in individuals who have suffered a stroke. We provide examples of ways in which imaging measures of structural brain connectivity can inform our study of motor behavior and effects of motor training in three different domains: (1) to assess network degeneration or damage with healthy aging and following stroke, (2) to identify a structural basis for individual differences in behavioral responses, and (3) to test for dynamic changes in structural connectivity with learning or recovery