Nonprofits in Rural America: Overcoming the Resource Gap

Nonprofit organizations across the United States serve the needs of rural communities in critically important ways. Yet the conditions under which they operate, challenging in the best of times, become even more difficult under national economic stress. To help inspire discussion and additional research on the management of rural nonprofits, the Bridgespan Group undertook the research reported in this paper -- research that shines the spotlight on one particularly acute challenge, the resource gap

Assessing California's Multiple Pathways Field

The multiple pathways approach to high school education combines rigorous academic learning and career skills to give students the intellectual and real-world experience to succeed in college, career and life. Growing evidence shows that the multiple pathways approach holds promise for increasing academic engagement and achievement, reducing high school dropout rates and boosting students' future earning power. The James Irvine Foundation engaged the Bridgespan Group to assess the state of the multiple pathways field in California and to make recommendations to strengthen it. Assessing California's Multiple Pathways Field: Preparing Youth for Success in College and Career offers findings and recommendations based on a newly developed framework that assesses the multiple pathways field based on five characteristics of strong fields

The Corbusier Dream and Frank Lloyd Wright Vision: Cliff Detritus Vs. Urban Savanna

Investigators are seeking methods to assess the visual and environmental quality of the landscape across urban areas. In addition investigators are interested in applying these predictors to study landscape transformation and change. In our study we employed an environmental quality prediction equation, which assesses environmental quality to create a visual quality map of southern Michigan and then evaluated the map’s ability to determine the map’s reliability. Through the Kendall’s coefficient of concordance statistical test, we determined that the map is significantly reliable (p ≤ 0.01) and conclude that constructing such a map of a large area is possible. We then applied this approach to quantify environmental quality change to southeast Michigan (Detroit metropolitan area) from land-use maps in the 1800s, and from a map constructed in 2008. Only areas with cliff detritus had statistically significant changes. Many of these cliff detritus areas are now being transformed back to pastoral urban savanna environments, a vision that had been embraced by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s approach compares differently with the grand vision Le Corbusier had for urban areas, a series of multiple-use towers spaced across an urban forest. The sprawling towers of Shanghai, P.R. of China exemplify this model in a modern manner

Planning target volume margins for prostate radiotherapy using daily electronic portal imaging and implanted fiducial markers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fiducial markers and daily electronic portal imaging (EPI) can reduce the risk of geographic miss in prostate cancer radiotherapy. The purpose of this study was to estimate CTV to PTV margin requirements, without and with the use of this image guidance strategy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>46 patients underwent placement of 3 radio-opaque fiducial markers prior to prostate RT. Daily pre-treatment EPIs were taken, and isocenter placement errors were corrected if they were ≥ 3 mm along the left-right or superior-inferior axes, and/or ≥ 2 mm along the anterior-posterior axis. During-treatment EPIs were then obtained to estimate intra-fraction motion.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Without image guidance, margins of 0.57 cm, 0.79 cm and 0.77 cm, along the left-right, superior-inferior and anterior-posterior axes respectively, are required to give 95% probability of complete CTV coverage each day. With the above image guidance strategy, these margins can be reduced to 0.36 cm, 0.37 cm and 0.37 cm respectively. Correction of all isocenter placement errors, regardless of size, would permit minimal additional reduction in margins.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Image guidance, using implanted fiducial markers and daily EPI, permits the use of narrower PTV margins without compromising coverage of the target, in the radiotherapy of prostate cancer.</p

WindCube: A CubeSat Thermospheric Wind Instrument Utilizing Fabry-Pérot Interferometry

WindCube is a 6U CubeSat mission selected for implementation through NASA’s HFORT program. Starting in 2022 and following ~36 months of development, integration and testing, the spacecraft will operate for ~12 months in low earth orbit to study the influence of thermospheric winds on the earth’s ionosphere. Its scientific payload is a limb viewing Fabry Pérot Interferometer (étalon) specially designed to fit into a 10cm x 10cm cross-sectional assembly. WindCube will make global maps of wind speed derived from the doppler shifted emission of the 630.0nm oxygen line (1D \u3e 3P), at altitudes near 250km. Projected performance includes wind speed retrievals every 10 seconds with an accuracy of 5m/s, a vertical resolution of 63km, and a horizontal resolution of 100km. We present an overview of the mission design and observation plan for WindCube as well as a top-level description of the payload design

The Association Between the Use of Zolpidem and the Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Among Older People

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140000/1/jgs15018_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140000/2/jgs15018.pd

Impact of ocean resolution on coupled air-sea fluxes and large-scale climate

Air-sea fluxes are a crucial component in the energetics of the global climate system. The largest air-sea fluxes occur in regions of high sea surface temperature variability, such as ocean boundary, frontal currents and eddies. In this paper we explore the importance of ocean model resolution to resolve air-sea flux relationships in these areas. We examine the sea surface temperature-wind stress relationship in high-pass filtered observations and two versions of the Met Office climate model with eddy-permitting and eddy-resolving ocean resolutions. Eddy-resolving resolution shows marginal improvement in the relationship over eddy-permitting resolution. However, by focussing on the North Atlantic we show that the eddy-resolving model has significant enhancement of latent heat loss over the North Atlantic Current region, a long-standing model bias. While eddy-resolving resolution does not change the air-sea flux relationship at small scale, the impact on the mean state has important implications for the reliability of future climate projections