Goal Directed Conflict Resolution and Policy Refinement

Peer reviewedPostprin

Cunningham Children's Home Supported Education and Employment for Older Youth in Care

A collaboration of the University of Illinois School of Social Work/Children and Family Research Center and Cunningham Children's Home, the research described in this report analyzes empirically the status of Cunningham's existing vocational programming for foster children and youth. Data reported here primarily come from a survey of 58 Cunningham clients, supplemented by focus group data from a smaller group of Cunningham clients and information on occupational interest from a commercial computer-based career planning program (Career Cruising) used by Cunningham youth. Initially, researchers also planned to develop a supported education/employment pilot model designed to serve the specific population of foster children and youth. However, findings from the research suggest the need for a structure and curriculum more compatible with currently accepted models in community mental health and adult education than with the resources and supports available in a largely residential program like Cunningham. This represents a significant barrier to quick implementation of supported education/employment for the foster population, and so development of the pilot model has been deferred. Meanwhile, the authors have incorporated findings from this study into the Children and Family Research Center's ongoing research agenda on transitioning foster youth, expecting these results will continue to inform both research and practice supporting the progress of these young people toward successful adulthood

Reputation-based trust evaluations through diversity

Non peer reviewedPostprin

Probabilistic Logic Programming with Beta-Distributed Random Variables

We enable aProbLog---a probabilistic logical programming approach---to reason in presence of uncertain probabilities represented as Beta-distributed random variables. We achieve the same performance of state-of-the-art algorithms for highly specified and engineered domains, while simultaneously we maintain the flexibility offered by aProbLog in handling complex relational domains. Our motivation is that faithfully capturing the distribution of probabilities is necessary to compute an expected utility for effective decision making under uncertainty: unfortunately, these probability distributions can be highly uncertain due to sparse data. To understand and accurately manipulate such probability distributions we need a well-defined theoretical framework that is provided by the Beta distribution, which specifies a distribution of probabilities representing all the possible values of a probability when the exact value is unknown.Comment: Accepted for presentation at AAAI 201

Cell Growth Factors

My study’s importance is evaluate the structural properties of cell growth factors (GFs) their functions in interactions among cells based on these properties. Glycoproteins synthesized by the effect of genes bound to receptors on the cell surface and stored in the extracellular matrix are called as growth factors. Growth factors, unlike hormones, can be excreted by many cells. These factors can stimulate or suppress cell division, differentiation, migration, or genetic activities by affecting cellular activity. They also help hematopoietic stem cells to transform into blood cells. These growth factors can work in the cell by binding only to an appropriate receptor. According to the structural characteristics, they are divided into eight categories: vascular endothelial growth factor, epidermal growth factor, fibroblast growth factors, platelet - derived growth factor, transforming growth factor, insulin - like growth factor, hematopoietic growth factor, and nerve growth factor. Today these growth factors have been used for preparing wound - burn cover materials, removing skin wrinkles, controlling cholesterol levels, strengthening immune system, and developing healthier hair and nails. These factors can be used in treating many diseases, particularly cancer, repair of damages on nerve tissues, dwarfism therapy, and deceleration or interception of cell aging. In addition, attempts are being made to develop new systems for the most effective and efficient use of these growth factors. Keywords: Biotechnology, Anti - aging of cells, Treatment of neuron damage, Treatment of wound burn, Apoptosis

Trust and obfuscation principles for quality of information in emerging pervasive environments

Non peer reviewedPostprin

Accurate formation energies of charged defects in solids: a systematic approach

Defects on surfaces of semiconductors have a strong effect on their reactivity and catalytic properties. The concentration of different charge states of defects is determined by their formation energies. First-principles calculations are an important tool for computing defect formation energies and for studying the microscopic environment of the defect. The main problem associated with the widely used supercell method in these calculations is the error in the electrostatic energy, which is especially pronounced in calculations that involve surface slabs and 2D materials. We present an internally consistent approach for calculating defect formation energies in inhomogeneous and anisotropic dielectric environments, and demonstrate its applicability to the cases of the positively charged Cl vacancy on the NaCl (100) surface and the negatively charged S vacancy in monolayer MoS2