Developing a Conversational English as a Second Language and Acculturation Program for a Social Service Agency Engaged in the Resettlement of Soviet Jewish Immigrants

This paper describes the creation and first year of development of a three-component conversational ESL and acculturation program for Soviet Jewish immigrants. The project was designed to meet the needs of a private social service agency engaged in resettlement in Long Beach, California. It consisted of reorganization and development of a newly formed volunteer tutorial project, and the creation and development of a weekly class program and a series of cross-cultural communication gatherings. Of special note are selections which discuss the orientation, on-going training, and problems relative to the employment of non-professionals as tutors and teaching assistants. Approaches, methods, and materials are evaluated with respect to both adaptability by non-professional staff and effectiveness with students. learner-centered, non-book-based oral/aural activities are emphasized in both the tutorial and class components. Although this project deals solely with Soviet Jews, it is hoped that it may be used as a model or resource for the development of programs seeking to serve the linguistic and acculturation needs of any recent immigrant group, regardless of ethnicity

Using head position to enhance human interfaces

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1990.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-94).by Joel Wachman.M.S

A video browser that learns by example

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-74).by Joshua Seth Wachman.M.S

No equity, no triple aim: strategic proposals to advance health equity in a volatile policy environment

Health professionals, including social workers, community health workers, public health workers, and licensed health care providers, share common interests and responsibilities in promoting health equity and improving social determinants of health—the conditions in which we live, work, play, and learn. This article summarizes underlying causes of health inequity and comparatively poor health outcomes in the U.S. It describes barriers to realizing the hope embedded in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that moving away from fee-for-service payments will naturally drive care upstream as providers respond to greater financial risk for the health of their patients by undertaking greater prevention efforts. The article asserts that health equity should serve as the guiding framework for achieving the Triple Aim of health care reform. It outlines practical opportunities for improving care and for promoting stronger efforts to address social determinants of health. These proposals include developing a dashboard of measures to assist providers committed to health equity and community-based prevention and to promote institutional accountability for addressing socio-economic factors that influence health

Chen Shui-bian: on independence

Chen Shui-bian achieved an international reputation for his promotion of Taiwan independence. Whilst that reputation may have been well earned, the analyses on which this conclusion is based are frequently flawed in two ways. First, by using an undifferentiated notion of independence, they tend to conflate sovereignty with less threatening expressions of Taiwanese identity and pro-democracy discourse. Second, by failing to take into account the impact of immediate strategic context, analysts ignore a fundamental element of democratic political communication. In our empirical analysis of more than 2,000 of Chen’s speeches, we seek to avoid both flaws by unpacking the concept of independence and taking into account Chen’s strategic relationship with his primary audiences. Our findings challenge popular portrayals of Chen, but more importantly they have strong implications for policy makers and students of political rhetoric with regard to current and future ROC presidents

No equity, no triple aim: strategic proposals to advance health equity in a volatile policy environment

Health professionals, including social workers, community health workers, public health workers, and licensed health care providers, share common interests and responsibilities in promoting health equity and improving social determinants of health—the conditions in which we live, work, play, and learn. This article summarizes underlying causes of health inequity and comparatively poor health outcomes in the U.S. It describes barriers to realizing the hope embedded in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that moving away from fee-for-service payments will naturally drive care upstream as providers respond to greater financial risk for the health of their patients by undertaking greater prevention efforts. The article asserts that health equity should serve as the guiding framework for achieving the Triple Aim of health care reform. It outlines practical opportunities for improving care and for promoting stronger efforts to address social determinants of health. These proposals include developing a dashboard of measures to assist providers committed to health equity and community-based prevention and to promote institutional accountability for addressing socio-economic factors that influence health

Widely-tunable synchronously-pumped optical parametric oscillator

We describe a continuous-wave synchronously pumped singly resonant lithium triborate optical parametric oscillator that is tuned over the range 0.8-1.5µm. At four times threshold, the pump depletion is 75%, and the oscillator converts 27% of the pump radiation into tunable output in picosecond pulses with 78-mW average power

Splitting technique for analytical modelling of two-phase multicomponent flow in porous media

In this paper we discuss one-dimensional models for two-phase Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) floods (oil displacement by gases, polymers, carbonized water, hot water, etc.). The main result presented here is the splitting of the EOR mathematical model into thermodynamical and hydrodynamical parts. The introduction of a potential associated with one of the conservation laws and its use as a new independent coordinate reduces the number of equations by one. The (n) × (n) conservation law model for two-phase n-component EOR flows in new coordinates is transformed into a reduced (n − 1) × (n − 1) auxiliary system containing just thermodynamical variables (equilibrium fractions of components, sorption isotherms) and one lifting equation containing just hydrodynamical parameters (phase relative permeabilities and viscosities). The algorithm to solve analytically the problem includes solution of the reduced auxiliary problem, solution of one lifting hyperbolic equation and inversion of the coordinate transformation. The splitting allows proving the independence of phase transitions occurring during displacement of phase relative permeabilities and viscosities. For example, the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) and transitional tie lines are independent of relative permeabilities and phases viscosities. Relative motion of polymer, surfactant and fresh water slugs depends on sorption isotherms only. Therefore, MMP for gasflood or minimum fresh water slug size providing isolation of polymer/surfactant from incompatible formation water for chemical flooding can be calculated from the reduced auxiliary system. Reduction of the number of equations allows the generation of new analytical models for EOR. The analytical model for displacement of oil by a polymer slug with water drive is presented.Adolfo P. Pires, Pavel G. Bedrikovetsky, Alexander A. Shapir