Cross Border Troubles? Interstate River Conflicts and Intrastate Violence

Mitchell examines the relationship between interstate river conflicts and intrastate violence such as riots, strikes, demonstrations, and civil wars in the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, and the Middle East.  Interstate disagreements over cross-border river basins increase the potential for intrastate conflict by creating unequal access to water resources, displacing populations due to damming and diversion projects, and increasing demands for freshwater as population growth occurs.Mitchell finds that states that experience more interstate conflicts over shared river basins are at a higher risk for multiple forms of intrastate conflict, raising the risk of internal conflict by as much as 800 percent. Water quantity issues tend to be the strongest factor increasing domestic conflict, while navigational, water quality, and irrigation issues have little influence on civil conflict. Armed conflicts and civil wars are more likely to occur in situations of ethnic dominance when countries also contest water issues with their riparian neighbors.Ohio State UniversityMershon Center for International Security Studies.Event Web page, event photo

An Evaluation of Evidenced-Based Practice in a Separate Day School for Students with Emotional Disabilities

This program evaluation is focused on the social skills instructional processes of a separate day school for students with emotional disabilities (ED) in Upstate New York. The CIPP model of program evaluation was used to highlight the processes involved with the school’s program, specifically teacher led social skills instruction. To determine the program’s quality of social skills instruction multiple forms of qualitative data were collected. Teacher interviews and multiple classroom observations allowed for a humanistic approach to understanding teacher’s perceptions, practices, and beliefs regarding social skills instruction. This constructivist research design allowed for a comprehensive understanding of the current programing and instructional strategies for students requiring the highest level of academic and behavioral supports, while providing increased practicality in implementing potential recommendations. The data indicated four themes impacting New Horizon’s ability to successfully meet the needs of their students: teachers feel unprepared to implement and assess social skills; teachers are not receiving targeted professional development on social skills strategies; teachers are utilizing some evidence-based instructional strategies during social skills lessons; and teachers do not have access to the necessary resources to implement and assess social skills for students with ED. A delegation of roles and responsibilities, facilitated collaboration opportunities, and professional development opportunities could potentially mitigate teacher misconceptions, motivation, and fidelity of implementation of evidence based instructional social skills strategies for students with ED

Preparation and Description of a Sauropod Femur from the Morrison Formation at Skull Creek, CO

The purpose of this research was to prepare and describe a sauropod femur that is approximately 1.5 meters in length. The sample studied was collected from the Morrison Formation in northwest Colorado from the Skull Creek area. The fossil was poorly preserved in a loosely consolidated sandy conglomerate matrix. It was prepared by removing the debris, and restoration was begun by gluing the broken fragments together. The research also focused on understanding the depositional environment of the fossil, as well as investigating the viability of fossil remains for academic study in similar states of preservation. The study could also have potential implications for the dinosaur fossils of the Morrison Formation and how this site compares to other localities. Additionally, a concise lithological study was done to investigate depositional processes and the ramifications for the stratigraphic site. This project concluded that the most likely candidate for the identification of the femur is of the genus Diplodocus

Asylum Seekers Living in the Australian Community: A Casework and Reception Approach, Asylum Seeker Project, Hotham Mission, Melbourne

In Australia, asylum seekers either are detained in immigration detention centres or, depending upon their mode of entry into Australia and the status of their application for protection, live in the community, often in a state of abject poverty. Hotham Mission’s Asylum Seeker Project (ASP), a Melbourne-based non-governmental organization (NGO), is unique in Australia in its comprehensive work in housing and supporting asylum seekers in the community, particularly those released from detention. The work of the Asylum Seeker Project illustrates that it is possible, through the application of a comprehensive reception casework system, to adequately support asylum seekers in the community with their welfare needs and to prepare asylum seekers for all immigration outcomes. The Project thus provides a compassionate model of reception support and a viable alternative to immigration detention.En Australie, les demandeurs d’asile sont soit détenus dans des centres de détention de l’immigration, ou, dépendant leur mode d’arrivée en Australie et la situation de leur demande de protection, habitent dans la communauté – souvent dans des conditions de dénuement extrême. Le « Asylum Seeker Project » (‘Projet des demandeurs du droit d’asile’) du Hotham Mission, une organisation non gouvernementale (ONG) basée à Melbourne, est unique en son genre en Australie, du fait de ses services complets visant à loger et à soutenir les demandeurs d’asile dans la communauté, tout spécialement ceux qui sont relâchés des centres de détention. Le travail accompli par le « Asylum Seekers Project » démontre qu’il est possible – en utilisant un système complet d’accueil individualisé – d’assister de façon effective les demandeurs d’asile vivant dans la communauté avec leurs besoins sociaux et de préparer les demandeurs d’asile à faire face à toutes les éventualités possibles à leurs demandes d’immigration. Ce faisant, le Projet fournit un modèle de ce qui peut être accompli en matière de soutien à l’accueil et une alternative viable à la détention

Finding the signal in the noise: Could social media be utilized for early hospital notification of multiple casualty events?

IntroductionDelayed notification and lack of early information hinder timely hospital based activations in large scale multiple casualty events. We hypothesized that Twitter real-time data would produce a unique and reproducible signal within minutes of multiple casualty events and we investigated the timing of the signal compared with other hospital disaster notification mechanisms.MethodsUsing disaster specific search terms, all relevant tweets from the event to 7 days post-event were analyzed for 5 recent US based multiple casualty events (Boston Bombing [BB], SF Plane Crash [SF], Napa Earthquake [NE], Sandy Hook [SH], and Marysville Shooting [MV]). Quantitative and qualitative analysis of tweet utilization were compared across events.ResultsOver 3.8 million tweets were analyzed (SH 1.8 m, BB 1.1m, SF 430k, MV 250k, NE 205k). Peak tweets per min ranged from 209-3326. The mean followers per tweeter ranged from 3382-9992 across events. Retweets were tweeted a mean of 82-564 times per event. Tweets occurred very rapidly for all events (<2 mins) and represented 1% of the total event specific tweets in a median of 13 minutes of the first 911 calls. A 200 tweets/min threshold was reached fastest with NE (2 min), BB (7 min), and SF (18 mins). If this threshold was utilized as a signaling mechanism to place local hospitals on standby for possible large scale events, in all case studies, this signal would have preceded patient arrival. Importantly, this threshold for signaling would also have preceded traditional disaster notification mechanisms in SF, NE, and simultaneous with BB and MV.ConclusionsSocial media data has demonstrated that this mechanism is a powerful, predictable, and potentially important resource for optimizing disaster response. Further investigated is warranted to assess the utility of prospective signally thresholds for hospital based activation

Faith-Based Partnerships from the Perspective of the Schools: An exploratory study of partnership benefits and challenges in Philadelphia District Schools - Executive Summary

In the spring of 2008, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) asked Research for Action to conduct an exploratory study of partnerships between faith-based organizations and schools. The goal of the study was to understand the types of supports and benefits schools receive from their faith-based partners as well as the range of outcomes and impacts that result from these partnerships. This study was based on interviews at 23 schools and surveys received from 54% of all SDP schools. The study found that although nearly half (44%) of schools in the sample had a faith-based partner, the remainder were struggling to create or maintain a partnership (27%) or had never attempted to develop a faith-based partnership (29%). Faith-based partnerships in this study also varied in their complexity, ranging from one-time events to partnerships that provided multiple services, such as use of facilities, monetary donations, mentoring, parental engagement and tutoring services. Although principals cited some challenges to their partnership related to time, funding, staffing, and retaining a consistent volunteer base, most principals also reported positive benefits from these partnerships. Principals at most schools with active faith-based partnerships believed these programs helped improve students' motivation, self-esteem, goal setting, and/or conflict resolution skills

Marshall University Music Department Presents the Hydronium Saxophone Quartet, featuring: Jason Mitchell: soprano saxophone, Sara Vorac: alto saxophone, Zack Merritt: tenor saxophone, Carl Hamlin: baritone saxophone

https://mds.marshall.edu/music_perf/1464/thumbnail.jp

Observation of excited Ω⁰꜀ states, and commissioning of the RICH detector

The first observation of the Ω⁻b → Ξ⁺꜀ K⁻π⁻ decay is reported using pp collision data at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV collected by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb⁻¹. The excited Ω꜀**⁰ states are studied in the Ξ⁺꜀ K⁻ mass projection of the Ω⁻b → Ξ⁺꜀ K⁻π⁻ decays. Four states are observed:M(Ω꜀(3000)⁰) = 2999.2 ± 0.9 (stat) ± 0.9(syst) MeV/c², Γ(Ω꜀(3000)⁰) = 4.8 ± 2.1 (stat) ± 2.5 (syst) MeV,M(Ω꜀(3050)⁰ = 3050.1 ± 0.3 (stat) ± 0.2 (syst) MeV/c², Γ(Ω꜀(3050)⁰ < 1.6 MeV, 95% CL,M(Ω꜀(3065)⁰) = 3065.9 ± 0.4 (stat) ± 0.4(syst) MeV/c², Γ(Ω꜀(3065)⁰) = 1.7 ± 1.0 (stat) ± 0.5 (syst) MeV,M(Ω꜀(3090)⁰ = 3091.0 ± 1.1 (stat) ± 1.0 (syst) MeV/c², Γ(Ω꜀(3090)⁰ < 7.4 ± 3.1 (stat) ± 2.8 (syst) MeV,where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. Each resonance has a significance larger than 6 standard deviations. This thesis will also summarise the work completed for the ring imaging Cherenkov detectors, including laboratory work for the commissioning of the detectors and the analysis of the signal induced noise for the multi-anode photomultiplier tubes