Project SustAIn: Sustainable Agriculture Initiative

In partnership with Outside In, Pacific University School of Occupational Therapy and two students as a part of their Innovative Practice Project (IPP) began Project SustAIn a program in 2008. Project SustAIn was a renewed effort to continue a gardening program initiated at Outside In’s Education Resource Center by one of the Urban Education teachers (see Figure 1 for an illustration of Project SustAIn: Program Development and Partnership). Project SustAIn was initially designed to create vocational job opportunities and attain educational credits for the homeless youth while collaborating with occupational therapy to develop work and vocational skills through the therapeutic process of gardening; these skills included personal goal development and planning, time management, professional behavior and interview skills training. Through continued partnership on the behalf of the original 2008 occupational therapy students (currently practicing occupational therapists), Pacific University, and Outside In’s Urban Ed program, Project SustAIn was expanded in the Winter of 2010 by two additional occupational therapy students as a part of their IPP to encompass a new tract for independent living and transitional skill development as well as grow in areas of professional and organizational collaboration to more fully meet the needs of Portland’s homeless youth population. This document describes the expansion and growth of Project SustAIn including: a background and literature search of adolescent development in addition to theory and the implications for transition into adulthood for the homeless youth at Outside In; an account of actions and methodologies of Project SustAIn 2010; and a discussion and summary of outcomes, perceived benefits and suggestions for future program development and collaboration

Transportation: Destination Mars

As the agency space transportation lead center, Marshall Space Flight Center has been conducting transportation assessments for future robotic and human Mars missions to identify critical technologies. Five human Mars options are currently under assessment with each option including all transportation requirements from Earth to Mars and return. The primary difference for each option is the propulsion source from Earth to Mars. In case any of the options require heavy launch capability that is not currently projected as available, an in-house study has been initiated to determine the most cost effective means of providing such launch capability. This assessment is only considering launch architectures that support the overall human Mars mission cost goal of $25B. The guidelines for the launch capability study included delivery of 80 metric ton (176 KLB) payloads, 25 feet diameter x 92 feet long, to 220 nmi orbits at 28.5 degrees. The launch vehicle concept of the study was designated "Magnum" to differentiate from prior heavy launch vehicle assessments. This assessment along with the assessment of options for all transportation phases of a Mars mission are on-going

Mechanically Assembled Non-Bonded Transducers Utilizing PVDF Film

The objective was to build special transducers having the same operating characteristics as several commercial transducers, but which would fit into specialized housings. This was required by physical space limitations in several test development requests

Uncertainty modeling in affective computing

This disclosure describes techniques that capture the uncertainty in machine-vision based affect (emotion) perception. The techniques are capable of predicting aleatoric, epistemic, and annotation uncertainty. Measures of uncertainty are important to safety-critical and subjective assessment tasks such as those found in the perception of affective expressions

Mechanistic Studies with DNA Polymerases Reveal Complex Outcomes following Bypass of DNA Damage

DNA is a chemically reactive molecule that is subject to many different covalent modifications from sources that are both endogenous and exogenous in origin. The inherent instability of DNA is a major obstacle to genomic maintenance and contributes in varying degrees to cellular dysfunction and disease in multi-cellular organisms. Investigations into the chemical and biological aspects of DNA damage have identified multi-tiered and overlapping cellular systems that have evolved as a means of stabilizing the genome. One of these pathways supports DNA replication events by in a sense adopting the mantra that one must “make the best of a bad situation” and tolerating covalent modification to DNA through less accurate copying of the damaged region. Part of this so-called DNA damage tolerance pathway involves the recruitment of specialized DNA polymerases to sites of stalled or collapsed replication forks. These enzymes have unique structural and functional attributes that often allow bypass of adducted template DNA and successful completion of genomic replication. What follows is a selective description of the salient structural features and bypass properties of specialized DNA polymerases with an emphasis on Y-family members