The Great Recession and Serving Dislocated Workers with Disabilities: Perspectives from One-Stop Career Centers and Rapid Response Coordinators

Recognizing the scope of long term unemployment and the consequences it exerts on all jobseekers, but especially people with disabilities, the report seeks to gain a better understanding of the extent to which people with disabilities who had lost their jobs in the Great Recession were seeking services from the public workforce system. The report also seeks to identify strategies, if any, being used at the state and local levels to help job seekers with disabilities reconnect with the labor market

Evaluating Workforce Programs: A Guide to What Policymakers Need to Know to Structure Effective, User-Friendly Evaluations

This brief discusses the value and purpose of program evaluations, highlights different evaluation tools and techniques, and illustrates how policy makers and program managers can structure and implement evaluations of workforce development programs

An exploration into the use of the digital platform Slack to support group assessments and feedback and the impact on engagement - Working Paper

Funded by Teaching Innovation Project (DMU)Assessment and feedback is consistently highlighted as an area where students feel Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) could improve and regularly scores lowest of the key criteria for student satisfaction (Grove, 2014). Furthermore, group assessment, where students not only need to learn assessment requirements, but also social skills required to work collaboratively (Reiser, 2017), can create additional challenges. The majority of university students have grown up as digital natives, with 81% of students reporting use of mobile devices whilst studying (Al-Emran, Elsherif & Shaalan, 2016). There is a requirement to consider more brave and innovative technological approaches to supporting students. This working paper explores whether adopting an industry tool Slack, a Computer-Mediated Communication platform, can be an effective tool in group assessments. More specifically, can Slack facilitate an innovative and collaborative group learning community for mediating and supporting group assessments amongst level 5 undergraduate marketing students and additionally develop graduate competencies. Proposing a programme of qualitative inquiry, using a multi-method case study approach, data will be collected through six focus groups of 8-10 students and two semi-structured individual interviews with members of the teaching team in order to evaluate the use of Slack in supporting and engaging students in group assessments

Social issues of power harvesting as key enables of WSN in pervasive computing

Pervasive systems have gained popularity and open the door to new applications that will improve the quality of life of the users. Additionally, the implementation of such systems over an infrastructure of Wireless Sensor Networks has been proven to be very powerful. To deal with the WSN problems related to the battery of the elements or nodes that constitute the WSN, Power Harvesting techniques arise as good candidates. With PH each node can extract the energy from the surrounding environment. However, this energy source could not be constant, affecting the continuity and quality of the services provided. This behavior can have a negative impact on the user's perception about the system, which could be perceived as unreliable or faulty. In the current paper, some related works regarding pervasive systems within the home environment are referenced to extrapolate the conclusions and problems to the paradigm of Power Harvesting Pervasive Systems from the user perspective. Besides, the paper speculates about the approach and methods to overcome these potential problems and presents the design trends that could be followed.<br/

Suprasellar

Months after they found it, they still couldn’t figure out what it was. My mother consulted with a group of doctors at Johns Hopkins who told her that I won the award for longest debate over a brain tumor. I imagined them all gathered like ancient Roman astrologers staking out their claims about space. About stars. But instead of a star, it was my brain up on the screen. Its gray folds, tight around a mass sitting square in the middle of my brain. Perfectly spherical..

Flipperons for Improved Aerodynamic Performance

Lightweight, piezoelectrically actuated bending flight-control surfaces have shown promise as means of actively controlling airflows to improve the performances of transport airplanes. These bending flight-control surfaces are called flipperons because they look somewhat like small ailerons, but, unlike ailerons, are operated in an oscillatory mode reminiscent of the actions of biological flippers. The underlying concept of using flipperons and other flipperlike actuators to impart desired characteristics to flows is not new. Moreover, elements of flipperon-based active flow-control (AFC) systems for aircraft had been developed previously, but it was not until the development reported here that the elements have been integrated into a complete, controllable prototype AFC system for wind-tunnel testing to enable evaluation of the benefits of AFC for aircraft. The piezoelectric actuator materials chosen for use in the flipperons are single- crystal solid solutions of lead zinc niobate and lead titanate, denoted generically by the empirical formula (1-x)[Pb(Zn(1/3)Nb(2/3))O3]:x[PbTiO3] (where x<1) and popularly denoted by the abbreviation PZN-PT. These are relatively newly recognized piezoelectric materials that are capable of strain levels exceeding 1 percent and strain-energy densities 5 times greater than those of previously commercially available piezoelectric materials. Despite their high performance levels, (1-x)[Pb(Zn(1/3)Nb(2/3))O3]:x[PbTiO3] materials have found limited use until now because, relative to previously commercially available piezoelectric materials, they tend to be much more fragile

Two-Stage Multi-Objective Meta-Heuristics for Environmental and Cost-Optimal Energy Refurbishment at District Level

Energy efficiency and environmental performance optimization at the district level are following an upward trend mostly triggered by minimizing the Global Warming Potential (GWP) to 20% by 2020 and 40% by 2030 settled by the European Union (EU) compared with 1990 levels. This paper advances over the state of the art by proposing two novel multi-objective algorithms, named Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) and Multi-Objective Harmony Search (MOHS), aimed at achieving cost-effective energy refurbishment scenarios and allowing at district level the decision-making procedure. This challenge is not trivial since the optimisation process must provide feasible solutions for a simultaneous environmental and economic assessment at district scale taking into consideration highly demanding real-based constraints regarding district and buildings’ specific requirements. Consequently, in this paper, a two-stage optimization methodology is proposed in order to reduce the energy demand and fossil fuel consumption with an affordable investment cost at building level and minimize the total payback time while minimizing the GWP at district level. Aimed at demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage multi-objective approaches, this work presents simulation results at two real district case studies in Donostia-San Sebastian (Spain) for which up to a 30% of reduction of GWP at district level is obtained for a Payback Time (PT) of 2–3 years.Part of this work has been developed from results obtained during the H2020 “Optimised Energy Efficient Design Platform for Refurbishment at District Level” (OptEEmAL) project, Grant No. 680676

Identifikasi Dan Pemanfaatan Tumbuhan Obat Suku Dani Di Kabupaten Jayawijaya Papua

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikas spesies tumbuhan yang berkhasiat sebagai obat dan cara penggunaannya sebagai obat tradisional. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah survey eksploratif dan Participatory Rural Appraisal melalui wawancara dengan dukun kampung bersamaan dengan pengambilan sampel dan identifikasi tumbuhan obat di lokasi penelitian. Hasil penelitian identifikasi dan pemanfaatan tumbuhan obat di 9 desa di Kecamatan Asologaima, Kurulu dan Wamena, ditemukan 16 spesies tumbuhan obat dari 12 famili yang dimanfaatkan oleh masyarakat setempat dengan khasiat dan cara penggunaan yang berbeda-beda dan sederhana namun umumnya dengan merebus tumbuhan dan air rebusannya diminum. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan pada bulan September sampai November 2015. Berdasarkan habitusnya yang paling banyak ditemukan adalah semak sedangkan bagian tumbuhan yang banyak digunakan adalah bagian daun.This research aims for identifying plant species which particularly have ability as medicine and can be used as traditional medicine. Research methods used are explorative survey and Participatory Rural Appraisal through interview with a village shaman (or called person who has ability and experience with traditional medicine) followed with sampling and identifying medication plant in research location. Result of identifying research and used of medication plant in 9 villages in Asologaima, Kurulu, and Wamena Districts, found that 16 species of plant medication of 12 family which used by local society with different benefits and the way it is used and simple but commonly with boiled the medication and drink the water. This research held in September to November 2016. Based on the place of habits the most found plants is shrub, meanwhile the most useful part of the plant is lea

SOFIAS – Herramienta para el análisis de ciclo de vida y la calificación ambiental de edificios

This paper describes the development process of a new software tool, called SOFIAS (Software for a Sustainable Architecture), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivenes. Following CEN/TC 350 standard on environmental assessment of buildings, the tool aims at assisting building professionals on reducing the life-cycle environmental impact through the design of new buildings and the refurbishment of existing ones. In addition, SOFIAS provides a rating system based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. This paper explains the innovative aspects of this software, the working methodology and the different type of results that can be obtained using SOFIAS.SOFIAS (Ref. number IPT-2011-0948-380000) project co financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

Midterm Follow Up For Knee Replacement: How Well Do We Follow Our Patients?

The lost to follow up rate specifically for five year post surgical UKAs is significantly higher for this population subset than the most recent published average as seen in a meta analysis review (Callahan et al. 1995). Follow up visits allow for proper assessment of complications such as wear and osteolysis which need early intervention to improve long-term outcomes and reduce the overall cost of care (Bhandari et al. 2012). Eleven patients, 27.5% of those that were lost to follow up, were without a correct or working phone number, which presents a significant barrier to care. Maintaining updated patient contact information and educating patients about the importance of intermittent follow up may aid in compliance. Further research is required to better characterize patients with poor follow up rates so that systematic surveillance methods can be developed to improve the quality of care