Health Disparities among Latinx Communities: Issues of Access to Information, Interpreters, and Bilingual Providers

Health Disparities among Latinx Communities: Issues of Access to Information, Interpreters, and Bilingual Providers Shea Wenzler, Depts. of Psychology and Political Science, Roma Kankaria, Sydney Welles, and Anubhav Thapaliya, with Dr. Indira Sultanić, School of World Studies Members of the Latinx community in Richmond and the United States face challenges in obtaining equitable health care access because of socioeconomic and systematic barriers within the healthcare system. This analysis conducted by the Collective Corazón—a VCU student organization that addresses Latinx healthy equity through service and advocacy—examines the underlying causes of Latinx health disparities. Special emphasis is placed on access to just, equitable, and ethical care, information, qualified interpreters, and bilingual healthcare providers—with the objective of proposing viable solutions to alleviate health disparities. This study found that while the U.S. Census Bureau identifies the Latinx population as the fastest growing demographic in the country, the group’s average income and educational attainment fall below the national average, causing increased amounts of stress and thus contributing to poor mental and physical health outcomes. The health disparities created by these socioeconomic factors are further exacerbated by discrimination by healthcare workers and language barriers that result from a lack of qualified interpreters and bilingual providers. This situation creates a cultural divide in which Latinx individuals who are less comfortable speaking English are more likely to turn to alternative forms of support, such as religious and community institutions. This study contends that increasing physician and interpreter training, designing and delivering culturally specific eHealth and Telehealth tools, connecting language access to patient safety and quality of care, and encouraging connections with community leaders are ways to lessen the challenges faced by Latinx individuals in healthcare.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1335/thumbnail.jp

Hydrologic verification: A call for action and collaboration

Traditionally, little attention has been focused on the systematic verification of operational hydrologic forecasts. This paper summarizes the results of forecasts verification from 15 river basins in the United States. The verification scores for these forecast locations do not show improvement over the periods of record despite a number of forecast process improvements. In considering a root cause for these results, the authors note that the current paradigm for designing hydrologic forecast process improvements is driven by expert opinion and not by objective verification measures. The authors suggest that this paradigm should be modified and objective verification metrics should become the primary driver for hydrologic forecast process improvements. ©2007 American Meteorological Society

Visualizing and editing large-scale volume segmentations of neuronal tissue

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 69).Connectomics researchers examine images of the brain in order to determine the structure of neuronal networks. As imaging techniques improve, images are growing in size and resolution - but they are also outgrowing the capacity of existing software to view these images. In response to this problem, this thesis presents OMNI: an application for viewing and editing large connectomic image volumes. OMNI employs pre-processing and caching techniques to allow researchers to examine large image volumes at multiple viewpoints and resolutions. But OMNI is also a full-fledged navigation and editing environment, incorporating the suggestions of connectomics researchers into a simple and flexible user interface design. The OMNI user interface features multiple synchronized display windows and a novel project inspector widget that facilitates project interaction. The 2D navigation and editing modules use OpenGL textures to display image slices from large image volumes and feature a texture management system that includes a threaded texture cache. Editing is performed by painting voxels in a viewing window and allows the user to edit existing neuron tracings or create new ones. The development of OMNI gives connectomics researchers a way to view detailed images of the nervous system and enables them to trace neural pathways through these large images. By studying the structure of individual neurons and groups of neurons, researchers can approach a better understanding of neuron function and the development of the brain.by Rachel Welles Shearer.M.Eng

The Commercial Application of Missile/Space Technology, Parts 1 and 2

This report is concerned with the transfer of technology from missile and space programs to non-missile/space applications in the United States. It presents the findings of a University of Denver Research Institute study sponsored by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant awarded in November 1961. Initial stimulation for the unsolicited proposal leading to this study came from a 1960 Brookings Institution report to NASA, Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs

The role of the nature of the noise in the thermal conductance of mechanical systems

Focussing on a paradigmatic small system consisting of two coupled damped oscillators, we survey the role of the L\'evy-It\^o nature of the noise in the thermal conductance. For white noises, we prove that the L\'evy-It\^o composition (Lebesgue measure) of the noise is irrelevant for the thermal conductance of a non-equilibrium linearly coupled chain, which signals the independence between mechanical and thermodynamical properties. On the other hand, for the non-linearly coupled case, the two types of properties mix and the explicit definition of the noise plays a central role.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. To be published in Physical Review

The channels of technology acquisition in commercial firms, and the NASA dissemination program

Technology acquisition in commercial firms, and NASA dissemination progra

A qualitative Langevin-like model for the coexistence of two distinct granular temperatures

In the present work, we study qualitatively the physics of granular temperature coexistence, for a mixture of two different species. Our model captures its essential aspects and this allows us to get insights on the physical mechanisms of distinct temperature coexistence, in a way which is not obscured by the complexities of kinetic theories or numerical simulations. Our simple model is consistent with limit situations where we should expect equality for the granular temperatures for the mixture.Comment: Accepted to be published on Physica