This article presents a case study of the effective synergy of health education inquiry, community collaboration, and policy advocacy. Using the Grandparent Caregiver Study as the example, the authors focus on key methodological decisions that enabled them to incorporate research, education, and advocacy activities into an ever-growing project on a modest budget. The study itself centered on two in-depth interviews with each of 71 African American grandmothers raising young grandchildren due to the crack cocaine epidemic in Oakland, California. The case study demonstrates ways in which health education research can increase the efficacy of individuals and disenfranchised groups to define problems, voice their concerns, and advocate for more just and healthy public policies. Through discussion of the authors' methods and activities, they suggest strategies through which research participants, service providers, and policymakers can work together to bring a new issue to the policy arena through a collaborative and empowering research process.
We show that the band gap bowing trends observed in III-V alloys containing dilute concentrations of Sb or Bi can be explained within the framework of the valence-band anticrossing model. Hybridization of the extended $p$-like states comprising the valence band of the host semiconductor with the close-lying localized $p$-like states of Sb or Bi leads to a nonlinear shift of the valence-band edge and a reduction of the band gap. The two alloys $\mathrm{Ga}{\mathrm{Sb}}_{x}{\mathrm{As}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}$ and $\mathrm{Ga}{\mathrm{Bi}}_{x}{\mathrm{As}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}$ are explored in detail, and the results are extrapolated to additional systems.
Campylobacter coli VC167 T2 has two flagellin genes, flaA and flaB, which share 91.9% sequence identity. The flaA gene is transcribed from a o-28 promoter, and the flaB gene from a o-54 promoter. Gene replacement mutagenesis techniques were used to generate flaA+ flaB and flaA flaB+ mutants. Both gene products are capable of assembling independently into functional filaments. A flagellar filament composed exclusively of the flaA gene product is indistinguishable in length from that of the wild type and shows a slight reduction in motility. The flagellar filament composed exclusively of the flaB gene product is severely truncated in length and greatly reduced in motility. Thus, while both flagellins are not necessary for motility, both products are required for a fully active flagellar filament. Although the wild-type flagellar filament is a heteropolymer of the flaA and flaB gene products, immunogold electron microscopy suggests that flaB epitopes are poorly surface exposed along the length of the wild-type filament.
Abstract This chapter seeks to broaden our view of criminalization by encompassing changing forms of urban dispossession and concurrent modalities of statecrafting, including penalization as a socially selective response to offending. It draws an analytic map of the research programme pursued across the author's three books Urban Outcasts (2008), Punishing the Poor (2009), and Deadly Symbiosis (2014). This trilogy disentangles the triangular nexus of class fragmentation, ethnic division, and statecrafting in the polarizing city at the century's turn to explain the political production, socio-spatial distribution, and punitive management of marginality through the wedding of disciplinary social policy and neutralizing criminal justice.
A model of two-dimensional arrays of Chua's circuits is numerically investigated. In a certain parameter region the spatiotemporal system has both synchronized oscillation and spiral wave attractors. Feedback pinnings are suggested to migrate the system from the spiral wave state to the coherent oscillation. The influences of the pinning density, forcing strength, and different pinning distributions on the driving effect are investigated. It is shown that some properly designed control schemes may reach very high control efficiency, i.e., killing a spiral wave consisting of a huge number of cells by injecting only very few cells. The wide applications of the approach are addressed.
Abstract : The current proceedings of the third conference, 'Fatigue 87', which was held at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, covered a wide range of diverse views of the fundamental and applied aspects of fatigue. This includes questions of cycle deformation, crack initiation and propagations, small cracks, crack closure, variable amplitude effects, and environmentally-influenced behavior. The proceedings should provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of the field, suitable for students, researchers and practising engineers alike.
Vegetation change can affect the magnitude and direction of global climate change via its effect on carbon cycling among plants, the soil and the atmosphere. The invasion of non-native plants is a major cause of land cover change, of biodiversity loss, and of other changes in ecosystem structure and function. In California, annual grasses from Mediterranean Europe have nearly displaced native perennial grasses across the coastal hillsides and terraces of the state. Our study examines the impact of this invasion on carbon cycling and storage at two sites in northern coastal California. The results suggest that annual grass invasion has caused an average drop in soil carbon storage of 40 Mg/ha in the top half meter of soil, although additional mechanisms may also contribute to soil carbon losses. We attribute the reduction in soil carbon storage to low rates of net primary production in non-native annuals relative to perennial grasses, a shift in rooting depth and water use to primarily shallow sources, and soil respiratory losses in non-native grass soils that exceed production rates. These results indicate that even seemingly subtle land cover changes can significantly impact ecosystem functions in general, and carbon storage in particular.
The current practice for selecting bidirectional ground motions (GM pairs) to conduct nonlinear response history analysis (RHA) of multistory buildings is restricted to those with a symmetric plan. To overcome such limitations, we propose selecting GM pairs to be consistent with a pair of target spectra defined along the structural axes, enabling a unique azimuth to be determined for each GM pair. We develop two new target spectra: (1) the s-GCMS for two horizontal components of GM and (2) the CMS-UHS Composite Spectrum. Based on nonlinear RHAs of buildings with both symmetric and unsymmetric plans, the CMS-UHS Composite Spectrum is shown to be the best alternative to the current practice of utilizing multiple CMSs, because it provides accurate demands with minimal computational effort and can be easily constructed using existing PSHA tools.
Two efficient algorithms for calculating the steady-state responses of nonlinear circuits are proposed. They are based on both time-domain and frequency-domain approaches. A nonlinear circuit is partitioned into two subnetworks with substitution sources, and their responses are solved by a combined frequency-domain and time-domain method. The total response of the combined circuit can be calculated by an iterative technique based on either the Newton or the relaxation harmonic balance method. Since the methods are based on both time-domain and frequency-domain algorithms, they are called the Newton and the relaxation hybrid harmonic balance methods, respectively. The methods can be applied efficiently to strong nonlinear circuits containing high-Q subnetworks such as filter circuits and crystal oscillators. When a large-scale circuit is partitioned into large linear subnetworks and small nonlinear subnetworks, the method can also be applied efficiently.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
