Giving Voice to Voiceless: Engaging Urban Youth for Possibilities

This symposium will discuss the expansion of The Education Effect – Booker T. Washington, as a university community school partnership designed to engage urban youth for college and career readiness. The partnership is focused on developing collective impact and capacity for academic achievement, social success and college completion. The partnership aligns university expertise, resources and evidenced based strategies to address educational needs through the improvement of teaching and learning; increase graduation rate and parental involvement.

Effect of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Nutrition Education on Nutrition and Health Outcomes of HIV+ Individuals

Factors associated with and barriers to participation in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the effect participation has on food security, nutrition status, disease status and quality of life was investigated in a cross-sectional study including 175 HIV infected individuals. In addition, the effect of a targeted nutrition education on nutrition knowledge, readiness to dietary behavior change, nutrition status, disease status and quality of life was also investigated among a subset of the population (N = 45) in a randomized clinical control trial. SNAP participation rate was 70.3%, similar to the State of Florida and national participation rates. SNAP participation was positively and independently associated with being born in the US (P < 0.001), having monthly income less than $1000 (P = 0.006), and receiving antiretroviral treatment (P < 0.001). Participation barriers include denial of participation by program, recent incarceration, living in a shelter where participation is not allowed and unawareness of eligibility status. In regression analyses, SNAP participation was not significantly associated with improved food security, nutrition status, disease status and health related quality of life (HRQOL). Over half (56%) of the population experienced food insecurity and had inadequate intakes of half of the nutrients assessed. Illicit drug, alcohol and cigarette use were high in this population (31%, 55% and 63% respectively), and affected food security, nutrients intake, disease status and HRQOL. The nutrition education intervention resulted in a trend towards improvements nutrition knowledge, self-efficacy, and readiness to change without impacting nutrition status, disease state and quality of life. Food insecurity and other nutrition related issues, with implications for treatment, management and cost of HIV disease, continue to plague infected individuals living in poverty. More resources, including food and nutrition programs, specifically targeted towards this population are needed to address these issues.

Relevance of anatomy to medical education and clinical practice: perspectives of medical students, clinicians, and educators

Introduction: Against a backdrop of ever-changing diagnostic and treatment modalities, stakeholder perceptions (medical students, clinicians, anatomy educators) are crucial for the design of an anatomy curriculum which fulfils the criteria required for safe medical practice. This study compared perceptions of students, practising clinicians, and anatomy educators with respect to the relevance of anatomy education to medicine. Methods: A quantitative survey was administered to undergraduate entry (n = 352) and graduate entry students (n = 219) at two Irish medical schools, recently graduated Irish clinicians (n = 146), and anatomy educators based in Irish and British medical schools (n = 30). Areas addressed included the association of anatomy with medical education and clinical practice, mode of instruction, and curriculum duration. Results: Graduate-entry students were less likely to associate anatomy with the development of professionalism, teamwork skills, or improved awareness of ethics in medicine. Clinicians highlighted the challenge of tailoring anatomy education to increase student readiness to function effectively in a clinical role. Anatomy educators indicated dissatisfaction with the time available for anatomy within medical curricula, and were equivocal about whether curriculum content should be responsive to societal feedback. Conclusions: The group differences identified in the current study highlight areas and requirements which medical education curriculum developers should be sensitive to when designing anatomy courses.

Growing Up is a Journey

This brochure describes BabyNet and the things it can do for South Carolina families. It also describes some of the things you should look for as your child grows.

Crecer es un Viaje

This brochure, printed in Spanish, describes BabyNet and the things it can do for South Carolina families. It also describes some of the things you should look for as your child grows.

Ensuring Quality Services for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities and their Families within the BabyNet Early Intervention System: An Analysis of Current and Needed Resources

This report prioritizes the targeted, additional resources First Steps and system stakeholders believe will be necessary to ensure the BabyNet system earns a federal designation of “meets requirements” for the first time in its 25 year history. It lists key recommendations to help meet those requirements.

BabyNet Program CONSOLIDATED Financial Activity Report

This is the state’s interagency BabyNet financial statement, depicting the BabyNet revenues and expenditures of: South Carolina First Steps to School Readiness, The South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, The South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, The South Carolina Department of Mental Health, The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, The South Carolina Department of Social Services

BabyNet Program CONSOLIDATED Financial Activity Report For the Year Ended: June 30, 2014 (FY 2014)

This is the state’s interagency BabyNet financial statement, depicting the BabyNet revenues and expenditures of: South Carolina First Steps to School Readiness, The South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, The South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, The South Carolina Department of Mental Health and The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

BabyNet Program CONSOLIDATED Financial Activity Report For the Year Ended: June 30, 2014 (FY 15)

This is the state’s interagency BabyNet financial statement, depicting the BabyNet revenues and expenditures of: South Carolina First Steps to School Readiness, The South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, The South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, The South Carolina Department of Mental Health and The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Design, development and guidance of the Airborne’s quadrotor

The main goal of the Airborne project is to develop, at technology readiness level 8 (TRL8), a few selected robotic aerial technologies for quick localization of victims by avalanches by equipping drones with two forefront sensors used in SAR operations in case of avalanches, namely the ARVA and RECCO. This thesis focuses on the design, development, and guidance of the TRL8 quadrotor developed during the project. We present and describe the design method that allowed us to obtain an EMI shielded UAV capable of integrating both RECCO and ARVA sensors. Besides, is presented the avionics and power train design and building procedure in order to obtain a modular UAV frame that can be easily carried by rescuers and achieves all the performance benchmarks of the project. Additionally, in addition to the onboard algorithms, a multivariate regressive convolutional neural network whose goal is the localization of the ARVA signal is presented. On guidance, the automatic flight procedure is described, and the onboard waypoint generator algorithm is presented. The goal of this algorithm is the generation and execution of an automatic grid pattern without the need to know the map in advance and without the support of a control ground station (CGS). Moreover, we present an iterative trajectory planner that does not need pre-knowledge of the map and uses Bézier curves to address optimal, dynamically feasible, safe, and re-plannable trajectories. The goal is to develop a method that allows local and fast replannings in case of an obstacle pop up or if some waypoints change. This makes the novel planner suitable to be applied in SAR operations. The introduction of the final version of the quadrotor is supported by internal flight tests and field tests performed in real operative scenarios by the Club Alpino Italiano (CAI).

Lives apart? Experiences of transnational motherhood by Georgian labour migrants to Italy and their children

International labour migration processes of the last decades saw increasing numbers of solo female migrants employed in the developed countries. Many of these women were mothers who left their children in the sending countries and thus gave rise to a controversial phenomenon of transnational motherhood. The present thesis is based on the first empirical study of intergenerational narratives of mothers, Georgian labour migrants to Italy, and their children, left behind in Georgia. Mothers’ international labour migration is a challenge to the traditional ideology of motherhood. Although unconsciously migrant mothers often adhere to “alternative”, “rational”, future-oriented model(s) of parenting, they continue to live their experiences in the framework of traditional understandings of motherhood, which appears to be unequipped to “frame” transnational motherhood as, from its point of view, mothers’ choice to leave their children is reprehensible, yet transnational mothers’ physical absence is not an equivalent of “leaving” their children. Informants’ narratives strongly suggest that long periods of physical separation did not jeopardize bonds between mothers and children in transnational families. While informants’ selection bias is probable, the mother-child bond was not “broken” and the very essence of motherhood remained intact. Many forms of mothers’ and children’s online co-presence were documented during the interviews. Interviews also prove that the Internet cannot be considered a solution to the problem of family separation, experienced painfully by both mothers and children: it may reduce the pain caused by separation, but cannot be a substitute for mothers’ physical absence from their families. Despite the pain caused by separation, mothers’ emigration appeared to be the right decision made for the good of the family. Interviewed mothers almost univocally reported readiness to “keep going on”, and continue working in emigration to help their children until physically able to do so, because, as they put it, “motherhood never ends”.