Meet Kevin Pugh, 12-year-old couch potato. Now meet Cromwell, his part beagle, part potato chip dog. Kevin’s looking forward to spending his summer doing as little as possible. Unfortunately, Kevin’s father, former Chicago Bears star player/super-sports fanatic, Howie Pugh, feels differently. So does Cromwell, who has suddenly and mysteriously developed a fascination with agility competitions: running up seesaws, leaping over hurdles, soaring through hoops (sometimes). If he has to do anything, Kevin would rather do something for newly obsessed Cromwell, but dog agility lessons do not constitute a sport in his father’s mind, so football camp it is. Until some well-timed events collide, literally, and soon Kevin’s found a way for he and Cromwell to take classes, and the upstart Team Cromwell is born. Andy Behrens has written a hilarious novel with a dry-as-dirt protagonist who’s constantly tortured by the goings-on around him. It’s also a charming story about a boy and his dog, as well as a meaningful and heartfelt look at a relationship between a boy and his father who don’t always see eye-to-eye.
Sustainable Food System Assessment provides both practical and theoretical insights about the growing interest in and response to measuring food system sustainability. Bringing together research from the Global North and South, this book shares lessons learned, explores intended and actual project outcomes, and highlights points of conceptual and methodological convergence. Interest in assessing food system sustainability is growing, as evidenced by the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact and the importance food systems initiatives have taken in serving as a lever for attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This book opens by looking at the conceptual considerations of food systems indicators, including the place-based dimensions of food systems indicators and how measurements are implicated in sense-making and visioning processes. Chapters in the second part cover operationalizing metrics, including the development of food systems indicator frameworks, degrees of indicator complexities, and practical constraints to assessment. The final part focuses on the outcomes of assessment projects, including impacts on food policy and communities involved, highlighting the importance of building connections between sustainable food systems initiatives. The global coverage and multi-scalar perspectives, including both conceptual and practical aspects, make this a key resource for academics and practitioners across planning, geography, urban studies, food studies, and research methods. It will also be of interest to government officials and those working within NGOs. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/Sustainable-Food-System-Assessment-Lessons-from-Global-Practice/Blay-Palmer-Conare-Meter-Battista-Johnston/p/book/9781032083933, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
This book explores potentially disruptive and transformative healthcare-specific use cases made possible by the latest developments in Internet of Things (IoT) technology and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Healthcare data can be subjected to a range of different investigations in order to extract highly useful and usable intelligence for the automation of traditionally manual tasks. In addition, next-generation healthcare applications can be enhanced by integrating the latest knowledge discovery and dissemination tools. These sophisticated, smart healthcare applications are possible thanks to a growing ecosystem of healthcare sensors and actuators, new ad hoc and application-specific sensor and actuator networks, and advances in data capture, processing, storage, and mining. Such applications also take advantage of state-of-the-art machine and deep learning algorithms, major strides in artificial and ambient intelligence, and rapid improvements in the stability and maturity of mobile, social, and edge computing models.
In the past few decades there has been incredible growth in "bionano"-related research, which has been accompanied by numerous publications in this field. Although various compilations address topics related to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and protein, there are few books that focus on determining the structure of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and using RNA as building blocks to construct nanoarchitectures for biomedical and healthcare applications. RNA Nanotechnology is a comprehensive volume that details both the traditional approaches and the latest developments in the field of RNA-related technology. This book targets a wide audience: a broad introduction provides a solid academic background for students, researchers, and scientists who are unfamiliar with the subject, while the in-depth descriptions and discussions are useful for advanced professionals. The book opens with reviews on the basic aspects of RNA biology, computational approaches for predicting RNA structures, and traditional and emerging experimental approaches for probing RNA structures. This section is followed by explorations of the latest research and discoveries in RNA nanotechnology, including the design and construction of RNA-based nanostructures. The final segment of the book includes descriptions and discussions of the potential biological and therapeutic applications of small RNA molecules, such as small/short interfering RNAs (siRNAs), microRNAs (miRNAs), RNA aptamers, and ribozymes.
Data Analytics for Intelligent Transportation Systems provides in-depth coverage of data-enabled methods for analyzing intelligent transportation systems (ITS), including the tools needed to implement these methods using big data analytics and other computing techniques. The book examines the major characteristics of connected transportation systems, along with the fundamental concepts of how to analyze the data they produce. It explores collecting, archiving, processing, and distributing the data, designing data infrastructures, data management and delivery systems, and the required hardware and software technologies. It presents extensive coverage of existing and forthcoming intelligent transportation systems and data analytics technologies. All fundamentals/concepts presented in this book are explained in the context of ITS. Users will learn everything from the basics of different ITS data types and characteristics to how to evaluate alternative data analytics for different ITS applications. They will discover how to design effective data visualizations, tactics on the planning process, and how to evaluate alternative data analytics for different connected transportation applications, along with key safety and environmental applications for both commercial and passenger vehicles, data privacy and security issues, and the role of social media data in traffic planning. Data Analytics for Intelligent Transportation Systems will prepare an educated ITS workforce and tool builders to make the vision for safe, reliable, and environmentally sustainable intelligent transportation systems a reality. It serves as a primary or supplemental textbook for upper-level undergraduate and graduate ITS courses and a valuable reference for ITS practitioners. - Utilizes real ITS examples to facilitate a quicker grasp of materials presented - Contains contributors from both leading academic and commercial domains - Explains how to design effective data visualizations, tactics on the planning process, and how to evaluate alternative data analytics for different connected transportation applications - Includes exercise problems in each chapter to help readers apply and master the learned fundamentals, concepts, and techniques - New to the second edition: Two new chapters on Quantum Computing in Data Analytics and Society and Environment in ITS Data Analytics
The U. S. Secretary of the Army appointed the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee(FHIRC or Committee) and directed it to "conduct a comprehensive assessment of the Fort Hoodcommand climate and culture, and its impact, if any, on the safety, welfare and readiness of ourSoldiers and units." In addressing this mandate, the FHIRC determined that during the time periodcovered by the Review, the command climate relative to the Sexual Harassment/Assault Responseand Prevention (SHARP) Program at Fort Hood was ineffective, to the extent that there was apermissive environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment.As set forth in this Report, specific Findings demonstrate that the implementation of theSHARP Program was ineffective. During the review period, no Commanding General or subordinateechelon commander chose to intervene proactively and mitigate known risks of high crime, sexualassault and sexual harassment. The result was a pervasive lack of confidence in the SHARP Programand an unacceptable lack of knowledge of core SHARP components regarding reporting and certainvictim services. Under a structurally weak and under-resourced III Corps SHARP Program, theSexual Assault Review Board (SARB) process was primarily utilized to address administrative and notthe actual substantive aspects of the Program. While a powerful tool by design, the SARB processbecame a missed opportunity to develop and implement proactive strategies to create a respectfulculture and prevent and reduce incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment. From the III Corpslevel and below, the SHARP Program was chronically under-resourced, due to understaffing, lack oftraining, lack of credentialed SHARP professionals, and lack of funding. Most of all, it lackedcommand emphasis where it was needed the most: the enlisted ranks.A resonant symptom of the SHARP Program's ineffective implementation was significantunderreporting of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Without intervention from the NCOs andofficers entrusted with their health and safety, victims feared the inevitable consequences of reporting: ostracism, shunning and shaming, harsh treatment, and indelible damage to their career. Many haveleft the Army or plan to do so at the earliest opportunity.As part of the command climate, the issues of crime and Criminal Investigation Division(CID) operations were examined. The Committee determined that serious crime issues on and offFort Hood were neither identified nor addressed. There was a conspicuous absence of an effectiverisk management approach to crime incident reduction and Soldier victimization. A militaryinstallation is essentially a large, gated community. The Commander of a military installation possessesa wide variety of options to proactively address and mitigate the spectrum of crime incidents. Despitehaving the capability, very few tools were employed at Fort Hood to do so. Both the Directorate ofEmergency Services (DES) and the CID have a mandate and a role to play in crime reduction.Each contributed very little analysis, feedback and general situational awareness to the command towardfacilitating and enabling such actions. This was another missed opportunity.The deficient climate also extended into the missing Soldier scenarios, where no onerecognized the slippage in accountability procedures and unwillingness or lack of ability of noncommissioned officers (NCOs) to keep track of their subordinates. The absence of any formalprotocols for Soldiers who fail to report resulted in an ad hoc approach by units and Military Police(MP) to effectively address instances of missing Soldiers during the critical first 24 hours, again withadverse consequences.Consistent with the FHIRC Charter, this Report sets forth nine Findings and offers seventyRecommendations.
"Since Mayor de Blasio launched the Housing New York Plan in 2014, New York City has accelerated the construction and preservation of affordable housing to levels not seen in 30 years. We are on track to secure more affordable housing in the first four years of the Administration than in any comparable period since 1978. The City has tripled the share of affordable housing for households earning less than $25,000. Funding for housing construction and preservation has doubled, as have the number of homes in the City’s affordable housing lotteries each year. Hundreds of once-vacant lots have affordable homes rising on them today. Reforms to zoning and tax programs are not just incentivizing, but mandating affordable apartments—paid for by the private sector— in new development." --Page 4.
