Beam-End Bond Tests of Textured-Epoxy-Coated No. 6 Reinforcing Bars

In this study, the bond strength of No. 6 textured-epoxy-coated reinforcement (TECR)–epoxy-coated reinforcement with a texturing surface treatment material–is evaluated. The bond strength of the TECR, produced by Sherwin-Williams, is compared to that of uncoated reinforcement using beam-end tests performed in accordance with ASTM A944 and A1124 using six pairs of TECR and uncoated bar specimens. The TECR exhibited a bond strength equal to 100.3 percent of that of uncoated reinforcement from the same heat of steel. The difference in bond strength is not statistically significant. The test results can be used to develop bond qualification recommendations for reinforcing bars with textured coating to be incorporated in ASTM A1124. Based on these results, it is recommended that the required bond strength of TECR be increased from 96% to 99.5% of the bond strength of uncoated bars and that the textured coating be considered as providing bond strength equivalent to that of uncoated bars.CRSI Education & Research Foundatio

Pannonian Slavic

The entry describes the history and state of research on the problem of Pannonian Slavic, the variety or varieties of Slavic spoken in the Carpatho-Danubian basin prior to and after the arrival of the Magyars, speakers of Hungarian, in the 9th century CE. The issue is also discussed in connection with the brief period in which Slavic literacy had been introduced in the second half of the 9th century with the activity of Methodius under the patronage of Kocel, the ruler of the Slavs in Pannonia inferior. The Slavic speech community in the Carpatho-Danubian region yielded to language shift in favor of Hungarian, which, when completed in the following century or so, resulted in a clearer division between today’s West and South Slavic languages. In terms of method, Pannonian Slavic can be reconstructed indirectly through borrowings into Hungarian as well as through comparative analysis of the living “circum-Pannonian” varieties of Slavic, with studies focusing more on form in some cases and lexicon in others. The interpretation of the facts remains heterogeneous, with studies pointing to different solutions.Work on this article was supported under the auspices of the Foreign Visitors Fellowship Program, Fall 2022, from the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan. The work benefitted from discussions with hosts and audience members following the author's presentations "Montenegrin language: What is it and what is at stake?," Kyoto University, Oct. 2022, organized by Dr. Daiki Horiguchi and Prof. Tadashi Nakamura (both of Kyoto University), and Dr. Motoki Nomachi (SRC, Hokkaido); and “Orthographies for small Slavic languages with significant internal differentiation. Case studies of Prekmurje Slovene and Montenegrin.” University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, organized by Dr. Nana Tohyama (University of the Ryukyus) and Dr. Motoki Nomachi, November 2022

International Trade Law: A Comprehensive E-Textbook, Volume 2 Fundamental Multilateral Obligations (6th Revised Edition)

This book is Volume Two of an Eight-Volume set. All of the Volumes are available in KU ScholarWorks. Links to all eight volumes are available in the Abstracts file in this record. About the Author: Born in Toronto of Indian and Celtic heritage, Rakesh (Raj) Kumar Bhala is a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen prominent in the fields of International Trade Law, Islamic Law (Sharī‘a), and Law and Literature. Raj is the inaugural Leo. S. Brenneisen Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas School of Law (KU Law). He is published widely world-wide – authoring 100 scholarly articles and 13 books, including the International Trade Law Textbook, which has been used at over 100 law schools around the globe. Ingram’s Business Magazine designated him as one of “50 Kansans You Should Know.” Raj has testified before the U.K. Parliament, House of Commons, International Trade Committee, on trade and human rights. Media frequently call upon Raj. Across 65 consecutive months (from January 2017-October 2022), “On Point” was his column on International Law and Economics, which Bloomberg Quint / BQ Prime (Mumbai) published and distributed to approximately 6.2 million readers globally. Raj is a Harvard Law School (HLS) graduate (Cum Laude). As a Marshall Scholar, Raj earned two Master’s degrees, from the London School of Economics (LSE) in Economics, and from Oxford (Trinity College) in Management (Industrial Relations). His undergraduate degree is from Duke (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa), where he was an Angier B. Duke Scholar and double-majored in Economics and Sociology. After HLS, Raj practiced at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he twice won the President’s Award for Excellence thanks to his service as a delegate to the United Nations Conference on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), along with a Letter of Commendation from the U.S. Department of State. He is a member of the State Department’s Speaker Program. Raj has served in officer positions at the International Bar Association (IBA) and Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA), on the Executive Board of Directors of the Carriage Club of Kansas City (including as Treasurer), and been on the Alumni Association Board of the University School of Milwaukee (USM), his high school alma mater. He is grateful to his USM teachers for a liberal arts education that made all good things possible. Raj loves fitness training, has finished 115 marathons, including the “Big Five” of the “World’s Majors” (Boston twice, New York twice, Chicago twice, Berlin, and London). He enjoys studying Shakespeare and (especially since becoming Catholic at Easter Vigil 2001) Theology – and watching baseball.Volume Two, Fundamental Multilateral Obligations, provides in-depth coverage of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (WTO). International Trade Law springs from, and operates at, three levels: multilateral trade treaties, i.e., GATT-WTO rules; regional trade agreements, i.e., rules arising from free trade agreements (FTAs) and customs unions (CUs); and national measures, e.g., rules specific to one country, such as America or India. Volume Two is all about this first level. Subsequent Volumes deal with the other levels. But, across all eight Volumes, GATT-WTO rules are of special, if not pre-eminent, importance – at least if there is anything to the international rule of law. Part One lays out the architecture of multilateral trade treaties. Special emphasis is on the 1986-1994 Uruguay Round. It produced the largest and most complex of trade treaties in human history, and birthed the WTO. Also discussed here is how countries became contracting parties to GATT, and how they accede as Members to the WTO. Part Two studies the luster and blemishes on the “crown jewel” of the GATT-WTO regime, namely, its adjudicatory system. How did this system evolve since 1947 into today’s sophisticated set of procedures for resolving trade disputes among WTO Members? What problems do WTO Panels and the Appellate Body face? Does stare decisis operate, in a de facto sense, in this system? Why did the Appellate Body – loosely akin to a Supreme Court of International Trade – collapse in December 2019, and what replaced it? Can it be said, under Positivist Legal Theory, that International Trade Law is truly “law,” unlike, perhaps, Public International Law? Part Three sets the foundation for the remaining two Parts, Three and Four. All GATT- WTO disputes necessarily begin with a basic question: what is the relationship between or among (1) an imported product, and either (2) an allegedly aggrieved other imported product or (3) domestically-produced product? If (1) an imported product bears no “likeness” either to (2) another imported product or (3) a domestically-produced product, then that imported product cannot be said to cause harm to the other merchandise. Part Three elucidates the legal tests for “likeness,” which derive from considerable GATT-WTO jurisprudence. Part Four then identifies each of the five most important rules in the entire multilateral trading system – the “Five Pillars.” They are most-favored nation (MFN) treatment, national treatment (for both fiscal and non-fiscal measures), tariff bindings, quantitative restrictions (QRs), and transparency. To know these rules well is to know a lot about International Trade Law. They, or their analogs, are reincarnated countless times not only in WTO treaties that deal with, for example, IP and services, but also and in FTAs. Part Four untangles the text of each of these rules, and the leading GATT-WTO cases that apply them in a wide array of provocative circumstances

Meaning of Life Events and Person Characteristics Interactions Predicting Changes in Attachment

These are the slides from a presentation given at Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention on 02/22/2025.One of the core themes in Bowlby (1973)’s attachment theory is the extent to which people’s attachment (in) security exhibits stability and change over time. Previous research has identified life events that may predict such changes but focused on the objective occurrence of events, often overlooking individual subjective experiences. To address this gap, the study explored how people’s subjective interpretations of 7 life events and the interaction between 10 personal characteristics and these experiences (P x sE) relate to changes in their attachment (in)security over time. We analyzed data from 6566 adults who completed between 1 and 24 monthly survey assessments. Our results suggested that the frequency and nature of person-by-subjective experience (P x sE) interactions differed in meaningful ways across specific life events and person characteristics. Additionally, it highlighted that individuals’ subjective interpretations of life events may be a stronger predictor of change in state attachment (in) security than the objective occurrence of events, and offered new insights into why individuals’ sense of security may change in different ways over time

Summarizing Smarter: How ThatNeedle Gist Enhances Learning

This is Season 1 - Episode 3 of the AI Advocates podcast series created by the FLITE Stem Center. The purpose of AI Advocates is to provide podcasts dedicated to helping educators integrate artificial intelligence into their classrooms to save time, enhance learning, and provide more equitable educational opportunities. Hosted by Dr. Lisa Dieker and Dr. Maggie Mosher from the Achievement & Assessment Institute at the University of Kansas, these podcasts offer tips, tools, and strategies for teachers looking to incorporate AI into their teaching practices safely and effectively. Episode 3 is available in the AI Advocates channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KUAIAdvocatesIn this episode of AI Advocates, Dr. Lisa Dieker and Dr. Maggie Mosher explore ThatNeedle Gist, a Chrome extension designed to summarize YouTube videos quickly and efficiently. They discuss how this tool enhances accessibility by providing text-based summaries, making video content more digestible for different learners. Lisa and Maggie highlight its usefulness for study guides and language translation, while also cautioning users about privacy considerations when using the tool. Tune in to hear their insights on how ThatNeedle Gist can save time, support diverse learners, and improve engagement with video content! That Needle Gist Link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/thatneedle-gist-youtube-s/kniggnopbpfiankkpmgicflmdaidjhg

Two Recombinant Cytomegalovirus Antigens Formulated with the SPA14 Adjuvant System: Impact of Temperature, pH and Excipients on the Stability of each Antigen and Adjuvant Component (Dataset)

This dataset accompanies the article, Two Recombinant Cytomegalovirus Antigens Formulated with the SPA14 Adjuvant System: Impact of Temperature, pH and Excipients on the Stability of each Antigen and Adjuvant Component, currently in press.By evaluating the stability profiles of each component of a vaccine candidate (antigens, adjuvants), formulation conditions to mitigate vaccine instability can be identified. In this work, two recombinant Cytomegalovirus (CMV) glycoprotein antigens (gB, Pentamer) were formulated with SPA14, a novel liposome-based adjuvant system containing a synthetic TLR4 agonist (E6020) and a saponin (QS21). Analytical characterization and accelerated stability studies were performed with the two CMV antigens, formulated with and without SPA14, under various conditions (temperature, pH, excipients). For the antigens, the Pentamer was less stable than gB, and the addition of SPA14 adjuvant had negligible impact. For the SPA14 components, minor pH shifts (caused by the buffer’s temperature dependent pKa shifts) destabilized the liposome (particle size by DLS) and QS21, but E6020 was unaffected (integrity by RP-UHPLC and LC-MS, respectively). The addition of chelators and free radical scavengers stabilized both the QS21 and E6020 components, consistent with oxidative degradation catalyzed by trace metal-ions. Interestingly, QS21 and E6020 also displayed improved storage stability in the presence of the protein antigens. These results are discussed in terms of developing key stability-indicating assays to optimize formulation conditions to stabilize the two CMV antigens and the three components of the SPA14 adjuvant system

International Trade Law: A Comprehensive E-Textbook, Volume 7 Free Trade Agreements, Labor, and Environment (6th Revised Edition)

This book is Volume Seven of an Eight-Volume set. All of the Volumes are available in KU ScholarWorks. Links to all eight volumes are available in the Abstracts file in this record. About the Author: Born in Toronto of Indian and Celtic heritage, Rakesh (Raj) Kumar Bhala is a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen prominent in the fields of International Trade Law, Islamic Law (Sharī‘a), and Law and Literature. Raj is the inaugural Leo. S. Brenneisen Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas School of Law (KU Law). He is published widely world-wide – authoring 100 scholarly articles and 13 books, including the International Trade Law Textbook, which has been used at over 100 law schools around the globe. Ingram’s Business Magazine designated him as one of “50 Kansans You Should Know.” Raj has testified before the U.K. Parliament, House of Commons, International Trade Committee, on trade and human rights. Media frequently call upon Raj. Across 65 consecutive months (from January 2017-October 2022), “On Point” was his column on International Law and Economics, which Bloomberg Quint / BQ Prime (Mumbai) published and distributed to approximately 6.2 million readers globally. Raj is a Harvard Law School (HLS) graduate (Cum Laude). As a Marshall Scholar, Raj earned two Master’s degrees, from the London School of Economics (LSE) in Economics, and from Oxford (Trinity College) in Management (Industrial Relations). His undergraduate degree is from Duke (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa), where he was an Angier B. Duke Scholar and double-majored in Economics and Sociology. After HLS, Raj practiced at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he twice won the President’s Award for Excellence thanks to his service as a delegate to the United Nations Conference on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), along with a Letter of Commendation from the U.S. Department of State. He is a member of the State Department’s Speaker Program. Raj has served in officer positions at the International Bar Association (IBA) and Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA), on the Executive Board of Directors of the Carriage Club of Kansas City (including as Treasurer), and been on the Alumni Association Board of the University School of Milwaukee (USM), his high school alma mater. He is grateful to his USM teachers for a liberal arts education that made all good things possible. Raj loves fitness training, has finished 115 marathons, including the “Big Five” of the “World’s Majors” (Boston twice, New York twice, Chicago twice, Berlin, and London). He enjoys studying Shakespeare and (especially since becoming Catholic at Easter Vigil 2001) Theology – and watching baseball.If the question is, “what areas of International Trade Law are blazing?,” then Volume Seven encompasses the answer: free trade agreements (FTAs), labor, and environment. With no end in sight to decades of paralysis at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the “action” on market access and social justice issues is at the regional level. So, Part One covers the theory and practice of FTAs and customs unions (CUs). FTAs and customs unions are more than economic agreements; they also are instruments to advance political and national security interests of the Parties to them. Philosophies differ as to how ambitious they should be, from American-style exhaustiveness to Indian-style boundedness. Perspectives differ on what countries should be invited into an FTA – Taiwan? And, they differ on whether to remain in a deal – as the Brexit divorce debacle memorably shows. Part Two pays respect to the multilateral disciplines on FTAs and CUs. WTO Members are supposed to adhere to certain parameters when they negotiate, draft, and execute such deals. That they do not always do so is problematic, and helps explain the frenzied activity in this space. No FTA or CU can function without Rules of Origin (ROOs). They are the subject of Part Three. In contrast to ROOs discussed in Volume Three (Customs Law), which are non-preferential, ROOs in the context of an FTA or CU (or a poor-country preference scheme) are preferential. How, and why, that is so, and what is at stake, are explored in Part Three. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), both version 1.0 and 2.0 (the latter known as the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, or USMCA), furnishes an excellent case study of how ROOs function. NAFTA 1.0 and 2.0 also illustrate how ROOs can advance favored sectoral interests (e.g., autos and auto parts) and labor rights (e.g., wages and dispute settlement), and how they can be looser (encouraging third-country inputs) or tighter (i.e., protectionist). Part Four demonstrates that free trade, in a pure sense, never is purely free. “Free” Trade Agreements are really “Managed Trade Agreements.” Using Staging Categories (SCs), Duty-Free, Quota Free (DFQF) treatment rarely is accorded to 100 percent of merchandise traded among FTA Parties immediately upon Entry into Force (EIF). Likewise, Parties hold back from liberalization commitments certain sensitive sectors, and reserve the right to snapback protections using safeguards. Analogous limitations – sometimes even more protective ones – exist for provisions on services and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. Parts Five and Six cover labor issues. The linkage between trade and labor rights always mattered, as the 1948 Havana (International Trade Organization, or ITO) Charter prove. Today this link is at the forefront of trade politics and social justice debates. Part Five examines several critical legal and policy questions: What are “internationally recognized workers’ rights”? What role does the ILO play in defining and advancing them? To what extent does an FTA, through (for example) labor arbitration proceedings, enforce those rights? This Part also lays out new rules – such as the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act (UFLPA) – to cleanse merchandise supply chains of forced labor. Because of these questions and rules (plus those concerning the environment in Part Seven and national security in Volume Three), it is not too much of an overstatement to say that International Trade Law is very much about supply chain management. In Part Six, the Chapters examine how workers in a domestic setting can be helped from the dislocating effects of trade liberalization. That is the subject of “Trade Adjustment Assistance” (TAA). Traditionally, ever since President Kennedy’s Administration, TAA has been vital to secure passage in the U.S. Congress of FTA legislation that – because of the impacts of free trade on certain sectors lacking a comparative advantage – would be injured by the FTA. Part Seven covers another vital linkage in world trade, that between trade and the environment. Neither GATT-WTO nor FTA provisions can, by themselves, solve the problem of climate change. But, they can play a role in adaptation and mitigation. This Part begins with in-depth coverage of GATT-WTO exceptions to promote conservation of exhaustible natural resources and support sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, showing how the restrictive Two Step Test developed through cases dating to the 1990s has limited the practical effect of those exceptions. This Part continues with a detailed discussion of how trade affects climate change, and what countries can do to adapt to, and/or mitigate, climate change. Thus, for example, this Part examines WTO Members – led by the European Union (EU) – that have proposed, and indeed implemented, their own trade-restrictions to deal with climate change, such as a Carbon Border Adjustment Tax Mechanism (CBAM). Overall, Volume Seven has an underlying implicit theme of “WTO be damned.” On market access, labor, and environmental matters, some WTO Members have ceased waiting for action at the multilateral level. They are pursuing their interests in these areas – otherwise, they are left behind by not only certain other Members, but also their own domestic constituencies. Like the other seven Volumes of International Trade Law: A Comprehensive E-Textbook, this Volume is available Open Access, and thus freely, quickly downloadable

Exploring and Connecting the Within-person Factor Structures of Psychosis-related EMA and Clinician-Rated Symptoms

These are the slides from a presentation given at HiTOP Conference on 03/28/2025.The transdiagnostic approach to understanding affective and non-affective psychotic disorders highlights the need for examining factor structures. Recent studies have explored transdiagnostic factors across individuals. However, within-person factor structure remains under-investigated. Given the importance of daily symptom tracking in outpatient settings, mapping the transdiagnostic factor structure onto daily affective and symptomatic experiences is crucial. We employed ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of self-reported daily symptoms and monthly clinical interviews to examine how within-person transdiagnostic factors align with clinical factor structures over time. A sample of 70 outpatients with bipolar, psychotic, and related disorders were recruited from McLean Psychiatric Hospital, resulting in 31,869 EMA observations and 965 clinical interviews. Factor analyses identified six latent EMA factors: irritability, positive activation, negative arousal, distress, anxious stress, and social activity; and seven clinical factors: mania, disorganized thinking, affective and cognitive depressive symptoms, interpersonal and intrapersonal negative symptoms, and anxiety. Multilevel modeling will assess associations between EMA and clinical factors. Findings are expected to enhance understanding of within-person transdiagnostic structures in psychotic and related disorders, aiding symptom monitoring and personalized treatments

Course-Based Research Assignment: Literature Review and Theoretical Expectations (POLS 469)

This assignment was the product of a Research-Intensive Course Grant through KU’s Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships. These grants provide financial support and advising for instructors who want to incorporate larger research and creative projects into their classes. Each file is made available in both an editable format (docx or pptx) and pdf format.This assignment was created for POLS 469, an upper-level political science course focusing on authoritarian propaganda. The mini-assignment serves as a critical component of a larger course project where students develop an original research report investigating the production, dissemination, or effects of authoritarian propaganda. Students are given multiple approaches to their final project: they can examine specific propaganda sources (news outlets, TV shows, social media accounts), analyze propaganda's impact on public opinion or behavior, or pursue other approved topics. This mini-assignment specifically focuses on developing the literature review and theoretical framework portions of the research paper. The primary objective of the assignment was to provide students with an understanding of different approaches to specifying social science theories and research contributions. For the assignment, students need to identify several relevant academic studies, identify their key insights and the larger debate they are a part of, and determine a possible gap in the literature that their paper might address. Building on this preliminary literature analysis, students should identify the variation of interest and the specific social and political variables they might examine and develop concrete testable expectations about the relationship between these variables

Unlocking Magic School AI: Powerful Tools for Educators

This is Season 1 - Episode 2 of the AI Advocates podcast series created by the FLITE Stem Center in the Achievement and Assessment Institute at the University of Kansas. The purpose of AI Advocates is to provide podcasts dedicated to helping educators integrate artificial intelligence into their classrooms to save time, enhance learning, and provide more equitable educational opportunities. Hosted by Dr. Lisa Dieker and Dr. Maggie Mosher from the Achievement & Assessment Institute at the University of Kansas, these podcasts offer tips, tools, and strategies for teachers looking to incorporate AI into their teaching practices safely and effectively.In this episode of AI Advocates, Dr. Lisa Dieker and Dr. Maggie Mosher explore Magic School AI, one of the most powerful AI tools for educators. They discuss its high privacy rating, its ability to separate tools for teachers and students, and its many features, from joke and song generators to real-world learning connections and IEP goal-writing assistance. Lisa and Maggie also emphasize the importance of using AI responsibly, testing tools before introducing them to students, and ensuring that educators remain the decision-makers. Tune in to hear their favorite Magic School AI tools and how they can enhance both teaching and learning! Magic School AI Link: https://www.magicschool.ai