Memory Retention Rates of Gossip-Related Information

The aim of this study is to determine if gossip-related information produces higher memory retention rates than scientific information. Participants completed a two-part survey. During the first part of the survey, participants read nine paragraphs, separated into three categories. Three were scientific, three were non-celebrity gossip, and three were celebrity gossip. After reading each article, participants rated each on a scale of 1-10 based on both personal relevance and how interesting they found each article. After a week delay, participants completed a multiple-choice memory test about the articles read the week before. The study found that while scientific articles were rated as the most relevant to participants’ lives and there was no significant difference in interest levels among each type of article, celebrity gossip was remembered at higher rates than either other type of information

Law Thrown Overboard: Direct Democracy and the Alaska Ocean Rangers

Alaska is one of the premier cruise destinations in the world. The vessels\u27 many amenities and luxuries, however, come with a price: cruise ships produce an inordinate amount of waste, most of which is dumped into the ocean. In 2006, Alaska voters passed a ballot measure establishing a program called the Ocean Rangers, which would monitor cruise ships in Alaskan waters to ensure that vessels were disposing of waste in accordance with state and federal law. In 2019, after an unsuccessful attempt in the state legislature to end the Ocean Rangers program, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy vetoed the entirety of the Ocean Rangers budget, effectively killing the program. This Note contends that because a ballot measure created the Ocean Rangers, Governor Dunleavy\u27s veto likely violated the Alaska Constitution. First, this Note discusses the environmental risks of unregulated dumping and the cruise industry\u27s historical lack of transparency in its waste management. Then, this Note distinguishes the Ocean Rangers veto from vetoes of other statutory program budgets in Alaskan case law. Next, this Note explains Alaska\u27s constitutional protection of initiatives that were enacted directly by voters and argues why Governor Dunleavy\u27s budget likely violated those protections. Finally, this Note postulates how potential litigants seeking to reinstate the Ocean Rangers could bring a case in state court under a citizen-taxpayer theory of standing

Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge

How the tools of STS can be used to understand art and science and the practices of these knowledge-making communities. In Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge, Hannah Star Rogers suggests that art and science are not as different from each other as we might assume. She shows how the tools of science and technology studies (STS) can be applied to artistic practice, offering new ways of thinking about people and objects that have largely fallen outside the scope of STS research. Arguing that the categories of art and science are labels with specific powers to order social worlds—and that art and science are best understood as networks that produce knowledge—Rogers shows, through a series of cases, the similarities and overlapping practices of these knowledge communities. The cases, which range from nineteenth-century artisans to contemporary bioartists, illustrate how art can provide the basis for a new subdiscipline called art, science, and technology studies (ASTS), offering hybrid tools for investigating art–science collaborations. Rogers's subjects include the work of father and son glassblowers, the Blaschkas, whose glass models, produced in the nineteenth century for use in biological classification, are now displayed as works of art; the physics photographs of documentary photographer Berenice Abbott; and a bioart lab that produces work functioning as both artwork and scientific output. Finally, Rogers, an STS scholar and contemporary art–science curator, draws on her own work to consider the concept of curation as a form of critical analysis

Beauchemin Residence

The following report details the structural engineering completed on the Beauchemin Residence, as well as the associated drawings, details, and special considerations. The Beauchemin Residence is an existing single story wood frame building on raised wood floor, located in the city of San Clemente. The scope of work includes calculations for a new roof, new walls (gravity & lateral), retrofit of the existing foundation, new foundation, and providing calculations. The process and progression of the structural design is documented, and correlated to the final product in the Appendix A & B

User-initialized active contour segmentation and golden-angle real-time cardiovascular magnetic resonance enable accurate assessment of LV function in patients with sinus rhythm and arrhythmias.

BackgroundData obtained during arrhythmia is retained in real-time cardiovascular magnetic resonance (rt-CMR), but there is limited and inconsistent evidence to show that rt-CMR can accurately assess beat-to-beat variation in left ventricular (LV) function or during an arrhythmia.MethodsMulti-slice, short axis cine and real-time golden-angle radial CMR data was collected in 22 clinical patients (18 in sinus rhythm and 4 patients with arrhythmia). A user-initialized active contour segmentation (ACS) software was validated via comparison to manual segmentation on clinically accepted software. For each image in the 2D acquisitions, slice volume was calculated and global LV volumes were estimated via summation across the LV using multiple slices. Real-time imaging data was reconstructed using different image exposure times and frame rates to evaluate the effect of temporal resolution on measured function in each slice via ACS. Finally, global volumetric function of ectopic and non-ectopic beats was measured using ACS in patients with arrhythmias.ResultsACS provides global LV volume measurements that are not significantly different from manual quantification of retrospectively gated cine images in sinus rhythm patients. With an exposure time of 95.2 ms and a frame rate of > 89 frames per second, golden-angle real-time imaging accurately captures hemodynamic function over a range of patient heart rates. In four patients with frequent ectopic contractions, initial quantification of the impact of ectopic beats on hemodynamic function was demonstrated.ConclusionUser-initialized active contours and golden-angle real-time radial CMR can be used to determine time-varying LV function in patients. These methods will be very useful for the assessment of LV function in patients with frequent arrhythmias

Moral Dilemmas and Cases of Conscience : Trollope\u27s Morality in The Warden and The Last Chronicle of Barset

This thesis offers an exploration of Trollope\u27s morality in The Warden and The Last Chronicle of Barset. Existing critical work which explores Trollope\u27s morality often argues either for or against Trollope\u27s moral relativism. This thesis argues, instead, that Trollope\u27s morality unifies aspects of both theoretical perspectives. It reconciles the polarisation of Trollope\u27s moral absolutism and moral relativism, taking the middle-ground. In doing so, it makes evident the contradictions and extremes in existing Trollopian criticism. The thesis places Trollopian morality within the historical and socio-cultural context of Victorianism. It focuses on the Victorian consciousness of change, securing a definition of Trollope\u27s morality which brings to the fore the contradictions masked by complacent assumptions about Victorian moral conservatism. Incorporating primary and secondary literary sources, the thesis interweaves the man and his work in an original assessment of Trollope\u27 s personal and professional moral code

Early changes in pro-inflammatory cytokine levels in neonates with encephalopathy are associated with remote epilepsy.

BackgroundNeonatal seizures are associated with adverse neurologic sequelae including epilepsy in childhood. Here we aim to determine whether levels of cytokines in neonates with brain injury are associated with acute symptomatic seizures or remote epilepsy.MethodsThis is a cohort study of term newborns with encephalopathy at UCSF between 10/1993 and 1/2000 who had dried blood spots. Maternal, perinatal/postnatal, neuroimaging, and epilepsy variables were abstracted by chart review. Logistic regression was used to compare levels of cytokines with acute seizures and the development of epilepsy.ResultsIn a cohort of 26 newborns with neonatal encephalopathy at risk for hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy with blood spots for analysis, diffuse alterations in both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine levels were observed between those with (11/28, 39%) and without acute symptomatic seizures. Seventeen of the 26 (63%) patients had >2 years of follow-up and 4/17 (24%) developed epilepsy. Higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α within the IL-1β pathway were significantly associated with epilepsy.ConclusionsElevations in pro-inflammatory cytokines in the IL-1β pathway were associated with later onset of epilepsy. Larger cohort studies are needed to confirm the predictive value of these circulating biomarkers