The Madden Julian Oscillation and its relationship with rainfall in Queensland

The Madden Julian Oscillation is a large-scale atmospheric phenomenon that is generated above the tropical Indian Ocean. It is associated with large convective systems that propagate eastward across the Pacific Ocean. Since it is an atmospheric event limited to the equatorial domain, it was believed that it has little effect on non-tropical regions. However, recent research found correlations between the positioning of the active Madden Julian Oscillation phase along the Equator and rainfall events northeast Australia. The correlations were significant throughout Queensland. The phenomenon is subject to a study by climate scientists at four Australian institutions. It aims to develop a simple predictive tool of rainfall events that are linked with the active phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation and that is applicable throughout Queensland and possible beyond. The outcome of this research is to be linked with agricultural production systems model in order to help Queensland farmers to better time planting and harvesting, as well as scheduling of contractors whose operations might be delayed by rain

Clean energy guidelines for neighborhood design in rapidly urbanizing China

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning; and, Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2013.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 129-132).In China's current landscape the paradigm for urban development is the rapid creation of whole neighborhoods instead of the conventional piecemeal approach of creating individual buildings that gradually aggregate over time into neighborhoods. China's approach is complex and fast moving, and has resulted in the highly repetitive form of tower-in-park typology being applied throughout the country to develop new neighborhoods. This development strategy creates living environments that require households to adopt patterns of daily living that consume excessive resources and needlessly contribute to climate degradation by relying on mechanically controlled interior climates in neighborhoods requiring excessive dependence upon automobiles. This situation presents compelling opportunities for planners and designers to create a more energy efficient city form. What is required is an effective method of accurately predicting, during the design process, patterns of neighborhood energy consumption. This thesis presents guidelines for doing this. When partnered with the Energy Proforma© the guidelines can help make possible rapid yet highly energy efficient urban design and development at the neighborhood scale. Development of these guidelines drew upon the research of the Making the Clean Energy City in China Research Group led by Dennis Frenchman and Christopher Zegras. Other resources include literature describing previous approaches to neighborhood scale designs and guidelines, and an examination of current and emerging practices in the field of urban design and development. Finally, student projects are incorporated into the thesis and interwoven with the guidelines to illustrate the forms that potential developments might take.by Alexis M. Wheeler.S.M.in Real Estate DevelopmentM.C.P

Parent Perceptions of Post-Secondary Programming Completed by Their Adult Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Texas Tech University\u27s Burkhart Center for Autism Education and Research works with communities & families in the greater West Texas area to provide supports and services to individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder with a primary focus on building independent living and vocational skills in a post-secondary environment. In this study, parents of individuals with ASD who had completed the Burkhart Center’s Transition Academy completed an online survey. Parents identified areas in which they were satisfied with their child’s post-secondary experience as well as dissatisfaction, and of additional need. The findings of this current study may provide critical information to post-secondary programs who work with students with ASD

Uses and Misuses of the Journal Impact Factor

The second in a series of articles published in OSU This Week by members of the Faculty Senate Library Committee regarding threats to an open and sustainable system of scholarly communication and potential solutions. Article describes what journal impact factors are and how they are determined and makes recommendations for their proper use.Keywords: Scholarly publishing, Scholarly communication, Journal impact factorsKeywords: Scholarly publishing, Scholarly communication, Journal impact factor

Using seasonal climate forecasts for more effective grain-cotton production systems

The overall aim of this project is to significantly improve financial profitability, economic efficiency and resource risk management of dryland grain/cotton systems through effective use of seasonal climate forecasts and quantification of climatic variability

Violin Master Class with Marilyn McDonald

Marilyn McDonald, a founding member of the Smithson Quartet and the Castle Trio, currently plays in the Axelrod Quartet in residence at the Smithsonian Institution and so named in honor of the donor of the decorated Stradivarius instruments on which the quartet performs.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/music_programs/1097/thumbnail.jp

Mitigating the Risks of Resource Extraction for Industrial Actors and Northern Indigenous Peoples

A collaborative relationship between native peoples and industrial corporations–two actors that value resource-rich land–is of vital importance for both the United States and the Russian Federation. A strong partnership between industrial and indigenous actors can help to ensure not only the stability of extractive projects, but also the protection of indigenous groups from the potentially existential threats associated with territorial loss. Cooperation between these two parties gains urgency as extractive corporations begin to explore the Arctic, a region of the world already home to over two dozen unique indigenous communities. In both the United States and the Russian Federation, there are legal precedents for negotiations regarding indigenous rights, natural resources, and the fuel-energy complex. Even so, parties involved in the extractive process frequently stray from these national and international legal guidelines. Our paper seeks to answer the question: why might rational actors–here, indigenous and industrial communities that are motivated by their preferences–fail to cooperate on extractive projects, even when robust collaborative agreements benefit all sides? We suggest that the explanation is twofold: first, indigenous land rights lack the consistency which may give indigenous communities control over their resources and cultural preservation; and second, a neutral and objective third-party mediator–whether in the form of a state or an international body–is often silent in, or absent from, the negotiation process, thereby undermining its authority to ensure fair and reasonable deliberations. Our findings can offer important insights for community-corporate relations, not only in the Arctic, but worldwide.(Published: May 2017)Citation: A.M. Lerner et al. “Mitigating the Risks of Resource Extraction for Industrial Actors and Northern Indigenous Peoples.” Arctic Review on Law and Politics, Vol. 8, 2017, pp. 23–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v8.65

The effect of syntactic and semantic argument structure on sentence production in aphasia

The complexity of a verb’s argument structure influences accuracy of sentence production in aphasia. Here we report preliminary evidence from five participants with aphasia that semantic argument structure and/or syntactic phrase structure contribute to processing difficulty in persons with aphasia in ways that cannot be accounted for as length effects. We contrasted repetition of sentences containing verb particles and prepositional object structures that were balanced for length and lexical content. Results indicated that the verb particles were used correctly significantly more often than the prepositions in sentence repetition

Identification of rare-disease genes using blood transcriptome sequencing and large control cohorts.

It is estimated that 350 million individuals worldwide suffer from rare diseases, which are predominantly caused by mutation in a single gene1. The current molecular diagnostic rate is estimated at 50%, with whole-exome sequencing (WES) among the most successful approaches2-5. For patients in whom WES is uninformative, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has shown diagnostic utility in specific tissues and diseases6-8. This includes muscle biopsies from patients with undiagnosed rare muscle disorders6,9, and cultured fibroblasts from patients with mitochondrial disorders7. However, for many individuals, biopsies are not performed for clinical care, and tissues are difficult to access. We sought to assess the utility of RNA-seq from blood as a diagnostic tool for rare diseases of different pathophysiologies. We generated whole-blood RNA-seq from 94 individuals with undiagnosed rare diseases spanning 16 diverse disease categories. We developed a robust approach to compare data from these individuals with large sets of RNA-seq data for controls (n = 1,594 unrelated controls and n = 49 family members) and demonstrated the impacts of expression, splicing, gene and variant filtering strategies on disease gene identification. Across our cohort, we observed that RNA-seq yields a 7.5% diagnostic rate, and an additional 16.7% with improved candidate gene resolution

Scholarly Communications Task Force Report to the Faculty Senate

Reports the work of the 2004/2005 Oregon State University Faculty Senate Task Force on Scholarly Communication. Report: Determines the current practices that impede an open and sustainable system of scholarly communication, citing data where necessary to substantiate the findings; 2. Determines actions that OSU faculty members, as authors, readers, reviewers, editors, society members, advisory board members and faculty members, who are dependent on scholarly communication for professional advancement, can take to contribute to an open and sustainable system of scholarly communication; 3. Determines a few of these actions that are likely to have the greatest positive impact towards creation of an open and sustainable system of scholarly communication; 4. Proposes a framework for communicating these findings to the OSU faculty.Keywords: Scholarly communication, Scholarly publishin