MikonoYetuCentre4Creativity and Innovation

Project goals were to: Successfully co-plan a creative fundraising event for the MikonoYetu Interactive Women’s Museum Interview ten women who have benefited from the economic empowerment programs offered by MikonoYetuCentre4Creativity and Innovation and Kivulini Women’s Rights Organization, both based in Mwanza, Tanzania Write case studies based on the interviews that are conducted to further promote the benefits of economically empowering women and assess any gaps in the programs Make plans for sharing case studies in a creative wa

Constraining circulation changes through the last deglaciation with deep-sea coral radiocarbon and sedimentary 231Pa/230Th

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution February 2012Radioactive isotopes can be used in paleoceanography both for dating samples and as tracers of ocean processes. Here I use radiocarbon and uranium series isotopes to investigate the ocean’s role in climate change over the last deglaciation. I present a new method for rapid radiocarbon analyses as a means of age-screening deep-sea corals for further study. Based on age survey results, I selected forty corals from the Drake Passage and thirteen from the Reykjanes Ridge off Iceland and dated them with uranium series isotopes. The uranium series dates give independent ages that allow radiocarbon to be used as a tracer of circulation and carbon cycle changes. The radiocarbon records generated from the Drake Passage corals show increased stratification in the Southern Ocean during the last glacial maximum (LGM) that disappeared during the start of the deglaciation as atmospheric CO2 began to rise during Heinrich Stadial 1 (H1). Considering these data and using a simple mass budget calculation, I show that the drop in atmospheric radiocarbon activity during H1 can be explained given direct carbon exchange between the radiocarbon-depleted deep ocean and atmosphere, e.g. through the Southern Ocean. The Drake Passage radiocarbon records also show evidence for decreased air-sea gas exchange in the Southern Ocean during the Antarctic Cold Reversal/Bølling-Allerød coincident with the hiatus in the deglacial CO2 rise. During this time period in the North Atlantic, radiocarbon reconstructions from deep-sea corals collected from off Iceland show a similar ventilation rate to that observed today and during the Holocene. To further investigate changes in North Atlantic ventilation over the last deglaciation, I used an inverse model to assess the consistency of sedimentary 231Pa/230Th ratios from the Holocene, H1, and the LGM with the modern circulation. Although sedimentary 231Pa/230Th has been used to infer changes in the strength of the meridional overturning circulation in the past, I find that published data are consistent with the modern circulation during the LGM and H1. These findings highlight the importance of giving due regard to the uncertainties in the behavior and spatial distribution of paleoceanographic tracers.This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship, NSF-OCE grants 0623107 and 82492700, NSF-ANT grants 0636787 and 80295700 (ARRA funding), and the USGS-WHOI Co-operative agreement

Comparing Pleural Fluid Removal Volume and Oxygenation Change in Therapeutic Thoracentesis: Is There a Relationship?

Background: During therapeutic thoracentesis (TT), pleural fluid is typically drained to completion. Fluid removal improves oxygenation, and the amount of fluid removed is directly associated with the risk of serious complications. A relationship between the amount of fluid removed during TT and the change in oxygenation has not been found in the literature. A direct relationship was hypothesized in this study. Differences in the change in oxygenation between sexes, age, and pre-procedure oxygen support were secondarily hypothesized. This information would assist in the guidance of future TT protocols. Methods: Subjects of this retrospective cohort study were males and females aged 26-74 years. Of the 166 patients who underwent inpatient TT between February 4, 2020, and December 10, 2022, at Berkshire Medical Center (BMC), 16 met the inclusion criteria. They were identified using CPT codes in the electronic medical record (EMR). Demographics, amount of fluid removed, and type of oxygen support were recorded. Pre and post-TT arterial oxygen partial pressure (PaO2) and fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) values were collected to calculate the P/F, a metric for oxygenation status. T-test and correlation coefficient were calculated to analyze the change in the P/F ratio versus the amount of pleural fluid removed. Correlation coefficients or ANOVA were calculated to compare oxygenation changes to sex, age, and supplemental oxygen types. Results: There was no statistical significance (p=0.87) in the linear relationship between the amount of pleural fluid drained (mean=660 mL, range=150-1500 mL) and the change in oxygenation (mean=162, range=34-300). There were no statistically significant differences in oxygenation changes between sex (p=0.60), age (p=0.81), or types of oxygen support pre-procedure (p=0.07). There was a statistically significant difference in pre and post-procedure P/F ratio (p\u3c0.001). Discussion: We found a statistically significant change in oxygenation before and after TT, with no evidence of a direct relationship between amount of fluid removed and improvement in oxygenation. There were no complications when removing up to 1500 mL of fluid. A protocol that halts pleural fluid drainage once it is complete or when the amount removed reaches 1500 mL, whichever occurs first, may be optimal

Improvements to 232-thorium, 230-thorium, and 231-protactinium analysis in seawater arising from GEOTRACES intercalibration

The GEOTRACES program requires the analysis of large numbers of seawater samples for ^(232)Th, ^(230)Th, and ^(231)Pa. During the GEOTRACES international intercalibration exercise, we encountered unexpected difficulties with recovery and contamination of these isotopes, ^(232)Th in particular. Experiments were carried out to identify the source of these issues, leading to a more streamlined and efficient procedure. The two particular problems that we identified and corrected were (1) frits in columns supplied by Bio-Rad Laboratories caused loss of Th during column chemistry and (2) new batches of AG1-X8 resin supplied by Bio-Rad Laboratories released more than 100 pg of ^(232)Th during elution of sample. To improve yields and blanks, we implemented a series of changes including switching to Eichrom anion exchange resin (100-200 μm mesh) and Environmental Express columns. All Th and Pa samples were analyzed on a Neptune multi-collector inductively-coupled-plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) using peak hopping of ^(230)Th and ^(229)Th on the central SEM, with either ^(232)Th, ^(236)U (or both) used to monitor for beam intensity. We used in-house laboratory standards to check for machine reproducibility, and the GEOTRACES intercalibration standard to check for accuracy. Over a 1-y period, the 2 s.d. reproducibility on the GEOTRACES SW STD 2010-1 was 2.5% for ^(230)Th, 1.8% for ^(232)Th, and 4% for ^(231)Pa. The lessons learned during this intercalibration process will be of value to those analyzing U-Th-Pa and rare earth elements as part of the GEOTRACES program as well as those using U-series elements in other applications that require high yields and low blanks, such as geochronology

Cinchona-Derived Picolinamides: Effective Organocatalysts for Stereoselective Imine Hydrosilylation

Picolinamide-cinchona organocatalysts for the successful enantioselective reduction of ketomines were developed. For the first time, a new type of chiral Lewis base, a cationic species, is reported to efficiently organocatalyze the addition of trichlorosilane to imines. Excellent yields with good to high enantioselectivities (up to 91%) were obtained in the reduction of differently substituted substrates. Noteworthy, remarkably high turnover frequencies for the hydrosilylation of imines were observed; the catalyst of choice proved to be active even at a loading of only 1 mol-%. The loading was further reduced to 0.5 mol-%, and for very short reaction times (15 min) very impressive asymmetric catalyst efficiency speed values were reached

Depth-shifting cores incompletely recovered from the upper oceanic crust, IODP Hole 1256D

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 9 (2008): Q08O11, doi:10.1029/2008GC002010.Seafloor drilling operations, especially those in crustal rocks, yield incomplete recovery of drilled sections, and depths of the recovered core pieces are assigned with some uncertainty. Here we present a new depth-shifting method that is simple and rapid, requires little subjective input, and is applicable to any core-log integration problem where sufficient comparable data have been collected in both the open hole and from the recovered core. Over the depth range for which both core and log data have been collected, an automatic algorithm selected the best new depth for each piece. The criteria for determining the best depth were as follows: (1) find new depths for as many pieces as possible, and (2) minimize the difference between core density and log density. In this study, depth-shifting is applied at Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Hole 1256D, which is our first opportunity to study a section of intact, in situ upper ocean crust drilled down to gabbro. The new depths significantly improve the agreement between an independent data set and the logging record.Funding for this research was provided by a JOI/USSSP Post-Expedition Award to L.A.G. Mick Spillane of the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research provided tide calculations using OSU TPXO6.2

The Beliefs and Practices of Second Grade Teachers Who Implement Independent Reading and Its Effect on Students’ Reading Achievement and Reading Volume

The purpose of the present study was to explore the beliefs and practices of teachers who implement independent reading in their classrooms. Results showed that teachers who implemented independent reading believed in the importance of both the quantity and quality of student reading. The teachers’ practices of independent reading showed students selecting books that were “just-right” for them to read, social experiences around reading, guided practice through reading conferences with the teacher, and setting a purpose for reading through response activities. A nonexperimental comparative design was used to examine the effects of independent reading on reading volume and reading achievement. Results indicated that there were no statistically significant effects between the independent reading group and the no independent reading group for reading achievement or reading volume. Additionally, there was no statistically significant difference in growth of reading achievement between higher and lower readers in the independent reading group

Mapping Qualifications Frameworks across APEC Economies

This report on qualification frameworks was undertaken for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Human Resources Development Working Group (HRDWG) Education Network Subgroup (EDNET). The project aimed to facilitate increased transparency and reliability of information about qualification frameworks across the APEC region, share knowledge and skills and identify future areas of collaboration. A qualifications framework is an instrument for classifying qualifications according to a set of criteria for levels of learning outcomes. Considerable benefits are expected of national qualification frameworks (NQFs). If backed by a good system of quality assurance, they can support the development of workers’ skills, facilitate educational and labour market mobility, and help improve the access of individuals to higher and different levels of education and training over their lives. Education and training providers and authorities are able to design more consistent and linked qualifications when descriptors of qualifications are developed within NQFs. Employers benefit in their recruitment and training of staff when they can understand and have confidence in qualifications. The international recognition of an economy’s qualifications can be enhanced by the transparency of qualifications to which an NQF can contribute. This report is based on desktop analysis of qualification frameworks, contacts made by members of the project team and on a survey of APEC member economies carried out in the project