Extraterrestrial Life: The Possibility of a Human-Alien Interaction

We all have heard of at least one case where someone assured having seen a flying extraterrestrial object. There are thousands of thousands of videos we can find online that “prove” the existence of aliens. In the hypothetical case where aliens are really out there, why haven\u27t we been able to talk to them and look at them face-to-face? A human-extraterrestrial interaction has not yet been achieved for two reasons. First, alien energy is much more powerful than that of humans, so it would require thousands of thousands of years for the human race to develop a technology able to contact them. But the reason why advanced extraterrestrials have not yet contacted us is simply a decision they have made to keep both races safe. For them, if we don’t see and know each other, we can’t attack each other. However, this doesn’t mean they cannot see us, and there are a whole variety of factors we’ll consider throughout this paper

Learning Together: A Case Study of a Cooperative School’s Approach to Education

This thesis is based on an in-depth case study of one cooperative pre-preschool and preschool in San Francisco. Qualitative research methods, such as observation and one-on-one interviews, were used to study the structure, culture, and community at the school. Cooperative schools have not been well researched or documented in academic literature and this study hoped to shed some light on this model of school organization. The parent-initiated and community-oriented nature of cooperative schools make them stand out as unique among the large, bureaucratically-run schools and daycares typically found in the United States. The results of this study highlighted four themes important within the cooperative school, which emerged through interviews and observations and these include: community, parent education, the parent-teacher relationship, and implementing high quality early childhood education

Turning Algal Biomass Waste into a Sustainable Substrate for Oyster Settlement

When an aquatic ecosystem becomes oversaturated with nutrients, algae in the water utilize the excess nitrogen and phosphorus present and grow uncontrollably. This creates algal blooms on the surface of the water that deplete oxygen levels in the water and kill numerous organisms in the process. One method used to solve this issue is through Algal Turf Scrubber (ATS) technology: a natural wastewater treatment process in which water polluted with excess nitrogen and phosphorus is pumped across a floway to be absorbed by a culture of algae before it flows out of the system. The algal biomass is harvested periodically but can itself be a waste product that is sent to landfills. It was observed that when the biomass dries, it forms a clay-like brick. The purpose of this project was to find a potential use for this dried waste product, namely in making a suitable substrate for oyster settlement and growth. The raw algal biomass was poured into plaster molds to manufacture pre-formed shapes, and were set out on a floating dock along with concrete and tile controls to determine its suitability for settlement. After a period of time, the substrates were collected, and the masses of the settled organisms on each condition were measured and compared. The results indicate that although oysters were not observed in the organism collection, the algal waste biomass can be used to create a suitable substrate for settlement of various aquatic fouling organisms

How the presentation of patient information and decision-support advisories influences opioid prescribing behavior: A simulation study

ObjectiveThe United States faces an opioid crisis. Integrating prescription drug monitoring programs into electronic health records offers promise to improve opioid prescribing practices. This study aimed to evaluate 2 different user interface designs for prescription drug monitoring program and electronic health record integration.Materials and MethodsTwenty-four resident physicians participated in a randomized controlled experiment using 4 simulated patient cases. In the conventional condition, prescription opioid histories were presented in tabular format, and computerized clinical decision support (CDS) was provided via interruptive modal dialogs (ie, pop-ups). The alternative condition featured a graphical opioid history, a cue to visit that history, and noninterruptive CDS. Two attending pain specialists judged prescription appropriateness.ResultsParticipants in the alternative condition wrote more appropriate prescriptions. When asked after the experiment, most participants stated that they preferred the alternative design to the conventional design.ConclusionsHow patient information and CDS are presented appears to have a significant influence on opioid prescribing behavior

Other self-compatible sweet cherries varieties from Spain

Food and Agriculture (FA COST Action FA1104: Sustainable production of high-quality cherries for the European market

Caracterización de la autocompatibilidad de variedades locales de cerezo mediante cruzamientos y análisis genético: abstract

Póste

Genetic diversity and self-incompatibility studies in sweet cherry

Food and Agriculture (FA COST Action FA1104: Sustainable production of high-quality cherries for the European market

Caracterización de la autoincompatibilidad en material autóctono de cerezo

Publishe

Reflecting on The Now: Race, Gender, Socio-Economic Status and COVID-19

Early in 2020, we began a project for our Women and Technology class at Old Dominion University to highlight women working in health sciences. However, our original project idea drastically changed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 focused our attention on issues regarding societal inequalities and health disparities. Therefore, we decided to create a new project that emphasized the societal inequalities and the disproportionate impact COVID had on People of Color, women and low-income individuals. In this paper, we critically reflect on the journey of our project from conception to completion, as well as how we, and the rest of the world, have witnessed the widespread impact of COVID-19. In the final section, we discuss the impact healthcare professionals can have on improving health equity and equality. Authors’ note This piece has been over a year in the making, and while the final product may look vastly different from the original idea, we could not be more proud of the work we have created and are thrilled to share it with our readers. We would have never guessed that taking a Women and Technology course would lead us to a publication. However, we felt compelled to deepen our knowledge by critically engaging with what we saw happening in the world and sharing our findings with a wider audience. COVID-19 has been a great reckoning that continues to highlight the inequalities that exist in our society. It is our hope that by reading this you will become more aware of these injustices and how you can help in paving the way for change. Although publication was a large undertaking, it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. We would like to thank our mentor, Professor Cathleen Rhodes, from Old Dominion University for inspiring us through her Women and Technology course and for encouraging us to pursue publication. Lastly, we would like to thank our editors Steve Grande and Emily Kohl for their valuable feedback and continued support throughout this process. Thank you for teaching us that we are the experts on our own experience

Disparity between General Symptom Relief and Remission Criteria in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS): A Post-treatment Bifactor Item Response Theory Model.

Objective: Total scale scores derived by summing ratings from the 30-item PANSS are commonly used in clinical trial research to measure overall symptom severity, and percentage reductions in the total scores are sometimes used to document the efficacy of treatment. Acknowledging that some patients may have substantial changes in PANSS total scores but still be sufficiently symptomatic to warrant diagnosis, ratings on a subset of 8 items, referred to here as the "Remission set," are sometimes used to determine if patients' symptoms no longer satisfy diagnostic criteria. An unanswered question remains: is the goal of treatment better conceptualized as reduction in overall symptom severity, or reduction in symptoms below the threshold for diagnosis? We evaluated the psychometric properties of PANSS total scores, to assess whether having low symptom severity post-treatment is equivalent to attaining Remission. Design: We applied a bifactor item response theory (IRT) model to post-treatment PANSS ratings of 3,647 subjects diagnosed with schizophrenia assessed at the termination of 11 clinical trials. The bifactor model specified one general dimension to reflect overall symptom severity, and five domain-specific dimensions. We assessed how PANSS item discrimination and information parameters varied across the range of overall symptom severity (θ), with a special focus on low levels of symptoms (i.e., θ<-1), which we refer to as "Relief" from symptoms. A score of θ=-1 corresponds to an expected PANSS item score of 1.83, a rating between "Absent" and "Minimal" for a PANSS symptom. Results: The application of the bifactor IRT model revealed: (1) 88% of total score variation was attributable to variation in general symptom severity, and only 8% reflected secondary domain factors. This implies that a general factor may provide a good indicator of symptom severity, and that interpretation is not overly complicated by multidimensionality; (2) Post-treatment, 534 individuals (about 15% of the whole sample) scored in the "Relief" range of general symptom severity, but more than twice that number (n = 1351) satisfied Remission criteria (37%). 2 in 3 Remitted patients had scores that were not in a low symptom range (corresponding to Absent or Minimal item scores); (3) PANSS items vary greatly in their ability to measure the general symptom severity dimension; while many items are highly discriminating and relatively "pure" indicators of general symptom severity (delusions, conceptual disorganization), others are better indicators of specific dimensions (blunted affect, depression). The utility of a given PANSS item for assessing a patient depended on the illness level of the patient. Conclusion: Satisfying conventional Remission criteria was not strongly associated with low levels of symptoms. The items providing the most information for patients in the symptom Relief range were Delusions, Preoccupation, Suspiciousness Persecution, Unusual Thought Content, Conceptual Disorganization, Stereotyped Thinking, Active Social Avoidance, and Lack of Judgment and Insight. Lower scores on these items (item scores ≤2) were strongly associated with having a low latent trait θ or experiencing overall symptom relief. The inter-rater agreement between Remission and Relief subjects suggested that these criteria identified different subsets of patients. Alternative subsets of items may offer better indicators of general symptom severity and provide better discrimination (and lower standard errors) for scaling individuals and judging symptom relief, where the "best" subset of items ultimately depends on the illness range and treatment phase being evaluated