Development of a Deterioration Model for Concrete Material Exposed to Saltwater

Concrete is a critical building material especially in coastal and marine environments where it forms seawalls, dock pilings, and bridge piers. However, there has been little investigation into the long term impacts of tidal forces and cyclical seawater exposure on concrete structures. Developing a thorough understanding of the effects of mechanical wearing and chemical interaction with concrete is crucial to estimating the effective service life remaining in the structure. This research will examine samples taken from a bridge pier that has been continuously exposed to saltwater and tidal actions for 79 years. X-ray computed tomography will be used to develop 3-D material models for the samples. As the concrete is subjected to the chemical action of chlorides and sulfates reacting with the cement and aggregate combined with the physical action of the water wearing on the exposed surfaces, the ratio of porosity increases. The increased number of pores allows the water to penetrate deeper into the concrete which can lead to reinforcement bar corrosion and further damage. It is obvious that the rate that the pores appear and develop is not strictly linear and their overall impact on the total strength of the system is not well understood. Thus, using 3-D material models developed based on x-ray computed tomography, the pore structure of the samples will be analyzed and the deterioration model will be developed for concrete material exposing to saltwater

Cognitive behavioral therapy for the management of multiple sclerosis–related pain: a randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Pain is a common and often debilitating symptom among persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Besides interfering with daily functioning, pain in MS is associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety. While cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for pain has been found to be an effective treatment in other populations, there has been a dearth of research in PwMS. METHODS: PwMS with at least moderate pain severity (N = 20) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: CBT plus standard care (CBT/SC) or MS-related education plus standard care (ED/SC), each of which met for 12 sessions. Changes in pain severity, pain interference, and depressive symptom severity from baseline to the 15 week follow-up were assessed using a 2×2 factorial design. Participants also rated their satisfaction with their treatment and accomplishment of personally meaningful behavioral goals. RESULTS: Both treatment groups rated their treatment satisfaction as very high and their behavioral goals as largely met, although only the CBT/SC group's mean goal accomplishment ratings represented significant improvement. While there were no significant differences between groups post-treatment on the three primary outcomes, there was an overall improvement over time for pain severity, pain interference, and depressive symptom severity. CONCLUSIONS: CBT or education-based programs may be helpful adjunctive treatments for PwMS experiencing pain.Accepted manuscrip

Factors Related to Academic Success Among Nursing Students: A Descriptive Correlational Research Study

Background:The current rise in employment is improving forecasts for the future supply of registered nurses; however sizeable shortages are still projected. With the intention of improving academic success in nursing students, related factors need to be better understood. Objectives: The purpose of the correlational study was to describe the relationship between emotional intelligence, psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being, and academic success in undergraduate and graduate nursing students. Design/setting: A descriptive correlational design was utilized. The study was set in a private Catholic university. Participants: There were 124 participants. There were 59% undergraduate and 41% graduate students. Methods: Background data, in addition to the Spreitzer Psychological Empowerment Scale, the Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale, and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale and the Mayer –Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, was collected from students who met study criteria. Results: In a combined sample, academic success was correlated with overall spiritual well-being, empowerment and resilience. Although academic success was not correlated with overall emotional intelligence, it was correlated with the emotional intelligence branch four (managing emotions) score.When undergraduate and graduate students were considered separately, only one correlation was found to be significantly related to academic success in the undergraduate sample, namely, emotional intelligence branch one (perceiving emotions). When examining the data from just graduate level nurses, significant relationshipswere found between total emotional intelligence with academic success, resilience with academic success, and psychological empowerment with academic success. Conclusion: The significant relationship between psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being and academic success in this study supports the statements in the literature that these concepts may play an important role in persistence through the challenges of nursing education. Research is needed to examine if strategies to enhance empowerment, resilience, and spiritual well-being can increase academic success in a test-retest design

Think / Make / Think (Exhibition Catalogue)

This exhibition featured the work of current professors in the University of Tennessee School of Art. Exhibiting faculty were: Joshua Bienko, Emily Bivens, Sally Brogden, Jason S. Brown, Paul Harrill, Paul Lee, Sarah Lowe, Beauvais Lyons, Frank Martin, Althea Murphy-Price, John Powers, Deborah Shmerler, Jered Sprecher, Cary Staples, Claire Stigliani, David Wilson, Karla Wozniak, Koichi Yamamoto, and Sam Yates

A Reappraisal of Children’s ‘Potential’

What does it mean for a child to fulfil his or her potential? This article explores the contexts and implications of the much-used concept of potential in educational discourses. We claim that many of the popular, political and educational uses of the term in relation to childhood have a problematic blind spot: interpersonality, and the necessary coexistence for the concept to be receivable of all children’s ‘potentials’. Rather than advocating abandoning the term—a futile gesture given its emotive force—we argue that the concept of children’s potential must be profoundly rethought to be workable as a philosophical notion in education. In an era marked by the unspoken assumption that ‘unlimited potential’ is always a good thing, we argue that it might be necessary to think about the limitations of the notion of individual potential; namely, the moment when it comes into contact with other people’s projects. We propose a conceptualisation of potential as the negotiated, situated, ever-changing creation of a group of individuals, in a process marked by conflict, and which remains essentially difficult.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11217-016-9508-

The Proteolipid Protein Promoter Drives Expression outside of the Oligodendrocyte Lineage during Embryonic and Early Postnatal Development

The proteolipid protein (Plp) gene promoter is responsible for driving expression of one of the major components of myelin – PLP and its splice variant DM-20. Both products are classically thought to express predominantly in oligodendrocytes. However, accumulating evidence suggests Plp expression is more widespread than previously thought. In an attempt to create a mouse model for inducing oligodendrocyte-specific gene deletions, we have generated transgenic mice expressing a Cre recombinase cDNA under control of the mouse Plp promoter. We demonstrate Plp promoter driven Cre expression is restricted predominantly to mature oligodendrocytes of the central nervous system (CNS) at postnatal day 28. However, crosses into the Rosa26LacZ and mT/mG reporter mouse lines reveal robust and widespread Cre activity in neuronal tissues at E15.5 and E10.5 that is not strictly oligodendrocyte lineage specific. By P28, all CNS tissues examined displayed high levels of reporter gene expression well outside of defined white matter zones. Importantly, our study reinforces the emerging idea that Plp promoter activity is not restricted to the myelinating cell lineage, but rather, has widespread activity both during embryonic and early postnatal development in the CNS. Specificity of the promoter to the oligodendrocyte cell lineage, as shown through the use of a tamoxifen inducible Plp-CreERt line, occurs only at later postnatal stages. Understanding the temporal shift in Plp driven expression is of consequence when designing experimental models to study oligodendrocyte biology

GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare.

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) aims to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing (along with other genome-wide molecular assays) and increasing evidence of its clinical utility will soon drive the generation of sequence data from tens of millions of humans, with increasing levels of diversity. In this perspective, we present the GA4GH strategies for addressing the major challenges of this data revolution. We describe the GA4GH organization, which is fueled by the development efforts of eight Work Streams and informed by the needs of 24 Driver Projects and other key stakeholders. We present the GA4GH suite of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks and review the current status of standards, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and future plans of GA4GH. Broad international participation in building, adopting, and deploying GA4GH standards and frameworks will catalyze an unprecedented effort in data sharing that will be critical to advancing genomic medicine and ensuring that all populations can access its benefits

Use of Low CO2 Concrete

The poster presentation will elaborate on the use of admixtures in concrete allowing greater carbon absorption and creating a more environmentally friendly structure. Reducing the impact of CO2 emissions over the lifespan of a structure like a parking garage is a long term benefit to new concrete mixtures