Experiment at Nebraska The First Two Years of a Cluster College

In November 1968 the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska was asked to react to a document coming from a faculty-student committee charged with examining the feasibility of establishing an innovating college on the Lincoln campus. It attempted to spell out the need for such innovation, and it offered a plan for fulfilling the need that it delineated. This is that document: 1 Within the past generation a new kind of student, a new kind of faculty, and a new kind of university have developed. To meet the challenges which these changes present and to provide for an educational and national future whose nature is unforseeable, many persons have concluded that there is a need for experiments in university curriculum and organization. The purpose of such endeavors should be a graduate who is sharply aware of himself, his society, and his world, able and desirous of continuing his liberal and professional education beyond the classroom. The New Students Students who come to the University are different from those who came twenty years ago.! A larger number of high school graduates choose to enroll than before and, of those who come, a larger number graduate. Though the numbers are greater, their quality is not inferior often. Television and other instruments of mass communication have provided them with astonishing funds of miscellaneous information, some of it inaccurate, much of it irrelevant, and part of it useful. In addition, many have traveled widely. The new students come to us with new formal preparation. High school science programs have been set up by distinguished scientists, the new math has become widespread-and public school English has undergone elaborate revision. In the future, advanced placement programs promise to change drastically the relation of entering students to the University. Perhaps more important, the temper of the undergraduates seems to be changing. The students have learned to react quickly to situations far from home ground, and echoes of Vietnam and Berkeley can be heard in Lincoln. In some universities the students have not hesitated to bite the hand that presumes to feed them, and generally students are becoming increasingly critical of their courses, professors, and colleges. They complain that universities have made them numbers on IBM cards, anonymous to teachers and advisers, and a gray mass to their administrators. They resent a lack of individual attention. For the past two years-at least responsible students through their official channels (e.g. ASUN [Associated Students of University of Nebraska]) have undertaken to scrutinize university programs. It is significant that the disgruntled students are not the weakest. The most critical are often the brightest, the most committed socially, and the most responsible morally. The best seem to be the most critical

The 2017 Session of the Nevada Legislature and the Failure of Higher Education Reform

Executive Summary This report analyzes 11 bills introduced during the 79th Session of the Nevada Legislature that proposed to reorganize, reform, and realign various aspects of the state’s higher education system. The analysis reveals the following: Despite bipartisan support for higher education reform, nearly all of the reform bills failed, including two bills vetoed by Governor Brian Sandoval. The failure to enact meaningful reform stands in contrast to the implementation of bills appropriating more resources for higher education. Opposition to reform legislation was strongest among those most invested in legitimizing and perpetuating current arrangements. The report also considers the institutional and cultural factors that reinforce these outcomes. These factors include: The mismatch between legislative capacity and the demand for policy reform. The selective manner in which higher education officials engaged in the Legislature. Misconceptions about the components of the state’s land-grant institution and the Board of Regents’ constitutional carve out prohibiting legislative action. The report concludes with policy recommendations for the Nevada Legislature. Foremost among these are: The second passage of AJR 5, an override of the AB 407 veto, and reintroduction and passage of the failed reform bills. Separation of the governance of the two- and four-year colleges from the branches of the state university, reduction in the size of the Board of Regents, and reorganization of the administration of higher education. Developing separate funding formulas for the universities and the two- and four-year colleges, and adding funding weights for courses completed by first generation, minority, and Pell Grant eligible students. Creation of the Assembly and Senate Higher Education and Economic Development Committees to improve legislative oversight and coordination. Elevation of Great Basin College to a four-year institution and realignment of the two and four-year colleges’ service areas to facilitate regional economic integration

State-Level Wage AGI Gap for tax years 2000-2002

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), under contract with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Office of Research, undertook an update of BEA’s state-level wage reconciliation for 2000 between BEA wages and salaries and IRS wages and salaries in Adjusted Gross Income. The initial reconciliation for the year 2000 was documented in the BEA Working Paper, The Feasibility of Producing Personal Income to Adjusted Gross Income (PI-AGI) Reconciliations by State. This study updates state estimates of the reconciliation of BEA and IRS wages and salaries for 2001 and 2002.

A Method for Distinguishing Between Transiently Accreting Neutron Stars and Black Holes, in Quiescence

We fit hydrogen atmosphere models to the X-ray data for four neutron stars (three from a previous paper, plus 4U 2129+47) and six black hole candidates (A0620-00, GS 2000+25, GS 1124-68, GS 2023+33, GRO J1655-40, and GRO J0422+32). While the neutron stars are similar in their intrinsic X-ray spectra (similar effective temperatures and emission area radii ~10 km), the spectra of two black hole candidates are significantly different, and the spectra of the remaining four are consistent with a very large parameter space that includes the neutron stars. The spectral differences between the neutron stars and black hole candidates favors the interpretation that the quiescent neutron star emission is predominantly thermal emission from the neutron star surface. Our work suggests that an X-ray spectral comparison in quiescence provides an additional means for distinguishing between neutron stars and black holes. The faint X-ray sources in globular clusters are also a class of objects which can be investigated in this manner.Comment: 33 pages, including 3 ps figures, LaTeX. To appear in Ap

Experiment at Nebraska The First Two Years of a Cluster College

In November 1968 the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska was asked to react to a document coming from a faculty-student committee charged with examining the feasibility of establishing an innovating college on the Lincoln campus. It attempted to spell out the need for such innovation, and it offered a plan for fulfilling the need that it delineated. This is that document: 1 Within the past generation a new kind of student, a new kind of faculty, and a new kind of university have developed. To meet the challenges which these changes present and to provide for an educational and national future whose nature is unforseeable, many persons have concluded that there is a need for experiments in university curriculum and organization. The purpose of such endeavors should be a graduate who is sharply aware of himself, his society, and his world, able and desirous of continuing his liberal and professional education beyond the classroom. The New Students Students who come to the University are different from those who came twenty years ago.! A larger number of high school graduates choose to enroll than before and, of those who come, a larger number graduate. Though the numbers are greater, their quality is not inferior often. Television and other instruments of mass communication have provided them with astonishing funds of miscellaneous information, some of it inaccurate, much of it irrelevant, and part of it useful. In addition, many have traveled widely. The new students come to us with new formal preparation. High school science programs have been set up by distinguished scientists, the new math has become widespread-and public school English has undergone elaborate revision. In the future, advanced placement programs promise to change drastically the relation of entering students to the University. Perhaps more important, the temper of the undergraduates seems to be changing. The students have learned to react quickly to situations far from home ground, and echoes of Vietnam and Berkeley can be heard in Lincoln. In some universities the students have not hesitated to bite the hand that presumes to feed them, and generally students are becoming increasingly critical of their courses, professors, and colleges. They complain that universities have made them numbers on IBM cards, anonymous to teachers and advisers, and a gray mass to their administrators. They resent a lack of individual attention. For the past two years-at least responsible students through their official channels (e.g. ASUN [Associated Students of University of Nebraska]) have undertaken to scrutinize university programs. It is significant that the disgruntled students are not the weakest. The most critical are often the brightest, the most committed socially, and the most responsible morally. The best seem to be the most critical

Which Way Was I Going? Contextual Retrieval Supports the Disambiguation of Well Learned Overlapping Navigational Routes

Groundbreaking research in animals has demonstrated that the hippocampus contains neurons that distinguish betweenoverlapping navigational trajectories. These hippocampal neurons respond selectively to the context of specific episodes despite interference from overlapping memory representations. The present study used functional magnetic resonanceimaging in humans to examine the role of the hippocampus and related structures when participants need to retrievecontextual information to navigate well learned spatial sequences that share common elements. Participants were trained outside the scanner to navigate through 12 virtual mazes from a ground-level first-person perspective. Six of the 12 mazes shared overlapping components. Overlapping mazes began and ended at distinct locations, but converged in the middle to share some hallways with another maze. Non-overlapping mazes did not share any hallways with any other maze. Successful navigation through the overlapping hallways required the retrieval of contextual information relevant to thecurrent navigational episode. Results revealed greater activation during the successful navigation of the overlapping mazes compared with the non-overlapping mazes in regions typically associated with spatial and episodic memory, including thehippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex. When combined with previous research, the current findings suggest that an anatomically integrated system including the hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, and orbitofrontal cortexis critical for the contextually dependent retrieval of well learned overlapping navigational routes

New Estimation Approaches for the Hierarchical Linear Ballistic Accumulator Model

The Linear Ballistic Accumulator (Brown & Heathcote, 2008) model is used as a measurement tool to answer questions about applied psychology. The analyses based on this model depend upon the model selected and its estimated parameters. Modern approaches use hierarchical Bayesian models and Markov chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) methods to estimate the posterior distribution of the parameters. Although there are several approaches available for model selection, they are all based on the posterior samples produced via MCMC, which means that the model selection inference inherits the properties of the MCMC sampler. To improve on current approaches to LBA inference we propose two methods that are based on recent advances in particle MCMC methodology; they are qualitatively different from existing approaches as well as from each other. The first approach is particle Metropolis-within-Gibbs; the second approach is density tempered sequential Monte Carlo. Both new approaches provide very efficient sampling and can be applied to estimate the marginal likelihood, which provides Bayes factors for model selection. The first approach is usually faster. The second approach provides a direct estimate of the marginal likelihood, uses the first approach in its Markov move step and is very efficient to parallelize on high performance computers. The new methods are illustrated by applying them to simulated and real data, and through pseudo code. The code implementing the methods is freely available.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figures, 7 table

Hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex combine path integration signals for successful navigation

The current study used fMRI in humans to examine goal-directed navigation in an open field environment. We designed a task that required participants to encode survey-level spatial information and subsequently navigate to a goal location in either first person, third person, or survey perspectives. Critically, no distinguishing landmarks or goal location markers were present in the environment, thereby requiring participants to rely on path integration mechanisms for successful navigation. We focused our analysis on mechanisms related to navigation and mechanisms tracking linear distance to the goal location. Successful navigation required translation of encoded survey-level map information for orientation and implementation of a planned route to the goal. Our results demonstrate that successful first and third person navigation trials recruited the anterior hippocampus more than trials when the goal location was not successfully reached. When examining only successful trials, the retrosplenial and posterior parietal cortices were recruited for goal-directed navigation in both first person and third person perspectives. Unique to first person perspective navigation, the hippocampus was recruited to path integrate self-motion cues with location computations toward the goal location. Last, our results demonstrate that the hippocampus supports goal-directed navigation by actively tracking proximity to the goal throughout navigation. When using path integration mechanisms in first person and third person perspective navigation, the posterior hippocampus was more strongly recruited as participants approach the goal. These findings provide critical insight into the neural mechanisms by which we are able to use map-level representations of our environment to reach our navigational goals

Novel secondary somatic mutations in Ewing's sarcoma and desmoplastic small round cell tumors.

BackgroundEwing's sarcoma (ES) and desmoplastic small round cell tumors (DSRCT) are small round blue cell tumors driven by an N-terminal containing EWS translocation. Very few somatic mutations have been reported in ES, and none have been identified in DSRCT. The aim of this study is to explore potential actionable mutations in ES and DSRCT.MethodologyTwenty eight patients with ES or DSRCT had tumor tissue available that could be analyzed by one of the following methods: 1) Next-generation exome sequencing platform; 2) Multiplex PCR/Mass Spectroscopy; 3) Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based single- gene mutation screening; 4) Sanger sequencing; 5) Morphoproteomics.Principal findingsNovel somatic mutations were identified in four out of 18 patients with advanced ES and two of 10 patients with advanced DSRCT (six out of 28 (21.4%));KRAS (n = 1), PTPRD (n = 1), GRB10 (n = 2), MET (n = 2) and PIK3CA (n = 1). One patient with both PTPRD and GRB10 mutations and one with a GRB10 mutation achieved a complete remission (CR) on an Insulin like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) inhibitor based treatment. One patient, who achieved a partial remission (PR) with IGF1R inhibitor treatment, but later developed resistance, demonstrated a KRAS mutation in the post-treatment resistant tumor, but not in the pre-treatment tumor suggesting that the RAF/RAS/MEK pathway was activated with progression.ConclusionsWe have reported several different mutations in advanced ES and DSRCT that have direct implications for molecularly-directed targeted therapy. Our technology agnostic approach provides an initial mutational roadmap used in the path towards individualized combination therapy