The Grand Prairies of Texas

Welcome to the Grand Prairies of Central Texas. They were first so called by that grand old man of early Texas geology, Dr. Robert T. Hill. These prairies offer no spectacular, breath-taking landmarks to the viewing eye. They offer only a broad vista of rolling prairie hills. Yet this can be a thrilling vista, once you know the details of its history back into remote antiquity

Is Botulinum Toxin a Safe and Effective for the Treatment of Trigeminal Neuralgia in Adults?

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this evidence based medicine review is to determine whether or not Botulinum Toxin A is safe and effective for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia in adults. STUDY DESIGN: Three double blind, randomized controlled trials were reviewed and selected based on their relevance to the clinical question and their inclusion of patient oriented outcomes (POEMS). DATA SOURCES: Each study was obtained by searching NCBI and PubMed database. OUTCOMES MEASURED: The outcomes were measured using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Quality of Life (QoL), Patient Global Impression of Change Scale (PGIC), Last Observation Carried Forward (LOCF), and detected adverse effects. RESULTS: The results Shehata et al. study showed that the VAS and LOCF showed significant decrease in daily pain, use of acute medications, daily paroxysms, and increase in QoL using Botulinum Toxin A vs. normal saline. These results were shown by pain had a decrease by 6.5 with Botulinum Toxin A vs. 0.3 with normal saline, paroxysms with a score of 0.88 to 7.12, acute medications with a score of 3.69 to 5.71, and QoL with a score of 8.35 to 9.65, and these all had p values of CONCLUSIONS: All three RCTs demonstrated positive outcomes with Botulinum Toxin A in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia with low risk of detected adverse effects

Regional Analysis of Trade Flows and Marketing Practice Trends in the United States Nursery Industry

The rapidly growing nursery and greenhouse industry comprises an important part of the agricultural sector of the United States with sales growing at nearly 8.0 percent annually from 1966 to 2004. Aggregate information about the U.S nursery industry is readily available, however little information is available on trade flows and marketing practices of the industry. The goal of this study was to identify structural adjustments in the nursery industry as indicated by regional trade-flow trends, production practices, and marketing practices in the nursery and greenhouse industry from 1988 to 2003. This was accomplished through a comparison of responses to two national surveys of nursery and greenhouse operators. Except on a single-state basis, little attention has been given to the dynamic information available across surveys. To provide an initial description of important trade-flow trends in the industry, responses to the 1989 and 2004 surveys were examined by region allowing for comparisons over a 15-year span between 1988 & 2003. To describe change in the industry between the 1989 and 2004 surveys, two methods were used to compare variable means. For questions with binary responses, a t-test was performed to determine significant differences in the two surveys. For questions with multiple responses, chi square tests of independence were performed. Significant changes in the nursery industry have occurred in types of plants grown, plant packaging form sales, sales transaction methods, sales to wholesale/retail outlets, allocation of advertising dollars and computerization

THE INFLUENCE OF HOMELIFE ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS IN THEIR GLOBAL HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY CLASS

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover: (a) parents’ perception of the support they provided at home and how it impacted their child’s academic success in a Global History and Geography course and (b) the child’s perception of how their homelife impacted their success in their Global History and Geography class. The study participants were three parents and nine children who had completed the 10th grade Global History and Geography Regents class, which culminated in the administration of the New York State’s Global History and Geography Regents exams. Prior studies have considered the influence of homelife on student academic success. These studies have generally focused on a student’s overall academic achievement. The research that explored specific content areas was predominately in the area of literacy. The results of several of the studies have shown a positive correlation between a homelife that emphasized academics and a student’s academic success in school. However, several studies exposed that the student participants did not perceive a relationship between their homelife and their academics in school, and some students reported that their homelife might have hurt their academic success in school. This study concluded that a majority of the students perceived that their parents or other resources provided at home were an influencing factor in their academic success in their Global History and Geography course. Likewise, most of the parents had the perception that their active involvement in their child’s home life directly impacted their child’s academic success in their Global History and Geography course

SPURS : Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study— the North Atlantic Experiment

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 28, no. 1 (2015): 14-19, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2015.01

Novel Multimodal Feedback Techniques for In-Car Mid-Air Gesture Interaction

This paper presents an investigation into the effects of different feedback modalities on mid-air gesture interaction for infotainment systems in cars. Car crashes and near-crash events are most commonly caused by driver distraction. Mid-air interaction is a way of reducing driver distraction by reducing visual demand from infotainment. Despite a range of available modalities, feedback in mid-air gesture systems is generally provided through visual displays. We conducted a simulated driving study to investigate how different types of multimodal feedback can support in-air gestures. The effects of different feedback modalities on eye gaze behaviour, and the driving and gesturing tasks are considered. We found that feedback modality influenced gesturing behaviour. However, drivers corrected falsely executed gestures more often in non-visual conditions. Our findings show that non-visual feedback can reduce visual distraction significantl

Bjerknes-like Compensation in the Wintertime North Pacific

Observational and model evidence has been mounting that mesoscale eddies play an important role in air–sea interaction in the vicinity of western boundary currents and can affect the jet stream storm track. What is less clear is the interplay between oceanic and atmospheric meridional heat transport in the vicinity of western boundary currents. It is first shown that variability in the North Pacific, particularly in the Kuroshio Extension region, simulated by a high-resolution fully coupled version of the Community Earth System Model matches observations with similar mechanisms and phase relationships involved in the variability. The Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) is correlated with sea surface height anomalies generated in the central Pacific that propagate west preceding Kuroshio Extension variability with a ~3–4-yr lag. It is then shown that there is a near compensation of O(0.1) PW (PW ≡ 10^(15) W) between wintertime atmospheric and oceanic meridional heat transport on decadal time scales in the North Pacific. This compensation has characteristics of Bjerknes compensation and is tied to the mesoscale eddy activity in the Kuroshio Extension region

Antagonizing CD105 enhances radiation sensitivity in prostate cancer.

Radiation therapy is the primary intervention for nearly half of the patients with localized advanced prostate cancer and standard of care for recurrent disease following surgery. The development of radiation-resistant disease is an obstacle for nearly 30-50% of patients undergoing radiotherapy. A better understanding of mechanisms that lead to radiation resistance could aid in the development of sensitizing agents to improve outcome. Here we identified a radiation-resistance pathway mediated by CD105, downstream of BMP and TGF-β signaling. Antagonizing CD105-dependent BMP signaling with a partially humanized monoclonal antibody, TRC105, resulted in a significant reduction in clonogenicity when combined with irradiation. In trying to better understand the mechanism for the radio-sensitization, we found that radiation-induced CD105/BMP signaling was sufficient and necessary for the upregulation of sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) in contributing to p53 stabilization and PGC-1α activation. Combining TRC105 with irradiation delayed DNA damage repair compared to irradiation alone. However, in the absence of p53 function, combining TRC105 and radiation resulted in no reduction in clonogenicity compared to radiation alone, despite similar reduction of DNA damage repair observed in p53-intact cells. This suggested DNA damage repair was not the sole determinant of CD105 radio-resistance. As cancer cells undergo an energy deficit following irradiation, due to the demands of DNA and organelle repair, we examined SIRT1's role on p53 and PGC-1α with respect to glycolysis and mitochondrial biogenesis, respectively. Consequently, blocking the CD105-SIRT1 axis was found to deplete the ATP stores of irradiated cells and cause G2 cell cycle arrest. Xenograft models supported these findings that combining TRC105 with irradiation significantly reduces tumor size over irradiation alone (p value = 10-9). We identified a novel synthetic lethality strategy of combining radiation and CD105 targeting to address the DNA repair and metabolic addiction induced by irradiation in p53-functional prostate cancers