Working dogs for the farm : 4-H club project

October, 1952."Acknowledgement and thanks are due to Dr. A. H. Groth, Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, for help in preparing the circular."--Page 3."University of Missouri College of Agriculture and the United States Department of Agriculture Cooperating"--Page [27].Title from caption

General flux to a trap in one and three dimensions

The problem of the flux to a spherical trap in one and three dimensions, for diffusing particles undergoing discrete-time jumps with a given radial probability distribution, is solved in general, verifying the Smoluchowski-like solution in which the effective trap radius is reduced by an amount proportional to the jump length. This reduction in the effective trap radius corresponds to the Milne extrapolation length.Comment: Accepted for publication, in pres

From Suspicion and Accommodation to Structural Transformation: Enhanced Scholarship through Enhanced Community-University Relations

   While substantial efforts are being made in some universities to democratize the production, ownership, and use of knowledge through partnership with the community, significant barriers to community-university partnership persist, maintained through inequitable research relations, reductionist definitions of knowledge, and disincentives for faculty who are interested in community-based scholarship. The perseverance of this disconnect, we argue, is indicative of an existential aversion to community that lies deep within the psyche of the university. We liken the aversion to that of a disgust response, a social response that creates distance from that which is perceived to be dangerous, which in this case serves to preserve the university’s privileged status as knowledge producer. In this paper we bring forward arguments for the importance of community-engaged scholarship to the university’s civic role, to the pursuit of knowledge, and to the principles of democracy. We highlight promising advances in how some universities are accommodating community partnership within their definitions of scholarship and academic production, and, drawing upon Gordon’s theory of structural transformation and Bourdieu’s conceptualization of agency and habitus, we consider how such changes might be brought about at a deeper, structural level within the university

Three years of Fermi GBM Earth Occultation Monitoring: Observations of Hard X-ray/Soft Gamma-Ray Sources

The Gamma ray Burst Monitor (GBM) on board Fermi has been providing continuous data to the astronomical community since 2008 August 12. In this paper we present the results of the analysis of the first three years of these continuous data using the Earth occultation technique to monitor a catalog of 209 sources. From this catalog, we detect 99 sources, including 40 low-mass X-ray binary/neutron star systems, 31 high-mass X-ray binary neutron star systems, 12 black hole binaries, 12 active galaxies, 2 other sources, plus the Crab Nebula, and the Sun. Nine of these sources are detected in the 100-300 keV band, including seven black-hole binaries, the active galaxy Cen A, and the Crab. The Crab and Cyg X-1 are also detected in the 300-500 keV band. GBM provides complementary data to other sky-monitors below 100 keV and is the only all-sky monitor above 100 keV. Up-to-date light curves for all of the catalog sources can be found at http://heastro.phys.lsu.edu/gbm/.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Correlation between Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activation to Food Aromas and Cue-driven Eating: An fMRI Study

Food aromas are signals associated with both food's availability and pleasure. Previous research from this laboratory has shown that food aromas under fasting conditions evoke robust activation of medial prefrontal brain regions thought to reflect reward value (Bragulat, et al. 2010). In the current study, eighteen women (eleven normal-weight and seven obese) underwent a two-day imaging study (one after being fed, one while fasting). All were imaged on a 3T Siemens Trio-Tim scanner while sniffing two food (F; pasta and beef) odors, one non-food (NF; Douglas fir) odor, and an odorless control (CO). Prior to imaging, participants rated hunger and perceived odor qualities, and completed the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) to assess “Externality” (the extent to which eating is driven by external food cues). Across all participants, both food and non-food odors (compared to CO) elicited large blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) responses in olfactory and reward-related areas, including the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, and bilateral piriform cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. However, food odors produced greater activation of medial prefrontal cortex, left lateral orbitofrontal cortex and inferior insula than non-food odors. Moreover, there was a significant correlation between the [F > CO] BOLD response in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and “Externality” sub-scale scores of the DEBQ, but only under the fed condition; no such correlation was present with the [NF > CO] response. This suggests that in those with high Externality, ventromedial prefrontal cortex may inappropriately valuate external food cues in the absence of internal hunger

Manufacturability verification through feature-based ontological product models

To achieve efficient, fast and cost effective production, designers must consider all the manufacturing stages a product has to go through. A case study in a manufacturing setup shows that owing to the differences in perception of an engineering component, the coordination between design and manufacturing becomes difficult. Semantic interoperability problems are therefore faced when knowledge sharing for the purpose of manufacturability verification is attempted through computer-based knowledge bases. Ontologies have a reputation for solving semantic interoperability problems. Combined with shape feature-based models of components, ontologies provide a basis for seamless knowledge sharing. This article demonstrates the use of ontologies for analyzing the manufacturability of engineering components in the early design stages. This is done by developing shape feature-based ontological models of these components and associating manufacturability knowledge with these models. To achieve this, an ontological modelling technique is proposed that uses shape feature-based geometrical models of engineering components as building blocks. The knowledge associated with these models to demonstrate their use for manufacturability verification is derived from the findings of a case study also detailed in this article. © IMechE 2012

Intradepartmental System of Allocating Operating Room Block Time and its Financial Impact at The University of New Mexico Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation: A Preliminary Report

Background: Within a hospital, the operating room (OR) is one of the most critical and expensive resources. Labor productivity is maximized by filling allocated surgical block time with as many hours of cases as possible. We have found that the intradepartmental block time release system at our institution has improved access to operating time, resulting in a substantial financial advantage within the department. Methods: The annual charges and collections produced by the pick-up of intradepartmental released block time during the past 4 fiscal years (July 1-June 30) was assessed at both the main hospital and an outpatient surgical center. Results: There is a general, year-over-year trend of increasing charges and collections from the intradepartmental release of OR time. The average gross collection rate for OR pick-up time is 30%, which matches the average collection rate of about 30% for our department. At the main inpatient hospital, the orthopaedic spine service typically comprises the mostreleased OR block time. In the outpatient setting, typically the orthopaedic hand service captures the most released OR block time. Conclusions: The early release of allocated block time on an internal level may help schedule patients in an easier manner, with decreased patient wait times than other methods, and maintain the overall revenue within the department. Further studies that quantify surgeon satisfaction would help strengthen the use and validation of this system

Mediation of foundation ontology based knowledge sources

Ontologies are helpful in giving interoperable structures to sources of knowledge and information. This interoperability, however, is greatly hindered by the heterogeneity of independently developed ontologies which in turn increases the requirements for mediation systems to reconcile the differences. A core concepts ontology for a certain domain contained by a foundation ontology can be used to alleviate this problem and to facilitate the reconciliation efforts. Possible differences in the use of concepts from the core concepts to model entities in domain ontologies can be prevented by binding the domain ontology developers to some rules. These rules can be particularly useful for domain ontologies requiring some kind of traceability of their concepts in the foundation ontology. The mediation system can then use this traceability to establish similarities between two ontologies. Software applications, like the one explained in this paper, can then be developed to perform the mediation task automatically and accurately

Gap analysis of ontology mapping tools and techniques

Mapping between ontologies provides a way to overcome any dissimilarities in the terminologies used in two ontologies. Some tools and techniques to map ontologies are available with some semi-automatic mapping capabilities. These tools are employed to join the similar concepts in two ontologies and overcome the possible mismatches.Several types of mismatches have been identified by researchers and certain overlaps can easily be seen in their description. Analysis of the mapping tools and techniques through a mismatches framework reveals that most of the tools and techniques just target the explication side of the concepts in ontologies and a very few of them opt for the conceptualization mismatches. Research therefore needs to be done in the area of detecting and overcoming conceptualization mismatches that may occur during the process of mapping. The automation and reliability of these tools are important because they directly affect the interoperatbility between different knowledge sources