Letter from Corrick to Roach, January 15, 1974

A letter from George W. Corrick, Dean of University Advancement to Mr. William J. Roach, Associate Professor of Communications and Journalism, Editor and General Manager of the Halyard. The letter congratulates Mr. Roach and the Halyard staff for meeting the deadline for the first edition of the campus newspaper

A comparison of four objective measures of beef tenderness

Measurements of tenderness were made on the semimembranosus muscle using the Armour Tenderometer (AT), Warner-Bratzler Shear (WB), Instron Universal Testing Instrument (Instron) and subjective evaluations. Muscles used came from 35 beef animals, five from each of seven mating types: Charolais-Hereford (CH) dams bred to Hereford (H) or Charolais (C) bulls, H dams bred to Simmental (S), Maine-Anjou (MA), Limousin (L) or H bulls. Thus, the breed groups represented were: H X H, C X H, H X C H, C X CH, S X H, M A X H and L X H. Penetration-force values were obtained from raw muscle with the AT. Cores one-half inch in diameter, from cooked muscle were used with the WB and the Instron. Maximum-shear-force values were obtained with the WB while maximum force (IMF) and area under the curve (lAR) values were obtained with the Instron. A 10-member taste panel (TP) evaluated each muscle for tenderness on a hedonic scale of 1 (extremely tough) to 10 (extremely tender). A comparison of the seven breed groups was made within each method of evaluation. The following breed groups were ranked most tender by the various methods: TP, H X CH; WB, H X C H; IMF, H X C H; IAR, L X H and AT, H X H. Analysis of variance showed no significant variation due to differences between the WB and IMF shear values, differences between breeds or interaction between instrument and breed. Highly significant product-moment (PM) correlations and rank correlations were found between: TP and WB, TP and IMF, TP and lAR. No indication was found of any relationship between the AT values and TP scores. The PM correlations and rank correlations between the WB values and the IMF values, between WB and lAR values and between IMF values and lAR values were highly significant. The correlations of AT values with other objective measures of tenderness were nonsignificant

Tenderness of beef muscle measured by shear-stress

The L. E. E.-Kramer and Warner-Bratzler shearing cells were Installed in an Instron Universal Testing Instrument (Instron). Reproducibility of the two devices was established by the use of frankfurters as a standard meat sample. Five beef muscles, the Longissimus dorsi (ribeye), L. dorsi (loin), Semimembranosus, Semitendinosus and Biceps femoris were evaluated objectively and subjectively. Three crossheads speeds, 5, 10 and 20 inches per minute, and two types of frankfurters, all-meat and all-beef were used to determine the reproducibility of the devices. The coefficient of variation was used as a criterion to detect variability. It was found that all-meat frankfurters sheared at a crosshead and recorder speed of ten inches per minute gave acceptable coefficients of variation of 2.74 percent for the Kramer device and 2.94 percent for the Warner-Bratzler device. One-half inch diameter cores, perpendicular and parallel to the orientation of the muscle fibers were used in the objective measurements and a trained, five member taste panel evaluated the cooked muscles. Bricks ½ x ½ x 1 inch parallel to the fiber and bricks ½ x ½ x 2 inches perpendicular to the fiber were used in evaluation of raw muscles. Shear values were obtained using both devices installed in the Instron. A crosshead and recorder speed of 10 inches per minute with a full scale of twenty pounds for the Kramer device and ten kilograms for the Warner-Bratzler device were used. From the force-distance curves recorded by the Instron, the parameters of maximum force and area under the curve (work) were evaluated. The following inferences were made: a. Differences between the two devices were statistically significant (P\u3c0.05). b. Both devices gave significant coefficients of simple correlation between their respective shear values and panel scores. c. Both devices gave poor correlation between shear values and panel scores when between muscle covariation was removed by an analysis of covariance. d. Differences between muscles with respect to panel scores were statistically significant (P\u3c0.05). . e. Differences between muscles with respect to shear values were statistically significant (P\u3c0.05). f. Both devices gave poor response on raw muscle

Spatial variation in fishery exploitation of mature female blue crabs (C. sapidus) in Chesapeake Bay

From 2008 to 2012, the total U.S. commercial landings of blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896) averaged over 173 million lbs. Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries are important contributors to this fishery, providing greater than 30% of national commercial landings annually. In Chesapeake Bay, C. sapidus exhibits a complex life cycle in which mated females migrate to the saline waters of the Bay mouth to spawn. During migration, females can traverse multiple management jurisdictions, complicating effective management of this important fishery. Sustained declines in harvest have led to management strategies focused on protecting the female spawning stock in an attempt to enhance recruitment back into the Bay. This study presents the results of a broad scale mark-recapture study (n=7,072) in 11 Chesapeake Bay subestuaries and one coastal embayment, designed to track female migration and quantify spatial variation in exploitation rates of mature female blue crabs. Tagging was conducted in fall 2014 (September and October), when most females have matured and begin to migrate to the spawning grounds, and in summer 2015 (July), when additional females mature and migrate to the spawning grounds. Approximately 8.1% of tagged females were recaptured within one year of release. Overall, the exploitation rate of the 2015 blue crab spawning stock in Chesapeake Bay was 10.5%; however exploitation varied widely among systems (4.0-28.5%). This estimate is below both the management target and threshold exploitation rates and the population grew in subsequent years, suggesting recruitment overfishing of blue crabs was not occurring in Chesapeake Bay at this time

Growth and reproduction of albino rats as affected by various excessive levels of dietary vitamin E

The objectives of this experiment were: One, to test the effect of certain space and feed availabilities on gain in weight and two, to test the effect of supplementing a ration with daily, high excesses of vitamin E. Experimental animals were the albino rat. The basal diet was a commercial white rat feed in unpelleted (meal) form, Alpha-tocopherol was used as the vitamin E supplement. Statistical analyses were all at the 5 percent level (P\u3c0.05) of probability. Weanling white rats with space availabilities of 107, 134 and 214 sq. cm. per animal and on the same ration in ten weeks showed an average gain in weight of 241, 215 and 194 grams. These means were statistically different. When space availability was a constant 134 sq. cm. per ani-mal but with one group of weanling males having one feeder per cage and a second group, two feeders per cage, there were no significant differ-ences in body gain after ten weeks (215 grams versus 214 grams). Two groups of weanling female rats were fed the basal ration and the basal plus 750 l.U. of vitamin E per animal per day respectively for ten weeks. Average gains for the control females was 161 grams and for those on the high-E diet was 110 grams. These means were statistically different. When bred to non-treatment males, females on the control diet averaged 8.7 offspring weaned while those receiving the E supple-ment averaged only 3.2. The difference was statistically significant. The average six-weeks body weight of the F1 generation was not statis-tically different between the two groups. A second testing had an equal number of weanling males and fe-males in each of four treatments which were: Basal, basal plus 75 I.U. of vitamin E per animal per day, basal plus 400 I.U., and basal plus 750 I.U. After ten weeks on treatment, average body gains were 161a, 157a, 99.5b and 90b grams respectively (means with the same superscript are not statistically different). When mated with non-treatment ani-mals, average number of offspring weaned were 11.0a, 11.6a, 6.7b, and 5.8b respectively. However, when these differences were analyzed according to the sex of the treatment parent the depressing effect of the high-E diet of treatments three and four was less apparent in the treatment sires. There were no significant differences in the average six-week body weight of animals in the F1 generation. When F1 generation rats were mated to non-treatment animals there were no significant differ-ences in average number of offspring weaned in the F2 generation. Briefly, the results of this investigation can be said to war-rant the following conclusions: 1. That with space availabilities of 107, 134 and 214 sq. cm. per animal, rats will grow better with the smallest space availability. With ample food available, increasing the food supply, through addition of extra feeders, will not stimulate the animals to consume more food; 2. That some amount between 75 I.U. and 400 I.U. of vitamin E per head per day in the diet of the albino rat will have a depressing effect on growth and reproductive performance. The growth effect applies equally to males and females and is not carried into subse-quent generations. The reproductive effect is less in the males than in the females but in neither is it passed on to the F1 offspring

George Corrick

UNF Oral History Project Interview of George Corrick by James B. Crooks on September 16, 200

Should patents for antiretrovirals be waived in the developing world? Annual varsity medical debate - London, 21 January 2011

The 2011 Varsity Medical Debate, between Oxford and Cambridge Universities, brought students and faculty together to discuss the waiving of patents for antiretroviral therapies in the developing world. With an estimated 29.5 million infected by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in low- and middle-income countries and only 5.3 million of those being treated, the effective and equitable distribution of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) is an issue of great importance. The debate centred around three areas of contention. Firstly, there was disagreement about whether patents were the real barrier to the access of anti-retroviral therapy in the developing world. Secondly, there were differing views on the effectiveness of a patent pool. Thirdly, concerns were raised over the impact of waiving patents on research to produce new and better anti retro-viral drugs

Paediatric rational prescribing: a study of paediatric rational prescribing tools and development of a novel tool for the UK

Background Children are vulnerable to inappropriate prescribing yet rational prescribing criteria, although widely used in adult medicine, are not well-established in paediatric research. Rational prescribing tools, criteria lists of potentially irrational prescribing, are used to study the use of medicines and can be used to detect and quantify inappropriate prescribing. This allows researchers to compare quality of prescribing across different populations, identify factors associated with irrational prescribing, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to improve prescribing. Aims The aims of this thesis were to identify and appraise all existing tools for studying irrational prescribing for children; to develop a rational prescribing tool that could be used across paediatric practice in the United Kingdom (UK); and to validate the novel tool for application in research and clinical practice in the UK. Methods A systematic review of paediatric rational prescribing tools was undertaken and identified two such tools. One of these, the POPI (Pediatrics: omissions of prescriptions and inappropriate prescriptions) tool, was designed for application to any paediatric practice setting but founded in French clinical practice. The second, PIPc (Indicators of potentially inappropriate prescribing in children) is a tool designed for use in primary care only, in Ireland and the UK. In order to develop criteria applicable to any UK paediatric setting, the POPI tool was modified for use in the UK, resulting in the novel POPI UK tool. Each criterion was compared to relevant UK national guidelines, with three possible outcomes: no change; modification; or omission. Criteria concordant with UK guidelines were integrated into the new tool unchanged, criteria differing from guidelines were modified, and criteria with contradicting guidelines or no relevant UK guidelines were omitted. Two validation studies were designed and carried out to evaluate POPI UK. Firstly, a prospective clinical validation study was designed to review the prescriptions of 600 children in a UK children’s hospital, in inpatient and emergency department settings. This study evaluated the relevance of the POPI UK criteria to the study population, assessed its ability to detect potentially inappropriate prescribing, and examined factors associated with any potentially inappropriate prescribing detected. Secondly, the precision of the POPI UK tool was tested through an inter- and intra-rater reliability study. Cohen’s Kappa was calculated for agreement between two raters applying the criteria to twenty anonymised cases. Results The systematic review identified five articles meeting inclusion criteria. These related to three paediatric rational prescribing tools, POPI, PIPc, and POPI UK. The POPI tool comprises 105 criteria and was designed for use in any paediatric practice setting, based on French standards of practice. The PIPc comprises twelve criteria, designed for use in primary care in Ireland and the UK. Due to the PIPc being specifically designed for use in primary care, the POPI tool was the focus of further study. Modification of the POPI criteria was undertaken to develop the POPI UK tool. No change was made to 49 criteria., 29 were modified, four were reduced into two through combination with closely related criteria and 23 were omitted, including the omission of a category. The resulting POPI UK tool comprises 80 criteria divided into 21 clinical categories. In the clinical validation study, the POPI UK criteria were relevant to the majority (96%) of the study population and the tool identified potentially irrational prescribing. In addition, several limitations were identified, including the detailed level of clinical information required to apply the criteria. The inter- and intra-rater repeatability of POPI UK were rated as good, with Kappa values of 0.44 and 0.57 respectively. This was lower than the reliability of the original POPI tool. On examination of the studies, it appeared that methodological differences rather than the modification of the tool explained the observed difference in reliability of the criteria. Conclusions Two existing paediatric rational prescribing tools were identified and appraised, POPI and PIPc. In order to develop a tool applicable to children across UK paediatric settings a novel tool, POPI UK, was developed by modifying the POPI criteria. Validation studies demonstrated that POPI UK was relevant to a majority of the studied population and was able to identify potentially irrational prescribing with good reliability. This tool could be used in UK paediatric practice settings to evaluate rational prescribing. However, a number of significant limitations to all three paediatric rational prescribing tools have been identified and further research avenues are suggested including refinement of the POPI UK criteria

Macroeconomic Consequences of Optimal Information Acquisition

This thesis considers the extension of the ‘sticky information’ concept of Mankiw and Reis (2002), by which agents form expectations rationally conditional on out-of-date information, with new information arriving probabilistically, to models where the probability of receiving new information is a choice variable. Previously this has been done only for simple, restricted economic models (e.g. Branch et al. (2009)), but not for DSGE models as used in modern macroeconomic theory. Numerical results for two different models are presented and then estimation of the more fully-featured model is conducted. It is found that for a simple model of monopolistically competitive firms the introduction of endogenous sticky information can lead to multiple equilibria, particularly when there is strong strategic complementarity. The optimal updating probabilities are strongly responsive to the variability of monetary policy shocks and it is shown that the macroeconomic effect of this is that changes in shock variability cause a trade-off between the variance of output and inflation, which doesn't occur in the case of exogenous sticky information. For a DSGE model with endogenous sticky information with more than one type of agent, with agent types having separate updating probabilities, it is found that the possibility of multiple equilibria is reduced relative to the simple model. The numerical results for this model show that the effects of changes in the coefficients of monetary policy on the volatility of variables and on the model dynamics, as characterized by the impulse response functions, may be amplified by the presence of endogenous sticky information. Finally, the estimation results show there has been a reduction in the updating probability of firms, and an increase in that of households, in the period 1984Q3 - 2006Q1 compared to 1955Q1 - 1984Q2. This can be explained by a switch of monetary policy responsiveness from the output gap to inflation and by changes in the volatilities of the exogenous shocks themselves