Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response in Uganda

While outbreaks of communicable diseases have long presented an ongoing challenge in the developing world, within recent years the frequency of such outbreaks has risen sharply. Accordingly, it is clear that strong epidemiological surveillance and response is needed to improve the health of disadvantaged populations in developing nations such as Uganda. Such populations face the greatest threat from communicable diseases and are more likely to fall victim to illness due to their poverty. In Uganda, the implementation of Village Health Teams (VHTs) has laid the groundwork for establishing community-based surveillance and response systems that can provide early notification of outbreaks and prevent the unnecessary suffering that accompanies unrecognized epidemics. Local response programs can also help to identify opportunities for the implementation of sustainable preventive measures and health education activities that will be able to improve the overall welfare of those living in settings of poverty

Sedating Forgotten Children: How Unnecessary Psychotropic Medication Endangers Foster Children’s Rights and Health

State foster care systems are forcing many foster children to take high dosages of dangerous, mind-altering psychotropic medications. State actors have little medical background for each child and have limited time to diagnose disorders, thereby creating potential constitutional and human rights violations. States are only supposed to administer psychotropic medication to a child when necessary and in the child’s best interest. Many children in foster care, however, are heavily medicated despite the difficulties of proving necessity. Those difficulties are due to a combination of diagnosis practice, the foster child’s background, and the poor condition of state foster care systems. In light of these limitations and the potential for using medication solely to curb bad behavior, such high prescription rates are unjustified. Many states lack in-depth tracking and oversight measures and fail to recognize this problem, thereby allowing abuse to continue and potentially preventing foster children from seeking justice

The Continued Illegalization of Compassion: \u3cem\u3eUnited States v. Millis\u3c/em\u3e and its Effects on Humanitarian Work with the Homeless

Every year, more cities enact food sharing restrictions that punish individuals who try to feed the homeless. These laws are often part of a general scheme to solve a city’s homelessness problem by making life so unbearable for homeless men and women that they will be forced to move elsewhere. Humanitarian aid like food sharing, however, is a form of expressive conduct whereby the speaker communicates to a particular audience in need that he or she is willing to care for them. Additionally, the speaker’s conduct may inform observers about a particular humanitarian dilemma or encourage them to become involved. In United States v. Millis, the Ninth Circuit failed to recognize an act of humanitarian aid for traveling immigrants as a form of protected speech, thereby opening the door to the creation of more harmful and unfair laws that suppress humanitarian aid

A base modulated synthesis of indoles and quinolines, an expedient synthesis of salviadione, and chemoselective couplings en route to indoles and pyrroloindoles

Palladium-catalyzed reductive N-heteroannulation of ortho-nitrostyrenes has become a synthetically useful method for the construction of indoles and indole-based heterocycles. Soderberg\u27s elaboration of this methodology has been utilized in the synthesis of indoles and quinolines from a common precursor. The same protocol has also been employed in the synthesis of the indole alkaloid Salviadione. A systematic investigation of chemoselectivity in Kosugi-Migita-Stille coupling reactions provided the basis for the synthesis of isomeric pyrroloindoles through palladium-catalyzed reductive double N-heteroannulation of dinitro-dialkenyl benzenes

Genetic studies of population structure and evolutionary history on the house fly Musca domestica L

DNA sequences at mitochondrial gene COI were surveyed in 29 house fly samples from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Western Pacific. Fifty-two haplotypes were detected, of which one was ubiquitous, and 35 (67%) were confined to a single zoogeographical region. Nei\u27s gene diversity index (H[subscript S]) was 0.47 and was greater in Old World regions than in New World regions. Haplotype diversity was the greatest in the Palearctic region. The Nearctic region displayed the least haplotypic diversity. Hierarchical partitioning of the total diversity among regions (Nei\u27s G[subscript RT]=0.36) indicated only a small proportion was shared. The differentiation of populations within regions (G[subscript PR]) was 0.30. All pairwise estimates of gene flow between zoogeographical regions were less than 0.69 reproducing females per generation (mean 0.49). Nested clade analysis inferred the isolation by distance model for 55% of the significant associations found between geographic and genetic distance, contiguous range expansion was inferred for 36%, and NCA could not discriminate between isolation by distance and range expansion for the remaining 9% of the associations between geographic and genetic distance. I conclude that housefly populations are highly structured even though the flies are mobile and easily capable of passive transport by ship and air, and that the New World was colonized by house flies from the Old World

The Tree Property

AbstractWe construct a model in which there are no ℵn-Aronszajn trees for any finiten⩾2, starting from a model with infinitely many supercompact cardinals. We also construct a model in which there is noκ++-Aronszajn tree forκa strong limit cardinal of cofinalityω, starting from a model with a supercompact cardinal and a weakly compact cardinal above it

Bacteria Growth Lesson Plan

In this lesson’s activities, students will use scientific inquiry, computer modeling, and graphical analysis in order to extend concepts from a specific lesson example to broader general trends and themes in biology. The following criteria are from The Living Environment Core Curriculum, from the University of the State of New York and the New York State Education Department: STANDARD 1 Students will use mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering design, as appropriate, to pose questions, seek answers, and develop solutions. STANDARD 4 Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Broad Objectives: Students will investigate the basic structure and function of bacterial DNA and how mutations affect bacterial populations. After the activities, students should be able to explain the ways mutations can be both harmful and beneficial. The expected product in this lesson objective is a computer-simulated bacterial culture and a graph of the population growth curves. The condition for demonstrating success at this task is activity in student-pairs and small groups. The criterion for success is an example of adaptations in other organisms and an explanation of how the environment determines the efficacy and value of the adaptation. Students are expected to extend and apply the concepts of mutation and adaptation to all organisms in general. Learning Outcomes/Specific Objectives: Students will be able to draw the basic structure of DNA, use computer modeling to show how mutation can result in both adaptation and maladaptation, and graph the population growth curves of simulated bacterial populations. Students will submit a 1 page written summary of the lesson and activities, including the drawing of DNA and the growth curve graph, in order to demonstrate their proficiency. Set Induction and Content: Bacterial population growth. Activities: For these activities, each student will pair with another, review the text section on bacterial genetics, and apply their knowledge to this and later activities. First, students will discuss the textbook section and then answer the following questions. Each student-pair will then join another pair for the simulation activity. Literacy Strategy: This proposed lesson utilizes computer modeling and small group discussion. Closure, Evaluation, and Assignment: After having engaged in classroom activities, students will provide examples of adaptations in other organisms in their write up. In the class discussion, students will talk about why mutations are important in the fields and subfields of biology, especially medicine. The class will discuss how the principles and processes represented in the simulation are explored through laboratory activities, including real-time bacterial culture plate incubation. For the next lesson on bacterial genetics, students can use the textbook chapters and biology websites to investigate the topic of antibiotic resistance and how genetic recombination produces new bacterial strains. The primary file is a lesson plan, accompanied by supplemental files. In the supplemental zipped files, you will find: Student worksheets Lesson plan Powerpoint presentation

Impact of Constructive Dialogue Modules on Binghamton University Students

Effective constructive dialogue skills are crucial for college students’ social development. This study explored the impact of constructive dialogue modules on conflict management, affective polarization, and intellectual humility among first-year Binghamton University students. We addressed the following research question: Will the completion of the constructive dialogue module significantly impact student awareness in conflict resolution/intellectual humility/affective polarization compared to a control group of students who did not complete the module? All participants completed pre- and post-surveys (questions utilizing Likert scales) assessing these skills. Responses were analyzed through dependent and independent T-tests, which did not indicate statistical significance between students completing the constructive dialogue module and the control group. However, analysis of open-ended survey items and focus group responses revealed perceived development in constructive dialogue skills post-module completion. These findings highlight potential benefits of educational programs aimed at enhancing college students’ ability to communicate with individuals with diverse perspectives.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2024/1021/thumbnail.jp

Assessing the Feasibility of Implementing Membrane Distillation at the Beal Mountain Mine

Research Objectives: Verify the viability of membrane distillation applied to the Beal Mt. Mine Characterize treatment capacity and effectiveness. Design a full scale treatment facility with a 16 million gallons per year capacit

A Fast Minimum Degree Algorithm and Matching Lower Bound

The minimum degree algorithm is one of the most widely-used heuristics for reducing the cost of solving large sparse systems of linear equations. It has been studied for nearly half a century and has a rich history of bridging techniques from data structures, graph algorithms, and scientific computing. In this paper, we present a simple but novel combinatorial algorithm for computing an exact minimum degree elimination ordering in $O(nm)$ time, which improves on the best known time complexity of $O(n^3)$ and offers practical improvements for sparse systems with small values of $m$. Our approach leverages a careful amortized analysis, which also allows us to derive output-sensitive bounds for the running time of $O(\min\{m\sqrt{m^+}, \Delta m^+\} \log n)$, where $m^+$ is the number of unique fill edges and original edges that the algorithm encounters and $\Delta$ is the maximum degree of the input graph. Furthermore, we show there cannot exist an exact minimum degree algorithm that runs in $O(nm^{1-\varepsilon})$ time, for any $\varepsilon > 0$, assuming the strong exponential time hypothesis. This fine-grained reduction goes through the orthogonal vectors problem and uses a new low-degree graph construction called $U$-fillers, which act as pathological inputs and cause any minimum degree algorithm to exhibit nearly worst-case performance. With these two results, we nearly characterize the time complexity of computing an exact minimum degree ordering.Comment: 17 page