Paper Session II-A - Nuts and Bolts

Imagine Kennedy Space Center in mothball status, weeds choking walkways, buildings crumbling back to nature, launch towers red with rust. Imagine what was once a critical mass of the world\u27s finest space engineers and scientists now dispersed, their collective synergy lost forever. Imagine that they counted down to the millennium in 1999, launching it with fanfare and high hopes, but learned too late that the launch vehicle was flawed, an undetected self-destruct mechanism activating and slowly, yet inexorably, shutting down critical systems. This is not a science-fiction story, nor is it a doomsday prediction. It is, however, a tale about keeping the plant running, about trying to reduce the high cost of sending up rocket ships, about the nuts and bolts of enhancing our nation\u27s space lift capability

Notes and Comments: The Maryland Boulevard Rule: A Time for Change

Maryland\u27s boulevard rule has survived frequent challenge and the apparent harshness of its results in recent cases. The author examines the development and application of the rule and questions both the historical bases and judicial justifications for the rule\u27s modern viability

Notes and Comments: The Maryland Boulevard Rule: A Time for Change

Maryland\u27s boulevard rule has survived frequent challenge and the apparent harshness of its results in recent cases. The author examines the development and application of the rule and questions both the historical bases and judicial justifications for the rule\u27s modern viability

Towards large-cohort comparative studies to define the factors influencing the gut microbial community structure of ASD patients.

Differences in the gut microbiota have been reported between individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and neurotypical controls, although direct evidence that changes in the microbiome contribute to causing ASD has been scarce to date. Here we summarize some considerations of experimental design that can help untangle causality in this complex system. In particular, large cross-sectional studies that can factor out important variables such as diet, prospective longitudinal studies that remove some of the influence of interpersonal variation in the microbiome (which is generally high, especially in children), and studies transferring microbial communities into germ-free mice may be especially useful. Controlling for the effects of technical variables, which have complicated efforts to combine existing studies, is critical when biological effect sizes are small. Large citizen-science studies with thousands of participants such as the American Gut Project have been effective at uncovering subtle microbiome effects in self-collected samples and with self-reported diet and behavior data, and may provide a useful complement to other types of traditionally funded and conducted studies in the case of ASD, especially in the hypothesis generation phase

Tiny microbes, enormous impacts: what matters in gut microbiome studies?

Many factors affect the microbiomes of humans, mice, and other mammals, but substantial challenges remain in determining which of these factors are of practical importance. Considering the relative effect sizes of both biological and technical covariates can help improve study design and the quality of biological conclusions. Care must be taken to avoid technical bias that can lead to incorrect biological conclusions. The presentation of quantitative effect sizes in addition to P values will improve our ability to perform meta-analysis and to evaluate potentially relevant biological effects. A better consideration of effect size and statistical power will lead to more robust biological conclusions in microbiome studies

Vox Clamantis: Addressing The Challenge Of Stop-Outs In Public Higher Education

This research study examined data on stop-out behavior at University of North Carolina system postsecondary institutions for students matriculating from the 2009-10 to 2013-14 academic years in an effort to better understand the factors and circumstances that lead to a decision to suspend progress on earning an undergraduate degree as well as identify those targeted interventions and incentives most likely to reduce the number of stop-outs. The study finds that regular and significant patterns of variation in GPA, credit hours earned, percentage of Pell Grant recipients, and percentage of students who lost one or more financial aid sources immediately prior to the last semester enrolled suggest, for high-achieving students, a strong link between inadequate financial resources and the decision to stop-out but, for low-achieving students, the factors that lead to a decision to stop-out are more complex. In addition, the study found that the percentage of low income students in the population that withdrew from school was higher than the percentage of low income students enrolled in college nationally and, in some subgroups of the population, 70% or more above the national average. Recommendations for targeted interventions and incentives as well as changes to existing higher education policies are included

Chapter 15- Things are Different Now A Student, Staff, and Faculty Course Design Institute Collaboration

Like other institutions across the world, Georgetown University in Washington, DC switched to remote learning in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States. Our Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), which serves as both a center for teaching and learning as well as a center for technology innovation, responded quickly with a series of offerings to prepare and support faculty to teach remotely. Options included a virtual conference on digital pedagogy, a series of cohort-based Course Design Institutes (CDI) throughout the summer where faculty engaged with intertwined principles and best practices from inclusive pedagogy and online course design; and a series of workshops on select teaching topics. As with so many other centers for teaching and learning, we saw a rapid increase in faculty participation as instructors planned for fall 2020 remote courses. We worked with over 1,800 unique faculty through our summer conference, CDIs, and other engagements

CO2 Biocapture in photobioreactors using marine microalgae nannochloropsis gaditana

Peer Reviewe

Heterobranch sea slugs (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Ascension Island, South Atlantic Ocean

The small volcanic island of Ascension is situated in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, more than 1500 km from the coast of Africa, its nearest continental area. To date, eight 'opisthobranch' species were reported from the island. As a result of a recent survey, 10 species were found. Seven species are new records from Ascension: Platydoris angustipes (Morch, 1863), Diaulula sp., Dolabrifera dolabrifera (Rang, 1828), Aplysia parvula Guilding in Morch, 1863 and Caliphylla mediterranea A. Costa, 1867, and two new species: Phidiana mimica sp. nov.; and Felimida atlantica sp. nov. Half of the species found have a wide geographical distribution, being not restricted to the Atlantic Ocean. However, traditional taxonomy based on few characters is probably masking complexes of species.Darwin Initiative (EIDCF012); CNPq-Brazil; DAAD-Germany; DFG [SCHR667/9,13]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio