Shitshow

Shitshow is a first-person narrative that refers to the highs and lows of the author's first year of college life

Emission line ratios for the Circumgalactic Medium and the "Bimodal" Nature of Galaxies

We find significantly different diagnostic emission line ratios for the circumgalactic gas associated with galaxies of stellar masses above and below $10^{10.4}$ M$_\odot$ using SDSS spectroscopy. Specifically, in a sample of 17,393 galaxies, intersected by 18,535 lines of sight at projected radii between 10 and 50 kpc, we stack measured fluxes for nebular strong emission lines, [O {\small III}] $\lambda$5007, H$\alpha$ and [N {\small II}] $\lambda6583$, and find that the gas surrounding the lower mass galaxies exhibits similar line ratios to those of gas ionized by star formation and that surrounding the higher mass galaxies similar to those of gas ionized by AGN or shocks. This finding highlights yet another characteristic of galaxies that is distinctly different above and below this stellar mass threshold, but one that is more closely connected to the gas accretion behavior hypothesized to be responsible for this dichotomy.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted by ApJ

Life on the Back Roads: Poems

Country life does not always feature the idyllic beautiful landscapes and the closeness of family as depicted in Elizabethan pastoral and Romantic nature poetry. While these elements indeed exist, much of country life is grittily realistic - a condition that derives from the hardships and the dailiness of experience, as Virginia Woolf put it, consonant with living in a state of nature. Drawing on my own rural experiences, first in my home state of Pennsylvania and later in North Carolina and Virginia, I will explore in my poems the complex relationship structures that form in rural America, focusing on the dynamics of the rural working class family. The voice I am developing in my poems is influenced by female autobiographical poets such as Kim Addonizio and Sharon Olds, both of whom have a remarkable talent for investing their confessional poetry with universal themes such as family relationships that emphasize love, loss, and death. Additionally, B.H. Fairchild and Sydney Lea, whose poems explore the particularities of the rural middle class and country living, also have been influences on the poems I am writing for a collection I am entitling Life on the Back Roads: Poems. My poem In the Garden, for example, reflects the influence of nature on my childhood. On the other hand, I have found that the hardships of rural living can also, though in a much different way, establish closeness within the family unit and create a larger sense of community as well. My poem The Things We Don\u27t Say shows this flawed side of families, demonstrating how this balance of struggle and love helps create the hard-earned (as opposed to the idyllic) appeal of country life. My informal, largely narrative poems are designed to engage the people who live and work in rural America. My poems create universal themes that a multitude of readers can relate to but the specifics such as nature, the hardships, and the socio-economic dynamics distinguish how rural living affects the universal themes of familial love, loss, and struggle. It is the specifics of my poems that will engage readers from rural America and show readers outside that spectrum the complexities of country living

Early versus delayed rehabilitation after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair

Objective: To determine how the timing of rehabilitation, early versus delayed, affects clinical results and tendon healing rates after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. Design: Systematic literature review. Methods: Searches were done in PubMed, utilizing the terms arthroscopic rotator cuff repair, rehabilitation, early, and delayed. In PubMed the following filters and terms were used: published in the last 10 years, humans, randomized controlled trial, free full-text articles, and English. Results: The Keener et al study was included because it evaluated clinical results and tendon healing rates after arthroscopic repair using two distinct rehabilitation protocols, early versus delayed ROM. The Cuff et al study was included because it evaluated patient outcomes and rotator cuff healing after arthroscopic repair using two different physical therapy protocols: early passive motion versus delayed. The Kim et al. study was included because it compared clinical results of two rehabilitation protocols, early passive motion exercises versus delayed motion, in post-arthroscopic rotator cuff repair patients for functional outcome and tendon healing. Lastly, all three studies included subjective and objective data. Conclusion: The implementation of early versus delayed rehabilitation after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair yielded no significant difference in clinical results and tendon healing

Long-Term Efficacy of Pulmonary Rehabilitation in Patients with Occupational Respiratory Diseases

Background: Pulmonary rehabilitation is a well-recognized treatment option in chronic obstructive lung disease improving exercise performance, respiratory symptoms and quality of life. In occupational respiratory diseases, which can be rather cost-intensive due to the compensation needs, very little information is available. Objectives: This study aims at the evaluation of the usefulness of pulmonary rehabilitation in patients with occupational respiratory diseases, partly involving complex alterations of lung function and of the sustainability of effects. Methods: We studied 263 patients with occupational respiratory diseases (asthma, silicosis, asbestosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) using a 4-week inpatient rehabilitation program and follow-up examinations 3 and 12 months later. The outcomes evaluated were lung function, 6-min walking distance (6MWD), maximum exercise capacity (Wmax), skeletal muscle strength, respiratory symptoms, exacerbations and associated medical consultations, quality of life (SF-36, SGRQ), anxiety/depression (HADS) and Medical Research Council and Baseline and Transition Dyspnea Index scores. Results: Compared to baseline, there were significant (p < 0.05) improvements in 6MWD, Wmax and muscle strength immediately after rehabilitation, and these were maintained over 12 months (p < 0.05). Effects were less pronounced in asbestosis. Overall, a significant reduction in the rate of exacerbations by 35%, antibiotic therapy by 27% and use of health care services by 17% occurred within 12 months after rehabilitation. No changes were seen in the questionnaire outcomes. Conclusions: Pulmonary rehabilitation is effective even in the complex settings of occupational respiratory diseases, providing sustained improvement of functional capacity and reducing health care utilization. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

The effects of stimulus parameters on auditory evoked potentials of Carassius auratus

Whole-brain responses to sound are easily measured through auditory evoked potentials (AEP), but it is unclear how differences in experimental parameters affect these responses. The effect of varying parameters is especially unclear in fish studies, the majority of which use simple sound types and then extrapolate to natural conditions. The current study investigated AEPs in goldfish (Carassius auratus) using sounds of different durations (5, 10, and 20 ms) and frequencies (200, 500, 600 and 700 Hz) to test stimulus effects on latency and thresholds. We quantified differences in latency and threshold in comparison to a 10-ms test tone, a duration often used in AEP fish studies. Both response latency and threshold were significantly affected by stimulus duration, with latency patterning suggesting that AEP fires coincident with a decrease in stimulus strength. Response latency was also significantly affected by presentation frequency. These results show that stimulus type has important effects on AEP measures of hearing and call for clearer standards across different measures of AEP. Duration effects also suggest that AEP measures represent summed responses of duration-detecting neural circuit, but more effort is needed to understand the neural drivers of this commonly used technique

Chinese parents\u27 perspectives on adolescent sexuality education

Structural equation modeling was used to examine a model of factors related to Chinese parents‟ level of involvement in sexuality education for adolescents. Greater parental education was indirectly related to parents‟ engagement in sexuality education through its relationship with more traditional cultural values, greater perceived knowledge of sexuality, and increased quality of the parent-child relationship. The model was found to be largely consistent regardless of the gender of the parent or child and the residence of the family. Results demonstrate that there are multiple pathways to consider within the topic of Chinese parental involvement in sexuality education