An exploratory and descriptive inquiry into the relationship between the goals of general education and disciplinary content in acting for non-majors courses in colleges and universities in the United States

A foundational requirement of undergraduate education in the United States is the completion of a general education curriculum. One goal of general education is to introduce students to habits of mind leading to the development of intellectual character. Acting for Non-Majors is a course that is included in the general education curriculum of many colleges and universities across the United States. I reviewed the relevant literature and found a scant amount of material addressing the relationship between acting pedagogy and the development of intellectual character. I then asked the question: What is the relationship between the development of intellectual character and pedagogies used to teach acting to non-majors in institutions of higher education in the United States. I analyzed two types of documents, course syllabi and institutional documents. I used content analysis to identify recurring themes, concepts and pedagogies. My analysis of course syllabi revealed four signature pedagogies: experiential learning, scene work, writing, and observation of productions. I concluded these four pedagogies may combine to create a mode of inquiry into the nature of humanity resulting in the development of empathy, one of sixteen habits of mind identified by Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick and an essential element in the development of intellectual character as defined by Ron Ritchhart. The data is presented in the form of dense narrative and descriptive statistics

Observations on the water distribution and extractable sugar content in carrot slices after pulsed electric field treatment

peer-reviewedThe impact of pulsed electric field (PEF) processing conditions on the distribution of water in carrot tissue and extractability of soluble sugars from carrot slices was studied. Time domain NMR relaxometry was used to investigate the water proton mobility in PEF-treated carrot samples. Three distinct transverse relaxation peaks were observed in untreated carrots. After PEF treatment only two slightly-overlapping peaks were found; these were attributed to water present in the cytoplasm and vacuole of carrot xylem and phloem tissues. This post-treatment observation indicated an increase in water permeability of tissues and/or a loss of integrity in the tonoplast. In general, the stronger the electric field applied, the lower the area representing transverse relaxation (T2) values irrespective of treatment duration. Moreover an increase in sucrose, β- and α-glucose and fructose concentrations of carrot slice extracts after PEF treatment suggested increases in both cell wall and vacuole permeability as a result of exposure to pulsed electric fields.The authors acknowledge financial support from the Irish Phytochemical Food Network (IPFN) project funded under the Food Institutional Research Measure (FIRM, 06/TNI/AFRC6) of the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine. Dr. Aguiló-Aguayo thanks Generalitat of Catalonia for the postdoctoral grant Beatriu de Pinós (BP-DGR2010). E. Balagueró thanks the Lifelong Learning Programme for the internship grant Leonardo da Vinci MOTIVA3 (201 1-1-ES1-LEO02-34225)

A note on the differences of computably enumerable reals

We show that given any non-computable left-c.e. real α there exists a left-c.e. real β such that α≠β+γ for all left-c.e. reals and all right-c.e. reals γ. The proof is non-uniform, the dichotomy being whether the given real α is Martin-Loef random or not. It follows that given any universal machine U, there is another universal machine V such that the halting probability of U is not a translation of the halting probability of V by a left-c.e. real. We do not know if there is a uniform proof of this fact

Phase Transition and Strong Predictability

The statistical mechanical interpretation of algorithmic information theory (AIT, for short) was introduced and developed in our former work [K. Tadaki, Local Proceedings of CiE 2008, pp.425-434, 2008], where we introduced the notion of thermodynamic quantities into AIT. These quantities are real functions of temperature T>0. The values of all the thermodynamic quantities diverge when T exceeds 1. This phenomenon corresponds to phase transition in statistical mechanics. In this paper we introduce the notion of strong predictability for an infinite binary sequence and then apply it to the partition function Z(T), which is one of the thermodynamic quantities in AIT. We then reveal a new computational aspect of the phase transition in AIT by showing the critical difference of the behavior of Z(T) between T=1 and T<1 in terms of the strong predictability for the base-two expansion of Z(T).Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX2e, no figure

Monolithic microwave integrated circuits: Interconnections and packaging considerations

Monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC's) above 18 GHz were developed because of important potential system benefits in cost reliability, reproducibility, and control of circuit parameters. The importance of interconnection and packaging techniques that do not compromise these MMIC virtues is emphasized. Currently available microwave transmission media are evaluated to determine their suitability for MMIC interconnections. An antipodal finline type of microstrip waveguide transition's performance is presented. Packaging requirements for MMIC's are discussed for thermal, mechanical, and electrical parameters for optimum desired performance

Preliminary Results of Porosity and Permeability of Cores From Doe Wells in the Palo Duro Basin, Texas Panhandle

Information on permeability and porosity of the Deep-Basin Brine Aquifer is important for describing flow pattern and flow velocity of deep-basinal fluids. Permeabilities were estimated from drill-stem tests, pumping tests, and published values of equivalent geologic materials. In addition, permeabilities and porosities of different lithologies were determined from laboratory tests of cores. The objectives of core analysis are: 1. Determine porosities and permeabilities of the different geologic lithofacies. 2. Relate porosities to petrographic description of pore types and lithology. 3. Obtain vertical and horizontal distribution of porosity and permeability from the analyzed core intervals. 4. Compare core permeabilities to drill-stem test and pumping test analyses. 5. Compare core-derived porosity values with porosities from neutron-density cross plots.Bureau of Economic Geolog

The parameterized complexity of some geometric problems in unbounded dimension

We study the parameterized complexity of the following fundamental geometric problems with respect to the dimension $d$: i) Given $n$ points in \Rd, compute their minimum enclosing cylinder. ii) Given two $n$-point sets in \Rd, decide whether they can be separated by two hyperplanes. iii) Given a system of $n$ linear inequalities with $d$ variables, find a maximum-size feasible subsystem. We show that (the decision versions of) all these problems are W[1]-hard when parameterized by the dimension $d$. %and hence not solvable in ${O}(f(d)n^c)$ time, for any computable function $f$ and constant $c$ %(unless FPT=W[1]). Our reductions also give a $n^{\Omega(d)}$-time lower bound (under the Exponential Time Hypothesis)

Identification of Distinct Characteristics of Antibiofilm Peptides and Prospection of Diverse Sources for Efficacious Sequences

A majority of microbial infections are associated with biofilms. Targeting biofilms is considered an effective strategy to limit microbial virulence while minimizing the development of antibiotic resistance. Toward this need, antibiofilm peptides are an attractive arsenal since they are bestowed with properties orthogonal to small molecule drugs. In this work, we developed machine learning models to identify the distinguishing characteristics of known antibiofilm peptides, and to mine peptide databases from diverse habitats to classify new peptides with potential antibiofilm activities. Additionally, we used the reported minimum inhibitory/eradication concentration (MBIC/MBEC) of the antibiofilm peptides to create a regression model on top of the classification model to predict the effectiveness of new antibiofilm peptides. We used a positive dataset containing 242 antibiofilm peptides, and a negative dataset which, unlike previous datasets, contains peptides that are likely to promote biofilm formation. Our model achieved a classification accuracy greater than 98% and harmonic mean of precision-recall (F1) and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) scores greater than 0.90; the regression model achieved an MCC score greater than 0.81. We utilized our classification-regression pipeline to evaluate 135,015 peptides from diverse sources for potential antibiofilm activity, and we identified 185 candidates that are likely to be effective against preformed biofilms at micromolar concentrations. Structural analysis of the top 37 hits revealed a larger distribution of helices and coils than sheets, and common functional motifs. Sequence alignment of these hits with known antibiofilm peptides revealed that, while some of the hits showed relatively high sequence similarity with known peptides, some others did not indicate the presence of antibiofilm activity in novel sources or sequences. Further, some of the hits had previously recognized therapeutic properties or host defense traits suggestive of drug repurposing applications. Taken together, this work demonstrates a new in silico approach to predicting antibiofilm efficacy, and identifies promising new candidates for biofilm eradication

Unique Challenges Testing SDRs for Space

This paper describes the approach used by the Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed team to qualify three Software Defined Radios (SDR) for operation in space and the characterization of the platform to enable upgrades on-orbit. The three SDRs represent a significant portion of the new technologies being studied on board the SCAN Testbed, which is operating on an external truss on the International Space Station (ISS). The SCaN Testbed provides experimenters an opportunity to develop and demonstrate experimental waveforms and applications for communication, networking, and navigation concepts and advance the understanding of developing and operating SDRs in space. Qualifying a Software Defined Radio for the space environment requires additional consideration versus a hardware radio. Tests that incorporate characterization of the platform to provide information necessary for future waveforms, which might exercise extended capabilities of the hardware, are needed. The development life cycle for the radio follows the software development life cycle, where changes can be incorporated at various stages of development and test. It also enables flexibility to be added with minor additional effort. Although this provides tremendous advantages, managing the complexity inherent in a software implementation requires a testing beyond the traditional hardware radio test plan. Due to schedule and resource limitations and parallel development activities, the subsystem testing of the SDRs at the vendor sites was primarily limited to typical fixed transceiver type of testing. NASA s Glenn Research Center (GRC) was responsible for the integration and testing of the SDRs into the SCaN Testbed system and conducting the investigation of the SDR to advance the technology to be accepted by missions. This paper will describe the unique tests that were conducted at both the subsystem and system level, including environmental testing, and present results. For example, test waveforms were developed to measure the gain of the transmit system across the tunable frequency band. These were used during thermal vacuum testing to enable characterization of the integrated system in the wide operational temperature range of space. Receive power indicators were used for Electromagnetic Interference tests (EMI) to understand the platform s susceptibility to external interferers independent of the waveform. Additional approaches and lessons learned during the SCaN Testbed subsystem and system level testing will be discussed that may help future SDR integrator

Buttressing staples with cholecyst-derived extracellular matrix (CEM) reinforces staple lines in an ex vivo peristaltic inflation model

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008Background - Staple line leakage and bleeding are the most common problems associated with the use of surgical staplers for gastrointestinal resection and anastomotic procedures. These complications can be reduced by reinforcing the staple lines with buttressing materials. The current study reports the potential use of cholecyst-derived extracellular matrix (CEM) in non-crosslinked (NCEM) and crosslinked (XCEM) forms, and compares their mechanical performance with clinically available buttress materials [small intestinal submucosa (SIS) and bovine pericardium (BP)] in an ex vivo small intestine model. Methods - Three crosslinked CEM variants (XCEM0005, XCEM001, and XCEM0033) with different degree of crosslinking were produced. An ex vivo peristaltic inflation model was established. Porcine small intestine segments were stapled on one end, using buttressed or non-buttressed surgical staplers. The opened, non-stapled ends were connected to a peristaltic pump and pressure transducer and sealed. The staple lines were then exposed to increased intraluminal pressure in a peristaltic manner. Both the leak and burst pressures of the test specimens were recorded. Results - The leak pressures observed for non-crosslinked NCEM (137.8 ± 22.3 mmHg), crosslinked XCEM0005 (109.1 ± 14.1 mmHg), XCEM001 (150.1 ± 16.0 mmHg), XCEM0033 (98.8 ± 10.5 mmHg) reinforced staple lines were significantly higher when compared to non-buttressed control (28.3 ± 10.8 mmHg) and SIS (one and four layers) (62.6 ± 11.8 and 57.6 ± 12.3 mmHg, respectively) buttressed staple lines. NCEM and XCEM were comparable to that observed for BP buttressed staple lines (138.8 ± 3.6 mmHg). Only specimens with reinforced staple lines were able to achieve high intraluminal pressures (ruptured at the intestinal mesentery), indicating that buttress reinforcements were able to withstand pressure higher than that of natural tissue (physiological failure). Conclusions - These findings suggest that the use of CEM and XCEM as buttressing materials is associated with reinforced staple lines and increased leak pressures when compared to non-buttressed staple lines. CEM and XCEM were found to perform comparably with clinically available buttress materials in this ex vivo model.Enterprise Irelan