Heavy Equipment as a Topics Course at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Construction Management Curriculum

In the construction industry it has been said that no project is the same. That each project awarded to a contractor will have new and unique details that were not faced in the previous projects. However, all the management skills acquired by the project team will be used to complete the current project. One of those skills that seems to be underutilized and does not receive enough emphasis, is the management of heavy equipment. The purpose of this paper will be to highlight details of heavy equipment management that need to be emphasized in the Cal Poly construction management curriculum, and the level of interest student have in heavy equipment management. The literature review conducted for this paper stresses the need for a topics course with an emphasis on heavy equipment management. Literature review was collected by surveying all the construction management students with the major. The survey was included 10 question on heavy equipment management. Second a project, planned and built by four Cal Poly construction management students. The heavy civil project completed by the four construction management student was an asphalt replace that took place in Templeton California. The project tested their knowledge of construction management and the use of heavy equipment management

The cultural semiotics of African encounters : Eighteenth-Century images of the Other

CITATION: Duner, D. 2020. The cultural semiotics of African encounters : Eighteenth-Century images of the Other. Semiotica, 232:103–146, doi:10.1515/sem-2019-0030.The original publication is available at https://www.degruyter.comThis a contribution to the cultural semiotics of African cultural encounters seen through the eyes of Swedish naturalists at the end of the eighteenth century. European travellers faced severe problems in understanding the alien African cultures they encountered; they even had difficulty understanding the other culture as a culture. They were not just other cultures that they could relate to, but often something completely different, belonging to the natural history of the human species. The Khoikhoi and other groups were believed by Europeans to be, from their perspective, the most distant culture. The Linnaean disciple Anders Sparrman and others, however, tried to transcend this cultural gap, and used their cognitive resources, such as empathy and intersubjectivity, in order to understand the alien culture they encountered. The aim of this paper is to unearth the cultural semiosis of African encounters and the intersubjective challenges that human interactions provoke. These encounters not only changed the view the travellers had of the Other, but also changed themselves and their self-perception. The encounter between the Ego and the Other is, however, not static, something predestined by the differences in their cultures, but dynamic, changing according to individual encounters and the actual intersubjective interplay that transform and change the perception of the Other. There are in particular four meaning-making processes and challenges within cultural encounters that are in focus: recognizing cultural complexity; invoking intersubjectivity; determining similarities and dissimilarities; and identifying the Other as a mirror of oneself. The triad of cultures – Ego, Alter, and Alius – can be understood as gradual and changing aspects depending on the actual situation of the encounter and the personal perspectives, interpretations, and behaviour of the thinking subjects involved. Using concrete examples from Southern and Western Africa in the 1770s and 1780s, this study aims to explore this dynamic semiosis. One of the conclusions is that the relation between the Ego and the Alter/Alius is not something only predetermined by the cultures involved and their ideologies, but also depends on the individual thinking subjects and how they use their specific cognitive and semiotic resources, not least their intersubjective abilities, within specific temporal and spatial contexts.Publisher's versio

Are all cases of paediatric essential thrombocythaemia really myeloproliferative neoplasms? Analysis of a large cohort

Sporadic essential thrombocythaemia (ET) is rare in paediatrics, and the diagnostic and clinical approach to paediatric cases cannot be simply copied from experience with adults. Here, we assessed 89 children with a clinical diagnosis of ET and found that 23 patients (258%) had a clonal disease. The JAK2 V617F mutation was identified in 14 children, 1 child had the MPL W515L mutation, and 6 had CALR mutations. The monoclonal X-chromosome inactivation pattern was seen in six patients (two with JAK2 V617F and two with CALR mutations). The other 66 patients (742%) had persistent thrombocytosis with no clonality. There were no clinical or haematological differences between the clonal and non-clonal patients. The relative proportion of ET-specific mutations in the clonal children was much the same as in adults. The higher prevalence of nonclonal cases suggests that some patients may not have myeloproliferative neoplasms, with significant implications for their treatment

Elderly persons in the risk zone. Design of a multidimensional, health-promoting, randomised three-armed controlled trial for "prefrail" people of 80+ years living at home

Background The very old (80+) are often described as a "frail" group that is particularly exposed to diseases and functional disability. They are at great risk of losing the ability to manage their activities of daily living independently. A health-promoting intervention programme might prevent or delay dependence in activities of daily life and the development of functional decline. Studies have shown that those who benefit most from a health-promoting and disease-preventive programme are persons with no, or discrete, activity restrictions. The three-armed study "Elderly in the risk zone" is designed to evaluate if multi-dimensional and multi-professional educational senior meetings are more effective than preventive home visits, and if it is possible to prevent or delay deterioration if an intervention is made when the persons are not so frail. In this paper the study design, the intervention and the outcome measures as well as the baseline characteristics of the study participants are presented. Methods/Design The study is a randomised three-armed single-blind controlled trial with follow-ups 3 months, 1 and 2 years. The study group should comprise a representative sample of pre-frail 80-year old persons still living at home in two municipalities of Gothenburg. To allow for drop-outs, it was estimated that a total of about 450 persons would need to be included in the study. The participants should live in their ordinary housing and not be dependent on the municipal home help service or care. Further, they should be independent of help from another person in activities of daily living and be cognitively intact, having a score of 25 or higher as assessed with the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Discussion We believe that the design of the study, the randomisation procedure, outcome measurements and the study protocol meetings should ensure the quality of the study. Furthermore, the multi-dimensionality of the intervention, the involvement of both the professionals and the senior citizens in the planning of the intervention should have the potential to effectively target the heterogeneous needs of the elderly. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT0087705

Design of a randomized controlled study of a multi-professional and multidimensional intervention targeting frail elderly people

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Frail elderly people need an integrated and coordinated care. The two-armed study "Continuum of care for frail elderly people" is a multi-professional and multidimensional intervention for frail community-dwelling elderly people. It was designed to evaluate whether the intervention programme for frail elderly people can reduce the number of visits to hospital, increase satisfaction with health and social care and maintain functional abilities. The implementation process is explored and analysed along with the intervention. In this paper we present the study design, the intervention and the outcome measures as well as the baseline characteristics of the study participants.</p> <p>Methods/design</p> <p>The study is a randomised two-armed controlled trial with follow ups at 3, 6 and 12 months. The study group includes elderly people who sought care at the emergency ward and discharged to their own homes in the community. Inclusion criteria were 80 years and older <it>or </it>65 to 79 years with at least one chronic disease and dependent in at least one activity of daily living. Exclusion criteria were acute severely illness with an immediate need of the assessment and treatment by a physician, severe cognitive impairment and palliative care. The intention was that the study group should comprise a representative sample of frail elderly people at a high risk of future health care consumption. The intervention includes an early geriatric assessment, early family support, a case manager in the community with a multi-professional team and the involvement of the elderly people and their relatives in the planning process.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The design of the study, the randomisation procedure and the protocol meetings were intended to ensure the quality of the study. The implementation of the intervention programme is followed and analysed throughout the whole study, which enables us to generate knowledge on the process of implementing complex interventions. The intervention contributes to early recognition of both the elderly peoples' needs of information, care and rehabilitation and of informal caregivers' need of support and information. This study is expected to show positive effects on frail elderly peoples' health care consumption, functional abilities and satisfaction with health and social care.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov: <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01260493">NCT01260493</a></p

Vascular proteomics in metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.

The vasculature is essential for proper organ function. Many pathologies are directly and indirectly related to vascular dysfunction, which causes significant morbidity and mortality. A common pathophysiological feature of diseased vessels is extracellular matrix (ECM) remodelling. Analysing the protein composition of the ECM by conventional antibody-based techniques is challenging; alternative splicing or post-translational modifications, such as glycosylation, can mask epitopes required for antibody recognition. By contrast, proteomic analysis by mass spectrometry enables the study of proteins without the constraints of antibodies. Recent advances in proteomic techniques make it feasible to characterize the composition of the vascular ECM and its remodelling in disease. These developments may lead to the discovery of novel prognostic and diagnostic markers. Thus, proteomics holds potential for identifying ECM signatures to monitor vascular disease processes. Furthermore, a better understanding of the ECM remodelling processes in the vasculature might make ECM-associated proteins more attractive targets for drug discovery efforts. In this review, we will summarize the role of the ECM in the vasculature. Then, we will describe the challenges associated with studying the intricate network of ECM proteins and the current proteomic strategies to analyse the vascular ECM in metabolic and cardiovascular diseases

Advances in tenascin-C biology

Tenascin-C is an extracellular matrix glycoprotein that is specifically and transiently expressed upon tissue injury. Upon tissue damage, tenascin-C plays a multitude of different roles that mediate both inflammatory and fibrotic processes to enable effective tissue repair. In the last decade, emerging evidence has demonstrated a vital role for tenascin-C in cardiac and arterial injury, tumor angiogenesis and metastasis, as well as in modulating stem cell behavior. Here we highlight the molecular mechanisms by which tenascin-C mediates these effects and discuss the implications of mis-regulated tenascin-C expression in driving disease pathology

PART III. ASSESSING IRRITATION: Sensory Irritation: Relation to Indoor Air Pollution

All mucosae of the body possess chemical sensitivity provided by the common chemical sense (CCS). Airborne chemicals can stimulate the CCS through the ocular, nasal, and respiratory mucosae, evoking different pungent sensations, e.g., stinging, irritation, burning, piquancy, prickling, freshness, tingling. Pungent sensations elicited in the nose differ from odor sensations in various characteristics. They are achieved at considerably higher concentrations than those necessary to elicit odor, but they increase with the concentration of the stimulus in a steeper fashion than odor. Pungent sensations from mixtures of compounds show a higher degree of addition - relative to the pungency of the individual components - than that of odor sensations. Pungency is more resistant to adaptation than odor, and, unlike it, displays considerable temporal integration with continuous stimulation. Measurement of a reflex, transitory apnea produced upon inhalation of pungent chemicals holds promise as an objective indicator of the functional status of the CCS. Results from the measurement of this reflex have agreed quantitatively with sensory data in a number of studies, showing higher common chemical sensitivity in nonsmokers - compared to smokers -, in females - compared to males -, and in young adults - compared to elderly. Research issues mentioned here include the following:      - We can rarely validate the symptoms putatively caused by indoor air pollution objectively. Without such means, we will always have the potential problem of over-reporting and embellishment. Although one person may seem more sensitive than another, the difference may lie in a greater proclivity to complain.      - Studies of anosmic persons offer a simple means to understand the functional characteristics of the nasal CCS.   Studies of chemical series in such subjects should eventually allow construction of quantitative structure-activity models for human pungency perception. The human data can be compared with relevant animal data when possible.      - The rules of additivity of pungency in mixtures need explication. Regarding the possible role of VOCs in the creation of irritation, we need to ask whether subthreshold levels add up or even amplify each other to produce noticeable irritation. Do repetitive or continuous exposures to subthreshold concentrations increase sensitivity to those substances, so that they evoke pungency when they otherwise would not? Do the various mucosae - ocular, nasal, throat - differ in their sensitivity?      - Modulation of CCS sensitivity by long-term and short-term inhalation of various agents (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke) would seem a suitable topic for further research