Microwave radiometric studies and ground truth measurements of the NASA/USGS Southern California test site

The field measurement program conducted at the NASA/USGS Southern California Test Site is discussed. Ground truth data and multifrequency microwave brightness data were acquired by a mobile field laboratory operating in conjunction with airborne instruments. The ground based investigations were performed at a number of locales representing a variety of terrains including open desert, cultivated fields, barren fields, portions of the San Andreas Fault Zone, and the Salton Sea. The measurements acquired ground truth data and microwave brightness data at wavelengths of 0.8 cm, 2.2 cm, and 21 cm

Using Evaluations to Identify and Eliminate a Barrier to Invasive Weed Control

Evaluation is an important component of educational programming. An example of how evaluation is used to assess need, identify barriers, and guide program development is presented. Impact evaluations from a yearlong project to teach landowners about invasive weed identification and control indicated one of the barriers to implementing knowledge was a lack of access to invasive species control tools. Knowledge of this barrier enabled community organizers to guide the development of a community herbicide shed (CHS). Evaluations of landowners who used the CHS show that the CHS effectively changed the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of all participants

Growth hormone plus resistance exercise attenuate structural changes in rat myotendinous junctions resulting from chronic unloading.

Myotendinous junctions (MTJs) are specialized sites on the muscle surface where forces generated by myofibrils are transmitted across the sarcolemma to the extracellular matrix. At the ultrastructural level, the interface between the sarcolemma and extracellular matrix is highly folded and interdigitated at these junctions. In this study, the effect of exercise and growth hormone (GH) treatments on the changes in MTJ structure that occur during muscle unloading, has been analyzed. Twenty hypophysectomized rats were assigned randomly to one of five groups: ambulatory control, hindlimb unloaded, hindlimb unloaded plus exercise (3 daily bouts of 10 climbs up a ladder with 50% body wt attached to the tail), hindlimb unloaded plus GH (2 daily injections of 1 mg/kg body wt, i.p.), and hindlimb unloaded plus exercise plus GH. MTJs of the plantaris muscle were analyzed by electron microscopy and the contact between muscle and tendon was evaluated using an IL/B ratio, where B is the base and IL is the interface length of MTJ's digit-like processes. After 10 days of unloading, the mean IL/B ratio was significantly lower in unloaded (3.92), unloaded plus exercise (4.18), and unloaded plus GH (5.25) groups than in the ambulatory control (6.39) group. On the opposite, the mean IL/B ratio in the group treated with both exercise and GH (7.3) was similar to control. These findings indicate that the interaction between exercise and GH treatments attenuates the changes in MTJ structure that result from chronic unloading and thus can be used as a countermeasure to these adaptations

Immersive virtual reality as a pedagogical tool in education:a systematic literature review of quantitative learning outcomes and experimental design

The adoption of immersive virtual reality (I-VR) as a pedagogical method in education has challenged the conceptual definition of what constitutes a learning environment. High fidelity graphics and immersive content using head-mounted-displays (HMD) have allowed students to explore complex subjects in a way that traditional teaching methods cannot. Despite this, research focusing on learning outcomes, intervention characteristics, and assessment measures associated with I-VR use has been sparse. To explore this, the current systematic review examined experimental studies published since 2013, where quantitative learning outcomes using HMD based I-VR were compared with less immersive pedagogical methods such as desktop computers and slideshows. A literature search yielded 29 publications that were deemed suitable for inclusion. Included papers were quality assessed using the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI). Most studies found a significant advantage of utilising I-VR in education, whilst a smaller number found no significant differences in attainment level regardless of whether I-VR or non-immersive methods were utilised. Only two studies found clear detrimental effects of using I-VR. However, most studies used short interventions, did not examine information retention, and were focused mainly on the teaching of scientific topics such as biology or physics. In addition, the MERSQI showed that the methods used to evaluate learning outcomes are often inadequate and this may affect the interpretation of I-VR’s utility. The review highlights that a rigorous methodological approach through the identification of appropriate assessment measures, intervention characteristics, and learning outcomes is essential to understanding the potential of I-VR as a pedagogical method

Why national health research systems matter

Some of the most outstanding problems in Computer Science (e.g. access to heterogeneous information sources, use of different e-commerce standards, ontology translation, etc.) are often approached through the identification of ontology mappings. A manual mapping generation slows down, or even makes unfeasible, the solution of particular cases of the aforementioned problems via ontology mappings. Some algorithms and formal models for partial tasks of automatic generation of mappings have been proposed. However, an integrated system to solve this problem is still missing. In this paper, we present AMON, a platform for automatic ontology mapping generation. First of all, we show the general structure. Then, we describe the current version of the system, including the ontology in which it is based, the similarity measures that it uses, the access to external sources, etc

Splash control of drop impacts with geometric targets

Drop impacts on solid and liquid surfaces exhibit complex dynamics due to the competition of inertial, viscous, and capillary forces. After impact, a liquid lamella develops and expands radially, and under certain conditions, the outer rim breaks up into an irregular arrangement of filaments and secondary droplets. We show experimentally that the lamella expansion and subsequent break up of the outer rim can be controlled by length scales that are of comparable dimension to the impacting drop diameter. Under identical impact parameters, ie. fluid properties and impact velocity, we observe unique splashing dynamics by varying the target cross-sectional geometry. These behaviors include: (i) geometrically-shaped lamellae and (ii) a transition in splashing stability, from regular to irregular splashing. We propose that regular splashes are controlled by the azimuthal perturbations imposed by the target cross-sectional geometry and that irregular splashes are governed by the fastest-growing unstable Plateau-Rayleigh mode

And yet it moves: Recovery of volitional control after spinal cord injury

Preclinical and clinical neurophysiological and neurorehabilitation research has generated rather surprising levels of recovery of volitional sensory-motor function in persons with chronic motor paralysis following a spinal cord injury. The key factor in this recovery is largely activity-dependent plasticity of spinal and supraspinal networks. This key factor can be triggered by neuromodulation of these networks with electrical and pharmacological interventions. This review addresses some of the systems-level physiological mechanisms that might explain the effects of electrical modulation and how repetitive training facilitates the recovery of volitional motor control. In particular, we substantiate the hypotheses that: (1) in the majority of spinal lesions, a critical number and type of neurons in the region of the injury survive, but cannot conduct action potentials, and thus are electrically non-responsive; (2) these neuronal networks within the lesioned area can be neuromodulated to a transformed state of electrical competency; (3) these two factors enable the potential for extensive activity-dependent reorganization of neuronal networks in the spinal cord and brain, and (4) propriospinal networks play a critical role in driving this activity-dependent reorganization after injury. Real-time proprioceptive input to spinal networks provides the template for reorganization of spinal networks that play a leading role in the level of coordination of motor pools required to perform a given functional task. Repetitive exposure of multi-segmental sensory-motor networks to the dynamics of task-specific sensory input as occurs with repetitive training can functionally reshape spinal and supraspinal connectivity thus re-enabling one to perform complex motor tasks, even years post injury