Liberal learning in American higher education.

This study explores the often conflicting assumptions that the public and practitioners make about American higher education. In particular, it proposes that we have allowed much of these assumptions to assume the status of myth. The consequence is an imprecision in higher education: it is seen as both training for jobs and at the same time providing us with a heightened aesthetic and moral sense. This is rarely true. The review of the literature of the history of higher education reinforces this confusion. Curricular shifts are recorded with very little examination of the consequences they may have on the institution, itself; new missions, goals, and purposes are added with little concern for the overall effect this process of accretion may have. In the last 100 years, discipline, majors, and other academic responses have occurred to meet the training needs of industry; the atmosphere and goals of the arts, literature, and science are highly professional, as well. The consequences for higher education include trivialization of courses and majors, isolation of units within the universities, learning that exists only in-order-to acquire narrow skills or credentials, and a continuing rationalization of the connection with the marketplace. There is a lack of critical self-analysis by the institutions. Proposals for reform have, on occasion, been advanced in recognition of this proliferation of purpose. However, the trend in American higher education seems to be moving ever closer to vocationalism, in spite of proposed reforms. This movement is being effected at the expense of general or liberal education. The consequences of this trend do not seem to be a major concern in most educational circles, or to be fully understood. The study concludes that an important, even vital part of higher education is being sacrificed to the utilitarian ideal. This reality may force a rethinking of our myth; perhaps, even a reform of our educational ideal

Provisional behavioral health licenses to full licenses: Analysis of Nebraska behavioral workforce data 2009–2019

There is a need to recruit and to retain behavioral health providers especially when providers are moving from the provisional licensing status to a full licensure status. This study estimated the rates of conversion of provisional licenses to full licenses among provisionally licensed psychologists, mental health practitioners, master social workers, and alcohol and drug counselors (ADCs) in Nebraska and examined potential associations among demographic characteristics and license conversion rates. Nebraska’s behavioral health licensure data (2009–2019) was obtained from the Health Professional Tracking Service (HPTS) program that was established as a joint effort between Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Human Services Office of Rural Health and University of Nebraska Medical Center. The rate of conversion from provisional to full license during the most recent years ranged from 44% for ADCs to 75% among social workers. Compared to individuals of older age, individuals of younger age are more likely to convert among ADCs (p = .0028). Moreover, compared to individuals living in urban areas, rural practitioners are more likely to convert among social workers (p \u3c .0001). With behavioral health problems on the rise across the country, it is urgent that behavioral health professional shortage areas begin to close the workforce gap. Increasing conversion rates from provisional to full licenses will be a part of this solution

Clinical Evaluation of Niflumic Acid (Squibb) in Rheumatoid Arthritis

The effect of 750 mg of niflumic acid per day administered orally was studied in 15 patients with active rheumatoid arthritis in a double-blind crossover trial. The patients were followed over a two-week period with three assessments of joint pain and tenderness, duration and severity of morning stiffness, digital joint circumference, grip strength and radioactive pertechnetate (99m Tc) knee and wrist joint uptakes. The results show that niflumic acid was more effective in relieving pain than placebo. Anti-inflammatory effects could not be demonstrated

Expression of endogenous putative TSH binding protein in orbit

Thyroid stimulating antibodies (TSAB) cause Graves’ disease and contribute to Graves’ Orbitopathy (GO) pathogenesis. We hypothesise that the presence of TSH binding proteins (truncated TSHR variants (TSHRv)) and/or nonclassical ligands such as thyrostimulin (α2β5) might provide a mechanism to protect against or exacerbate GO. We analysed primary human orbital preadipocyte-fibroblasts (OF) from GO patients and people free of GO (non-GO). Transcript (QPCR) and protein (western blot) expression levels of TSHRv were measured through an adipogenesis differentiation process. Cyclic-AMP production by TSHR activation was studied using luciferase-reporter and RIA assays. After differentiation, TSHRv levels in OF from GO were significantly higher than non-GO (p = 0.039), and confirmed in ex vivo analysis of orbital adipose samples. TSHRv western blot revealed a positive signal at 46 kDa in cell lysates and culture media (CM) from non-GO and GO-OF. Cyclic-AMP decreased from basal levels when OF were stimulated with TSH or Monoclonal TSAB (M22) before differentiation protocol, but increased in differentiated cells, and was inversely correlated with the TSHRv:TSHR ratio (Spearman correlation: TSH r = −0.55, p = 0.23, M22 r = 0.87, p = 0.03). In the bioassay, TSH/M22 induced luciferase-light was lower in CM from differentiated GO-OF than non-GO, suggesting that secreted TSHRv had neutralised their effects. α2 transcripts were present but reduced during adipogenesis (p < 0.005) with no difference observed between non-GO and GO. β5 transcripts were at the limit of detection. Our work demonstrated that TSHRv transcripts are expressed as protein, are more abundant in GO than non-GO OF and have the capacity to regulate signalling via the TSHR

A classification system for argumentation schemes

This paper explains the importance of classifying argumentation schemes, and outlines how schemes are being used in current research in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics on argument mining. It provides a survey of the literature on scheme classification. What are so far generally taken to represent a set of the most widely useful defeasible argumentation schemes are surveyed and explained systematically, including some that are difficult to classify. A new classification system covering these centrally important schemes is built

A Stochastic Model of Latently Infected Cell Reactivation and Viral Blip Generation in Treated HIV Patients

Motivated by viral persistence in HIV+ patients on long-term anti-retroviral treatment (ART), we present a stochastic model of HIV viral dynamics in the blood stream. We consider the hypothesis that the residual viremia in patients on ART can be explained principally by the activation of cells latently infected by HIV before the initiation of ART and that viral blips (clinically-observed short periods of detectable viral load) represent large deviations from the mean. We model the system as a continuous-time, multi-type branching process. Deriving equations for the probability generating function we use a novel numerical approach to extract the probability distributions for latent reservoir sizes and viral loads. We find that latent reservoir extinction-time distributions underscore the importance of considering reservoir dynamics beyond simply the half-life. We calculate blip amplitudes and frequencies by computing complete viral load probability distributions, and study the duration of viral blips via direct numerical simulation. We find that our model qualitatively reproduces short small-amplitude blips detected in clinical studies of treated HIV infection. Stochastic models of this type provide insight into treatment-outcome variability that cannot be found from deterministic models

Putative DHHC-Cysteine-Rich Domain S-Acyltransferase in Plants

Protein S-acyltransferases (PATs) containing Asp-His-His-Cys within a Cys-rich domain (DHHC-CRD) are polytopic transmembrane proteins that are found in eukaryotic cells and mediate the S-acylation of target proteins. S-acylation is an important secondary and reversible modification that regulates the membrane association, trafficking and function of target proteins. However, little is known about the characteristics of PATs in plants. Here, we identified 804 PATs from 31 species with complete genomes. The analysis of the phylogenetic relationships suggested that all of the PATs fell into 8 groups. In addition, we analysed the phylogeny, genomic organization, chromosome localisation and expression pattern of PATs in Arabidopsis, Oryza sative, Zea mays and Glycine max. The microarray data revealed that PATs genes were expressed in different tissues and during different life stages. The preferential expression of the ZmPATs in specific tissues and the response of Zea mays to treatments with phytohormones and abiotic stress demonstrated that the PATs play roles in plant growth and development as well as in stress responses. Our data provide a useful reference for the identification and functional analysis of the members of this protein family

Structure and evolution of the plant cation diffusion facilitator family of ion transporters

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