A follow-up study of the 1956-1961 executive secretarial department graduates of Lasell Junior College, Auburndale, Massachusetts

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Montana Offer of Judgment Rule: Let\u27s Provide Bonafide Settlement Incentives

Montana Offer of Judgment Rule: Let\u27s Provide Bonafide Settlement Incentive

Montana Offer of Judgment Rule: Let\u27s Provide Bonafide Settlement Incentives

Montana Offer of Judgment Rule: Let\u27s Provide Bonafide Settlement Incentive

FIL Benchmarking Project

Write up of a workshop which took place at Interlend 2015, the annual conference of the Forum for Interlending and Information Delivery, held in Manchester. The workshop followed on from the presentation of the results of the FIL Benchmarking Project Survey in 2014, and was intended to facilitate discussion of the findings, with a view to establishing best practice

Incorporating Feedback from Multiple Sensory Modalities Enhances Brain–Machine Interface Control

The brain typically uses a rich supply of feedback from multiple sensory modalities to control movement in healthy individuals. In many individuals, these afferent pathways, as well as their efferent counterparts, are compromised by disease or injury resulting in significant impairments and reduced quality of life. Brain–machine interfaces (BMIs) offer the promise of recovered functionality to these individuals by allowing them to control a device using their thoughts. Most current BMI implementations use visual feedback for closed-loop control; however, it has been suggested that the inclusion of additional feedback modalities may lead to improvements in control. We demonstrate for the first time that kinesthetic feedback can be used together with vision to significantly improve control of a cursor driven by neural activity of the primary motor cortex (MI). Using an exoskeletal robot, the monkey\u27s arm was moved to passively follow a cortically controlled visual cursor, thereby providing the monkey with kinesthetic information about the motion of the cursor. When visual and proprioceptive feedback were congruent, both the time to successfully reach a target decreased and the cursor paths became straighter, compared with incongruent feedback conditions. This enhanced performance was accompanied by a significant increase in the amount of movement-related information contained in the spiking activity of neurons in MI. These findings suggest that BMI control can be significantly improved in paralyzed patients with residual kinesthetic sense and provide the groundwork for augmenting cortically controlled BMIs with multiple forms of natural or surrogate sensory feedback

Linear polarization sensitivity of SeGA detectors

Parity is a key observable in nuclear spectroscopy. Linear polarization measurements of $\gamma$-rays are a probe to access the parities of energy levels. Utilizing the segmentation of detectors in the Segmented Germanium Array (SeGA) at the NSCL and analyzing the positions of interaction therein allows the detectors to be used as Compton polarimeters. Unlike other segmented detectors, SeGA detectors are irradiated from the side to utilize the transversal segmentation for better Doppler corrections. Sensitivity in such an orientation has previously been untested. A linear polarization sensitivity $Q \approx 0.14$ has been measured in the 350-keV energy range for SeGA detectors using $\alpha$-$\gamma$ correlations from a \nuc{249}{Cf} source.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figure

Energy consumption and capacity utilization of galvanizing furnaces

An explicit equation leading to a method for improving furnace efficiency is presented. This equation is dimensionless and can be applied to furnaces of any size and fuel type for the purposes of comparison. The implications for current furnace design are discussed. Currently the technique most commonly used to reduce energy consumption in galvanizing furnaces is to increase burner turndown. This is shown by the analysis presented here actually to worsen the thermal efficiency of the furnace, particularly at low levels of capacity utilization. Galvanizing furnaces are different to many furnaces used within industry, as a quantity of material (in this case zinc) is kept molten within the furnace at all times, even outside production periods. The dimensionless analysis can, however, be applied to furnaces with the same operational function as a galvanizing furnace, such as some furnaces utilized within the glass industry. © IMechE 2004

2s1/2 occupancies in 30Si, 31P, and 32S

Elastic electron scattering off Si-30 and P-31 was studied in an effective momentum-transfer range of 1.8-3.0 fm(-1). The form-factor data were analyzed together with existing data sets for these nuclei and for S-32 in a model-independent Fourier-Bessel expansion. For P-31 the M1 contribution was subtracted following an established parametrization. Results of Hartree-Fock (HF) calculations, performed for these three nuclei in a spherical basis and in an axially deformed basis, are compared to experiment. Occupancies have been determined which, when used in the spherical-basis HF calculations, lead to a good description of the elastic form-factor data. The deformed-basis calculations have been used to study the influence of the deformation on the calculated binding energies and ground-state charge densities. In all calculations the influence of using different effective nucleon-nucleon interactions was investigated. The resulting differences in 2s(1/2) in occupancy are combined with results from previous existing (e,e'p) experiments to yield ''absolute occupancies'' for the 2s(1/2) orbital. The deduced 2s(1/2) occupancies for Si-30 and S-32 are 0.24(4) and 1.35(19), respectively.Peer reviewe

Evidence for L1-associated DNA rearrangements and negligible L1 retrotransposition in glioblastoma multiforme

Background: LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposons are a notable endogenous source of mutagenesis in mammals. Notably, cancer cells can support unusual L1 retrotransposition and L1-associated sequence rearrangement mechanisms following DNA damage. Recent reports suggest that L1 is mobile in epithelial tumours and neural cells but, paradoxically, not in brain cancers. Results: Here, using retrotransposon capture sequencing (RC-seq), we surveyed L1 mutations in 14 tumours classified as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) or as a lower grade glioma. In four GBM tumours, we characterised one probable endonuclease-independent L1 insertion, two L1-associated rearrangements and one likely Alu-Alu recombination event adjacent to an L1. These mutations included PCR validated intronic events in MeCP2 and EGFR. Despite sequencing L1 integration sites at up to 250× depth by RC-seq, we found no tumour-specific, endonuclease-dependent L1 insertions. Whole genome sequencing analysis of the tumours carrying the MeCP2 and EGFR L1 mutations also revealed no endonuclease-dependent L1 insertions. In a complementary in vitro assay, wild-type and endonuclease mutant L1 reporter constructs each mobilised very inefficiently in four cultured GBM cell lines. Conclusions: These experiments altogether highlight the consistent absence of canonical L1 retrotransposition in GBM tumours and cultured cell lines, as well as atypical L1-associated sequence rearrangements following DNA damage in vivo

Competing electric and magnetic excitations in backward electron scattering from heavy deformed nuclei

Important $E2$ contributions to the $(e,e^{\prime})$ cross sections of low-lying orbital $M1$ excitations are found in heavy deformed nuclei, arising from the small energy separation between the two excitations with $I^{\pi}K = 2^+1$ and 1$^+1$, respectively. They are studied microscopically in QRPA using DWBA. The accompanying $E2$ response is negligible at small momentum transfer $q$ but contributes substantially to the cross sections measured at $\theta = 165 ^{\circ}$ for $0.6 < q_{\rm eff} < 0.9$ fm$^{-1}$ ($40 \le E_i \le 70$ MeV) and leads to a very good agreement with experiment. The electric response is of longitudinal $C2$ type for $\theta \le 175 ^{\circ}$ but becomes almost purely transverse $E2$ for larger backward angles. The transverse $E2$ response remains comparable with the $M1$ response for $q_{\rm eff} > 1.2$ fm$^{-1}$ ($E_i > 100$ MeV) and even dominant for $E_i > 200$ MeV. This happens even at large backward angles $\theta > 175 ^{\circ}$, where the $M1$ dominance is limited to the lower $q$ region.Comment: RevTeX, 19 pages, 8 figures included Accepted for publication in Phys Rev