The Critical Pick: A Crane Rigging Demonstration

This demonstration, an application of static equilibrium and geometry knowledge, depicts the importance of rigging angles during crane lift operations on a construction site. Reducing rigging angles results in a significant amplification of forces in the rigging, potentially leading to failure. By varying the connection points and sling length, students will be able to calculate the predicted forces and analyze the best combination of connection points and sling lengths to successfully complete the critical lift. The forces in rigging (sling, chain, wire rope, webbing, shackles, etc.) increase substantially as the angle formed by the sling leg and the horizontal datum becomes smaller. The key engineering principle with this emonstration is related to an understanding of statics. Students must comprehend that decreasing the angle creates a horizontal force component that increases the tension in the rigging. The demonstration takes 15-20 minutes to complete in class

The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860

A Review of The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 by Morton J. Horwit

Information Privacy: What is Our Responsibility?

This panel will consider the responsibility of IS professionals, educators and practitioners in the realm of information privacy. Should we be establishing arid enforcing privacy standards? What should those standards be? Where should we position ourselves on the continuum between totally open access to infonnation and extensive restrictions? Will attempts to regulate or control privacy work in the Infonnation Age? The participants will briefly present their experiences in this area and serve as a springboard to panel and audience debate

Evaluation of Consumer Health Informatics Definitions: A Systematic Review of the Peer-Reviewed Literature, 1995-2012

Introduction: Consumer health informatics (CHI) is an emerging field that utilizes technology to provide tailored health information for the consumer. It is multidisciplinary in nature and stands at the crossroads of a multitude of other disciplines. It is also one of the most rapidly advancing and challenging subfields in medical informatics. However, there is no single accepted definition of CHI in the literature and a consensus definition would be important for pedagogical reasons, to build capacity, and to reduce confusion about what the discipline consists of. Therefore, the objective of this thesis research was to systematically review the published definitions of consumer health informatics and evaluate them based on a set of assessment criteria to gain a better understanding of their quality. Methods: Five databases were searched (Embase, Web of Science, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and Business Source Complete) resulting in 1109 citations. Twenty-three studies met the inclusion criteria. Definitions were appraised using 5 criteria (with each scoring out of 1): use of published citation, multidisciplinarity, journal impact, definition comprehensibility, and text readability. Results: Most definitions scored low on citation (mean±SD: 0.22/1 ±0.42/1), multidisciplinarity (0.15±0.28), and readability (0.04±0.21) and somewhat higher on impact factor (0.35±0.45) and definition comprehensibility (idea density) (0.87±0.34) criteria. The highest scoring definition was written by Shaikh et al. (2011) and achieved a score of 3.5, with the lowest definition score attributed to Gibbons et al. (2009) which received a score of 0. Overall, the quality of the published definitions was low 1.63±0.80 (out of 5). Conclusions: The definitions of CHI were variable in terms of the quality assessment criteria. This finding suggests the need for continued discussion amongst consumer health informaticians and other key players to develop a clear consensus definition about CHI. This unified definition could in turn inform the development of core competencies for this discipline and its utility in public health practice

Seasonal Changes of Benthic Macroinvertebrate Functional Feeding Group Biomass Within Forest and Meadow Habitats of a First-order Michigan (USA) Stream

Little is known about seasonal changes in stream benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. We determined the ash-free dry mass of macroinvertebrates within a forested and a meadow reach of Fairbanks Creek in northern Lower Michigan throughout all seasons of 2018 and 2019. The macroinvertebrate assemblage of the forested reach was dominated by invertebrates in the shredder functional feeding group (FFG), whereas the meadow reach was composed primarily of scrapers and filtering collectors. Regardless of reach, the biomass of all FFGs was low during the winter and early spring, peaked in May or June, and gradually declined throughout the summer and fall. General trends in biomass were the same for both years of the study, although 2018 had overall higher biomass despite being a slightly cooler year

Oxygen and Hydrogen isotopes in human hair and tap water: Modeling relationships in a Modern Mexican Population

This study investigates the relationship between O and H isotopes in samples of Mexican hair and drinking water. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, we wanted to quantify the relationship between isotopes in Mexican hair and tap water to understand the impact of water stress and differing socioeconomic status on accurate predictions of drinking water. Second, we wanted to determine whether currently existing semi mechanistic models could accurately represent the relationship between hair and tap water. For this study, we used a subset of paired (N = 62) human hair and (N = 76) tap water samples. Isotope values in tap water spanned a range from –11.4 ‰ to –4.3 ‰ and –79.1 ‰ to –22.5 ‰ for δ18O and δ2H, respectively. Isotope values in hair ranged from +9.5 ‰ to +16.1 ‰ and –90.8 ‰ to –53.7 ‰ for δ18O and δ2H, respectively. The most depleted δ18O and δ2H hair values came from individuals in the state of Morelos. For our modern Mexican population, positive correlations between isotopes in hair and water were not significant, with correlation coefficients of r = 0.61 (p = 0.05) and r = 0.60 (p = 0.06) for 18O and 2H respectively. Error-in-variables regression yielded linear fits that were somewhat better for 2H relative to 18O: δ18Oh = 0.183 [± 0.132] δ18Otw + 15.7 [± 0.9] ‰ (r2 = 0.23); δ2Hh = 0.181 [± 0.076] δ2Htw – 64.0 [± 3.0] ‰ (r2 = 0.34). In short, data from this Mexican population do not exhibit the strong relationships between isotope values of 18O and 2H in tap water and hair that have been characteristic of other populations studied to date. Given the economic stratification of this region and the poor correlation between hair and water samples, we chose to consider the possibility that l – the fraction of the diet derived from local sources –and fs – the fraction of non- exchangeable H in keratin that was fixed in vivo–are local, rather than global, parameters for this population. We estimated a different value of l and fs for each location. Given the anticipated importance of the non-local dietary contribution, we treated the isotopic content of non-local food and the offset parameters for predicting isotopes in locally derived food as tuning parameters and compared the results with the parameters based on the American supermarket diet. We found that, although O and H isotopes in water and hair maintain similar geographic distributions, O and H isotopes in tap water explain only a small part of the variation observed in hair samples. In comparison to the standard American supermarket diet, the Mexican estimates for non-local diet and local diet offsets predict regional distributions of l and fs that cleanly segregate urban areas from rural towns

The Effects of Transitioning an Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Course from Shorter and More Frequent Class Periods to Longer and Fewer In-Class Sessions

Class frequency and duration are fundamental parameters within engineering education across nearly all pedagogical methods. Optimizing these factors enables programs to achieve a higher level of learning in the classroom while providing for more efficient time management. The objective of this paper is to document the perceived effect on students and instructors when transitioning from a traditional 40 lesson course with 55 minutes duration, to one comprised of 30 lessons at 75 minutes in length. This analysis limits research to a mechanical engineering curriculum at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. Major assessment performance under the new structure was compared with historical results to provide objective qualitative comparison. Anonymous student feedback was also collected at the midpoint and end of each course. Survey questions centered on perceived information absorption and synthesis, impact on problem solving opportunities, and the effect of variation in classroom contact time. Changes in course syllabi to accommodate the 75 minute structure generally resulted in no net gain or loss of new material to the original curriculum, though outliers did occur and are discussed in more detail. Class size averaged 18 students over four different courses, ranging from Helicopter Aeronautics to Vehicle Dynamics. Course size averaged 34 students with a total of 135 students enrolled across all courses. The change in course structure demonstrates potential opportunity for both greater depth and application of learning in the classroom as well as increased schedule flexibility. Conversely, the heightened implications of students missing class and the administrative feasibility of such a shift can be problematic. Instructor assessment of student learning and student feedback through end-of-course evaluations will be presented in this paper, as well as recommendations for future instructors wishing to apply similar changes