New Hampshire civic health index

The Carsey Institute is participating in a study to examine America\u27s civic health. Led by the Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), America\u27s Civic Health Index is an annual study that measures a wide variety of civic indicators, such as community involvement and helping others. New Hampshire is one of six states partnering with NCoC to produce a state-specific report that examines the civic health in the Granite State

Ready, Set, Network! Research Speed Networking for Clinicians, Scientists and Engineers

Objectives: A 2013 Institute of Medicine report urged researchers to “engage in additional substantive and productive collaborations” to address important clinical/translational science questions. To encourage team science among our researchers, Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences and Center for Clinical and Translational Research hosted a speed networking event, specifically targeting engineers, clinicians, and basic scientists; an analysis of the event is below. Methods: Invitations were distributed to clinicians, engineers, and basic scientists. To maximize interactions without increasing time spent at the event, researchers were divided into three groups. The event was planned such that each group would meet everyone from the other two groups; researchers were placed into appropriate groups according to their interests. Seated at tables of three, attendees introduced themselves and discussed their research interests for three minutes; then they rotated according to their group’s instructions. Lunch was provided afterwards to give attendees an opportunity to follow up with potential collaborators. Results: Twenty-one faculty researchers attended the speed networking event, which took about 30 minutes, excluding lunch. Using a 5-point Likert scale, all participants selected “strongly agree” or “agree” to respond to questions about whether the event was a valuable use of their time. Also, 53% of attendees “strongly” agreed with the statement “I met a potential collaborator” at the event. Discussion: Subjective evaluations show that researchers see speed networking as an effective way to meet potential collaborators. Objective data including sustained research partnerships and collaborative grant and publication submissions will be tracked

Chiral QCD, General QCD Parameterization and Constituent Quark Models

Several recent papers -using effective QCD chiral Lagrangians- reproduced results obtained with the general QCD parameterization (GP). These include the baryon 8+10 mass formula, the octet magnetic moments and the coincidental nature of the "perfect" -3/2 ratio between the magnetic moments of p and n. Although we anticipated that the GP covers the case of chiral treatments, the above results explicitly exemplify this fact. Also we show by the GP that -in any model or theory (chiral or non chiral) reproducing the results of exact QCD- the Franklin (Coleman Glashow) sum rule for the octet magnetic moments must be violated.Comment: 10 pages, Latex; abridged version (same results), removed some reference

An obstacle to a decomposition theorem for near-regular matroids

Seymour's Decomposition Theorem for regular matroids states that any matroid representable over both GF(2) and GF(3) can be obtained from matroids that are graphic, cographic, or isomorphic to R10 by 1-, 2-, and 3-sums. It is hoped that similar characterizations hold for other classes of matroids, notably for the class of near-regular matroids. Suppose that all near-regular matroids can be obtained from matroids that belong to a few basic classes through k-sums. Also suppose that these basic classes are such that, whenever a class contains all graphic matroids, it does not contain all cographic matroids. We show that in that case 3-sums will not suffice.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur

Incidence of bacterial infections in the blood of pediatric surgical patients

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityObjective: The bacterial bloodstream infections in the surgical patients after their procedures at Boston Children’s Hospital and potential risk factors have never been evaluated. The goal of this study is to determine potential risk factors and ascertain whether the current practices of the Department of Anesthesiology are effective in preventing the transmission of infection. Methods: We analyzed all Boston Children’s Hospital surgical patients from 2012 who had blood cultures drawn within 48 hours of being in the operating room. From this, we attempted to identify risk factors for the infections through multivariate logistic regression. We compared the infection rate at Boston Children’s Hospital to a national benchmark (10%) using a test of binomial proportions to determine if current practices are effective. Results: 35,451 patients underwent surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2012. Out of 494 patients who had blood cultures drawn within 48 hours of surgery, 21 subsequently developed bloodstream infections. Age, gender, race, admission location, length of stay, and surgical procedure type were not predictive factors (p>0.05). American Society of Anesthesiology score prior to surgery may be a risk factor (p=0.041). The infection rate at Boston Children’s Hospital was significantly less that the national benchmark (p=0.00). Conclusion: Since the infection rate at Boston Children’s Hospital is significantly less than the national benchmark, no changes in practice by the Department of Anesthesiology are currently necessary. However, additional studies are required to verify this finding

Cost Sensitivity Analysis on the Optimal Location of Technology Providers In Kentucky

A warehouse location model was utilized in order to expand upon previous research. The aim was to more accurately depicting the optimal location for an agribusiness firm providing precision agriculture technologies in the state of Kentucky. It was determined that the optimal solution was Muhlenberg County.warehouse location model, precision agriculture, agribusiness, Agribusiness,

Fan-extensions in fragile matroids

If S is a set of matroids, then the matroid M is S-fragile if, for every element e in E(M), either M\e or M/e has no minor isomorphic to a member of S. Excluded-minor characterizations often depend, implicitly or explicitly, on understanding classes of fragile matroids. In certain cases, when F is a minor-closed class of S-fragile matroids, and N is in F, the only members of F that contain N as a minor are obtained from N by increasing the length of fans. We prove that if this is the case, then we can certify it with a finite case-analysis. The analysis involves examining matroids that are at most two elements larger than N.Comment: Small revisions and correction

Determination of the mosaic angle distribution of Grafoil platelets using continuous-wave NMR spectra

We described details of a method to estimate with good accuracy the mosaic angle distributions of microcrystallites (platelets) in exfoliated graphite like Grafoil which is commonly used as an adsorption substrate for helium thin films. The method is based on analysis of resonance field shifts in continuous-wave (CW) NMR spectra of $^{3}$He ferromagnetic monolayers making use of the large nuclear polarization of the adsorbate itself. The mosaic angle distribution of a Grafoil substrate analyzed in this way can be well fitted to a gaussian form with a $27.5\pm2.5$ deg spread. This distribution is quite different from the previous estimation based on neutron scattering data which showed an unrealistically large isotropic powder-like component.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure