Research Notes: Procedures for handling soybean gerrnplasm between the United States and foreign countries

Federal, state, and commercial soybean breeders periodically receive direct requests for seed from potential foreign cooperators, including both those who are technically qualified to undertake research and those who have little experience with the crop and are initiating programs for the first time. The Gennplasm Resources Laboratory in Beltsville, MD, also receives numerous requests from foreign cooperators as a result of its involvement in the international germplasm exchange program that has been operating for 25 to 30 years. In addition, U. S. breeders request specific germplasm from foreign sources and new plant introductions are added to the soybean germplasm collections

Hooves for Hope: Equine Assisted Psychotherapy as a Modality for Social and Emotional Learning in At-Risk Youth

The purpose of this paper is to educate its readers on the utility of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy; an emerging modality of mental health treatment and to introduce a new program model for utilization of this treatment with at-risk youth. This paper is particularly focused on the use of this modality to facilitate social and emotional learning in at-risk youth. It begins by establishing the reasons that mental health providers, and American citizens on the whole, should be concerned with at-risk youth as well as defining what this term “at-risk youth” means within the context of this paper. In order to fully establish this concept the author provides several conceptualizations for understanding at-risk youth, including a statement on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and an explanation of the necessity for social and emotional learning within this population. It then transitions into explaining and defining Equine Assisted Therapies broadly; examining the history of this field and moving towards a better understanding of how Equine Assisted Psychotherapy can be used to teach social and emotional learning. This can be done through targeting four key areas of deficit found within at-risk youth: 1) building self-esteem, 2) developing empathy and trust, 3) teaching emotional control and distress tolerance through mindfulness, and 4) learning how to be a friend and have a friend through the human-animal bond. Finally, a model program design including eight sessions of Equine Assisted Therapy is presented as a template for use by future providers

A personal journey of studying positive psychology: reflections of undergraduate students in the United Arab Emirates

Background: An increasing number of undergraduate positive psychology courses offer students a holistic view of the broader discipline of psychology. Even short-term participation in positive psychology activities as part of a taught course may improve psychological well-being and lower stress. However, there is a dearth of qualitative evidence on how students experience this learning process. Objective: This study aimed to explore UAE-based undergraduate students’ reflections on their experiences of an elective positive psychology course and their participation in various positive psychology interventions (PPIs). Method: This qualitative study explored 21 UAE-based undergraduate students’ reflections on taking a semester-long positive psychology course, in which they participated in PPIs. The rich data from semi-structured interviews were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Three main themes emerged, namely rethinking positive psychology, changes in perspective on happiness and search for positivity, and enhanced relationships. Conclusion and Teaching Implications: The study suggests that positive psychology may reach past the time and space of the taught course and have at least a short-term positive impact on students' mental and social lives. Findings from this study imply the potential of positive psychology in higher education and point towards further integration of such courses in undergraduate programs in the UAE and beyond

Power system applications of fiber optics

Power system applications of optical systems, primarily using fiber optics, are reviewed. The first section reviews fibers as components of communication systems. The second section deals with fiber sensors for power systems, reviewing the many ways light sources and fibers can be combined to make measurements. Methods of measuring electric field gradient are discussed. Optical data processing is the subject of the third section, which begins by reviewing some widely different examples and concludes by outlining some potential applications in power systems: fault location in transformers, optical switching for light fired thyristors and fault detection based on the inherent symmetry of most power apparatus. The fourth and final section is concerned with using optical fibers to transmit power to electric equipment in a high voltage situation, potentially replacing expensive high voltage low power transformers. JPL has designed small photodiodes specifically for this purpose, and fabricated and tested several samples. This work is described

Fragments of ML Decidable by Nested Data Class Memory Automata

The call-by-value language RML may be viewed as a canonical restriction of Standard ML to ground-type references, augmented by a "bad variable" construct in the sense of Reynolds. We consider the fragment of (finitary) RML terms of order at most 1 with free variables of order at most 2, and identify two subfragments of this for which we show observational equivalence to be decidable. The first subfragment consists of those terms in which the P-pointers in the game semantic representation are determined by the underlying sequence of moves. The second subfragment consists of terms in which the O-pointers of moves corresponding to free variables in the game semantic representation are determined by the underlying moves. These results are shown using a reduction to a form of automata over data words in which the data values have a tree-structure, reflecting the tree-structure of the threads in the game semantic plays. In addition we show that observational equivalence is undecidable at every third- or higher-order type, every second-order type which takes at least two first-order arguments, and every second-order type (of arity greater than one) that has a first-order argument which is not the final argument

Axial Symmetry and Rotation in the SiO Maser Shell of IK Tauri

We observed v=1, J=1-0 43-GHz SiO maser emission toward the Mira variable IK Tauri (IK Tau) using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). The images resulting from these observations show that SiO masers form a highly elliptical ring of emission approximately 58 x 32 mas with an axial ratio of 1.8:1. The major axis of this elliptical distribution is oriented at position angle of ~59 deg. The line-of-sight velocity structure of the SiO masers has an apparent axis of symmetry consistent with the elongation axis of the maser distribution. Relative to the assumed stellar velocity of 35 km/s, the blue- and red-shifted masers were found to lie to the northwest and southeast of this symmetry axis respectively. This velocity structure suggests a NW-SE rotation of the SiO maser shell with an equatorial velocity, which we determine to be ~3.6 km/s. Such a NW-SE rotation is in agreement with a circumstellar envelope geometry invoked to explain previous water and OH maser observations. In this geometry, water and OH masers are preferentially created in a region of enhanced density along the NE-SW equator orthogonal to the rotation/polar axis suggested by the SiO maser velocities.Comment: 17 Pages, 4 figures (2 color); accepted for publication in Ap

Extended Initiality for Typed Abstract Syntax

Initial Semantics aims at interpreting the syntax associated to a signature as the initial object of some category of 'models', yielding induction and recursion principles for abstract syntax. Zsid\'o proves an initiality result for simply-typed syntax: given a signature S, the abstract syntax associated to S constitutes the initial object in a category of models of S in monads. However, the iteration principle her theorem provides only accounts for translations between two languages over a fixed set of object types. We generalize Zsid\'o's notion of model such that object types may vary, yielding a larger category, while preserving initiality of the syntax therein. Thus we obtain an extended initiality theorem for typed abstract syntax, in which translations between terms over different types can be specified via the associated category-theoretic iteration operator as an initial morphism. Our definitions ensure that translations specified via initiality are type-safe, i.e. compatible with the typing in the source and target language in the obvious sense. Our main example is given via the propositions-as-types paradigm: we specify propositions and inference rules of classical and intuitionistic propositional logics through their respective typed signatures. Afterwards we use the category--theoretic iteration operator to specify a double negation translation from the former to the latter. A second example is given by the signature of PCF. For this particular case, we formalize the theorem in the proof assistant Coq. Afterwards we specify, via the category-theoretic iteration operator, translations from PCF to the untyped lambda calculus

Near Infrared Adaptive Optics Imaging of QSO Host Galaxies

We report near-infrared (primarily H-band) adaptive optics (AO) imaging with the Gemini-N and Subaru Telescopes, of a representative sample of 32 nearby (z<0.3) QSOs selected from the Palomar-Green (PG) Bright Quasar Survey (BQS), in order to investigate the properties of the host galaxies. 2D modeling and visual inspection of the images shows that ~36% of the hosts are ellipticals, \~39% contain a prominent disk component, and ~25% are of undetermined type. 30% show obvious signs of disturbance. The mean M_H(host) = -24.82 (2.1L_H*), with a range -23.5 to -26.5 (~0.63 to 10 L_H*). At <L_H*, all hosts have a dominant disk component, while at >2 L_H* most are ellipticals. "Disturbed" hosts are found at all M_H(host), while "strongly disturbed" hosts appear to favor the more luminous hosts. Hosts with prominent disks have less luminous QSOs, while the most luminous QSOs are almost exclusively in ellipticals or in mergers (which presumably shortly will be ellipticals). At z<0.13, where our sample is complete at B-band, we find no clear correlation between M_B(QSO) and M_H(host). However, at z>0.15, the more luminous QSOs (M_B<-24.7), and 4/5 of the radio-loud QSOs, have the most luminous H-band hosts (>7L_H*), most of which are ellipticals. Finally, we find a strong correlation between the "infrared-excess", L_IR/L_BB, of QSOs with host type and degree of disturbance. Disturbed and strongly disturbed hosts and hosts with dominant disks have L_IR/L_BB twice that of non-disturbed and elliptical hosts, respectively. QSOs with "disturbed" and "strongly-disturbed" hosts are also found to have morphologies and mid/far-infrared colors that are similar to what is found for "warm" ultraluminous infrared galaxies, providing further evidence for a possible evolutionary connection between both classes of objects.Comment: 80 pages, accepted for publication in ApJ Supp