Revisiting the Promise and Foundations of a Jesuit Education

Offering a Jesuit education requires much from the faculty and staff at a Jesuit university. While there is wide agreement with Jesuit Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach’s observation that our particular education should be measured by who our students become, faculty and staff need a fundamental understanding of the roots and intentions of Jesuit education to truly begin to fulfill that promise of a Jesuit education.1 This article shares the reflective practice of five colleagues working in different roles at a Jesuit university, seeking to better re-examine their understanding of the foundations of Jesuit education, including special attention to the history, contextual meaning, and analysis of the six Catholic, Jesuit values that we uphold at Regis University: contemplatives in action, finding God in all things, men and women for and with others, the magis, cura personalis, and unity of heart and mind

Are We Fulfilling the Promise of a Jesuit Education? A Group of Educators’ Reflective Examen

Higher education is often faced with external pressures that can guide the practice and offerings of colleges and universities. Graduate professional education in the health professions is especially prone to accreditation standards and its associated professional movements. At a Jesuit university, these external pressures, along with public pressure for job-ready graduates, must be intertwined with the history and the promise of a Jesuit education — that of transformation. As educators at a Jesuit university, our roles involve more than offering this kind of education. Our responsibility is to revisit what this promise means as a way of examining our practice. This article shares the reflective practice of five colleagues working in different roles at a Jesuit university seeking answers to questions of whether they are delivering on the promise of Jesuit education. The article includes a guiding set of questions, a short reflection on each author’s experience, and a review of the external and internal influences on their programs, providing a guide for a type of practice Examen that can be used by any faculty or staff member

Physiological Adaptations to Progressive Endurance Exercise Training in Adult and Aged Rats: Insights from the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC)

While regular physical activity is a cornerstone of health, wellness, and vitality, the impact of endurance exercise training on molecular signaling within and across tissues remains to be delineated. The Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) was established to characterize molecular networks underlying the adaptive response to exercise. Here, we describe the endurance exercise training studies undertaken by the Preclinical Animal Sites Studies component of MoTrPAC, in which we sought to develop and implement a standardized endurance exercise protocol in a large cohort of rats. To this end, Adult (6-mo) and Aged (18-mo) female (n = 151) and male (n = 143) Fischer 344 rats were subjected to progressive treadmill training (5 d/wk, ∼70%-75% VO2max) for 1, 2, 4, or 8 wk; sedentary rats were studied as the control group. A total of 18 solid tissues, as well as blood, plasma, and feces, were collected to establish a publicly accessible biorepository and for extensive omics-based analyses by MoTrPAC. Treadmill training was highly effective, with robust improvements in skeletal muscle citrate synthase activity in as little as 1-2 wk and improvements in maximum run speed and maximal oxygen uptake by 4-8 wk. For body mass and composition, notable age- and sex-dependent responses were observed. This work in mature, treadmill-trained rats represents the most comprehensive and publicly accessible tissue biorepository, to date, and provides an unprecedented resource for studying temporal-, sex-, and age-specific responses to endurance exercise training in a preclinical rat model

XOQDOQ: computer program for the meteorological evaluation of routine effluent releases at nuclear power stations. Final report

Provided is a user's guide for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) computer program X0QDOQ which implements Regulatory Guide 1.111. This NUREG supercedes NUREG-0324 which was published as a draft in September 1977. This program is used by the NRC meteorology staff in their independent meteorological evaluation of routine or anticipated intermittent releases at nuclear power stations. It operates in a batch input mode and has various options a user may select. Relative atmospheric dispersion and deposition factors are computed for 22 specific distances out to 50 miles from the site for each directional sector. From these results, values for 10 distance segments are computed. The user may also select other locations for which atmospheric dispersion deposition factors are computed. Program features, including required input data and output results, are described. A program listing and test case data input and resulting output are provided

Diffusion near buildings as determined from atmospheric tracer experiments. Technical report

Data from the innermost arcs and roof top samplers of the Rancho Seco and EOCR field studies were used to examine diffusion close to a building. The minimum length plume paths were determined from each release location to each sampler position at these two test sites. Measured concentrations, normalized by source strength (C/Q), were plotted versus plume path length and an envelope containing 95% of the measured values of C/Q was determined. The curves from the two sites were similar in shape and implied three zones of diffusion. Comparisons were also made with current NRC methods for predicting maximum expected concentrations close to a building. The NRC model overestimated concentrations in all but one case. The model was generally within an order of magnitude at EOCR, and within two orders of magnitude at Rancho Seco

EOCR building wake effects on atmospheric diffusion. Technical memo

A series of 22 simultaneous releases of three gaseous tracers was conducted around the EOCR test reactor building at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory in SE Idaho. Hourly average gaseous tracer concentrations were sampled on several concentric sampling arcs and at a limited number of elevated locations. Winds and temperatures were measured on a nearby 30mm tower. Complete data appendices provide tracer concentration measurements, temperatures, winds and detailed wind statistics, derived diffusion statistics, and plots and analyses