Learning as Playing: An Animated, Interactive Archive of 17th-19th Century Narrative Media For and By Children

"Learning as Playing" is a digital planning/discovery project proposed by The Pennsylvania State University (Curriculum & Instruction, Art Education, University Libraries, and Information Technology Services/ITS) and the Cotsen Children's Library, Princeton University. The goal is to develop an animated, interactive, web-based archive of selected 17th-19th century movable books by and for children on the theme of transformation, with a start-up project on flap books. These rare, fragile, little documented artifacts combine aspects of book, print and toy, and contain movable parts. The digital innovation will enable a viewer to simulate the experience of playing with these texts by "virtual touch," preserving the originals. This project will change how the history of children's literature is understood to move from "instruction to delight" by showing how texts "of play" have been produced since the earliest manufacture. It will be a scholarly and teaching resource

Books or Toys? A Traveller’s Tale: Researching Early Movable Books for and by Children in Material and Virtual Collections

A number of years ago, I first experienced the thrill of gaining access to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University and being granted permission to see some of the books that compose the famous Opie Collection. This joy as I sat in the New Bodleian Reading room was compounded when the Head of the Special Collections Clive Hurst, upon being told my interest in early children’s literature and culture, brought by an exquisite, little thin mid-18th century volume. When he opened it up it revealed a story of words and etched pictures about a set of characters called Harlequin, Columbine, and Clown that proceeded by means of flaps that could be lifted up and down, the directions for use sometimes being set in the verse or printed on top of the picture. He looked at me and said, ‘Are these books or toys?

HST Spectral Mapping of L/T Transition Brown Dwarfs Reveals Cloud Thickness Variations

Most directly imaged giant exoplanets are fainter than brown dwarfs with similar spectra. To explain their relative underluminosity unusually cloudy atmospheres have been proposed. However, with multiple parameters varying between any two objects, it remained difficult to observationally test this idea. We present a new method, sensitive time-resolved Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared spectroscopy, to study two rotating L/T transition brown dwarfs (2M2139 and SIMP0136). The observations provide spatially and spectrally resolved mapping of the cloud decks of the brown dwarfs. The data allow the study of cloud structure variations while other parameters are unchanged. We find that both brown dwarfs display variations of identical nature: J- and H-band brightness variations with minimal color and spectral changes. Our light curve models show that even the simplest surface brightness distributions require at least three elliptical spots. We show that for each source the spectral changes can be reproduced with a linear combination of only two different spectra, i.e. the entire surface is covered by two distinct types of regions. Modeling the color changes and spectral variations together reveal patchy cloud covers consisting of a spatially heterogenous mix of low-brightness, low-temperature thick clouds and brighter, thin and warm clouds. We show that the same thick cloud patches seen in our varying brown dwarf targets, if extended to the entire photosphere, predict near-infrared colors/magnitudes matching the range occupied by the directly imaged exoplanets that are cooler and less luminous than brown dwarfs with similar spectral types. This supports the models in which thick clouds are responsible for the near infrared properties of these underluminous exoplanets.Comment: Astrophysical Journal, in pres

Secretion of interferon gamma from human immune cells is altered by exposure to tributyltin and dibutyltin

Tributyltin (TBT) and dibutyltin (DBT) are widespread environmental contaminants found in food, beverages, and human blood samples. Both of these butyltins (BTs) interfere with the ability of human natural killer (NK) cells to lyse target cells and alter secretion of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) from human immune cells in vitro. The capacity of BTs to interfere with secretion of other pro-inflammatory cytokines has not been examined. Interferon gamma (IFNγ) is a modulator of adaptive and innate immune responses, playing an important role in overall immune competence. This study shows that both TBT and DBT alter secretion of IFNγ from human immune cells. Peripheral blood cell preparations that were increasingly reconstituted were used to determine if exposures to either TBT or DBT affected IFNγ secretion and how the makeup of the cell preparation influenced that effect. IFNγ secretion was examined after 24 h, 48 h, and 6 day exposures to TBT (200 − 2.5 nM) and DBT (5 − 0.05 µM) in highly enriched human NK cells, a monocyte-depleted preparation of PBMCs, and monocyte-containing PBMCs. Both BTs altered IFNγ secretion from immune cells at most of the conditions tested (either increasing or decreasing secretion). However, there was significant variability among donors as to the concentrations and time points that showed changes as well as the baseline secretion of IFNγ. The majority of donors showed an increase in IFNγ secretion in response to at least one concentration of TBT or DBT at a minimum of one length of exposure

Aging Trends and Challenges in Nevada

Societal aging is one of the most important social trends of the 21st century. It affects our political, social, and economic institutions and also the nature of our interpersonal and family relationships (Quadagno 2011). In the coming decades, both as individuals and as a society, we will have to make important decisions regarding the consequences of our aging population. Policy makers, families, businesses, local, state, and federal governments, health care providers will have to meet the growing needs of the older population in the U.S. and in Nevada

The Effects of Social Labels on the Allocation of Resources to Equivalent Stimuli::Does One Rotten Apple Spoil the Whole Barrel?

The studies reported here examine how participants distribute resources to arbitrary stimuli in an equivalence class after one stimulus is given a social label. In Experiment 1, two 3-member equivalence classes were established with nonsense syllables (Class 1: A1 (ZID), B1 (YIM), C1 (FAP) and Class 2: A2 (VEK), B2 (RIX), C2 (KUD)) using matching-to-sample training. A social function was then assigned to B1 only, using the simple verbal statement "YIM is a Good person." Next, participants were instructed to allocate tokens to stimuli in whatever way they consider appropriate. In general, the percentage distribution of tokens allocated to Class 1 was greater than those allocated to Class 2. Participants were then informed that a mistake had been made “Sorry I have made a mistake. YIM was actually a bad person not a good person.” Participants wer

Optimising outputs from a validated online instrument to measure health-related quality of life (HRQL) in dogs

Measurement of health-related quality of life (HRQL) is becoming increasingly valuable within veterinary preventative health care and chronic disease management, as well as in outcomes research. Initial reliability and validation of a 22 item shortened version of VetMetrica (VM), structured questionnaire instrument to measure HRQL in dogs via a mobile application was reported previously. Meaningful interpretation and presentation of the 4 domain scores comprising the HRQL profile generated by VM is key to its successful use in clinical practice and research. Study one describes transformation of domain scores from 0–6 to 0–100 and normalisation of these based on the healthy canine population in two age ranges, such that a score of 50 on a 0–100 scale represents the score for the age-related average healthy dog, and establishment of a threshold to assess domain-specific health status for individual dogs. This provides the clinician with a simple method of ascertaining the health status of an individual dog relative to the average healthy population in the same age group (norm-based scoring). Study two determines the minimum important difference (MID) in domain scores which represents the smallest improvement in score that is meaningful to the dog owner, thus providing the clinician with a means of recognising what is likely to be a significant improvement in scores for an individual dog over time. Visual representation of these guidelines for the purpose of interpreting VM profile scores is presented using case studies