General Education Requirements in a Community College Baccalaureate RN-to-BSN Program

Increasing demand for nurses with bachelor degrees, the growing culture of accountability in higher education, and the community college baccalaureate phenomena provided the impetus for this study. This ex-post facto quantitative study examined the graduation rates and time to degree of 240 students who were enrolled in a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program at a community college in Florida between Fall of 2002 and Spring of 2004. The general education course enrollment patterns of the students were analyzed to determine if they impacted student graduation rates and time to degree. Graduation rates and time to degree of students who completed all general education requirements before entering the program were compared with the graduation rates and time to degree of students who completed any general education requirements after entering the program. A Pearson Chi-square test for independence indicated the difference between the graduation rates of the two groups was statistically significant, X2 (1, N = 119) = 6.268,

Localized Transfunctions

A transfunction is a function which maps between sets of finite measures on measurable spaces. Push-forward operators form one important class of examples of transfunctions and are identified with their respective measurable functions. In this regard, transfunctions are a generalization of measurable functions between measurable spaces. Additionally, there are naturally arising transfunctions with nice properties which are not measurable functions. Transfunctions which are weakly $\sigma$-additive (commutable with addition over countable sequences of orthogonal measures) between second-countable metric spaces are of particular interest and are primarily developed in this paper. We study such transfunctions which are localized: sending source measures carried by small open sets to target measures also carried by small open sets. With the right settings and assumptions, we develop some theorems which characterize continuous functions and measurable functions, and show that the behavior of localized transfunctions can be approximated by measurable functions and by continuous functions, but only up to some error. We also characterize transfunctions that correspond to Markov operators. In our investigation of transfunctions we are motivated by several potential applications, including Monge-Kantorovich transportation problem or population dynamics that will be presented in some detail in this paper.Comment: 23 page

The quality of record linkage between population-based birth and children’s early child development and school test result (NAPLAN) records in New South Wales, Australia

This study aimed to describe the utility of probabilistic record linkage of development and school performance data to a large population-based birth cohort and other administrative health datasets, and to assess whether any systematic differences exist between the records that did and did not link in each datase

Transfunctions and Other Topics in Measure Theory

Measures are versatile objects which can represent how populations or supplies are distributed within a given space by assigning sizes to subregions (or subsets) of that space. To model how populations or supplies are shifted from one configuration to another, it is natural to use functions between measures, called transfunctions. Any measurable function can be identified with its push-forward transfunction. Other transfunctions exist such as convolution operators. In this manner, transfunctions are treated as generalized functions. This dissertation serves to build the theory of transfunctions and their connections to other mathematical fields. Transfunctions that identify with continuous or measurable push-forward operators are characterized, and transfunctions that map between measures concentrated in small balls -- called localized transfunctions -- can be spatially approximated with measurable functions or with continuous functions (depending on the setting). Some localized transfunctions have fat graphs in the product space and fat continuous graphs are necessarily formed by localized transfunctions. Any Markov transfunction -- a transfunction that is linear, variation-continuous, total-measure-preserving and positive -- corresponds to a family of Markov operators and a family of plans (indexed by their marginals) such that all objects have the same instructions of transportation between input and output marginals. An example of a Markov transfunction is a push-forward transfunction. In two settings (continuous and measurable), the definition and existence of adjoints of linear transfunctions are formed and simple transfunctions are implemented to approximate linear weakly-continuous transfunctions in the weak sense. Simple Markov transfunctions can be used both to approximate the optimal cost between two marginals with respect to a cost function and to approximate Markov transfunctions in the weak sense. These results suggest implementing future research to find more applications of transfunctions to optimal transport theory. Transfunction theory may have potential applications in mathematical biology. Several models are proposed for future research with an emphasis on local spatial factors that affect survivorship, reproducibility and other features. One model of tree population dynamics (without local factors) is presented with basic analysis. Some future directions include the use of multiple numerical implementations through software programs

African Statue of Liberty

Tybee Island is situated at the mouth of the Savannah River, which leads to the city of Savannah. As ships arrived in North America with enslaved men, women, and children they were inspected at Tybee Island for signs of illness, and disease in order to hinder the spread of infectious diseases from overseas. As shipments increased a demand for a quarantine hospital arose. In 1766 lawmakers in Savannah authorized a budget of seventy pounds to seek a location to serve as a receiving juncture for incoming ships. The seventy pound budget was used to purchase 104 acres on the west end of the Island from plantation owner Josiah Tattnall, and construction began. Once complete, the hospital was named “Lazaretto” descending from the Italian word for “pest house.” Tybee Island officially recorded only two ships that disembarked enslaved Africans, totaling three hundred and fifty eight, of the four hundred and sixty two who embarked in African locations. However, Tybee received thousands more for quarantine before it was demolished in 1785. As ships arrived in North America with enslaved men, women, and children they were inspected at Tybee Island for signs of illness, and disease in order to hinder the spread of infectious diseases from overseas. As shipments increased a demand for a quarantine hospital arose. After building was complete, the hospital was named “Lazaretto” descending from the Italian word for “pest house.” Tybee Island officially recorded only two ships that disembarked enslaved Africans, totaling three hundred and fifty eight, of the four hundred and sixty two who embarked in African locations. However, Tybee received thousands more enslaved for quarantine before the Lazaretto was demolished in 1785 and a new hospital was built on nearby Cockspur island.https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/historyfrombelow/1011/thumbnail.jp

On the Complexity of BWT-Runs Minimization via Alphabet Reordering

The Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) has been an essential tool in text compression and indexing. First introduced in 1994, it went on to provide the backbone for the first encoding of the classic suffix tree data structure in space close to the entropy-based lower bound. Recently, there has been the development of compact suffix trees in space proportional to "$r$", the number of runs in the BWT, as well as the appearance of $r$ in the time complexity of new algorithms. Unlike other popular measures of compression, the parameter $r$ is sensitive to the lexicographic ordering given to the text's alphabet. Despite several past attempts to exploit this, a provably efficient algorithm for finding, or approximating, an alphabet ordering which minimizes $r$ has been open for years. We present the first set of results on the computational complexity of minimizing BWT-runs via alphabet reordering. We prove that the decision version of this problem is NP-complete and cannot be solved in time $2^{o(\sigma + \sqrt{n})}$ unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis fails, where $\sigma$ is the size of the alphabet and $n$ is the length of the text. We also show that the optimization problem is APX-hard. In doing so, we relate two previously disparate topics: the optimal traveling salesperson path and the number of runs in the BWT of a text, providing a surprising connection between problems on graphs and text compression. Also, by relating recent results in the field of dictionary compression, we illustrate that an arbitrary alphabet ordering provides a $O(\log^2 n)$-approximation. We provide an optimal linear-time algorithm for the problem of finding a run minimizing ordering on a subset of symbols (occurring only once) under ordering constraints, and prove a generalization of this problem to a class of graphs with BWT like properties called Wheeler graphs is NP-complete

Comparison of the US and Russian Cycle Ergometers

The purpose of this study was to compare the U.S. and Russian cycle ergometers focusing on the mechanical differences of the devices and the physiological differences observed while using the devices. Methods: First, the mechanical loads provided by the U.S. Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation System (CEVIS) and the Russian Veloergometer were measured using a calibration dynamometer. Results were compared and conversion equations were modeled to determine the actual load provided by each device. Second, ten male subjects (32.9 +/- 6.5 yrs, 180.6 +/- 4.4 cm; 81.9 +/- 6.9 kg) experienced with both cycling and exercise testing completed a standardized submaximal exercise test protocol on CEVIS and Veloergometer. The exercise protocol involved 8 sub-maximal workloads each lasting 3 minutes for a total of 24 minutes per session, or until the end of the stage when the subject reached 85% of peak oxygen consumption or age-predicted maximum heart rate (220 - age). The workload started at 50 Watts (W), increased to 100 W, and then increased 25 W every 3 minutes until reaching a peak workload of 250 W. Physiological variables were then compared at each workload by repeated measures ANOVA or paired t-tests (p<0.05). Results: While both CEVIS and Veloergometer produced significantly lower workloads than the displayed workload, CEVIS produced even lower loads than Veloergometer (p<0.05) at each indicated workload. Despite this fact, the only physiological variables that showed a significant difference between the ergometers were VE (125 - 250W), VO2 (175 and 250 W), and VCO2 (175 W). All other physiological data were not statistically different between CEVIS and Veloergometer. Conclusion: Although workloads were different between ergometers, relatively few physiological differences were observed. Therefore, CEVIS workloads of 87.5 - 262.5 W can be rounded to the nearest 25 W increment and performed on the Veloergometer

A Preliminary Climatology of Tropical Moisture Exports in the Southern Hemisphere

Heavy precipitation events in the midlatitudes can be supported by the poleward transport of tropical air masses within the warm sector of extratropical cyclones. Previous studies have established a climatology of the four preferred pathways of tropical moisture export (TME) events into the midlatitudes over the Northern Hemisphere (NH). The present study constructs a similar climatology of TME timing and frequency over the Southern Hemisphere (SH), highlighting three preferential regions for tropicalmidlatitude interaction. These regions correspond to the locations of the: (i) South Pacific convergence zone (Pacific Ocean pathway, PO), (ii) South Atlantic convergence zone (South American pathway, SA), and (iii) South Indian convergence zone (Southeast African pathway, SEA). A Eulerian precipitable water (PW) climatology is constructed to isolate individual TME events within the three preferred pathways in the SH. The climatology identifies PW values along 30°S at 5° increments, extracting values four-times-daily from the 2.5° NCEP-NCAR reanalysis dataset for 1979−2007. Potential TME events are identified when two neighboring grid points have PW values \u3e93rd percentile of their monthly PW distribution for \u3e24 h. Potential events are classified as TMEs following human verification of the event‘s tropospheric structure. The present investigation reveals that TME frequency in the SH varies on intraseasonal and interannual timescales. The PO pathway exhibits the least seasonal variability of the three examined locations, while the SEA pathway is over three times as active during the SH meteorological summer (DJF). An in-depth analysis of the overall synoptic/dynamic mechanisms associated with TME events in the SEA pathway is performed in this study, linking the observed DJF peak in TME activity to the to the active phase of the South Indian convergence zone