Partnering with Senior Engineering Students: Design & Prototype building of Document Encapsulator

Encapsulation of flat paper collection items, such as documents, between polyester film is standard practice preservation strategy. Equipment currently available on the market for encapsulation either employ heat or an ultrasonic welder to create the seams in the polyester film. This equipent is only produced by limited sources and can be cost-prohibitive. Each year, the Engineering College calls for project proposals for Capstone projects, a senior class project designed to have students work with a client to design and complete, mimicking the real world. The Preservation unit submitted an open proposal to design and build an encapsulator and was selected by a mechanical engineering team. Working with a team of five senior students, the project took place in two phases, over the course two semesters. The TAMU Encapsulator design includes several innovations including an off-the-shelf removable ultrasonic welder locally sourced, an interchangable welder tip, a digital control box to adjust percent strength of the weld, and additional seam types.With a budget of $15k provided by the Library, these students were able to build a working prototype from off-the-shelf components and came in under budget. The prototype was presented in the Annual Senior Showcase, competeing with all Enginneering specialties and awarded Second Place.This poster describes the collaboration between the Preservation Unit of the Texas A&M University Libraries and a team of senior undergraduate students from Texas A&M University College of Engineering to design and build a prototype of document encapsulator. Presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of American Institute for Conservation (AIC), New England 2019.Texas A&M University Librarie

Partnering with Senior Engineering Students: Design & Prototype building of Document Encapsulator

Encapsulation of flat paper collection items, such as documents, between polyester film is standard practice preservation strategy. Equipment currently available on the market for encapsulation either employ heat or an ultrasonic welder to create the seams in the polyester film. This equipent is only produced by limited sources and can be cost-prohibitive. Each year, the Engineering College calls for project proposals for Capstone projects, a senior class project designed to have students work with a client to design and complete, mimicking the real world. The Preservation unit submitted an open proposal to design and build an encapsulator and was selected by a mechanical engineering team. Working with a team of five senior students, the project took place in two phases, over the course two semesters. The TAMU Encapsulator design includes several innovations including an off-the-shelf removable ultrasonic welder locally sourced, an interchangable welder tip, a digital control box to adjust percent strength of the weld, and additional seam types.With a budget of $15k provided by the Library, these students were able to build a working prototype from off-the-shelf components and came in under budget. The prototype was presented in the Annual Senior Showcase, competeing with all Enginneering specialties and awarded Second Place.This poster describes the collaboration between the Preservation Unit of the Texas A&M University Libraries and a team of senior undergraduate students from Texas A&M University College of Engineering to design and build a prototype of document encapsulator. Presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of American Institute for Conservation (AIC), New England 2019.Texas A&M University Librarie

Critical Cultural Awareness: Contributions To A Globalizing Psychology

The number of psychologists whose work crosses cultural boundaries is increasing. Without a critical awareness of their own cultural grounding, they risk imposing the assumptions, concepts, practices, and values of U.S.-centered psychology on societies where they do not fit, as a brief example from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami shows. Hermeneutic thinkers offer theoretical resources for gaining cultural awareness. Culture, in the hermeneutic view, is the constellation of meanings that constitutes a way of life. Such cultural meanings-especially in the form of folk psychologies and moral visions-inevitably shape every psychology, including U.S. psychology. The insights of hermeneutics, as well as its conceptual resources and research approaches, open the way for psychological knowledge and practice that are more culturally situated

Incident and recurrent major depressive disorder and coronary artery disease severity in acute coronary syndrome patients

There is recent evidence that acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients with first time incident major depressive disorder (MDD) and those with recurrent MDD represent different subtypes among individuals with ACS and comorbid depression. However, few studies have examined whether or not these subtypes differ in coronary artery disease (CAD) severity. We assessed whether those with incident MDD (in-hospital MDD and negative for history of MDD) or recurrent MDD (in-hospital MDD and a positive history of MDD) differ in angiographically documented CAD severity. Within 1 week of admission for ACS, 88 patients completed a clinical interview to assess current and past diagnosis of MDD. CAD severity was assessed in all patients by coronary angiography. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that neither in-hospital MDD status, nor history of MDD were significant predictors of CAD severity, but the interaction term between in-hospital MDD status and history of MDD was a significant predictor of CAD severity, after controlling for age, sex and ethnicity. Follow-up analyses showed that patients with first time, incident MDD had significantly more severe CAD compared to patients with recurrent MDD (p = 0.043). To conclude, our study adds to the growing evidence that patients with incident MDD should be considered as a clinically distinct subtype from those with recurrent MDD. Possible mechanisms for differing CAD severity by angiogram between these two subtypes are proposed and implications for prognosis and treatment are discussed

Endemism patterns of forest birds in Madagascar Highlands

Les quelques reliquats de forêts naturelles des Hautes Terres centrales de Madagascar ont été négligés par les biologistes de terrain en raison des difficultés de leur accès. Durant les deux dernières décennies les inventaires biologiques de l'île se sont intensifiés et ont donné lieu à de nouveaux aperçus de la biogéographie des vertébrés terrestres, dont les oiseaux. La présente étude compile les données d'inventaire des oiseaux forestiers de 43 localités réparties à travers l'île, la plupart dans les Hautes Terres centrales. Ces données ont été soumises à une Analyse de Parcimonie de l'Endémicité (PAE). Les arborescences qui en résultent montrent une continuité dans la distribution par couche d'altitude le long d'un gradient latitudinal. Deux regroupements majeurs sont observables au sein des reliquats forestiers relativement grands: (1) les zones entre 800 et 1 500 m et (2) les forêts à mousses au-dessus de 1 500 m d'altitude. Les plus petits fragments forestiers et le massif d'Andringitra à 2 000 m se branchent à part. Les patterns qui en résultent pour les oiseaux sont comparés par des tests de concordance à une proposition de classification phytogéographique. Des différences majeures apparaissent dans les relations biogéographiques de certaines portions des Hautes Terres centrales entre les oiseaux et les plantes. Les résultats obtenus par cette étude de cas suggèrent que quelques zones forestières fragmentées sont hautement prioritaires pour une action de conservation.The Central Highland forests of Madagascar have been neglected by field biologists because of difficult access to the few remaining natural forest habitats. During the last two decades biological inventories on the island have intensified and resulted in new insights into the biogeography of land vertebrates, including birds. In this study we have compiled recent inventory data on forest-dwelling bird species from 43 localities across the island, most are from the Central Highlands and applied these distributional data to a Parsimony Analysis of Endemism (PAE). Results show a distributional continuity within an elevational band along a latitudinal gradient. Two major clusters are observed within the relatively large remaining forested areas: 1) zones between 800-1 500 m and 2) the mossy forests above 1 500 m elevation. The smaller fragmented forest blocks and the Andringitra Massif at 2 000 m form independent branches. The resulting patterns for birds have been compared to a proposed phytogeographic classification to test for concordance. There are major differences in biogeographic relations of certain portions of the Central Highlands between birds and plants. Results obtained from this case study suggest that some fragmented forest zones are high priorities for conservation action

Precision Farming by Cotton Producers in Six Southern States: Results from the 2001 Southern Precision Farming Survey

Precision Farming by Cotton Producers in Six Southern States: Results from the 2001 Southern Precision Farming Surveycotton, precision farming, survey, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Precision Farming by Cotton Producers in Eleven Southern States: Results from the 2005 Southern Precision Farming Survey

Precision Farming by Cotton Producers in Eleven Southern States: Results from the 2005 Southern Precision Farming Surveycotton, precision farming, survey, Agribusiness, Farm Management, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Community Readiness for Adopting a Physical Activity Program for People With Arthritis in West Virginia

Introduction: The health benefits of physical activity are well established in older adults with arthritis. Despite these benefits, many older adults with arthritis are not active enough to maintain health; therefore, increasing physical activity in adults with arthritis is a public health priority. The purpose of this study was to use the Community Readiness Model to assess readiness for adopting a physical activity program for people with arthritis in 8 counties in West Virginia. Methods: During 2007 and 2008, we conducted a telephone survey among 94 key informants who could provide insight into their community's efforts to promote physical activity among older adults with arthritis. We matched survey scores with 1 of 9 stages of readiness, ranging from 1 (no awareness) to 9 (high level of community ownership). Results: The survey placed the counties in stage 3 (vague awareness), indicating recognition of the need for more physical activity programming; community efforts were not focused and leadership was minimal. The interviews suggested that culturally sensitive, well-promoted free or low-cost programs conducted by community volunteers may be keys to success in West Virginia. Conclusion: Information derived from our survey can be used to match intervention strategies for promoting physical activity among people with arthritis to communities in West Virginia according to their level of readiness.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The article is published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/index.ht

Simulated Anthrax Attacks and Syndromic Surveillance

Bioterrorism surveillance systems can be assessed using modeling to simulate real-world attacks

Atypical audiovisual speech integration in infants at risk for autism

The language difficulties often seen in individuals with autism might stem from an inability to integrate audiovisual information, a skill important for language development. We investigated whether 9-month-old siblings of older children with autism, who are at an increased risk of developing autism, are able to integrate audiovisual speech cues. We used an eye-tracker to record where infants looked when shown a screen displaying two faces of the same model, where one face is articulating/ba/and the other/ga/, with one face congruent with the syllable sound being presented simultaneously, the other face incongruent. This method was successful in showing that infants at low risk can integrate audiovisual speech: they looked for the same amount of time at the mouths in both the fusible visual/ga/− audio/ba/and the congruent visual/ba/− audio/ba/displays, indicating that the auditory and visual streams fuse into a McGurk-type of syllabic percept in the incongruent condition. It also showed that low-risk infants could perceive a mismatch between auditory and visual cues: they looked longer at the mouth in the mismatched, non-fusible visual/ba/− audio/ga/display compared with the congruent visual/ga/− audio/ga/display, demonstrating that they perceive an uncommon, and therefore interesting, speech-like percept when looking at the incongruent mouth (repeated ANOVA: displays x fusion/mismatch conditions interaction: F(1,16) = 17.153, p = 0.001). The looking behaviour of high-risk infants did not differ according to the type of display, suggesting difficulties in matching auditory and visual information (repeated ANOVA, displays x conditions interaction: F(1,25) = 0.09, p = 0.767), in contrast to low-risk infants (repeated ANOVA: displays x conditions x low/high-risk groups interaction: F(1,41) = 4.466, p = 0.041). In some cases this reduced ability might lead to the poor communication skills characteristic of autism