Thinking beyond the Sticker Price

Over the last 20 years, the average published sticker price for tuition and fees, and room and board at private, non-profit colleges like Linfield increased by 59 percent while U.S. per capita personal disposable income grew by 32 percent. Since the tuition sticker price rose by more than income, you might conclude that a private college education has become less affordable. But that conclusion could be wrong. To gauge affordability, we must think beyond the sticker price by properly measuring the cost students actually pay and compare that to the benefits of a college education. In economic terms, a college education is more affordable the larger are its benefits relative to its cost

Is There a Student Loan Debt Crisis at Private Colleges?

We’ve all seen media stories about an underemployed, recent college graduate who has $100,000 of student loan debt. Almost without fail the young person’s plight is offered as proof that there is a student loan “debt crisis.

WEBERSAT Operations and Experiment Results

WEBERSAT, a 27 pound LEO satellite launched by the Ariane 40 on January 21, 1990 into an 800 Km polar orbit, carries several inexpensive payload experiments that were developed as a learning experience for engineering students at Weber State College. The experiments include a color CCD camera, a CCD light spectrometer, video flash digitizer, 1.26 GHz NTSC video uplink, micro-impact sensor, and optical horizon sensors. Operational command and control of the spacecraft and its payloads is performed by students in the School of Technology, from a ground station located on the WSC campus. Here, the students and their advisors monitor on-board systems, plan and execute experiments, and observe test results. This paper describes the satellite experiments, ground station requirements, and experiment results as of this date

Master Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

Tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte scores effectively stratify outcomes over and above p16 post chemo-radiotherapy in anal cancer

Background: The majority (90%) of anal cancers are human papillomavirus (HPV)-driven, identified using immunochemistry for p16. Compared with HPV? patients, those with HPV+ disease generally show improved survival, although relapse rates around 25% indicate a need for further stratification of this group.Methods: Using two cohorts of anal cancer, previously characterised for p16, we assessed the prognostic value of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs).Results: Tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte scores were used to stratify p16+ cases, where tumours with absent/low levels of TIL had a relapse-free rate of 63%, as opposed to 92% with high levels of TIL (log rank P=0.006).Conclusions: Assessment of TIL adds to p16 status in the prognosis of anal cancer following chemo-radiotherapy and provides evidence of the clinical importance of the immune response

XO-2b: Transiting Hot Jupiter in a Metal-rich Common Proper Motion Binary

We report on a V=11.2 early K dwarf, XO-2 (GSC 03413-00005), that hosts a Rp=0.98+0.03/-0.01 Rjup, Mp=0.57+/-0.06 Mjup transiting extrasolar planet, XO-2b, with an orbital period of 2.615857+/-0.000005 days. XO-2 has high metallicity, [Fe/H]=0.45+/-0.02, high proper motion, mu_tot=157 mas/yr, and has a common proper motion stellar companion with 31" separation. The two stars are nearly identical twins, with very similar spectra and apparent magnitudes. Due to the high metallicity, these early K dwarf stars have a mass and radius close to solar, Ms=0.98+/-0.02 Msolar and Rs=0.97+0.02/-0.01 Rsolar. The high proper motion of XO-2 results from an eccentric orbit (Galactic pericenter, Rper<4 kpc) well confined to the Galactic disk (Zmax~100 pc). In addition, the phase space position of XO-2 is near the Hercules dynamical stream, which points to an origin of XO-2 in the metal-rich, inner Thin Disk and subsequent dynamical scattering into the solar neighborhood. We describe an efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm for calculating the Bayesian posterior probability of the system parameters from a transit light curve.Comment: 14 pages, 10 Figures, Accepted in ApJ. Negligible changes to XO-2 system properties. Removed Chi^2 light curve analysis section, and simplified MCMC light curve analysis discussio

Senior Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

Sympatric and Allopatric Divergence of MHC Genes in Threespine Stickleback

Parasites can strongly affect the evolution of their hosts, but their effects on host diversification are less clear. In theory, contrasting parasite communities in different foraging habitats could generate divergent selection on hosts and promote ecological speciation. Immune systems are costly to maintain, adaptable, and an important component of individual fitness. As a result, immune system genes, such as those of the Major Histocompatability Complex (MHC), can change rapidly in response to parasite-mediated selection. In threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), as well as in other vertebrates, MHC genes have been linked with female mating preference, suggesting that divergent selection acting on MHC genes might influence speciation. Here, we examined genetic variation at MHC Class II loci of sticklebacks from two lakes with a limnetic and benthic species pair, and two lakes with a single species. In both lakes with species pairs, limnetics and benthics differed in their composition of MHC alleles, and limnetics had fewer MHC alleles per individual than benthics. Similar to the limnetics, the allopatric population with a pelagic phenotype had few MHC alleles per individual, suggesting a correlation between MHC genotype and foraging habitat. Using a simulation model we show that the diversity and composition of MHC alleles in a sympatric species pair depends on the amount of assortative mating and on the strength of parasite-mediated selection in adjacent foraging habitats. Our results indicate parallel divergence in the number of MHC alleles between sympatric stickleback species, possibly resulting from the contrasting parasite communities in littoral and pelagic habitats of lakes