Dctnr Wrds Wtht Vwls

Despite the promise of the title, this article is not concerned with the intelligibility of dictionary words without vowels (that is, with the letters AEIOUY removed), but instead with that tiny group of words which contain no vowels at all. For the sake of completeness, we include a considerably larger group of words which appear vowelless, but in reality are not -- words which use the letters V or W to represent vowel sounds. On the other hand, we do not include two burgeoning classes of vowelless words quite familiar to the average reader -- abbreviations such as MR., MRS., or DR. which are pronounced as if the full word were present, and acronymic words such as TV, DDT, MPH or TNT, usually printed in capitals and invariably pronounced by spelling out the individual letters

Sexting and Mental Health: A School-based Longitudinal Study Among Youth in Texas

Background: Sexting has emerged as a common socio-cultural problem in our society today. Few studies have estimated the prevalence of sexting among younger middle school youth and even fewer have assessed the relationship between sexting and mental health outcomes like anxiety and depression symptoms among middle school youth. Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of sexting among sixth and seventh-grade middle school students in a large urban school district in Southeast Texas and to assess its relationship with mental health outcomes (both anxiety and depression) among these youth. Methods: A retrospective analysis of an existing three-year randomized, two-arm, nested longitudinal study was conducted. Associations between sexting and depression symptoms; and sexting and anxiety symptoms were assessed via univariate and multivariate logistic analysis. Results: The prevalence of sexting among sixth graders was found to be 12%. Compared to youth who were not engaged in sexting, engagement in sexting was associated with significantly increased odds of depression and anxiety symptoms. Conclusion: Sexting is common among youth and is associated with poorer mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression among these youth, but further validation of these findings is needed

2+1 Roadway Design Guidance Update

The frequency and severity of crashes on rural two-lane roadways have increased in the US relative to other road types. This trend can be explained by the growing number of vehicles, higher speeds, narrow shoulders, and vehicle mixes. One solution for improving traffic flow and safety outcomes on rural two-lane roadways is to adopt a 2+1 design, which confers the benefits of four-lane highways but at a lower cost. Transportation agencies throughout Europe — and increasingly the US — have seen good results from 2+1 layouts. Crash data from Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Denmark reveal better safety outcomes following the implementation of 2+1 designs, with reductions in fatal and fatal and injury crash rates of 25 – 80 percent. Studies in the United States have found crash declines of 35 – 44 percent following the transition to 2+1 layouts. Over the past 10 years, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has built several 2+1 roadways. Evaluations of three 2+1 segments in the state found lower crash rates on two segments, however, not enough crash data are available to draw definitive conclusions. Despite this lack of confirmatory data, there is consensus among practitioners that 2+1 designs hold considerable promise for improving rural roadway operations. Building off of 2+1 guidance originally issued by KYTC in 2013, this report outlines updated policies that account for lessons learned at the agency during the design and construction of 2+1 roadways as well as best practices adopted by other states

LSDA: Large Scale Detection Through Adaptation

A major challenge in scaling object detection is the difficulty of obtaining labeled images for large numbers of categories. Recently, deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have emerged as clear winners on object classification benchmarks, in part due to training with 1.2M+ labeled classification images. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of those labels are available for the detection task. It is much cheaper and easier to collect large quantities of image-level labels from search engines than it is to collect detection data and label it with precise bounding boxes. In this paper, we propose Large Scale Detection through Adaptation (LSDA), an algorithm which learns the difference between the two tasks and transfers this knowledge to classifiers for categories without bounding box annotated data, turning them into detectors. Our method has the potential to enable detection for the tens of thousands of categories that lack bounding box annotations, yet have plenty of classification data. Evaluation on the ImageNet LSVRC-2013 detection challenge demonstrates the efficacy of our approach. This algorithm enables us to produce a >7.6K detector by using available classification data from leaf nodes in the ImageNet tree. We additionally demonstrate how to modify our architecture to produce a fast detector (running at 2fps for the 7.6K detector). Models and software are available a

Genomics of long-and short-term adaptation in maize and teosinte

Maize is an excellent model for the study of plant adaptation. Indeed, post domestication maize quickly adapted to a host of new environments across the globe. And work over the last decade has begun to highlight the role of the wild relatives of maize-the teosintes Zea mays ssp. parviglumis and ssp. mexicana-as excellent models for dissecting long-term local adaptation. Although human-driven selection associated with maize domestication has been extensively studied, the genetic bases of natural variation is still poorly understood. Here we review studies on the genetic basis of adaptation and plasticity in maize and its wild relatives. We highlight a range of different processes that contribute to adaptation and discuss evidence from natural, cultivated, and experimental populations. From an applied perspective, understanding the genetic bases of adaptation and the contribution of plasticity will provide us with new tools to both better understand and mitigate the effect of climate changes on natural and cultivated populations. PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27190v1 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access | re

Chamber Brass Ensembles

Chamber Brass Ensemblescoached by Rex Richardson, Ross Walter, Jeff Hudson, Kevin MaloneyWednesday, April 3, 2019 at 8pmSonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall / W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts922 Park Avenue / Richmond, Va

A Path to Resolution Regarding the Show Lamb Tail Docking Controversy

Short dock length in show lambs increases health risks and creates animal welfare concerns. The study reported here was conducted to 1) describe a population of lambs that were docked at the distal end of the caudal fold in terms of a linear measurement, and 2) determine the changes in tail length between docking, weaning, and market. A total of 782 lambs docked at the distal end of the caudal fold, comprised the population of lambs in the study. The results provide descriptive statistics to help guide industry leaders and Extension professionals concerned with docking standards at shows and sales

Java Mission Evaluation Workstation System

The Java Mission Evaluation Workstation System (JMEWS) is a collection of applications designed to retrieve, display, and analyze both real-time and recorded telemetry data. This software is currently being used by both the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) and the International Space Station (ISS) program. JMEWS was written in the Java programming language to satisfy the requirement of platform independence. An object-oriented design was used to satisfy additional requirements and to make the software easily extendable. By virtue of its platform independence, JMEWS can be used on the UNIX workstations in the Mission Control Center (MCC) and on office computers. JMEWS includes an interactive editor that allows users to easily develop displays that meet their specific needs. The displays can be developed and modified while viewing data. By simply selecting a data source, the user can view real-time, recorded, or test data