Does Webinar-Based Financial Education Affect Knowledge and Behavior?

Using webinar delivery for Extension financial education programs allows educators to reach a broader range of clientele. It can, however, be difficult to gauge participants\u27 learning of concepts in an online environment. Evaluations of two webinar series, one in Montana and the other in South Dakota, sought to determine the effectiveness of using webinar-based financial education. Online retrospective pre-post and follow-up evaluations of the programs showed that participants increased their knowledge and performed positive financial behaviors as a result of participating

Pilot Situation Awareness and its Implications for Single Pilot Operations: Analysis of a Human-in-the-Loop Study

AbstractIn 2012, NASA began exploring the feasibility of single pilot/reduced crew operations in the context of scheduled air carrier operations. The current study examined how important it was for ground-based personnel providing support to single piloted aircraft (ground operators) to have opportunities to acquire situation awareness (SA) prior to being called on to assist an aircraft. We looked at two distinct concepts of operation, which varied in how much information was available to ground operators prior to being called on to assist a critical event (no vs. some Situation Preview). Thirty-five commercial pilots participated in the current study. Results suggested that a ground operators’ lack of initial SA when called on for dedicated assistance is not an issue, at least when the ground operator station displays environmental and systems data which are important to gaining overall SA of the specified aircraft. With appropriate displays, ground operators were able to provide immediate assistance, even if they had minimal SA prior to getting a request

PRELUDE TO SEVEN SLOTS: FILLING AND SUBSEQUENT MODIFICATION OF SEVEN BROAD CANYONS IN THE NAVAJO SANDSTONE, SOUTH-CENTRAL UTAH

Within a four square kilometer portion of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, seven distinct slot canyons cut the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone. Four of the slots developed along separate reaches of a trunk stream (Dry Fork of Coyote Gulch), and three (including canyons locally known as “Peekaboo” and “Spooky”) are at the distal ends of south-flowing tributary drainages. All these slot canyons are examples of epigenetic gorges—bedrock channel reaches shifted laterally from previous reach locations. The previous channels became filled with alluvium, allowing active channels to shift laterally in places and to subsequently re-incise through bedrock elsewhere. New evidence, based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages, indicates that this thick alluvium started to fill broad, pre-existing, bedrock canyons before 55,000 years ago, and that filling continued until at least 48,000 years ago. Streams start to fill their channels when sediment supply increases relative to stream power. The following conditions favored alluviation in the study area: (1) a cooler, wetter climate increased the rate of mass wasting along the Straight Cliffs (the headwaters of Dry Fork) and the rate of weathering of the broad outcrops of Navajo and Entrada Sandstone; (2) windier conditions increased the amount of eolian sand transport, perhaps destabilizing dunes and moving their stored sediment into stream channels; and (3) southward migration of the jet stream diminished the frequency and severity of convective storms. We hypothesize that a subsequent increase in the frequency of intense runoff events after 48 ka, combined with the diversion of flow over steep but unchannelized bedrock surfaces, led to a brief and unusual episode of rapid canyon cutting. This work illustrates a specific mechanism by which climate change can induce river incision, and conversely how information on climate may be recorded in the morphology of erosional landscapes

A New Large Vibration Test Facility Concept for the James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope consists of three main components, the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Element, the Optical Telescope Element (OTE), and the Spacecraft Element. The ISIM and OTE are being assembled at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Spaceflight Center (GSFC). The combined OTE and ISIM Elements, called OTIS, will undergo sine vibration testing before leaving Goddard. OTIS is the largest payload ever tested at Goddard and the existing GSFC vibration facilities are incapable of performing a sine vibration test of the OTIS payload. As a result, a new large vibration test facility is being designed. The new facility will consist of a vertical system with a guided head expander and a horizontal system with a hydrostatic slip table. The project is currently in the final design phase with installation to begin in early 2015 and the facility is expected to be operational by late 2015. This paper will describe the unique requirements for a new large vibration test facility and present the selected final design concepts

Children With Developmental Disabilities at a Pediatric Hospital: Staff Education to Prevent and Manage Challenging Behaviors

Children with developmental disabilities may get frustrated in unpredictable hospital environments. Frustration may escalate to challenging behaviors, which are a safety concern and may contribute to staff and patient injuries, use of restraints, and procedure delay or cancelations. The purpose of this article was to describe a pilot staff education program on preventing and managing challenging behaviors of children with developmental disabilities at a pediatric hospital. The 2-hour-long education (1 hour on-line and 1 hour instructor led) content focused on family-centered care and communication skills, including verbal judo™ modified for use in the health care setting. Participants in the instructor-led sessions reported improved knowledge and decreased fear about caring for children with developmental disabilities. Relationships of the education and fewer staff injuries, fewer canceled procedures, and decreased use of restraints merit further study

Primary deposition and early diagenetic effects on the high saturation accumulation of gas hydrate in a silt dominated reservoir in the Gulf of Mexico

On continental margins, high saturation gas hydrate systems (\u3e60% pore volume) are common in canyon and channel environments within the gas hydrate stability zone, where reservoirs are dominated by coarse-grained, high porosity sand deposits. Recent studies, including the results presented here, suggest that rapidly deposited, silt-dominated channel-levee environments can also host high saturation gas hydrate accumulations. Here we present several sedimentological data sets, including sediment composition, biostratigraphic age from calcareous nannofossils, grain size, total organic carbon (TOC), C/N elemental ratio, δ13C-TOC, CaCO3, total sulfur (TS), and δ34S-TS from sediments collected with pressure cores from a gas hydrate rich, turbidite channel-levee system in the Gulf of Mexico during the 2017 UT-GOM2-1 Hydrate Pressure Coring Expedition. Our results indicate the reservoir is composed of three main lithofacies, which have distinct sediment grain size distributions (type A-silty clay to clayey silt, type B-clayey silt, and type C-sandy silt to silty sand) that are characteristic of variable turbidity current energy regimes within a Pleistocene (\u3c 0.91 Ma) channel-levee environment. We document that the TOC in the sediments of the reservoir is terrestrial in origin and contained within the fine fraction of each lithofacies, while the CaCO3 fraction is composed of primarily reworked grains, including Cretaceous calcareous nannofossils, and part of the detrital load. The lack of biogenic grains within the finest grained sediment intervals throughout the reservoir suggests interevent hemipelagic sediments are not preserved, resulting in a reservoir sequence of silt dominated, stacked turbidites. We observe two zones of enhanced TS at the top and bottom of the reservoir that correspond with enriched bulk sediment δ34S, indicating stalled or slowly advancing paleo-sulfate-methane transition zone (SMTZ) positions likely driven by relative decreases in sedimentation rate. Despite these two diagenetic zones, the low abundance of diagenetic precipitates throughout the reservoir allowed the primary porosity to remain largely intact, thus better preserving primary porosity for subsequent pore-filling gas hydrate. In canyon, channel, and levee environments, early diagenesis may be regulated via sedimentation rates, where high rates result in rapid progression through the SMTZ and minimal diagenetic mineralization and low rates result in the stalling of the SMTZ, enhancing diagenetic mineralization. Here, we observed some enhanced pyritization to implicate potential sedimentation rate changes, but not enough to consume primary porosity, resulting in a high saturation gas hydrate reservoir. These results emphasize the important implications of sedimentary processes, sedimentation rates, and early diagenesis on the distribution of gas hydrate in marine sediments along continental margins

Composite Accretion Disk and White Dwarf Photosphere Analyses of the FUSE and HST Observations of EY Cygni

We explore the origin of FUSE and HST STIS far UV spectra of the dwarf nova, EY Cyg, during its quiescence using \emph{combined} high gravity photosphere and accretion disk models as well as model accretion belts. The best-fitting single temperature white dwarf model to the FUSE plus HST STIS spectrum of EY Cygni has T$_{eff} = 24,000$K, log $g = 9.0$, with an Si abundance of 0.1 x solar and C abundance of 0.2 x solar but the distance is only 301 pc. The best-fitting composite model consists of white dwarf with T$_{eff} = 22,000$K, log $g = 9$, plus an accretion belt with T$_{belt} = 36,000$K covering 27% of the white dwarf surface with V$_{belt} sin i = 2000$ km/s. The accretion belt contributes 63% of the FUV light and the cooler white dwarf latitudes contribute 37%. This fit yields a distance of 351 pc which is within 100 pc of our adopted distance of 450 pc. EY Cyg has very weak C {\sc iv} emission and very strong N {\sc v} emission, which is atypical of the majority of dwarf novae in quiescence. We also conducted a morphological study of the surroundings of EY Cyg using direct imaging in narrow nebular filters from ground-based telescopes. We report the possible detection of nebular material^M associated with EY Cygni. Possible origins of the apparently large N {\scv}/C {\sc iv} emission ratio are discussed in the context of nova explosions, contamination of the secondary star and accretion of nova abundance-enriched matter back to the white dwarf via the accretion disk or as a descendant of a precursor binary that survived thermal timescale mass transfer. The scenario involving pollution of the secondary by past novae may be supported by the possible presence of a nova remnant-like nebula around EY Cyg.Comment: To appear in AJ, Oct. 2004. 5 figures, including 2 color ones (2D pictures

Patients’ preferred mode of travel to the orthopaedic theatre

AIM: To determine the preferred mode of travel to the operating theatre for elective orthopaedic patients. METHODS: Data was collected prospectively over a 2-wk period at an elective Orthopaedic Treatment Centre. Patients were asked to complete a patient satisfaction questionnaire following their surgery on their experience and subsequent preferred mode of transport to theatre. The data was then recorded in a tabulated format and analysed with percentages. Fisher’s exact test was used to determine if there was any statistical association between patients’ preference to walk and various groups; in-patient or day case procedures, and whether patients were < 60 years or > 60 years of age. RESULTS: Seventy patients (40 females and 30 males) fully completed the questionnaire. In total there were 33 d-cases and 37 in-patients. The spectrum of orthopaedic sub-specialties included was knee (41%), hip (17%), foot and ankle (24%), spine (13%) and upper limb (4%). Patient satisfaction for overall experience of travelling to theatre was either excellent (77%) or good (23%). Following their experience of travelling to theatre, 87% (95%CI: 79%-95%) of the total cohort would have preferred to walk to the operating theatre. There was a statistically significant association (P = 0.003) between patients’ preference to walk and whether they were day-case or in-patients. Similarly, there was a statistically significance association (P = 0.028) between patients’ preference to walk and whether they were < 60 years or > 60 years of age. CONCLUSION: This study confirms the majority of Orthopaedic elective patients would prefer to walk to theatre, when given the choice and if practically possible

Pro+: Automated protrusion and critical shear stress estimates from 3D point clouds of gravel beds

The dimensionless critical shear stress (τ*c) needed for the onset of sediment motion is important for a range of studies from river restoration projects to landscape evolution calculations. Many studies simply assume a τ*c value within the large range of scatter observed in gravel-bedded rivers because direct field estimates are difficult to obtain. Informed choices of reach-scale τ*c values could instead be obtained from force balance calculations that include particle-scale bed structure and flow conditions. Particle-scale bed structure is also difficult to measure, precluding wide adoption of such force-balance τ*c values. Recent studies have demonstrated that bed grain size distributions (GSD) can be determined from detailed point clouds (e.g. using G3Point open-source software). We build on these point cloud methods to introduce Pro+, software that estimates particle-scale protrusion distributions and τ*c for each grain size and for the entire bed using a force-balance model. We validated G3Point and Pro+ using two laboratory flume experiments with different grain size distributions and bed topographies. Commonly used definitions of protrusion may not produce representative τ*c distributions, and Pro+ includes new protrusion definitions to better include flow and bed structure influences on particle mobility. The combined G3Point/Pro+ provided accurate grain size, protrusion and τ*c distributions with simple GSD calibration. The largest source of error in protrusion and τ*c distributions were from incorrect grain boundaries and grain locations in G3Point, and calibration of grain software beyond comparing GSD is likely needed. Pro+ can be coupled with grain identifying software and relatively easily obtainable data to provide informed estimates of τ*c. These could replace arbitrary choices of τ*c and potentially improve channel stability and sediment transport estimates