Profile of indicators of Industrial education and technology doctoral programs: indicators for definition and evaluation

This study was designed to investigate the perceptions of doctoral students regarding definition and evaluation of quality indicators in Industrial Education and Technology nationwide. The investigation focused on student characteristics and network support as they were perceived to relate to program quality;Data were collected by means of a direct-mail survey. A questionnaire was mailed to all doctoral students in Industrial Education and Technology nationwide. The population included only doctoral students from Industrial Education and Technology programs nationwide. The sample consisted of 210 doctoral students in Industrial Education and Technology. The questionnaire contained 89 questions using a 5-point Likert response set and open-ended questions. A total of 65 or 30.1% of the questionnaires were returned. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and Pearson product-moment correlations;The findings from the study were as follows: (1) On the basis of student characteristics, institutional capacities were not perceived a significant factor in determining doctoral program quality, however, financial assistance and course work, were perceived as being significant from the.05 level to the.0001 level of Pearson product-moment correlations. (2) On the basis of network support, course work and financial assistance were perceived as being most significant, and institutional capacities and other factors were perceived as being not significant. Network support refers to financial assistance (i.e., scholarship, self, corporate, institutional, military, and/or family support, loans, research assistantships, teaching assistantships, or involvement in an intern or extern program)

Functional organization of human sensorimotor cortex for speech articulation.

Speaking is one of the most complex actions that we perform, but nearly all of us learn to do it effortlessly. Production of fluent speech requires the precise, coordinated movement of multiple articulators (for example, the lips, jaw, tongue and larynx) over rapid time scales. Here we used high-resolution, multi-electrode cortical recordings during the production of consonant-vowel syllables to determine the organization of speech sensorimotor cortex in humans. We found speech-articulator representations that are arranged somatotopically on ventral pre- and post-central gyri, and that partially overlap at individual electrodes. These representations were coordinated temporally as sequences during syllable production. Spatial patterns of cortical activity showed an emergent, population-level representation, which was organized by phonetic features. Over tens of milliseconds, the spatial patterns transitioned between distinct representations for different consonants and vowels. These results reveal the dynamic organization of speech sensorimotor cortex during the generation of multi-articulator movements that underlies our ability to speak

Production and perception of individual speaking styles

As explanation of between-speaker differences in speech production moves beyond sex-and age-related differences in physiology, discussion has focused on individual vocal tract morphology. While it is interesting to relate, say, variable recruitment of the jaw to extent of palate doming, there is a substantial residue of arbitrary differences that constitute the speaker's "style". Style differences observed across a well-defined social group indicate group membership. Other style differences are idiosyncratic "habits" of articulation, individual solutions to the many-to-many mapping between motoric and acoustic representations and to the many different attentional trading relationships that can exploit the typical patterns of redundant variation in independent acoustic correlates of any minimal contrast. Perceptual studies of social style differences suggest that perceptibility depends upon the task and upon the hearer's own group membership. The few studies of idiosyncratic differences suggest that speakers perceive each others' productions in terms of their own habits. Thus, perceptual compensation for speaker differences must go beyond mere vocal tract normalization. A promising route for describing how listeners compensate for the arbitrary variation of style is an instance-based (or exemplar) model of speech perception in which the distribution of exemplars is heavily weighted by instances of the speaker's own productions

POWERLIB: SAS/IML Software for Computing Power in Multivariate Linear Models

The POWERLIB SAS/IML software provides convenient power calculations for a wide range of multivariate linear models with Gaussian errors. The software includes the Box, Geisser-Greenhouse, Huynh-Feldt, and uncorrected tests in the "univariate" approach to repeated measures (UNIREP), the Hotelling Lawley Trace, Pillai-Bartlett Trace, and Wilks Lambda tests in "multivariate" approach (MULTIREP), as well as a limited but useful range of mixed models. The familiar univariate linear model with Gaussian errors is an important special case. For estimated covariance, the software provides confidence limits for the resulting estimated power. All power and confidence limits values can be output to a SAS dataset, which can be used to easily produce plots and tables for manuscripts.

Preservation or Use: A Contingent Valuation Study of Wilderness Designation in Utah

Evidence of strong opposition to wilderness proposals in Utah suggested that the nonmarket value ofretaining those areas in multiple-use management might be significant. A contingent value analysis of both supporters and opponents of the two major proposals for wilderness designation in Utah indicated that there existed significant nonmarket willingness to pay on the part of opponents, and that standard contingent valuation practice, which does not explicitly consider these values, could lead to a misestimation of aggregate willingness to pay

α\alpha-Scale Decoupling of the Mechanical Relaxation and Diverging Shear Wave Propagation Lengthscale in Triphenylphosphite

We have performed depolarized Impulsive Stimulated Scattering experiments to observe shear acoustic phonons in supercooled triphenylphosphite (TPP) from $\sim$10 - 500 MHz. These measurements, in tandem with previously performed longitudinal and shear measurements, permit further analyses of the relaxation dynamics of TPP within the framework of the mode coupling theory (MCT). Our results provide evidence of $\alpha$ coupling between the shear and longitudinal degrees of freedom up to a decoupling temperature $T_c$ = 231 K. A lower bound length scale of shear wave propagation in liquids verified the exponent predicted by theory in the vicinity of the decoupling temperature

E-cadherin mediates adherens junction organization through protein kinase C

Cultured human keratinocytes maintained in 30 μM Ca2+ do not form adherens junctions; however, when the extracellular Ca2+ concentration is raised to 1 mM, adherens junctions form very rapidly. The formation of a junction involves the coordinate organization of intracellular and extracellular components. Cadherins have been shown to mediate this coordinate organization. In this report we show that E-cadherin organizes the various junctional components by signalling through protein kinase C

Pilot testing of a novel surgical simulator for endoscopic zenker’s diverticulotomy

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136304/1/lary26129.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136304/2/lary26129_am.pd

Mutations in gfpt1 and skiv2l2 Cause Distinct Stage-Specific Defects in Larval Melanocyte Regeneration in Zebrafish

The establishment of a single cell type regeneration paradigm in the zebrafish provides an opportunity to investigate the genetic mechanisms specific to regeneration processes. We previously demonstrated that regeneration melanocytes arise from cell division of the otherwise quiescent melanocyte precursors following larval melanocyte ablation with a small molecule, MoTP. The ease of ablating melanocytes by MoTP allows us to conduct a forward genetic screen for mechanisms specific to regeneration from such precursors or stem cells. Here, we reported the identification of two mutants, earthaj23e1 and juliej24e1 from a melanocyte ablation screen. Both mutants develop normal larval melanocytes, but upon melanocyte ablation, each mutation results in a distinct stage-specific defect in melanocyte regeneration. Positional cloning reveals that the earthaj23e1 mutation is a nonsense mutation in gfpt1 (glutamine:fructose-6-phosphate aminotransferase 1), the rate-limiting enzyme in glucosamine-6-phosphate biosynthesis. Our analyses reveal that a mutation in gfpt1 specifically affects melanocyte differentiation (marked by melanin production) at a late stage during regeneration and that gfpt1 acts cell autonomously in melanocytes to promote ontogenetic melanocyte darkening. We identified that the juliej24e1 mutation is a splice-site mutation in skiv2l2 (superkiller viralicidic activity 2-like 2), a predicted DEAD-box RNA helicase. Our in situ analysis reveals that the mutation in skiv2l2 causes defects in cell proliferation, suggesting that skiv2l2 plays a role in regulating melanoblast proliferation during early stages of melanocyte regeneration. This finding is consistent with previously described role for cell division during larval melanocyte regeneration. The analyses of these mutants reveal their stage-specific roles in melanocyte regeneration. Interestingly, these mutants identify regeneration-specific functions not only in early stages of the regeneration process, but also in late stages of differentiation of the regenerating melanocyte. We suggest that mechanisms of regeneration identified in this mutant screen may reveal fundamental differences between the mechanisms that establish differentiated cells during embryogenesis, and those involved in larval or adult growth