2,853 research outputs found
Perceptions of Job Competencies and Mentoring Program Development for Extension Administrative Assistants: A Focus Group Study of Multiple Extension Employee Groups
Extension workplace mentoring programs may produce increased Extension programming competence, organizational commitment, job satisfaction (Denny, 2016), and leadership effectiveness (Kutilek & Earnest, 2001). The study described in this article aimed to gather information for a proposed mentoring program for Extension administrative assistants. A total of 12 focus groups were conducted with 78 participants representing five employee groups: administrative assistants, Extension agents, county directors, state specialists, and department heads. Employee groups were separately interviewed. Findings indicated that respondents perceive the role of an administrative assistant as critically important, and major competencies required by the administrative assistant role are people skills/customer service, bookkeeping, technology, and a willingness to learn/adaptability to change. Respondents perceived that workplace mentoring is important, and it should be required of all newly-hired administrative assistants. Regarding incentives, administrative assistants felt that counting mentoring time as part of their University’s annual professional learning requirement of 32 hours would encourage participation. Major recommendations include the establishment of an e-mentoring program that incorporates the administrative assistants’ academic, career, and personal goals in addition to organizational policies and procedures
Parent population of flat-spectrum radio-loud narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies
Flat-spectrum radio-loud Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s) are a
recently discovered class of -ray emitting Active Galactic Nuclei
(AGN), that exhibit some blazar-like properties which are explained with the
presence of a relativistic jet viewed at small angles. When blazars are
observed at larger angles they appear as radio-galaxies, and we expect to
observe an analogue parent population for beamed NLS1s. However, the number of
known NLS1s with the jet viewed at large angles is not enough. Therefore, we
tried to understand the origin of this deficit. Current hypotheses about the
nature of parent sources are steep-spectrum radio-loud NLS1s, radio-quiet NLS1s
and disk-hosted radio-galaxies. To test these hypotheses we built three samples
of candidate sources plus a control sample, and calculated their black hole
mass and Eddington ratio using their optical spectra. We then performed a
Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test to investigate the compatibility of our
different samples with a beamed population. Our results indicate that, when the
inclination angle increases, a beamed source appears as a steep-spectrum
radio-loud NLS1, or possibly even as a disk-hosted radio-galaxy with low black
hole mass and high Eddington ratio. Further investigations, involving larger
complete samples and observations at radio frequency, are needed to understand
the incidence of disk-hosted radio-galaxies in the parent population, and to
assess whether radio-quiet NLS1s can play a role, as well.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication by Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Retrospective Study of Midazolam Protocol for Prehospital Behavioral Emergencies
Introduction: Agitated patients in the prehospital setting pose challenges for both patient care and emergency medical services (EMS) provider safety. Midazolam is frequently used to control agitation in the emergency department setting; however, limited data exist in the prehospital setting. We describe our experience treating patients with midazolam for behavioral emergencies in a large urban EMS system. We hypothesized that using midazolam for acute agitation leads to improved clinical conditions without causing significant clinical deterioration.Methods: We performed a retrospective review of EMS patient care reports following implementation of a behavioral emergencies protocol in a large urban EMS system from February 2014–June 2016. For acute agitation, paramedics administered midazolam 1 milligram (mg) intravenous (IV), 5 mg intramuscular (IM), or 5 mg intranasal (IN). Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Levene’s test for assessing variance among study groups, and t-test to evaluate effectiveness based on route.Results: In total, midazolam was administered 294 times to 257 patients. Median age was 30 (interquartile range 24–42) years, and 66.5% were male. Doses administered were 1 mg (7.1%) and 5 mg (92.9%). Routes were IM (52.0%), IN (40.8%), and IV (7.1%). A second dose was administered to 37 patients. In the majority of administrations, midazolam improved the patient’s condition (73.5%) with infrequent adverse events (3.4%). There was no significant difference between the effectiveness of IM and IN midazolam (71.0% vs 75.4%; p = 0.24).Conclusion: A midazolam protocol for prehospital agitation was associated with reduced agitation and a low rate of adverse events
Optical Sky Brightness at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory from 1992 to 2006
We present optical UBVRI sky brightness measures from 1992 through 2006. The
data are based on CCD imagery obtained with the CTIO 0.9-m, 1.3-m, and 1.5-m
telescopes. The B- and V-band data are in reasonable agreement with
measurements previously made at Mauna Kea, though on the basis of a small
number of images per year there are discrepancies for the years 1992 through
1994. Our CCD-based data are not significantly different than values obtained
at Cerro Paranal. We find that the yearly averages of V-band sky brightness are
best correlated with the 10.7-cm solar flux taken 5 days prior to the sky
brightness measures. This implies an average speed of 350 km/sec for the solar
wind. While we can measure an enhancement of the night sky levels over La
Serena 10 degrees above the horizon, at elevation angles above 45 degrees we
find no evidence that the night sky brightness at Cerro Tololo is affected by
artificial light of nearby towns and cities.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, to be published in the June, 2007, issue of the
Publications of the Astron. Society of the Pacifi
An Exceptional Radio Flare in Markarian 421
In September 2012, the high-synchrotron-peaked (HSP) blazar Markarian 421
underwent a rapid wideband radio flare, reaching nearly twice the brightest
level observed in the centimeter band in over three decades of monitoring. In
response to this event we carried out a five epoch centimeter- to
millimeter-band multifrequency Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) campaign to
investigate the aftermath of this emission event. Rapid radio variations are
unprecedented in this object and are surprising in an HSP BL Lac object. In
this flare, the 15 GHz flux density increased with an exponential doubling time
of about 9 days, then faded to its prior level at a similar rate. This is
comparable with the fastest large-amplitude centimeter-band radio variability
observed in any blazar. Similar flux density increases were detected up to
millimeter bands. This radio flare followed about two months after a similarly
unprecedented GeV gamma-ray flare (reaching a daily E>100 MeV flux of (1.2 +/-
0.7)x10^(-6) ph cm^(-2) s^(-1)) reported by the Fermi Large Area Telescope
(LAT) collaboration, with a simultaneous tentative TeV detection by ARGO-YBJ. A
cross-correlation analysis of long-term 15 GHz and LAT gamma-ray light curves
finds a statistically significant correlation with the radio lagging ~40 days
behind, suggesting that the gamma-ray emission originates upstream of the radio
emission. Preliminary results from our VLBA observations show brightening in
the unresolved core region and no evidence for apparent superluminal motions or
substantial flux variations downstream.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures. Contributed talk at the meeting "The Innermost
Regions of Relativistic Jets and Their Magnetic Fields", Granada, Spain.
Updated to correct author list and reference
Spectroscopy of Broad Line Blazars from 1LAC
We report on optical spectroscopy of 165 Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars (FSRQs)
in the Fermi 1LAC sample, which have helped allow a nearly complete study of
this population. Fermi FSRQ show significant evidence for non-thermal emission
even in the optical; the degree depends on the gamma-ray hardness. They also
have smaller virial estimates of hole mass than the optical quasar sample. This
appears to be largely due to a preferred (axial) view of the gamma-ray FSRQ and
non-isotropic (H/R ~ 0.4) distribution of broad-line velocities. Even after
correction for this bias, the Fermi FSRQ show higher mean Eddington ratios than
the optical population. A comparison of optical spectral properties with Owens
Valley Radio Observatory radio flare activity shows no strong correlation.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
Infrared spectroscopic confirmation of z~2 photometrically-selected obscured quasars
The census of obscured quasar populations is incomplete, and remains a major
unsolved problem, especially at higher redshifts, where we expect a greater
density of galaxy formation and quasar activity. We present Gemini GNIRS
near-infrared spectroscopy of 24 luminous obscured quasar candidates from the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey's Stripe 82 region. The targets were photometrically
selected using a WISE/W4 selection technique that is optimized to identify
IR-bright and heavily-reddened/optically-obscured targets at . We detect
emission lines of , , and/or in 23
sources allowing us to measure spectroscopic redshifts in the range
with bolometric luminosities spanning erg s. We
observe broad km s Balmer emissions with large ratios, and we directly observe a heavily reddened
rest-frame optical continuum in several sources, suggesting high extinction
( mag). Our observations demonstrate that such optical/infrared
photometric selection successfully recovers high-redshift obscured quasars. The
successful identification of previously undetected red, obscured high-redshift
quasar candidates suggests that there are more obscured quasars yet to be
discovered.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS, 13 pages, 8 figures, 2 table
New Insights into the Genus Lithophyllum (Lithophylloideae, Corallinaceae, Corallinales) from Deepwater Rhodolith Beds Offshore the NW Gulf of Mexico
Hard bank rhodolith beds at 45–80 m depth offshore Louisiana in the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico harbor a diverse community of non-geniculate coralline algae spanning multiple lineages including both rhodolith-forming (biogenic) taxa and others encrusting autogenic rhodoliths. Identifying these members of the Corallinales to the correct genus and species is an ongoing process because many available names need to be validated by comparison to historical type specimens. A phylogenetic analysis of concatenated plastid (psbA), nuclear (LSU rDNA), and mitochondrial (COI) DNA sequences of non-geniculate corallines belonging to the subfamily Lithophylloideae (Corallinaceae), including newly generated sequences from recently collected specimens dredged at Ewing and Sackett Banks following the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, reveals at least two distinct species of Lithophyllum sensu lato for the region. Scanning Electron Microscopy confirmed the presence of vegetative characters congruent with those for both Lithophyllum and Titanoderma. Lithophyllum is a newly reported genus for the northern Gulf of Mexico. The generic boundaries within the Lithophylloideae are addressed in light of possible evolutionary progenetic heterochrony that may have occurred within this subfamil
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. I. Candidate Selection Algorithm
We present an algorithm for selecting an uniform sample of gravitationally
lensed quasar candidates from low-redshift (0.6<z<2.2) quasars brighter than
i=19.1 that have been spectroscopically identified in the SDSS. Our algorithm
uses morphological and color selections that are intended to identify small-
and large-separation lenses, respectively. Our selection algorithm only relies
on parameters that the SDSS standard image processing pipeline generates,
allowing easy and fast selection of lens candidates. The algorithm has been
tested against simulated SDSS images, which adopt distributions of field and
quasar parameters taken from the real SDSS data as input. Furthermore, we take
differential reddening into account. We find that our selection algorithm is
almost complete down to separations of 1'' and flux ratios of 10^-0.5. The
algorithm selects both double and quadruple lenses. At a separation of 2'',
doubles and quads are selected with similar completeness, and above (below) 2''
the selection of quads is better (worse) than for doubles. Our morphological
selection identifies a non-negligible fraction of single quasars: To remove
these we fit images of candidates with a model of two point sources and reject
those with unusually small image separations and/or large magnitude differences
between the two point sources. We estimate the efficiency of our selection
algorithm to be at least 8% at image separations smaller than 2'', comparable
to that of radio surveys. The efficiency declines as the image separation
increases, because of larger contamination from stars. We also present the
magnification factor of lensed images as a function of the image separation,
which is needed for accurate computation of magnification bias.Comment: 15 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in A
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