Remote Sensing at the Horace Cabe Site (41BW14)

A magnetometer survey was conducted at the Horace Cabe Mound site (41BW14) in 2005 by Walker and Schultz as part of the Bowie County Levee Realignment project in Bowie County, Texas. The purpose of the survey was to attempt to locate anomalies that may represent potential archaeological features at this important Late Caddo mound center near the Red River. The area was surveyed using a Geometrics portable G858 cesium sensor magnetometer and a G-856 proton magnetometer base station. This article puts on record another substantive example of Caddo archaeology as seen through the use of remote sensing technology. The original processing and interpretation of this data presented in Sundermeyer et al. are not simply re-hashed here. Further data processing has revealed several possible Caddo structures on and in the immediate vicinity of Mounds B and C at the Cabe site

Additive decompositions for rings of modular forms

We study rings of integral modular forms for congruence subgroups as modules over the ring of integral modular forms for the full modular group. In many cases these modules are free or decompose at least into well-understood pieces. We apply this to characterize which rings of modular forms are Cohen--Macaulay and to prove finite generation results. These theorems are based on decomposition results about vector bundles on the compactified moduli stack of elliptic curves.Comment: Complete revision. Comments welcome. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1609.0926

Establishing a New Teachership through Interactive Radio Instruction:Evaluating the impact of IRI on teachers’ practices in Malawian primary schools

Abstract This evaluation research study is concerned with the quality of support and in-service development for Malawian primary teachers through the medium of radio. The study aims to evaluate the influence that the current United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded interactive radio instruction (IRI) programme has on teachers’ behaviours, with the aim of proposing some guidelines for the development of a model of continuing professional development (CPD), appropriate to the Malawian context, using IRI. It identifies the teacher as a critical entity in raising levels of learners’ achievement within the primary school and posits that through improved teacher support and development, higher levels of learner achievement can be attained. The study identifies the potential that communication technology in the form of interactive radio instruction (IRI) offers in improving CPD of teachers at a cost that could be affordable to disadvantaged school communities in the country. The study takes place in a context where the Malawi government has been challenged to provide quality universal primary education after introducing free primary education (FPE) in 1994, which resulted in a massive expansion of primary schools, resulting in acute shortages of teachers. The study has drawn on aspects of practice theory and in particular the work of Giddens (1984), Bourdieu (1977, 1978), Shatzki et al (2001) and Reckwitz (2002a) in an attempt to emphasise the role of artefacts, such as interactive radio, as part of social practice. A practice theoretic perspective has been used to highlight the contentious role played by learning-objects in teacher practice and the need for flexibility and innovation in employing learning-objects like interactive radio as part of teaching practice. To carry out a critical exploration of the issues of teacher learning and practice, a longitudinal qualitative research approach was proposed for the evaluation of the existing IRI programme in Malawi. As the researcher was also actively involved in the planning of the Malawi IRI programme from onset, he therefore maintained a dual role of researcher and co-founder throughout the research process. The empirical evidence employed within this research was elicited through three main processes: interview survey, participant observation and focus groups in order to achieve validity through methodical triangulation. The analysis of this evidence shows the considerable difficulties faced by classroom teachers in attempting to adopt interactive radio and therefore be able to use interactive/active learner-centred instruction as part of their ongoing teaching practice. The analysis, however, also highlights the possibility of exploiting interactive radio for provision of an integrated, sustainable CPD of teachers in educationally deprived school communities. Overall, the research study puts emphasis on the need for paying attention to the social practices (contextually specific) within which the use of educational technologies (such as interactive radio), are enmeshed. There is need to explicate the details of such practices (instead of adopting a narrow, technical, focus on attributes of interactive radio itself) in order to improve the efficacy of using interactive radio

Antibody-targeted nanoparticles for cancer treatment

Nanoparticles (NPs) are diverse and versatile with physical properties that can be employed for use in cancer medicine. Targeting NPs using antibodies and antibody fragments could overcome some of the limitations seen with current targeted therapies. This review will discuss the role of antibody-targeted NPs in the treatment of cancer: as delivery vehicles, targeted theranostic agents and in the evolving field of cancer hyperthermia

Changes in infant segment inertias during the first three months of independent walking

BACKGROUND: During infancy, rapid changes in physical growth affect the size and shape of the body segments. To understand the effects of growth on movement, it is first necessary to quantify rates of development during the acquisition of important motor milestones. The goal of this longitudinal study was to quantify the physical growth of infant body segments during the initial stages of independent walking. METHODS: Ten infants (N = 10) aged between 28 and 55 weeks at the beginning of the study were tested biweekly (every two weeks) for three months. A 13-segment mathematical model of the human body was used to estimate the inertial parameters of the infant body segments at each session. An analysis of variance was used to test for significant differences in segment masses between biweekly measures. Polynomial contrasts were used to test for linear trends in the growth data. RESULTS: Significant differences between biweekly measures of segment mass were found only for the head/neck (F(5,45) = 3.42, p < 0.05), upper trunk (F(5,45) = 4.04, p < 0.01), and lower trunk (F(5,45) = 3.49, p < 0.01). The lower trunk demonstrated a linear increase in mass (F(1,9) = 4.56, p < 0.05). However, the upper trunk demonstrated a quadratic trend in growth (F(1,9) = 9.13, p < 0.01), while the head/neck segment showed a cubic trend in growth (F(1,9) = 3.80, p < 0.05). Significant differences in axial segment masses were also found between subjects (F(9,45) = 5.92, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Given that postural control proceeds in a cephalocaudal manner, the lower trunk segment would be brought under control last, in terms of the axial segments. Increases in the mass of this segment could constrain the system, thereby acting as a control parameter for the onset and development of motor patterns

Letterkenny Army Depot: Finance Innovations Support Lean Six Sigma Success

As a result of significant dollar savings to the Army and U.S. taxpayers, Letterkenny Army Depot received widespread public recognition in 2005. The depot received a public sector Shingo Prize for applying Lean principles and tools to its PATRIOT missile system recapitalization program. While Letterkenny was Leaning its production systems, the depot implemented two innovative and effective financial incentive systems: one to reward employees, the other to reward customers. The reward systems were innovative because they occurred in a not-for-profit organization and effective because they motivated customers, employees, and unions to embrace Lean. First, the commander of Letterkenny Army Depot introduced a mechanism for immediately recognizing surplus Net Operating Results (“NOR”) funds generated by Lean savings. Rather than following prescribed budgeting procedures, Letterkenny made sixty percent of auditable surplus NOR available to customers within the current fiscal year. With Lean savings immediately put “back in customers’ hands”, the customers usually chose to repurchase Letterkenny services with their Lean savings checks. The additional services performed by the depot at essentially no cost to the customer provided combat-ready weapon systems to the Warfighter, over and above the quantities planned for the current fiscal year. The depot reinvested the balance of its NOR surpluses in improvements to its facilities and equipment, helping to promote Lean buy-in among civilian employees and their unions. Second, Letterkenny negotiated a revised process for awarding NOR-related bonus checks to its employees. To further promote Lean buy-in, the depot established a “threshold” approach to determine the size of the employee payments. Letterkenny awarded payouts of $200/employee for each$1 million increase in NOR, up to a maximum of $5 million. By reaching annual Lean-enabled NOR of at least$5 million each year, Letterkenny employees could and did receive annual bonus checks of $1,000 in three successive years. The case describes the organizational conditions leading to these innovations and the responses to them among its customers, unions and headquarters

Letterkenny Army Depot: The Army Teaches Business a Lesson in Lean Six Sigma

Letterkenny Army Depot: The Army Teaches Business a Lesson in Lean Six Sigma is a case study of Letterkenny Army Depot, one of five Army maintenance depots. Letterkenny recapitalizes missiles, HMMWV's, generators, and other equipment for the United States Army. Recapitalizing equipment means completely disassembling the system, cleaning and/or replacing every component, subcomponent and part, and reassembling and testing the equipment. Col. William Guinn was assigned as depot commander in July 2002 only to find the depot was in deep financial and operational trouble. Letterkenny had experienced an operating loss of $31 million on revenues of$120 million, work flows that were dysfunctional and inefficient, the highest hourly wage rates among all the depots, and an infrastructure that was badly in need of repair. Additionally, the depot faced possible closing by the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission in 2005. This case documents Col. Guinn’s Lean Six Sigma deployment at Letterkenny Army Depot from 2002 to 2005. Using the principles and tools of Lean, Letterkenny’s commander, senior leaders, managers, and employees successfully transformed the depot from the Army’s worst to its best performing depot in terms of productivity and cost efficiency. Three years after the depot’s Lean journey began, the 2005 BRAC Commission not only recommended keeping Letterkenny open, but also assigned it additional programs. In the same year, Letterkenny won the public sector Shingo Prize for applying Lean to its Patriot Missile recapitalization program

Dear Wife : the Civil War letters of Chester K. Leach

Occasional paper (University of Vermont. Center for Research on Vermont) ; no. 20