Suitability Analysis Of Snow And Ice Changes For Ice Patch Archaeology: A Case Study In The Crazy Mountains, Montana

As technology advances over the years there has been a growing interest in the application of using remote sensing for conveying the detection of alpine archaeological sites. As climate changes and global temperatures rise across the globe perennial snow/ ice patches are melting and disappearing in alpine areas. These alpine archaeological sites are being immensely affected and, in some cases, destroyed. The research was conducted to determine if using both remote sensing imagery and suitability models could detect the extent of perennial snow/ice patch loss and determine the ice patches most vulnerable to melting in the Crazy Mountains of Montana. Suitability models were used to see if archaeological perennial snow/ice patches could be identified using the variables elevation, aspect, slope, distance to streams, incoming solar radiation, and glacial extent. The United State Geological Survey imagery and the National Agriculture Imagery Program was used to digitize the identified perennial snow/ice patch over the course range of years 1972, 1998, 2005, 2011, and 2020. Within the study area of the Crazy Mountains, more than 50 remaining perennial snow/ice patches were identified and digitized. The result of this study demonstrated that implementing remote sensing applications such as sustainability models and imagery can be effective in determining perennial snow/ice patches that are at risk

Understanding the Victim-Offender Overlap: An Exploratory Study

The strong and consistent relationship between criminal involvement and victimization is one of the most persistent documented findings within criminological research. The current problem associated with this relationship involves the lack of studies on the nature and extent of why this overlap exists, with even less research focusing on the perspectives of the offenders who identify themselves as victims. The current study attempts to better understand the victim-offender overlap by analyzing the experiences of criminal offenders who also identify as victims of crime, within the context of various theoretical perspectives. Various themes emerge to elaborate on the nature of the victimoffender overlap with implications for guidance in the development of research and policy. Such implications include creating and implementing programs and policies that address aspects of victimization and offending simultaneously, which will help individuals who have characteristics of both. These individuals can then receive the appropriate assistance and services they need in order to help prevent other offending and victimization situations from occurring. This will in turn create a safer environment for family members and the community, in addition to redirecting resources elsewhere, such as away from filing police reports and apprehending offenders, to being redirected towards increasing and enhancing these programs and policies being offered

ONLINE WRITING ASSESSMENTS, ESLs, AND THE ONE-TO-ONE INITIATIVE

The increasing number of English as a Second language students in US schools has provided new challenges in today’s classrooms. In addition to learning the language, culture, and curriculum of US schools, these students are also, in many cases, encountering technology for the first time. This lack of exposure creates a perfect storm as school systems adopt online assessments which in part, evaluate students for grade promotion. While technology exposure in schools is on the rise, so is the number of schools adopting a one-to-one program, where students are provided a laptop or other device for use, in many cases, at school and at home. The school district at the center of this study began its one-to-one program in 2013 using a gradual distribution method where interested schools applied to the one-to-one cohort. Annually, a handful of schools, elementary, middle, and high, would be selected from the yearly applications; thereby providing devices to students in the selected schools, while those schools not selected would continue to share, in many cases, a school computer lab or other technology resources. With research lacking, in particular on the ESL population, the goal of this study was to determine if students who had the opportunity to access technology at a one-to-one school had an advantage over those who did not have this same access when it came to their online writing assessment scores. This study analyzed pre-assessment survey data regarding technology access and use along with assessment scores from 380 ESL students who participated in yearly writing assessments during the 2014-2015 school year. The study employed Chi-square and Logistic regression analyses. Although, the results showed no significant relationship between successful online writing assessment scores and one-to-one membership, computer access outside of school, and computer use in school; results did show significant relationships between successful online writing assessment scores and Internet access at home, computer use outside of school, and grade level, respectively. Although this study provided some mixed results, providing students with experiences with technology will benefit students in their future educational and employment opportunities

The effects of computer-assisted language learning on English language learners with and without disabilities in an elementary school setting

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of the English Language Learners Instructional System (ELLIS) on oral language, written language, and reading achievement among students who are English language learners with and without disabilities. Additionally, levels of teacher satisfaction with computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and the use of ELLIS were assessed. Participants were 78 third, fourth, and fifth grade students with and without disabilities enrolled in a public elementary school. All participants were of Hispanic descent and were identified as being Non- or Limited-English Proficient based on the Language Assessment Scales (LAS) (CTB Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, 1994). Twelve of the participants were identified as having a documented disability according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2001). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Treatment Group A included students with and without disabilities and received individual instruction on the ELLIS program. Treatment Group B included students with and without disabilities and received ELLIS instruction in student pairs. The third group of students was a control group and did not receive instruction using the ELLIS program. Data were collected to answer eight research questions related to the effectiveness of the ELLIS program. The Language Assessment System Links (CTB Macmillan/McGraw Hill, 2005), an updated version of the LAS was administered to all participants at the end of the study. Scores obtained from the LAS Links were entered into SPSS and then analyzed using an ANOVA at the .05 level of significance to determine differences. Next, an ANCOVA at the .05 level of significance was used to adjust posttest scores of the experimental groups to adjust for pretest differences. Finally, qualitative data obtained from the open-ended interview with the implementing teacher were analyzed. The ANOVA and ANCOVA analyses revealed that students with disabilities who received instruction using the ELLIS program performed similarly to students with disabilities who did not receive instruction using the ELLIS program in oral language, written language, and reading achievement; and that students without disabilities who received instruction using the ELLIS program performed similarly to students without disabilities who did not receive instruction using the ELLIS program in oral language, written language, and reading achievement. Additionally, paired instruction using the ELLIS software program had similar effects on student performance as individual instruction using the ELLIS software program. However, results from the open-ended interview revealed high levels of teacher satisfaction with the ELLIS software program. Results of this research indicate that the ELLIS software program did not improve the oral language, written language, and reading achievement among students who are English language learners with and without disabilities, but further investigation of computer-assisted language learning for elementary students with and without disabilities is important

Actions of Anticholinesterases on Visual Performance in Man and Their Antagonism by Atropine

This work investigates the effects of the anticholinesterases physostigmine and pyridostigmine and the cholinergic antagonists atropine and homatropine on the human visual system. The antagonism between these classes of drug is also assessed. Anticholinesterases cause pupillary constriction and an increase in accommodation. As a means of simulating their effects in a controlled situation, a systematic study was performed to determine the effects of artificial pupils and defocusing lenses on visual performance. This was assessed by measuring contrast sensitivity for the detection of sinusoidal grating patterns. Contrast sensitivity was measured in 12 subjects for a range of spatial frequencies (0.5-38 c/deg), for pupil diameters 2 - 8mm and for defocuses of +1 to +4 D, following homatropine eyedrops. Changes in pupil diameter, without any compensation for the change in retinal illumination, had no significant effect on contrast sensitivity, except at 0.5 and 1 c/deg when a significant reduction occurred with the 2mm pupil. This suggests that the expected improvement in optical quality associated with smaller pupil diameters had been annulled by the accompanying reduction in retinal illumination. On the other hand, defocus caused an appreciable reduction in contrast sensitivity at spatial frequencies higher than the peak of the contrast sensitivity function (3 c/deg) and a smaller reduction below the peak. With increasing defocus a downwards parallel shift of the contrast sensitivity function above the peak was observed. Each dioptre of defocus reduced contrast sensitivity by about 50% at spatial frequencies higher than peak and 19% at spatial frequencies lower than peak in the homatropinised eye. The decrements were slightly less in the natural eye. An oral dose of 60mg pyridostigmine bromide which causes at least a 20% inhibition of blood cholinesterase, caused a small but significant increase of 7% in contrast sensitivity to stationary oscilloscopegenerated grating patterns over 3-38 c/deg, for a group of 13 subjects. This was attributed to an increase in ocular quality due to the small reduction in pupil diameter. Contrast sensitivity to laser interference fringes observed in the Maxwellian view, were unchanged after pyridostigmine. It is concluded that pyridostigmine may be used as a pre-treatment against organophosphorus anticholinesterases without adverse effects on stationary visual function. Instillation of 0. 25% physostigmine sulphate eyedrops in 12 subjects caused a sustained miosis, a transient increase of near point accommodation and amplitude of involuntary accommodation. This last effect was maximal at 30 min and subsided by 90 min, though its amplitude varied greatly between subjects from +0.5D to +10D. Comparisons between two families of three siblings suggested involvement of a genetic trait in the amplitude of response of the ciliary body to physostigmine. Contrast sensitivity to externally-viewed oscilloscope grating patterns was transiently reduced after physostigmine and correlated with the increase in amplitude of accommodation. Physostigmine had a transient deleterious effect on contrast sensitivity to laser interference fringes, particularly at higher spatial frequencies, which was not affected by defocus of the image. Physostigmine also caused a prolonged reduction in contrast sensitivity to low spatial frequency grating patterns. Since the control eye showed no miosis, systemic absorption of physostigmine seems improbable. This suggests that there is a direct effect from trans-comeal absorption of physostigmine on the retinal neurones. The effects of a single intramuscular injection of 2mg atropine sulphate on visual performance were studied in 13 subjects. The well known actions of atropine on heart rate, secretion of saliva, dilatation of pupils and reduction in the amplitude of accommodative range, were observed. However, visual acuity, stereoacuity, red-green colour balance and reaction time to a visual stimulus were unaffected by atropine, although extra-ocular muscle balance was transiently changed. There was no significant change in contrast sensitivity to stationary sinusoidal gratings of spatial frequencies 1-30 c/deg for oscilloscope-generated patterns and laser interference fringes. However, contrast sensitivity to low spatial frequency (1-5 c/deg) grating patterns phase-reversed at 5.5 Hz showed a sustained reduction over six hours post-injection. Thus, it is concluded that atropine has an adverse effect on movement detection but not on stationary visual function. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

Gender equality in child support policy : Fathers’ rhetoric of ‘fairness’ in a parliamentary inquiry

Child support payments extend separated fathers’ male breadwinning role across households, likely fuelling fathers’ perceptions of ‘unfairness’. By examining fathers’ written submissions to an Australian inquiry, we examine fathers’ claims of unfairness, which were expressed in terms of gender inequality. Here, we show how fathers adopted a gender equality discourse that left intact the existing gender order. Through expectations for equal treatment, men claimed the child support system would produce equality of outcomes, namely eliminating the redistributive need for child support payments. In doing so, fathers’ qualified support for gender equality advantaged men as payers while further entrenching gender inequity

Art for our sakes: An analysis of arts coverage at city and regional magazines

The purpose of this research was to better understand how decisions about arts coverage are made at city and regional magazines and the value that these stories have to both the publications they appear in and the communities they are targeted toward. City and regional magazines, which cover specific areas and have more intimate relationships with their readers than, say, a national consumer magazine or arts periodical, were chosen because of the unique opportunity afforded to them by their position as a cross between the community-oriented city newspaper and the glossy, in-depth monthly magazine. In discussing the arts, their value, and the ways in which they are covered with arts and culture editors and top editors at magazines from around the country, this research found value in arts journalism for city magazines, both in the fulfillment of these publications' missions and the enrichment of their communities. This research approached the topic through the use of gatekeeping theory, which explains how media messages travel from their producers to their consumers

Fast conformational clustering of extensive molecular dynamics simulation data

We present an unsupervised data processing workflow that is specifically designed to obtain a fast conformational clustering of long molecular dynamics simulation trajectories. In this approach we combine two dimensionality reduction algorithms (cc\_analysis and encodermap) with a density-based spatial clustering algorithm (HDBSCAN). The proposed scheme benefits from the strengths of the three algorithms while avoiding most of the drawbacks of the individual methods. Here the cc\_analysis algorithm is for the first time applied to molecular simulation data. Encodermap complements cc\_analysis by providing an efficient way to process and assign large amounts of data to clusters. The main goal of the procedure is to maximize the number of assigned frames of a given trajectory, while keeping a clear conformational identity of the clusters that are found. In practice we achieve this by using an iterative clustering approach and a tunable root-mean-square-deviation-based criterion in the final cluster assignment. This allows to find clusters of different densities as well as different degrees of structural identity. With the help of four test systems we illustrate the capability and performance of this clustering workflow: wild-type and thermostable mutant of the Trp-cage protein (TC5b and TC10b), NTL9 and Protein B. Each of these systems poses individual challenges to the scheme, which in total give a nice overview of the advantages, as well as potential difficulties that can arise when using the proposed method

Repurposing screen identifies mebendazole as a clinical candidate to synergise with docetaxel for prostate cancer treatment

BACKGROUND: Docetaxel chemotherapy in prostate cancer has a modest impact on survival. To date, efforts to develop combination therapies have not translated into new treatments. We sought to develop a novel therapeutic strategy to tackle chemoresistant prostate cancer by enhancing the efficacy of docetaxel. METHODS: We performed a drug-repurposing screen by using murine-derived prostate cancer cell lines driven by clinically relevant genotypes. Cells were treated with docetaxel alone, or in combination with drugs (n = 857) from repurposing libraries, with cytotoxicity quantified using High Content Imaging Analysis. RESULTS: Mebendazole (an anthelmintic drug that inhibits microtubule assembly) was selected as the lead drug and shown to potently synergise docetaxel-mediated cell killing in vitro and in vivo. Dual targeting of the microtubule structure was associated with increased G2/M mitotic block and enhanced cell death. Strikingly, following combined docetaxel and mebendazole treatment, no cells divided correctly, forming multipolar spindles that resulted in aneuploid daughter cells. Liposomes entrapping docetaxel and mebendazole suppressed in vivo prostate tumour growth and extended progression-free survival. CONCLUSIONS: Docetaxel and mebendazole target distinct aspects of the microtubule dynamics, leading to increased apoptosis and reduced tumour growth. Our data support a new concept of combined mebendazole/docetaxel treatment that warrants further clinical evaluation