Foodservice conditions in licensed urban and rural child care centers: An application of the \u3cem\u3eNational Health and Safety Performance Standards\u3c/em\u3e

Objectives: To assess the degree to which child care centers in urban and rural counties met foodservice standards as documented in the National Health and Safety Performance Standards; to determine if a difference in foodservice conditions existed between these two groups; to determine if the foodservice conditions at child care centers are related to the directors\u27 perception of existing foodservice conditions or the importance of maintaining safe foodservice conditions, or previous environmental health inspection scores; to identify child care staffing needs. Subjects: 36 urban and 34 rural child care centers in east Tennessee Design: On-site assessment of food production facilities and interviews with food production staff members and center directors. Statistical Analysis: Multivariate and analysis of variance were used to detect differences for assessed foodservice conditions, while Pearson Correlation described relationships. Frequencies were used to identify the training topics most requested by directors. Results: There was no significant difference (F=0.00; p=0.9516) in the assessed foodservice conditions between urban (80.9 ± 4.8) and rural (80.8 ± 6.9) centers. A statistically significant difference (F=4.40; p=0.0397) was detected in the safe food storage sub-topic between rural (70.8 ± 12.5) and urban (65.1 ± 10.2) centers. Since assumptions for parametric tests were not met, a correlation could not be done between the assessed foodservice conditions and the directors\u27 perception of the importance of maintaining safe foodservice conditions. There was a statistically significant (F=10.47; p\u3c0.0001) difference in assessed foodservice conditions between directors who perceived them to be very good (78.5 ± 6.3) or average (77.8 ± 4.9). There was no statistically significant relationship between the assessed foodservice conditions and environmental health inspection scores (r=-0.14; p=0.4163). A majority of the directors (88.6%) believed there was a need for training that addressed safe foodservice practices; in particular safe food storage (90.0%), kitchen safety (87.1%) and chemical storage (85.7%). Conclusions: Urban and rural centers maintain similar foodservice conditions. However, urban centers did score significantly lower than rural centers for one foodservice sub-topic, safe food storage, with a score of \u3c 70%. The directors\u27 perception of the existing foodservice conditions is related to the assessed conditions, although the application of this relationship is unknown. There is no statistically significant relationship between the assessed foodservice conditions and environmental health inspection scores. There is both a perceived and assessed need for foodservice training. Applications: The National Health and Safety Performance Standards could be used as national standards applicable for child care centers in all 50 states. Foodservice topics in need of training include: safe food storage, kitchen safety and chemical storage

Optics and the Culture of Modernity in Guatemala City Since the Liberal Reforms

In the years after the Liberal Reforms of the 1870s, the capitalization of coffee production and buttressing of coercive labour regimes in rural Guatemala brought huge amounts of surplus capital to Guatemala City. Individual families—either invested in land or export houses—and the state used this newfound wealth to transform and beautify the capital, effectively inaugurating the modern era in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This dissertation considers the urban experience of modernity in Guatemala City since the 1870s. It argues that until the 1920s and 1930s, modernity in the city was primarily influenced by aesthetic modernism in the form of shopping arcades and department stores with their commodities, sites of bourgeois pleasure and pomp such as the hippodrome and Temple to Minerva, society dances, expositions, and fairs. After this point, the social fallout of economic modernization increasingly defined the experience of urban modernity in Guatemala City. Capitalist development altered the social relations of production in the countryside, precipitating massive urbanization that characterized urban life in the second half of the twentieth century. My analysis helps to account for shifting perceptions of Guatemala City; regarded during the fin-de-siècle as the “Paris of Central America”—owing to its wide boulevards, dawning consumer culture, and cosmopolitan nature—the capital today is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the Americas. I argue that, since the Liberal Reforms, urban Guatemalans learned to see, act, and think as modern subjects. The idea of the “optics of modernity” is introduced to understand epistemological shifts in perception associated with technological, scientific, religious, social, economic, and cultural changes. The optics of modernity denote both the markers of modernity (such as trains, department stores, and new social types like dandies) and new subject positions that altered the experience of the modern world. With these optics of modernity, I argue that urban Guatemalans learned to acclimatize themselves to living in a modern city. The culture of modernity during the Guatemalan Belle Époque (roughly from 1892 until 1917) is of particular interest. This dissertation proposes that the economic expansion of the period was frequently punctuated by recessions and depressions as the prices of export agricultural commodities dropped and rebounded on global markets. These economic crises constrained the bourgeoisie’s visions of liberal utopia. A unique cultural phenomenon known as the cultura de esperar (the culture of expecting, hoping, and waiting) is introduced in this work to describe the epistemological predicaments that arose when the hopes and expectations of modernity were stifled by economic gluts. The analysis explores a wide variety of topics from nineteenth-century séance culture, bull fighting in cinema, the modernist avant-garde, and the dawning of consumer culture to the contrast between verticality in urban architecture and the expansion of urban slums

The Collapse of the Wien Tail in the Coldest Brown Dwarf? Hubble Space Telescope Near-Infrared Photometry of WISE J085510.83-071442.5

We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) near-infrared photometry of the coldest known brown dwarf, WISE J085510.83$-$071442.5 (WISE 0855$-$0714). WISE 0855$-$0714 was observed with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard HST using the F105W, F125W, and F160W filters, which approximate the $Y$, $J$, and $H$ near-infrared bands. WISE 0855$-$0714 is undetected at F105W with a corresponding 2$\sigma$ magnitude limit of $\sim$26.9. We marginally detect WISE 0855$-$0714 in the F125W images (S/N $\sim$4), with a measured magnitude of 26.41 $\pm$ 0.27, more than a magnitude fainter than the $J-$band magnitude reported by Faherty and coworkers. WISE J0855$-$0714 is clearly detected in the F160W band, with a magnitude of 23.90 $\pm$ 0.02, the first secure detection of WISE 0855$-$0714 in the near-infrared. Based on these data, we find that WISE 0855$-$0714 has extremely red F105W$-$F125W and F125W$-$F160W colors relative to other known Y dwarfs. We find that when compared to the models of Saumon et al. and Morley et al., the F105W$-$F125W and F125W$-$F160W colors of WISE 0855$-$0714 cannot be accounted for simultaneously. These colors likely indicate that we are seeing the collapse of flux on the Wien tail for this extremely cold object.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Effect of Hydro-Resistance Training on Bat Velocity

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of hydro-resistance training on bat velocity during mimicked baseball swings in twenty-five female college students. Subjects were pre-tested for bat velocity and assigned to dry land (n = 8), water (n = 8), and control (n = 9) groups. The dry land group swung a 737 g (26 oz) Easton T1 Thunderstick baseball bat for three sets of 15 swings, three days per week, for eight weeks. The water group performed the swings in shoulder deep water. The dry land and water groups also participated in mandatory team general resistance training three days per week. The control group performed no bat swing or resistance-training regimens. Mean bat velocity was measured with an electronic eye-timing device. A 3 x 2 (Group x Time) ANOVA with repeated measures was used for statistical analysis, followed up with Tukey’s post hoc test. Bat velocity decreased significantly for the dry land and water groups (24.0 ± 3.6 m/s to 20.6 ± 4.1 m/s and 23.8 ± 3.5 to 18.8 ± 4.1 m/s, respectively). Bat velocity did not change for the control group (21.5 ± 3.0 m/s to 20.2 ± 2.1 m/s). We speculate that the decreased bat velocity in the dry land and water groups was caused by the mandatory team general resistance-training program

Three New Cool Brown Dwarfs Discovered with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and an Improved Spectrum of the Y0 Dwarf WISE J041022.71+150248.4

As part of a larger search of Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) data for cool brown dwarfs with effective temperatures less than 1000 K, we present the discovery of three new cool brown dwarfs with spectral types later than T7. Using low-resolution, near-infrared spectra obtained with the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and the Hubble Space Telescope we derive spectral types of T9.5 for WISE J094305.98+360723.5, T8 for WISE J200050.19+362950.1, and Y0: for WISE J220905.73+271143.9. The identification of WISE J220905.73+271143.9 as a Y dwarf brings the total number of spectroscopically confirmed Y dwarfs to seventeen. In addition, we present an improved spectrum (i.e. higher signal-to-noise ratio) of the Y0 dwarf WISE J041022.71+150248.4 that confirms the Cushing et al. classification of Y0. Spectrophotometric distance estimates place all three new brown dwarfs at distances less than 12 pc, with WISE J200050.19+362950.1 lying at a distance of only 3.9-8.0 pc. Finally, we note that brown dwarfs like WISE J200050.19+362950.1 that lie in or near the Galactic plane offer an exciting opportunity to measure their mass via astrometric microlensing.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

The 2MASS Wide-Field T Dwarf Search. II. Discovery of Three T Dwarfs in the Southern Hemisphere

We present the discovery of three new Southern Hemisphere T dwarfs identified in the Two Micron All Sky Survey. These objects, 2MASS 0348-6022, 2MASS 0516-0445, and 2MASS 2228-4310, have classifications T7, T5.5, and T6.5, respectively. Using linear absolute magnitude/spectral type relations derived from T dwarfs with measured parallaxes, we estimate spectrophotometric distances for these discoveries; the closest, 2MASS 0348-6022, is likely within 10 pc of the Sun. Proper motions and estimated tangential velocities are consistent with membership in the Galactic disk population. We also list Southern Hemisphere T dwarf candidates that were either not found in subsequent near-infrared imaging observations and are most likely uncatalogued minor planets, or have near-infrared spectra consistent with background stars.Comment: 12 pages including 4 figures (one as jpeg), accepted to A

Spitzer Photometry of WISE-Selected Brown Dwarf and Hyper-Luminous Infrared Galaxy Candidates

We present Spitzer 3.6 and 4.5 $\mu$m photometry and positions for a sample of 1510 brown dwarf candidates identified by the WISE all-sky survey. Of these, 166 have been spectroscopically classified as objects with spectral types M(1), L(7), T(146), and Y(12); Sixteen other objects are non-(sub)stellar in nature. The remainder are most likely distant L and T dwarfs lacking spectroscopic verification, other Y dwarf candidates still awaiting follow-up, and assorted other objects whose Spitzer photometry reveals them to be background sources. We present a catalog of Spitzer photometry for all astrophysical sources identified in these fields and use this catalog to identify 7 fainter (4.5 $\mu$m $\sim$ 17.0 mag) brown dwarf candidates, which are possibly wide-field companions to the original WISE sources. To test this hypothesis, we use a sample of 919 Spitzer observations around WISE-selected high-redshift hyper-luminous infrared galaxy (HyLIRG) candidates. For this control sample we find another 6 brown dwarf candidates, suggesting that the 7 companion candidates are not physically associated. In fact, only one of these 7 Spitzer brown dwarf candidates has a photometric distance estimate consistent with being a companion to the WISE brown dwarf candidate. Other than this there is no evidence for any widely separated ($>$ 20 AU) ultra-cool binaries. As an adjunct to this paper, we make available a source catalog of $\sim$ 7.33 $\times 10^5$ objects detected in all of these Spitzer follow-up fields for use by the astronomical community. The complete catalog includes the Spitzer 3.6 and 4.5 $\mu$m photometry, along with positionally matched $B$ and $R$ photometry from USNO-B; $J$, $H$, and $K_s$ photometry from 2MASS; and $W1$, $W2$, $W3$, and $W4$ photometry from the WISE all-sky catalog