Religion As the Integrating Principle in Education

D’ye think, asked Mr. Hennessey, the college has much to do with the progress of the world? - D\u27ye think, parried Mr. Dooley, it\u27s the mill that makes the water run? The stream of life in this old world goes steadily on, whether we have colleges or not. But the fact is, in spite of Mr. Dooley\u27s skeptical cynicism, that the world would hardly be the same without them. These centers of human learning have played a major role in harnessing and developing the raw material of this world man, his mind, and his physical environment. Today especially these academic mills score high in the esteem and confidence of men and nations. The human family looks to them to grind out the answers on many subjects: science, agriculture, economics, education, politics, and so on. How now, Mr. Dooley? ‘Tis a large order! The stream keeps running on and growing wider. Surely \u27tis yourself must be agreein\u27 that these mills be very vital?

Best practices for HPM-assisted performance engineering on modern multicore processors

Many tools and libraries employ hardware performance monitoring (HPM) on modern processors, and using this data for performance assessment and as a starting point for code optimizations is very popular. However, such data is only useful if it is interpreted with care, and if the right metrics are chosen for the right purpose. We demonstrate the sensible use of hardware performance counters in the context of a structured performance engineering approach for applications in computational science. Typical performance patterns and their respective metric signatures are defined, and some of them are illustrated using case studies. Although these generic concepts do not depend on specific tools or environments, we restrict ourselves to modern x86-based multicore processors and use the likwid-perfctr tool under the Linux OS.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Simulation Subsumption or Déjà vu on the Web

Simulation unification is a special kind of unification adapted to retrieving semi-structured data on the Web. This article introduces simulation subsumption, or containment, that is, query subsumption under simulation unification. Simulation subsumption is crucial in general for query optimization, in particular for optimizing pattern-based search engines, and for the termination of recursive rule-based web languages such as the XML and RDF query language Xcerpt. This paper first motivates and formalizes simulation subsumption. Then, it establishes decidability of simulation subsumption for advanced query patterns featuring descendant constructs, regular expressions, negative subterms (or subterm exclusions), and multiple variable occurrences. Finally, we show that subsumption between two query terms can be decided in O(n!n) where n is the sum of the sizes of both query terms

Incidence of Smoking-Related Second Primary Cancers After Lung Cancer in Germany: An Analysis of Nationwide Cancer Registry Data

Introduction Approximately 80% of lung cancer cases in Germany are attributable to smoking. Patients with a lung cancer diagnosis may remain at increased risk of developing smoking-related second primary cancers (SPCs). Methods Anonymous data from 11 population-based cancer registries covering approximately 50% of the German population were pooled for the analysis. Included patients were diagnosed with having an index lung cancer between 2002 and 2013, aged 30 to 99 years old at diagnosis, and survived for at least 6 months. We calculated standardized incidence ratios (SIRs)—stratified by age, sex, region, and period—comparing the incidence of smoking-related and other SPCs to the general population. Results Of the 135,589 lung cancer survivors (68.2% male; mean follow-up 30.8 mo) analyzed, 5298 developed an SPC. In males, the risk was particularly high for SPCs of the larynx (SIR = 3.70, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.14–4.34), pharynx (3.17, 2.61–3.81), and oral cavity (2.86, 2.38–3.41). For females, SIRs were notably elevated for the esophagus (4.66, 3.15–6.66), oral cavity (3.14, 2.03–4.63), and urinary tract (2.68, 2.04–3.45). When combining all smoking-related cancer sites, SIR was 1.41 in males (95% CI: 1.36–1.47) and 1.81 in females (95% CI: 1.68–1.94). We observed that males had a 1.46-fold (95% CI: 1.37–1.56) and females a 1.33-fold (95% CI: 1.20–1.47) increased risk for smoking-related compared with other cancers. Conclusions Patients with primary lung cancer were at increased risk for developing a smoking-related SPC. Therefore, the advantages of increased patient surveillance and the benefits of smoking cessation strategies should be considered.Peer Reviewe

Barotrauma is a significant cause of bat fatalities at wind turbines

SummaryBird fatalities at some wind energy facilities around the world have been documented for decades, but the issue of bat fatalities at such facilities — primarily involving migratory species during autumn migration — has been raised relatively recently [1,2]. Given that echolocating bats detect moving objects better than stationary ones [3], their relatively high fatality rate is perplexing, and numerous explanations have been proposed [1]. The decompression hypothesis proposes that bats are killed by barotrauma caused by rapid air-pressure reduction near moving turbine blades [1,4,5]. Barotrauma involves tissue damage to air-containing structures caused by rapid or excessive pressure change; pulmonary barotrauma is lung damage due to expansion of air in the lungs that is not accommodated by exhalation. We report here the first evidence that barotrauma is the cause of death in a high proportion of bats found at wind energy facilities. We found that 90% of bat fatalities involved internal haemorrhaging consistent with barotrauma, and that direct contact with turbine blades only accounted for about half of the fatalities. Air pressure change at turbine blades is an undetectable hazard and helps explain high bat fatality rates. We suggest that one reason why there are fewer bird than bat fatalities is that the unique respiratory anatomy of birds is less susceptible to barotrauma than that of mammals

Using Bioenergetics and Radar-Derived Bird Abundance to Assess the Impact of a Blackbird Roost on Seasonal Sunflower Damage

Methods aimed at reducing avian damage to agricultural crops are routinely implemented in situations where efficacy can be assessed by quantifying blackbird (Icteridae) abundance relative to environmental variables and extrapolating to ensuing crop damage. Concomitantly, Weather Surveillance Radar (WSR) data may have potential to enhance crop damage mitigation through improved monitoring of nuisance wildlife populations. We used WSR to derive daily abundance estimates of blackbirds at a fall roost in North Dakota, USA from 2012 to 2019. We integrated these estimates with previously developed bioenergetics-economic models to estimate local sunflower (Helianthus annuus) damage. The greatest losses usually occurred during a brief period in October, when peak blackbird abundance coincided with large percentages (\u3e50%) of mature but unharvested sunflower fields. Most sunflower fields were harvested later than peak blackbird abundance (360,000–1,120,000 birds) and maximum daily damages ($900–$2,000 USD per day). This seasonal trend suggests advancing harvest time as a strategy to avoid the greatest losses in yield (up to $1,800 in savings at this 1 roost), which may be attainable by earlier planting of early-maturing crop varieties or crop desiccation