EFFECT OF KINEMATIC VARIATIONS ON VISCOUS PUMPING BY A ROBOTIC GILL PLATE ARRAY

As the Reynolds number of a system decreases, traditional pumping techniques become less effective. In nature, oscillating appendage systems exhibit distinct patterns of movement based on their Reynolds number. Studies of pumping by mayfly nymph gill arrays have shown different kinematics over Reynolds numbers from 2 to 22. To understand why and how this pumping mechanism might be optimized, a robotic oscillating plate array was constructed allowing stroke and pitch variation as well as phase lag variation between adjacent gills. Stereoscopic PIV was used to obtain three dimensional velocity data, allowing computation of the net pumping rate and flow induced dissipation for five cases, focusing on the role of the gill plate interactions and their dependence on the phase lag. The results indicate that mayfly gills most likely use a phase lag of 90° because it produces the highest net mass flow rate and has the highest specific flux efficiency

Adjusting to Work Life: Individual Factors that Impact Young Adults’ Success in the Workplace the First Year after Graduation

Young adults experience multiple transitions in their first year after college graduation including newcomer adjustment, the process of becoming integrated into a new job and organization during the first year of employment. In this paper we describe our empirical study of relationships among psychological capital (PsyCap), proactive behaviors, and newcomer adjustment outcomes

Promoting Health Across the Lifespan: Stress Management Topics

This document contains six lesson plans. The first lesson plan is designed to introduce the principles of mindfulness and stress management through music listening and mandala free drawing activities. The second lesson plan addresses stress management in the workplace through the introduction of the Freeze Frame method. The third lesson plan is designed to teach stress management through the principle of gratitude. The fourth lesson introduces the mind-body connection and principles of self-care through self-assessment of behavior. The fifth lesson plan is designed to discuss issues of mental illness and to provide resources to address mental health concerns. The sixth lesson plan addresses time management skills and the implementation of SMART goals to improve academic success. The content is intended for high school or college-aged students and health care professionals. Each lesson plan has a topic overview, time and format information, Healthy People 2020 Objectives, National Health Education Standards information, learning objectives, key concepts and terms, materials needed, and teaching steps. This material was developed by Plymouth State University students as a part of their coursework for Promoting Health Across the Lifespan, in fall 2016 with Dr. Barbara McCahan

Retaining Quality Teachers for Alaska

Historically, Alaska has depended heavily on teachers educated outside the state. Over time, Alaska has imported roughly 70 percent of its teachers. As a consequence, national trends—in certification of new teachers, teacher shortages, retirements, and salaries—are of immediate relevance to teacher supply and demand in Alaska. Before we delve into data on Alaska educators, therefore, we will look at the wider national picture. Specifically, projections of student enrollment, teacher retirement, turnover, and new entrants to the teaching field seem critical to the issue. The data suggest that a significant number of people do not teach after earning their certificates—perhaps as many as 40 percent of the graduates of teacher education programs nationwide. And the attrition rate for teachers in the first five years of teaching is also high—between 30 and 50 percent, depending on location (Darling-Hammond, 2000; NCES, 1997). Consequently, a graduating class of 100 teachers might yield, five years later, between 30 and 42 teachers in the classroom.University of Alaska: Alaska Department of Education and Early Developmen

Adolescent Substance Use and Occupational Therapy Interventions: A Rapid Systematic Review

Indiana University Purdue University IndianapolisThis rapid systematic review analyzes the evidence for substance use reduction through therapeutic interventions and activities in adolescents between the ages of 13-25, along with the potential for implementation in the field of occupational therapy. Adolescents with substance use disorders (SUDs) often have specific challenges regarding their family interactions, cultural beliefs, school engagement, and community support. It can be difficult for adolescents with SUDs to successfully navigate their ever changing lives, as they may also present with comorbid psychiatric conditions. It is noted that throughout this review, many interventions were the first of their kind and focused on targeting adolescents within the contexts of their environment. Many studies utilized specific techniques aimed at improving adolescents’ intrinsic beliefs regarding their substance use. Overall, low to moderate evidence was found for the effectiveness of various interventions to reduce adolescent substance use. More exhaustive research is needed to evaluate the usefulness of these interventions, as many were done in very specific settings with very individualized populations. Moreover, occupational therapists should be cautious before implementation into practice, as none of the studies evaluated explicitly examined the role of occupational therapy. More investigation is required to determine how these interventions can be applied to the field of occupational therapy.Occupational Therap

Spatial Targeting of Agricultural Support Measures: Indicator-Based Assessment of Coverages and Leakages

This article evaluates the targeting strategy of a national-level program in Mexico that distributed agricultural support based on seven criteria that prioritized poor smallholder farming communities at high risk of cropland failure. The findings highlight the continued lack of financial support for smallholder agriculture in Mexico, despite program rules and priority statements that stress the vulnerability of this sector. The article also illustrates the important role of spatial targeting in better aligning agricultural support payments with stated policy priorities

Long-Term Aberrations To Cerebellar Endocannabinoids Induced By Early-Life Stress

Emerging evidence points to the role of the endocannabinoid system in long-term stress-induced neural remodeling with studies on stress-induced endocannabinoid dysregulation focusing on cerebral changes that are temporally proximal to stressors. Little is known about temporally distal and sex-specific effects, especially in cerebellum, which is vulnerable to early developmental stress and is dense with cannabinoid receptors. Following limited bedding at postnatal days 2-9, adult (postnatal day 70) cerebellar and hippocampal endocannabinoids, related lipids, and mRNA were assessed, and behavioral performance evaluated. Regional and sex-specific effects were present at baseline and following early-life stress. Limited bedding impaired peripherally-measured basal corticosterone in adult males only. In the CNS, early-life stress (1) decreased 2-arachidonoyl glycerol and arachidonic acid in the cerebellar interpositus nucleus in males only; (2) decreased 2-arachidonoyl glycerol in females only in cerebellar Crus I; and (3) increased dorsal hippocampus prostaglandins in males only. Cerebellar interpositus transcriptomics revealed substantial sex effects, with minimal stress effects. Stress did impair novel object recognition in both sexes and social preference in females. Accordingly, the cerebellar endocannabinoid system exhibits robust sex-specific differences, malleable through early-life stress, suggesting the role of endocannabinoids and stress to sexual differentiation of the brain and cerebellar-related dysfunctions

Mitochondrial genome copy number measured by DNA sequencing in human blood is strongly associated with metabolic traits via cell-type composition differences

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial genome copy number (MT-CN) varies among humans and across tissues and is highly heritable, but its causes and consequences are not well understood. When measured by bulk DNA sequencing in blood, MT-CN may reflect a combination of the number of mitochondria per cell and cell-type composition. Here, we studied MT-CN variation in blood-derived DNA from 19184 Finnish individuals using a combination of genome (N = 4163) and exome sequencing (N = 19034) data as well as imputed genotypes (N = 17718). RESULTS: We identified two loci significantly associated with MT-CN variation: a common variant at the MYB-HBS1L locus (P = 1.6 × 10 CONCLUSION: These results suggest that measurements of MT-CN in blood-derived DNA partially reflect differences in cell-type composition and that these differences are causally linked to insulin and related traits

Broad emission lines in optical spectra of hot dust-obscured galaxies can contribute significantly to JWST/NIRCam photometry

Selecting the first galaxies at z>7-10 from JWST surveys is complicated by z<6 contaminants with degenerate photometry. For example, strong optical nebular emission lines at z7-10 Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs). Dust-obscured 3<z<6 galaxies in particular are potentially important contaminants, and their faint rest-optical spectra have been historically difficult to observe. A lack of optical emission line and continuum measures for 3<z<6 dusty galaxies now makes it difficult to test their expected JWST/NIRCam photometry for degenerate solutions with NIRCam dropouts. Towards this end, we quantify the contribution by strong emission lines to NIRCam photometry in a physically motivated manner by stacking 21 Keck II/NIRES spectra of hot, dust-obscured, massive ($\log\mathrm{M_*/M_\odot}\gtrsim10-11$) and infrared (IR) luminous galaxies at z~1-4. We derive an average spectrum and measure strong narrow (broad) [OIII]5007 and H$\alpha$ features with equivalent widths of $130\pm20$ A ($150\pm50$ A) and $220\pm30$ A ($540\pm80$ A) respectively. These features can increase broadband NIRCam fluxes by factors of 1.2-1.7 (0.2-0.6 mag). Due to significant dust-attenuation ($A_V\sim6$), we find H$\alpha$+[NII] to be significantly brighter than [OIII]+H$\beta$, and therefore find that emission-line dominated contaminants of high-z galaxy searches can only reproduce moderately blue perceived UV continua of $S_\lambda\propto\lambda^\beta$ with $\beta>-1.5$ and z>4. While there are some redshifts (z~3.75) where our stack is more degenerate with the photometry of z>10 LBGs between $\lambda_{rest}\sim0.3-0.8\,\mu$m, redder filter coverage beyond $\lambda_{obs}>3.5\,\mu$m and far-IR/sub-mm follow-up may be useful for breaking the degeneracy and making a crucial separation between two fairly unconstrained populations, dust-obscured galaxies at z~3-6 and LBGs at z>10.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, submitted to ApJ