Line and grade control of the subaqueous Midtown Hudson Tunnel

The entire system unifies all Preliminary Survey, Construction Control, and Independent Traverse work; bringing them under one common balanced system; thus, their precise relation is definitely established regardless of which side of the Hudson River the unit occurs. The establishing of a complete system is a subject within itself, and as this paper deals with the method of obtaining and carrying to completion the method of control for the river section of the tunnel, we shall limit our reference to the Triangulation system to the River Quadrangle --Triangulation System. General, page 1

Using Activity-Based Costing to Create Transparency and Consistency in Accounting for Division I Intercollegiate Athletics

The financial challenges currently faced by NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletics programs have been of interest to academics and practitioners alike. According to the 2004–08 NCAA Revenues and Expenses Report, less than 6% of Division I athletics programs were profitable each year from 2004 to 2008 (Fulks, 2009). For the other 94% of programs, there is a reliance on institutional funding to sustain athletic operations (Fulks). Exacerbating this trend, the economic downturn in the United States is forcing institutions to make difficult spending decisions across all campus programs, including intercollegiate athletics. Currently, there are inconsistencies in the accounting practices of intercollegiate athletic departments; especially as those practices relate to allocation of costs (Sperber, 2000; Thelin, 2000; Zimbalist, 2006). The lack of consistency hinders the ability of institutional leaders to make informed decisions about athletics spending. This cross-disciplinary, conceptual paper examines how Activity-Based Costing (ABC), a prominent management accounting cost allocation method, can be applied to NCAA Division I athletic departments. At a time when expenses are outpacing revenues and reliance on institutional support is great, athletic administrators must be armed with accurate information about the costs associated with the operation of each sport program to help in making difficult financial decisions commonplace in today’s economic climate

Snapshot of KIPP Leadership Practices through 2010 -- 2011

As part of the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) Foundation commissioned Mathematica to document leadership practices at KIPP schools. This issue brief summarizes notable findings from the study, which focused on identifying leadership practices across diverse areas: leadership structure and transitions, and the selection, development, and evaluation of leaders. Among other notable findings, KIPP combines a tiered sequence of leadership roles at the local level with national staff development programs to generate a pipeline of school leaders. The study also found that KIPP's Leadership Competency Model defines the skills school leaders need and guides development and evaluation

Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids favourably modulate cardiometabolic biomarkers in type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis and meta-regression of randomized controlled trials

BACKGROUND: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) suggest that supplementation with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3PUFAs) may favourably modify cardiometabolic biomarkers in type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Previous meta-analyses are limited by insufficient sample sizes and omission of meta-regression techniques, and a large number of RCTs have subsequently been published since the last comprehensive meta-analysis. Updated information regarding the impact of dosage, duration or an interaction between these two factors is therefore warranted. The objective was to comprehensively assess the effect of n-3PUFAs supplementation on cardiometabolic biomarkers including lipid profiles, inflammatory parameters, blood pressure, and indices of glycaemic control, in people with T2DM, and identify whether treatment dosage, duration or an interaction thereof modify these effects. METHODS: Databases including PubMed and MEDLINE were searched until 13th July 2017 for RCTs investigating the effect of n-3PUFAs supplementation on lipid profiles, inflammatory parameters, blood pressure, and indices of glycaemic control. Data were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis and presented as standardised mean difference (Hedges g) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Meta-regression analysis was performed to investigate the effects of duration of supplementation and total dosage of n-3PUFAs as moderator variables where appropriate. RESULTS: A total of 45 RCTs were identified, involving 2674 people with T2DM. n-3PUFAs supplementation was associated with significant reductions in LDL [ES: - 0.10, (95% CI - 0.17, - 0.03); p = 0.007], VLDL (ES: - 0.26 (- 0.51, - 0.01); p = 0.044], triglycerides (ES: - 0.39 (- 0.55, - 0.24; p ≤ 0.001] and HbA1c (ES: - 0.27 (- 0.48, - 0.06); p = 0.010]. Moreover, n-3PUFAs supplementation was associated with reduction in plasma levels of TNF-α [ES: - 0.59 (- 1.17, - 0.01); p = 0.045] and IL-6 (ES: - 1.67 (- 3.14, - 0.20); p = 0.026]. All other lipid markers, indices of glycaemic control, inflammatory parameters, and blood pressure remained unchanged (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: n-3PUFAs supplementation produces favourable hypolipidemic effects, a reduction in pro-inflammatory cytokine levels and improvement in glycaemia. Neither duration nor dosage appear to explain the observed heterogeneity in response to n-3PUFAs. Trial registration This trial was registered at http://www.crd.york.ac.uk as CRD42016050802

Understanding the circumgalactic medium is critical for understanding galaxy evolution

Galaxies evolve under the influence of gas flows between their interstellar medium and their surrounding gaseous halos known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). The CGM is a major reservoir of galactic baryons and metals, and plays a key role in the long cycles of accretion, feedback, and recycling of gas that drive star formation. In order to fully understand the physical processes at work within galaxies, it is therefore essential to have a firm understanding of the composition, structure, kinematics, thermodynamics, and evolution of the CGM. In this white paper we outline connections between the CGM and galactic star formation histories, internal kinematics, chemical evolution, quenching, satellite evolution, dark matter halo occupation, and the reionization of the larger-scale intergalactic medium in light of the advances that will be made on these topics in the 2020s. We argue that, in the next decade, fundamental progress on all of these major issues depends critically on improved empirical characterization and theoretical understanding of the CGM. In particular, we discuss how future advances in spatially-resolved CGM observations at high spectral resolution, broader characterization of the CGM across galaxy mass and redshift, and expected breakthroughs in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations will help resolve these major problems in galaxy evolution.Comment: Astro2020 Decadal Science White Pape

Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Adult Study Protocol: Rationale, Objectives, and Design

IMPORTANCE: SARS-CoV-2 infection can result in ongoing, relapsing, or new symptoms or other health effects after the acute phase of infection; termed post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), or long COVID. The characteristics, prevalence, trajectory and mechanisms of PASC are ill-defined. The objectives of the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Multi-site Observational Study of PASC in Adults (RECOVER-Adult) are to: (1) characterize PASC prevalence; (2) characterize the symptoms, organ dysfunction, natural history, and distinct phenotypes of PASC; (3) identify demographic, social and clinical risk factors for PASC onset and recovery; and (4) define the biological mechanisms underlying PASC pathogenesis. METHODS: RECOVER-Adult is a combined prospective/retrospective cohort currently planned to enroll 14,880 adults aged ≥18 years. Eligible participants either must meet WHO criteria for suspected, probable, or confirmed infection; or must have evidence of no prior infection. Recruitment occurs at 86 sites in 33 U.S. states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico, via facility- and community-based outreach. Participants complete quarterly questionnaires about symptoms, social determinants, vaccination status, and interim SARS-CoV-2 infections. In addition, participants contribute biospecimens and undergo physical and laboratory examinations at approximately 0, 90 and 180 days from infection or negative test date, and yearly thereafter. Some participants undergo additional testing based on specific criteria or random sampling. Patient representatives provide input on all study processes. The primary study outcome is onset of PASC, measured by signs and symptoms. A paradigm for identifying PASC cases will be defined and updated using supervised and unsupervised learning approaches with cross-validation. Logistic regression and proportional hazards regression will be conducted to investigate associations between risk factors, onset, and resolution of PASC symptoms. DISCUSSION: RECOVER-Adult is the first national, prospective, longitudinal cohort of PASC among US adults. Results of this study are intended to inform public health, spur clinical trials, and expand treatment options

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Enhancement of the floodplain management program in Raleigh, NC: an analysis of lood risk reduction and preparedness strategies

The city of Raleigh, NC has historically experienced and is expected to continue to experience rapid population growth and land development. These growth and development patterns may have future implications for the frequency, intensity, and spatial location of flooding events within the city. Floodplain management is an essential operation for urbanized communities in reducing the flood risk for and increasing the flood preparedness of floodplain property owners. Despite Raleigh’s existing floodplain management program, the city has continued to experience damaging floods within its floodplains. Therefore, additional floodplain management strategies may be necessary to mitigate the increased flood risk which Raleigh’s future urbanization may cause. The enhancement of the city’s floodplain management program has even been explicitly identified as a need in Raleigh’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan. Therefore, this report examines: 1) what are Raleigh’s current approaches to flood risk reduction and preparedness in the 100-year floodplain, and 2) what and how can Raleigh learn from other cities’ approaches to flood risk reduction and preparedness. The current state of Raleigh’s floodplain and Raleigh’s flood history was first determined through conducting: 1) a GIS spatial analysis, 2) interviews, and 3) a review of local news sources. The first research question was then answered through examining Raleigh’s floodplain ordinance, hazard mitigation plan, capital improvement program, and additional reports and website, and conducting interviews. Five categories of strategies for reducing flood risk and increasing flood preparedness were identified: 1) preventative strategies, 2) corrective strategies, 3) planning strategies, 4) structural strategies, and 5) warning strategies. The second research question was then answered through examining the above mentioned five categories of strategies in the floodplain management programs of Tulsa, OK and Charlotte, NC. Sources used to identify these cities’ strategies were similar to the sources used for Raleigh. Effectiveness of these strategies and implementation challenges of these strategies were next identified. Based on a final comparison of these three cities’ strategies, recommendations for new strategies which Raleigh could incorporate into their floodplain management program, potential effectiveness of these strategies, and potential implementation challenges were identified.Community and Regional Plannin