Attitudes and knowledge of forestry by high school agricultural education teachers in West Virginia

The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes and knowledge of high school agricultural education teachers in West Virginia towards forestry. A descriptive research design was used for this study. Of the 86 West Virginia high school agricultural teachers selected for this study 40 teachers responded for a response rate of 47%. Of the responding teachers 85% wanted or needed more information on forestry. Also 57% of the responding teachers had not taken any other formal forestry training besides their college course work. When respondents were asked to react to the following statement: agricultural education teachers need more training in forestry , they agreed

Seed Coat Surface Patterns and Structures of Oxytropis riparia, Oxytropis campestris, Medicago sativa, and Astragalus cicer

Scanning electron microscopy was used to examine external and internal seed coat structures of Oxytropis riparia Litv., Oxytropis campestris L., Medicago sativa L., and Astragalus cicer L. for characteristics useful in taxonomic classification and to identify hard seed coat components which affect permeability. Seed coat surfaces of the four species were distinctly different. Palisade and hourglass cell lengths and parenchyma and endosperm cell layer thicknesses were similar among species with the exception of O. campestris seeds which lacked an identifiable endosperm layer. Surface pattern differences and the presence of a distinct endosperm layer are useful in separating these genera and species. Cellular and morphological differences were not observed between hard and non-hard seed coat structures. The rugulate surface pattern of O. riparia, the lophate surface pattern of O. campestris, and the internal seed coat structures of both species have not been reported previously

The life of a New York City noise sensor network

Noise pollution is one of the topmost quality of life issues for urban residents in the United States. Continued exposure to high levels of noise has proven effects on health, including acute effects such as sleep disruption, and long-term effects such as hypertension, heart disease, and hearing loss. To investigate and ultimately aid in the mitigation of urban noise, a network of 55 sensor nodes has been deployed across New York City for over two years, collecting sound pressure level (SPL) and audio data. This network has cumulatively amassed over 75 years of calibrated, high-resolution SPL measurements and 35 years of audio data. In addition, high frequency telemetry data has been collected that provides an indication of a sensors' health. This telemetry data was analyzed over an 18 month period across 31 of the sensors. It has been used to develop a prototype model for pre-failure detection which has the ability to identify sensors in a prefail state 69.1% of the time. The entire network infrastructure is outlined, including the operation of the sensors, followed by an analysis of its data yield and the development of the fault detection approach and the future system integration plans for this.Comment: This article belongs to the Section Intelligent Sensors, 24 pages, 15 figures, 3 tables, 45 reference

Native Coronary Artery and Grafted Artery Spasm Just after Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting: A Case Report

Native coronary artery spasm after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is scarce. It frequently causes disastrous circulatory collapse. We report a 72-yr-old male, who experienced native coronary artery spasm and grafted artery spasm following CABG, which was successfully treated with coronary angiography and intracoronary injection of nitroglycerine

Rural commerce in context : South Carolina's country stores, 1850-1950

One of the main goals of this project was to connect with as much of the South Carolina community as possible in order to gather local information about these important community landmarks. There are three main components of this document : the historic context, discussion of country store types, and reconnaissance survey sections

Endothelial dysfunction of bypass graft: Direct comparison of In Vitro and In Vivo models of ischemia-reperfusion injury

BACKGROUND: Although, ischemia/reperfusion induced vascular dysfunction has been widely described, no comparative study of in vivo- and in vitro-models exist. In this study, we provide a direct comparison between models (A) ischemic storage and in-vitro reoxygenation (B) ischemic storage and in vitro reperfusion (C) ischemic storage and in-vivo reperfusion. METHODS AND RESULTS: Aortic arches from rats were stored for 2 hours in saline. Arches were then (A) in vitro reoxygenated (B) in vitro incubated in hypochlorite for 30 minutes (C) in vivo reperfused after heterotransplantation (2, 24 hours and 7 days reperfusion). Endothelium-dependent and independent vasorelaxations were assessed in organ bath. DNA strand breaks were assessed by TUNEL-method, mRNA expressions (caspase-3, bax, bcl-2, eNOS) by quantitative real-time PCR, proteins by Western blot analysis and the expression of CD-31 by immunochemistry. Endothelium-dependent maximal relaxation was drastically reduced in the in-vivo models compared to ischemic storage and in-vitro reperfusion group, and no difference showed between ischemic storage and control group. CD31-staining showed significantly lower endothelium surface ratio in-vivo, which correlated with TUNEL-positive ratio. Increased mRNA and protein levels of pro- and anti-apoptotic gens indicated a significantly higher damage in the in-vivo models. CONCLUSION: Even short-period of ischemia induces severe endothelial damage (in-vivo reperfusion model). In-vitro models of ischemia-reperfusion injury can be limitedly suited for reliable investigations. Time course of endothelial stunning is also described

Assessing the rate, natural history, and treatment trends of intracranial aneurysms in patients with intracranial dural arteriovenous fistulas:a Consortium for Dural Arteriovenous Fistula Outcomes Research (CONDOR) investigation

OBJECTIVE There is a reported elevated risk of cerebral aneurysms in patients with intracranial dural arteriovenous fistulas (dAVFs). However, the natural history, rate of spontaneous regression, and ideal treatment regimen are not well characterized. In this study, the authors aimed to describe the characteristics of patients with dAVFs and intracranial aneurysms and propose a classification system. METHODS The Consortium for Dural Arteriovenous Fistula Outcomes Research (CONDOR) database from 12 cen- ters was retrospectively reviewed. Analysis was performed to compare dAVF patients with (dAVF+ cohort) and without (dAVF-only cohort) concomitant aneurysm. Aneurysms were categorized based on location as a dAVF flow-related an- eurysm (FRA) or a dAVF non-flow-related aneurysm (NFRA), with further classification as extra-or intradural. Patients with traumatic pseudoaneurysms or aneurysms with associated arteriovenous malformations were excluded from the analysis. Patient demographics, dAVF anatomical information, aneurysm information, and follow-up data were collected. RESULTS Of the 1077 patients, 1043 were eligible for inclusion, comprising 978 (93.8%) and 65 (6.2%) in the dAVF-only and dAVF+ cohorts, respectively. There were 96 aneurysms in the dAVF+ cohort; 10 patients (1%) harbored 12 FRAs, and 55 patients (5.3%) harbored 84 NFRAs. Dural AVF+ patients had higher rates of smoking (59.3% vs 35.2%, p < 0.001) and illicit drug use (5.8% vs 1.5%, p = 0.02). Sixteen dAVF+ patients (24.6%) presented with aneurysm rupture, which represented 16.7% of the total aneurysms. One patient (1.5%) had aneurysm rupture during follow-up. Patients with dAVF+ were more likely to have a dAVF located in nonconventional locations, less likely to have arterial supply to the dAVF from external carotid artery branches, and more likely to have supply from pial branches. Rates of cortical venous drainage and Borden type distributions were comparable between cohorts. A minority (12.5%) of aneurysms were FRAs. The majority of the aneurysms underwent treatment via either endovascular (36.5%) or microsurgical (15.6%) technique. A small proportion of aneurysms managed conservatively either with or without dAVF treatment spontaneously regressed (6.2%). CONCLUSIONS Patients with dAVF have a similar risk of harboring a concomitant intracranial aneurysm unrelated to the dAVF (5.3%) compared with the general population (approximately 2%-5%) and a rare risk (0.9%) of harboring an FRA. Only 50% of FRAs are intradural. Dural AVF+ patients have differences in dAVF angioarchitecture. A subset of dAVF+ patients harbor FRAs that may regress after dAVF treatment

Facilitating the Acquisition of Realistic Material Appearance Models

Over the last two decades, tools for rendering realistic three dimensional scenes have become available to anyone. Unfortunately, tools for acquiring realistic material appearance models to render have lagged behind. In this dissertation, we demonstrate a number of tools that provide low cost methods to capture these models. Particularly, we focus on two different aspects of appearance: the spatial variance encoded in texture and the subsurface scattering of light within an object. Our first tool allows users to extract textures from arbitrary natural images. These images can be acquired from the web or captured by a camera. An interface then allows even a novice user to easily specify the minimum information needed to extract a desired texture. This tool is freely available as an online web application. Next we provide a generalization of our first tool to allow for the extraction of all textures in an image at multiple levels of scale. In addition to creating more realistic textures, this allows the user to use this information in a number of novel ways to create new works of art. Finally, we show that low cost consumer level equipment can be used to acquire the subsurface scattering properties of three dimensional objects. Additionally, we obtain geometric information from objects with strong subsurface scattering, a difficult challenge for most commercial shape acquisition systems. We provide a discussion of future plans to continue our work to democratize material acquisition. This includes a design for a handheld version of our material acquisition system. We also discuss the possibility to apply our work to other fields such as medical imaging