Koinonia

Themed HousingTheme Houses: Getting to the Foundations of Community, Jim McCormick A Year in the Little Yellow House, Lisa Burch Conference SpotlightBuilding Cross Cultural Community, Stuart C. Lord ArticlesStandards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission, Jenny Collins Follow Me : Intimacy with God Through Spiritual Direction, Tracy Balzer Faith, Wisdom and Grace: Walt Campbell Interviews, Steve Austin FeaturesThe President\u27s Corner Editor\u27s Disk Thinking Theologically: Learning Communities, Todd Reamhttps://pillars.taylor.edu/acsd_koinonia/1010/thumbnail.jp

Supercruiser Arrow HS-8

Technology in aeronautics has advanced dramatically since the last design of a production High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) aircraft. Newly projected requirements call for a new High Speed Civil Transport aircraft with a range of approximately 550 nm and at least 275 passenger capacity. The aircraft must be affordable and marketable. The new HSCT must be able to sustain long-duration flights and to absorb the abuse of daily operation. The new aircraft must be safe and simple to fly and require a minimum amount of maintenance. This aircraft must meet FAA certification criteria of FAR Part 25 and environmental constraints. Several design configurations were examined and two designs were selected for further investigation. The first design employs the delta planform wings and conventional empennage layout. The other design uses a swing wing layout and conventional empennage. Other engineering challenges, including materials and propulsion are also discussed. At a cruise flight speed between Mach 2.2 and Mach 3.0, no current generation of materials can endure the thermal loading of supersonic flight and satisfy the stringent weight requirements. A new generation of lightweight composite materials must be developed for the HSCT. With the enforcement of stage 3 noise restrictions, these new engines must be able to propel the aircraft and satisfy the noise limit. The engine with the most promise is the variable cycle engine. At low subsonic speeds the engine operates like a turbofan engine, providing the most efficient performance. At higher speeds the variable cycle engine operates as a turbojet power plant. The two large engine manufacturers, General Electric and Pratt & Whitney in the United States, are combining forces to make the variable cycle engine a reality

A consideration of the challenges involved in supervising international masters students

This paper explores the challenges facing supervisors of international postgraduate students at the dissertation stage of the masters programme. The central problems of time pressure, language difficulties, a lack of critical analysis and a prevalence of personal problems among international students are discussed. This paper makes recommendations for the improvement of language and critical thinking skills, and questions the future policy of language requirements at HE for international Masters students

Language and anxiety: an ethnographic study of international postgraduate students

This paper presents some findings from an ethnographic study of international postgraduate students at a university in the South of England, which involved interviews and participant observation over a twelve-month academic year. One of the major themes that emerged from this research was students’ anxiety over their level of English language. Although all students entered their course with a minimum level of IELTS 6, the majority felt disadvantaged by particularly poor spoken English, and suffered feelings of anxiety, shame and inferiority. Low self-confidence meant that they felt ill-equipped to engage in class discussion and in social interaction which used English as the medium of communication. A common reaction to stress caused by language problems was to retreat into monoethnic communication with students from the same country, further inhibiting progress in language. Whilst some linguistic progress was made by nearly all students during the academic sojourn, the anxiety suffered by students in the initial stage must not be underestimated, and appropriate support systems must be put in place to alleviate their distress

Synthetic Lethal Targeting of PTEN-Deficient Cancer Cells Using Selective Disruption of Polynucleotide Kinase/Phosphatase

A recent screen of 6,961 siRNAs to discover possible synthetic lethal partners of the DNA repair protein polynucleotide kinase/phosphatase (PNKP) led to the identification of the potent tumor suppressor phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN). Here, we have confirmed the PNKP/PTEN synthetic lethal partnership in a variety of different cell lines including the PC3 prostate cancer cell line, which is naturally deficient in PTEN. We provide evidence that codepletion of PTEN and PNKP induces apoptosis. In HCT116 colon cancer cells, the loss of PTEN is accompanied by an increased background level of DNA double-strand breaks, which accumulate in the presence of an inhibitor of PNKP DNA 3'-phosphatase activity. Complementation of PC3 cells with several well-characterized mutated PTEN cDNAs indicated that the critical function of PTEN required to prevent toxicity induced by an inhibitor of PNKP is most likely associated with its cytoplasmic lipid phosphatase activity. Finally, we show that modest inhibition of PNKP in a PTEN knockout background enhances cellular radiosensitivity, suggesting that such a "synthetic sickness" approach involving the combination of PNKP inhibition with radiotherapy may be applicable to PTEN-deficient tumors

Implementation of the StandingTall programme to prevent falls in older people:a process evaluation protocol

INTRODUCTION: One in three people aged 65 years and over fall each year. The health, economic and personal impact of falls will grow substantially in the coming years due to population ageing. Developing and implementing cost-effective strategies to prevent falls and mobility problems among older people is therefore an urgent public health challenge. StandingTall is a low-cost, unsupervised, home-based balance exercise programme delivered through a computer or tablet. StandingTall has a simple user-interface that incorporates physical and behavioural elements designed to promote compliance. A large randomised controlled trial in 503 community-dwelling older people has shown that StandingTall is safe, has high adherence rates and is effective in improving balance and reducing falls. The current project targets a major need for older people and will address the final steps needed to scale this innovative technology for widespread use by older people across Australia and internationally. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This project will endeavour to recruit 300 participants across three sites in Australia and 100 participants in the UK. The aim of the study is to evaluate the implementation of StandingTall into the community and health service settings in Australia and the UK. The nested process evaluation will use both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore uptake and acceptability of the StandingTall programme and associated resources. The primary outcome is participant adherence to the StandingTall programme over 6 months. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval has been obtained from the South East Sydney Local Health District Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC reference 18/288) in Australia and the North West- Greater Manchester South Research Ethics Committee (IRAS ID: 268954) in the UK. Dissemination will be via publications, conferences, newsletter articles, social media, talks to clinicians and consumers and meetings with health departments/managers. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ACTRN12619001329156

Argot2: a large scale function prediction tool relying on semantic similarity of weighted Gene Ontology terms

Background: Predicting protein function has become increasingly demanding in the era of next generation sequencing technology. The task to assign a curator-reviewed function to every single sequence is impracticable. Bioinformatics tools, easy to use and able to provide automatic and reliable annotations at a genomic scale, are necessary and urgent. In this scenario, the Gene Ontology has provided the means to standardize the annotation classification with a structured vocabulary which can be easily exploited by computational methods.Results: Argot2 is a web-based function prediction tool able to annotate nucleic or protein sequences from small datasets up to entire genomes. It accepts as input a list of sequences in FASTA format, which are processed using BLAST and HMMER searches vs UniProKB and Pfam databases respectively; these sequences are then annotated with GO terms retrieved from the UniProtKB-GOA database and the terms are weighted using the e-values from BLAST and HMMER. The weighted GO terms are processed according to both their semantic similarity relations described by the Gene Ontology and their associated score. The algorithm is based on the original idea developed in a previous tool called Argot. The entire engine has been completely rewritten to improve both accuracy and computational efficiency, thus allowing for the annotation of complete genomes.Conclusions: The revised algorithm has been already employed and successfully tested during in-house genome projects of grape and apple, and has proven to have a high precision and recall in all our benchmark conditions. It has also been successfully compared with Blast2GO, one of the methods most commonly employed for sequence annotation. The server is freely accessible at http://www.medcomp.medicina.unipd.it/Argot2Journal Articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Electrical-hydraulic relationships observed for unconsolidated sediments in the presence of a cobble framework

Mechanistic models now exist to predict hydraulic conductivity (K) from the spectral induced polarization (SIP) response of granular media. We examined the predictions of such a model on unconsolidated coarse fluvial sediments and compared them to those obtained with a modified Kozeny Carman (KC) model. Samples were retrieved from the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site (BHRS), located on a gravel bar adjacent to the Boise River, Idaho. A sample holder (0.102 m diameter and 0.12 m in length) was designed to include the cobble framework in reconstituted samples representing the primary stratigraphic units defined based on porosity variation at this site. SIP (0.001-1000 Hz) and K (from Darcy tests) measurements were recorded for twelve samples, with SIP measurements made as a function of pore fluid conductivity (3-300 mS/m); grain, grain size distribution (GSD) and total porosity. K prediction with the KC model was improved after discounting of the cobble framework and multiplying by the tortuosity resulting from matrix “capillaries” around the cobbles, resulting in estimates within 0.5 orders of magnitude of the measurements. K prediction with a mechanistic SIP model based on Stern layer polarization (SLP model) that requires an estimate of the GSD alsoalso required discounting for the cobble framework to obtain estimates within 0.5 orders of magnitude of the measurements. Similarly, the SLP model over predicts the measured imaginary conductivity (σ") unless the cobble framework is discounted, which then results in estimates of σ” within 0.1 orders of magnitude of the measurements. This can be explained by the fact that the cobbles polarize at frequencies well below the minimum measurement frequency (0.001 Hz). The SLP model for K prediction parameterized in terms of the formation factor and imaginary conductivity performed well for the ten samples with a cobble framework without modification as the imaginary conductivity directly senses the matrix grain size characteristics, whereas the formation factor captures the porosity reduction and tortuosity resulting from the presence of the cobble framework (capillary tortuosity). Our findings suggest that the estimation of contrasts in hydraulic conductivityK in coarse sediments may be achievable through measurements of electrical properties after appropriate consideration of the cobble fractio

Autism as a disorder of neural information processing: directions for research and targets for therapy

The broad variation in phenotypes and severities within autism spectrum disorders suggests the involvement of multiple predisposing factors, interacting in complex ways with normal developmental courses and gradients. Identification of these factors, and the common developmental path into which theyfeed, is hampered bythe large degrees of convergence from causal factors to altered brain development, and divergence from abnormal brain development into altered cognition and behaviour. Genetic, neurochemical, neuroimaging and behavioural findings on autism, as well as studies of normal development and of genetic syndromes that share symptoms with autism, offer hypotheses as to the nature of causal factors and their possible effects on the structure and dynamics of neural systems. Such alterations in neural properties may in turn perturb activity-dependent development, giving rise to a complex behavioural syndrome many steps removed from the root causes. Animal models based on genetic, neurochemical, neurophysiological, and behavioural manipulations offer the possibility of exploring these developmental processes in detail, as do human studies addressing endophenotypes beyond the diagnosis itself