The Small-College Communication Program: An Assessment of Communication Program Organization and Curricula at Private Liberal Arts Colleges in the Midwest and South

The study investigates selected features of communication degree programs at small, private liberal arts colleges in the Midwest and South. Topics covered include how communication programs at such colleges are organized at the departmental level, what courses are most commonly offered in small-college communication programs, and what course enrollment limits are typical for such programs. Our findings suggest that communication programs are now commonly found at such institutions, with most housed in academic units that refer to communication in the unit name. Beyond relatively widespread commitments to restricting course enrollments, these programs are generally marked by great diversity in their course offerings and apparent foci

Did the Alaska Supreme Court Get it Right in its Decision in the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Case?

In 1976, Alaska voters ratified an amendment to Alaska’s constitution that created the Permanent Fund. The amendment required twenty-five percent of certain revenues received by the state be placed in this Fund. In 1980, the Alaska Legislature created the Permanent Fund dividend program. Beginning in 1982, each Alaska resident received an annual dividend in the same amount. The amount of the dividend was automatically determined by a statutory formula. No appropriation was required. In 2016, the Governor of Alaska vetoed close to one-half of the amount of the annual dividend as calculated by the statutory formula. In subsequent litigation, the Alaska Supreme Court found that a fund utilized by the dividend program was a dedicated fund. And since dedicated funds are prohibited by article IX, section 7 of the Alaska Constitution, the court rejected the claim that the fund was exempt from the prohibition and upheld the governor’s veto. The practical effect of the court’s ruling is that now any income from the Permanent Fund used to pay the yearly dividend to Alaska residents must first be appropriated and, further, is subject to the governor’s veto power. The central question in the case turned on what is the most likely understanding Alaska voters had of the word “provided” in a single phrase in the 1976 amendment: “except as provided in section 15 of this article.” The Alaska Supreme Court found that the plain language meaning of the word “provided” in the phrase quoted above is to “supply” or “furnish.” Based on this finding, the court concluded the only dedicated fund “supplied” or “furnished” by section 15 is the Permanent Fund itself. The court found this to be the probable meaning Alaska voters had of the “except as provided” phrase. This Article raises a number of questions about the fundamental premise that underlies the court’s conclusion. For instance, given the context in which “provided” appears in section 7, reading “provided” to mean “supplied” or “furnished” is neither common nor ordinary. A number of other arguments are also discussed in the Article

The Federal Coal Leasing Waltz

Few Americans will deny that if we are not already immersed in an energy crisis, we are at least on the brink of a very serious energy crunch. Consequently, it is critical that we reassess our present and future energy resources, our escalating consumption of finite reserves, and. our commitment to energy conservation. Pivotal to such an assessment is the development of our nation\u27s vast western coal deposits and the vital part that federal coal can play in this tableau. Just one short year ago, the nation was primed to embark upon a new era of federal coal leasing as a meaningful start toward providing for tomorrow\u27s energy needs. Today, we find ourselves almost at a standstill in federal coal leasing. This article will review the tragic state in which the coal industry and the nation now find themselves as a result of this standstill and will consider the limited alternatives which are available to cope with this unfortunate situation

Establishment of Innovative Shared Departments to Advance Interdisciplinary Education

More and more universities are pursuing interdisciplinary academic activities that span across department and college boundaries. Administrative structures to facilitate such programs are difficult to establish within traditional university frameworks consisting of disciplinary departments and colleges. Often interdisciplinary programs are housed in a traditional disciplinary department or college, or in a standalone center reporting to a college dean or the provost. The difficulty of these structures is obtaining broad buy-in from faculty across departments and having disciplinary degree programs include interdisciplinary coursework. To overcome the difficulties described above, an innovative shared department structure that fosters collaborations to advance interdisciplinary education has been deployed at the University of New Haven. Three shared departments have been established over the last two years: (1) a college-wide department to support interdisciplinary coursework in the first two years of engineering programs; (2) a university-wide department to support entrepreneurship and innovation; and (3) a university-wide department to support health sciences. The shared departments typically have faculty whose tenure home is a traditional disciplinary department. Faculty membership is based on interest and activity level in teaching interdisciplinary courses, participating in interdisciplinary co-curricular activities, and performing interdisciplinary research. A few faculty members may be appointed full-time in a shared department. Like traditional departments, the shared departments have chairs to lead and coordinate activities. Faculty membership can vary from year-to-year depending on their level of activity in the shared department. The shared departments are responsible for approving interdisciplinary courses within their jurisdiction. The chairs of the departments are responsible for reviewing the performance of instructors teaching the interdisciplinary courses, and for providing feedback to disciplinary department chairs on the performance of faculty who are members of the shared department. To date the shared departments have facilitated the following: (1) an Entrepreneurial Engineering Living-Learning Community (LLC) for freshmen; (2) an Innovation and Entrepreneurship LLC for sophomores; (3) an integrated technical communications program across all engineering and computer science programs; (4) an integrated approach to developing entrepreneurial thinking in students across all engineering and computer science programs; (5) the development and teaching of courses on entrepreneurship; and (6) startup weekends and a business plan competition with students drawn from across the university. The detailed structure of the two shared departments and the lessons learned in establishing and operating them is described in this paper

What doesn't kill you makes you stranger: Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (CD26) proteolysis differentially modulates the activity of many peptide hormones and cytokines generating novel cryptic bioactive ligands

Dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP4) is an exopeptidase found either on cell surfaces where it is highly regulated in terms of its expression and surface availability (CD26) or in a free/circulating soluble constitutively available and intrinsically active form. It is responsible for proteolytic cleavage of many peptide substrates. In this review we discuss the idea that DPP4-cleaved peptides are not necessarily inactivated, but rather can possess either a modified receptor selectivity, modified bioactivity, new antagonistic activity, or even a novel activity relative to the intact parent ligand. We examine in detail five different major DPP4 substrates: glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), peptide tyrosine-tyrosine (PYY), and neuropeptide Y (NPY), and stromal derived factor 1 (SDF-1 aka CXCL12). We note that discussion of the cleaved forms of these five peptides are underrepresented in the research literature, and are both poorly investigated and poorly understood, representing a serious research literature gap. We believe they are understudied and misinterpreted as inactive due to several factors. This includes lack of accurate and specific quantification methods, sample collection techniques that are inherently inaccurate and inappropriate, and a general perception that DPP4 cleavage inactivates its ligand substrates. Increasing evidence points towards many DPP4-cleaved ligands having their own bioactivity. For example, GLP-1 can work through a different receptor than GLP-1R, DPP4-cleaved GIP can function as a GIP receptor antagonist at high doses, and DPP4-cleaved PYY, NPY, and CXCL12 can have different receptor selectivity, or can bind novel, previously unrecognized receptors to their intact ligands, resulting in altered signaling and functionality. We believe that more rigorous research in this area could lead to a better understanding of DPP4’s role and the biological importance of the generation of novel cryptic ligands. This will also significantly impact our understanding of the clinical effects and side effects of DPP4-inhibitors as a class of anti-diabetic drugs that potentially have an expanding clinical relevance. This will be specifically relevant in targeting DPP4 substrate ligands involved in a variety of other major clinical acute and chronic injury/disease areas including inflammation, immunology, cardiology, stroke, musculoskeletal disease and injury, as well as cancer biology and tissue maintenance in aging

A randomized placebo-controlled study of a transcranial photobiomodulation helmet in Parkinson’s disease : post-hoc analysis of motor outcomes

Emerging evidence is increasingly supporting the use of transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) to improve symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease (PD). The objective of this study was to analyse the safety and efficacy of tPBM for PD motor symptoms. The study was a triple blind, randomized placebo-controlled trial with 40 idiopathic PD patients receiving either active tPBM (635 nm plus 810 nm LEDs) or sham tPBM for 24 min per day (56.88J), six days per week, for 12 weeks. The primary outcome measures were treatment safety and a 37-item MDS-UPDRS-III (motor domain) assessed at baseline and 12 weeks. Individual MDS-UPDRS-III items were clustered into sub-score domains (facial, upper-limb, lower-limb, gait, and tremor). The treatment produced no safety concerns or adverse events, apart from occasional temporary and minor dizziness. There was no significant difference in total MDS-UPDRS-III scores between groups, presumably due to the placebo effect. Additional analyses demonstrated that facial and lower-limb sub-scores significantly improved with active treatment, while gait and lower-limb sub-scores significantly improved with sham treatment. Approximately 70% of participants responded to active treatment (≥5 decrease in MDS-UPDRS-III score) and improved in all sub-scores, while sham responders improved in lower-limb sub-scores only. tPBM appears to be a safe treatment and improved several PD motor symptoms in patients that responded to treatment. tPBM is proving to be increasingly attractive as a possible non-pharmaceutical adjunct therapy

Senior Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

Many Roads Lead to Lithium: Formation Pathways For Lithium-Rich Red Giants

Stellar models predict that lithium (Li) inside a star is destroyed during the first dredge-up phase, yet 1.2% of red giant stars are Li-rich. We aim to uncover possible origins of this population, by analysing 1155 Li-rich giants (A(Li) $\geq$ 1.5) in GALAH DR3. To expose peculiar traits of Li-rich stars, we construct a reference sample of Li-normal (doppelg\"anger) stars with matched evolutionary state and fiducial supernova abundances. Comparing Li-rich and doppelg\"anger spectra reveals systematic differences in the H-$\alpha$ and Ca-triplet line profiles associated with the velocity broadening measurement. We also find twice as many Li-rich stars appear to be fast rotators (2% with $v_\textrm{broad} \gtrsim 20$ km s$^{-1}$) compared to doppelg\"angers. On average, Li-rich stars have higher abundances than their doppelg\"angers, for a subset of elements, and Li-rich stars at the base of RGB have higher mean $s-$process abundances ($\geq 0.05$ dex for Ba, Y, Zr), relative to their doppelg\"angers. External mass-transfer from intermediate-mass AGB companions could explain this signature. Additional companion analysis excludes binaries with mass ratios $\gtrsim$ 0.5 at $\gtrsim$ 7 AU. We also discover that highly Ba-enriched stars are missing from the Li-rich population, possibly due to low-mass AGB companions which preclude Li-enrichment. Finally, we confirm a prevalence of Li-rich stars on the red clump that increases with lithium, which supports an evolutionary state mechanism for Li-enhancement. Multiple culprits, including binary spin-up and mass-transfer, are therefore likely mechanisms of Li-enrichment.Comment: 29 pages, 19 figures, 6 tables. Submitted to Ap

Can older people remember medication reminders presented using synthetic speech?

Reminders are often part of interventions to help older people adhere to complicated medication regimes. Computer-generated (synthetic) speech is ideal for tailoring reminders to different medication regimes. Since synthetic speech may be less intelligible than human speech, in particular under difficult listening conditions, we assessed how well older people can recall synthetic speech reminders for medications. 44 participants aged 50-80 with no cognitive impairment recalled reminders for one or four medications after a short distraction. We varied background noise, speech quality, and message design. Reminders were presented using a human voice and two synthetic voices. Data were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Reminder recall was satisfactory if reminders were restricted to one familiar medication, regardless of the voice used. Repeating medication names supported recall of lists of medications. We conclude that spoken reminders should build on familiar information and be integrated with other adherence support measures. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] numbered affiliations see end of article

NASA's Robotic Lunar Lander Development Program

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have developed several mission concepts to place scientific and exploration payloads ranging from 10 kg to more than 200 kg on the surface of the moon. The mission concepts all use a small versatile lander that is capable of precision landing. The results to date of the lunar lander development risk reduction activities including high pressure propulsion system testing, structure and mechanism development and testing, and long cycle time battery testing will be addressed. The most visible elements of the risk reduction program are two fully autonomous lander flight test vehicles. The first utilized a high pressure cold gas system (Cold Gas Test Article) with limited flight durations while the subsequent test vehicle, known as the Warm Gas Test Article, utilizes hydrogen peroxide propellant resulting in significantly longer flight times and the ability to more fully exercise flight sensors and algorithms. The development of the Warm Gas Test Article is a system demonstration and was designed with similarity to an actual lunar lander including energy absorbing landing legs, pulsing thrusters, and flight-like software implementation. A set of outdoor flight tests to demonstrate the initial objectives of the WGTA program was completed in Nov. 2011, and will be discussed