12,914 research outputs found
Undergraduate Health Care Ethics Internship: An Ignatian Innovation in Bioethics Education
This article describes an innovative and unique undergraduate bioethics course for students planning careers in health care. The Health Care Ethics Internship reflects the Ignatian values of (1) cura personalis signifying care for the whole person, both of the interns themselves and the patients and professionals they encounter and (2) being a person for others concerned not only with success but also with those poor in health and opportunity. Developed by Santa Clara Universityâs Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, the Health Care Ethics Internship is interdisciplinary, integrating experiential learning in various health care contexts with ethical theory and reflection with particular attention to justice. Surveys collected from participants indicate that the Internship: (1) influenced career decisions; (2) provided knowledge that was subsequently used in personal and professional ethical decision making; (3) enabled participants to more easily recognize ethical concerns and to think more critically about them; and, (4) prepared them to address ethical challenges encountered in post-graduate health care education
Large-scale and significant expression from pseudogenes in Sodalis glossinidius â a facultative bacterial endosymbiont
The majority of bacterial genomes have high coding efficiencies, but there are some genomes of intracellular bacteria that have low gene density. The genome of the endosymbiont Sodalis glossinidius contains almost 50â% pseudogenes containing mutations that putatively silence them at the genomic level. We have applied multiple âomicâ strategies, combining Illumina and Pacific Biosciences Single-Molecule Real-Time DNA sequencing and annotation, stranded RNA sequencing and proteome analysis to better understand the transcriptional and translational landscape of Sodalis pseudogenes, and potential mechanisms for their control. Between 53 and 74â% of the Sodalis transcriptome remains active in cell-free culture. The mean sense transcription from coding domain sequences (CDSs) is four times greater than that from pseudogenes. Comparative genomic analysis of six Illumina-sequenced Sodalis isolates from different host Glossina species shows pseudogenes make up ~40â% of the 2729 genes in the core genome, suggesting that they are stable and/or that Sodalis is a recent introduction across the genus Glossina as a facultative symbiont. These data shed further light on the importance of transcriptional and translational control in deciphering hostâmicrobe interactions. The combination of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics gives a multidimensional perspective for studying prokaryotic genomes with a view to elucidating evolutionary adaptation to novel environmental niches
The MPCP Longitudinal Educational Growth Study Third Year Report
This is the third-year report in a five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). The MPCP, which began in 1990, provides government-funded vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools in the City of Milwaukee. The maximum voucher amount in 2008-09 was $6,607, and approximately 20,000 children used a voucher to attend either secular or religious private schools. The MPCP is the oldest and largest urban school voucher program in the United States. This evaluation was authorized by Wisconsin Act 125 enacted in 2005
Biological Records Centre Annual Report 2005-2006
The period covered by this report is the first year of a new six-year partnership between CEH and JNCC. For this period, there is increased emphasis on targeted survey, on analysis and interpretation and on communications and outreach. These activities were always part of BRCâs work, but they have been given greater prominence as a result of rapid developments in information technology. Data are increasingly reaching BRC in electronic form, so that the effort of data entry and collation is reduced.
The data, collected by many volunteers and then collated and analysed at BRC, document the changing status and distribution of plants and animals in Britain. Distribution maps are published in atlases and are available via the internet through the NBN Gateway. The effects of change or loss of habitats, the influence of climate change and the consequences of changing water quality are all examples of the environmental factors that affect our biodiversity and which BRC aims to document and understand. The results are vital for developing environmental policies, to support conservation, and for fundamental ecological research.
BRC is funded jointly by JNCC and NERC through a partnership based on a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). The partnership started in 1973 when the Nature Conservancy was divided to form the successor bodies Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) and Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE). NCC was in turn divided further to form JNCC and three Country Agencies, while ITE was merged with other NERC units to form CEH. Through all these changes, the partnership has been maintained. A six-year memorandum of agreement ended on 31 January 2005 (Hill et al. 2005). The present report covers the first full year, 2005-6, of the new agreement for 2005-2010.
Rapid progress in information technology continues to be highly beneficial for BRC, whose data are increasingly used by the UK country conservation agencies, environmental consultants, NGOs, research workers, policy makers and volunteers. It is gratifying to know that, through our ability to display data on the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Gateway, some of our data suppliers now have immediate access to their own data in a convenient form.
The year 2005-6 has been one of steady progress, with new datasets added to BRC, substantial additions to existing data, and improved communication with the NBN Gateway. The most high profile activity of the year has been the Harlequin Ladybird Survey, which has enabled us to observe the early stages of colonization by a mobile insect in greater detail than has been possible in any previous case
Analysis and design of on-grade reinforced concrete track support structures
For the improvement of rail service, the Department of Transportation, Federal Rail Administration, is sponsoring a test track on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. The test track will contain nine separate rail support structures, including one conventional section for control and three reinforced concrete structures on grade, one slab and two beam sections. The analysis and design of these latter structures was accomplished by means of the finite element method, NASTRAN, and is presented
HST/NICMOS Observations of Massive Stellar Clusters Near the Galactic Center
We report Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Near-infrared Camera and Multi-object
Spectrometer (NICMOS) observations of the Arches and Quintuplet clusters, two
extraordinary young clusters near the Galactic Center. For the first time, we
have identified main sequence stars in the Galactic Center with initial masses
well below 10 Msun. We present the first determination of the initial mass
function (IMF) for any population in the Galactic Center, finding an IMF slope
which is significantly more positive (Gamma approx -0.65) than the average for
young clusters elsewhere in the Galaxy (Gamma approx -1.4). The apparent
turnoffs in the color-magnitude diagrams suggest cluster ages which are
consistent with the ages implied by the mixture of spectral types in the
clusters; we find tau(age) approx 2+/-1 Myr for the Arches cluster, and
tau(age) approx 4+/-1 Myr for the Quintuplet. We estimate total cluster masses
by adding the masses of observed stars down to the 50% completeness limit, and
then extrapolating down to a lower mass cutoff of 1 Msun. Using this method, we
find > 10^4 Msun for the total mass of the Arches cluster. Such a determination
for the Quintuplet cluster is complicated by the double-valued mass-magnitude
relationship for clusters with ages > 3 Myr. We find a lower limit of 6300 Msun
for the total cluster mass, and suggest a best estimate of twice this value
which accounts for the outlying members of the cluster. Both clusters have
masses which place them as the two most massive clusters in the Galaxy.Comment: accepted by ApJ higher resolution versions of figures 1 and 2 can be
found at: ftp://quintup.astro.ucla.edu/nicmos1
Crow deaths as a sentinel surveillance system for West Nile virus in the northeastern United States, 1999.
In addition to human encephalitis and meningitis cases, the West Nile (WN) virus outbreak in the summer and fall of 1999 in New York State resulted in bird deaths in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. From August to December 1999, 295 dead birds were laboratory-confirmed with WN virus infection; 262 (89%) were American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos). The New York State Department of Health received reports of 17,339 dead birds, including 5,697 (33%) crows; in Connecticut 1,040 dead crows were reported. Bird deaths were critical in identifying WN virus as the cause of the human outbreak and defining its geographic and temporal limits. If established before a WN virus outbreak, a surveillance system based on bird deaths may provide a sensitive method of detecting WN virus
Five supernova survey galaxies in the southern hemisphere. II. The supernova rates
Based on the database compiled in the first article of this series, with 56
SN events discovered in 3838 galaxies of the southern hemisphere, we compute
the rate of supernovae (SNe) of different types along the Hubble sequence
normalized to the optical and near-infrared luminosities as well as to the
stellar mass of the galaxies. We find that the rates of all SN types show a
dependence on both morphology and colors of the galaxies, and therefore, on the
star-formation activity. The rate of core-collapse (CC) SNe is confirmed to be
closely related to the Star Formation Rate (SFR) and only indirectly to the
total mass of the galaxies. The rate of SNe Ia can be explained by assuming
that at least 15% of Ia events in spiral galaxies originates in relatively
young stellar populations. We find that the rates show no modulation with
nuclear activity or environment. The ratio of SN rates between types Ib/c and
II shows no trend with spiral type.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, 5 tables, published in Astrophysics (English
translation of Astrofizika
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