Achieving Orbit

In this Engineering Design Challenge activity, participants use balloons to investigate how a two-stage rocket, like that used in the IBEX mission, can propel a satellite to a specific orbit. Participants will construct a two-stage balloon that will be required to reach a particular location on the balloon track, simulating the proper orbit to be reached by the IBEX satellite. This activity is adapted from the NASA Rockets Educators Guide (EG-2003-01-108-HQ) and the NASA Glenn Research Center’s online Learning Technologies Project for facilitation with an informal museum audience. Each short activity/product helps to build awareness and engagement in the science and engineering aspects of the mission that is reinforced as visitors choose to participate in more activities, including viewing the planetarium show and mission Web site. Educational levels: Informal education, General public

Exploring the Edge of Our Solar System: IBEX Mission (Poster)

This poster outlines the major mission highlights of the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, a Small Explorer Earth-orbiting spacecraft that is designed to map the distant boundary between the solar wind from our Sun and the interstellar medium. This poster supports a full-length planetarium show about the IBEX mission and the boundary of the Solar System. Each short activity/product helps to build awareness and engagement in the science and engineering aspects of the mission that are reinforced as visitors choose to participate in more activities, including viewing the show and mission website.

La Heliosfera

This lithograph introduces users to the fact that the Solar System has an interstellar boundary called the heliosphere. It includes an interactive activity. This lithograph supports a full-length planetarium show about the IBEX mission and the boundary of the Solar System. Each short activity/product helps to build awareness and engagement in the science and engineering aspects of the mission that is reinforced as visitors choose to participate in more activities, including viewing the Show and mission Web site. Users can look at the diagram of the heliosphere on the front, read information about the heliosphere on the back, and then use the lithograph as part of a model of the heliosphere that uses water to represent solar wind. The lithograph also includes information about NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, which will make the first map of the Solar System’s boundary. This is a Spanish-language translation of an English-language product (which passed review in 2008), titled: The Heliosphere. Educational levels: Informal education

Geospatial Analysis of Smart Growth and Transit Oriented Developments

Rapid population growth, water and air pollution, overloaded public services, and traffic congestion can stress economies and result in unsustainable communities. Geographic Information Science (GIS) is a valuable technology for reversing negative these types of trends by identifying areas that may presently exhibit Smart Growth characteristics. Rather than expand on the current transportation infrastructure and develop new Smart Growth communities, San Diego Metropolitan’s Transit System (SDMTS) intends to use this study to review the current transit routing infrastructure in an effort to support communities exhibiting Smart Growth potential. Communities along existing transportation infrastructure will analyzed as potential Smart Growth and TOD communities. After the study is completed, SDMTS will have the geospatial data necessary for supporting future Smart Growth development

The Holiness and Other Stories

This dissertation is a collection of an introductory essay and ten original short stories written and submitted to fiction workshops in the PhD program at The University of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Writers

Alexis Michelle Nichols in a Senior Soprano Recital

This is the program for the senior soprano recital of Alexis Michelle Nichols. Ms. Nichols was accompanied on the piano by Louis Menendez. This recital took place on March 11, 2013, the McBeth Recital Hall in the Mabee Fine Arts Center

Who Will Retweet This? Automatically Identifying and Engaging Strangers on Twitter to Spread Information

There has been much effort on studying how social media sites, such as Twitter, help propagate information in different situations, including spreading alerts and SOS messages in an emergency. However, existing work has not addressed how to actively identify and engage the right strangers at the right time on social media to help effectively propagate intended information within a desired time frame. To address this problem, we have developed two models: (i) a feature-based model that leverages peoples' exhibited social behavior, including the content of their tweets and social interactions, to characterize their willingness and readiness to propagate information on Twitter via the act of retweeting; and (ii) a wait-time model based on a user's previous retweeting wait times to predict her next retweeting time when asked. Based on these two models, we build a recommender system that predicts the likelihood of a stranger to retweet information when asked, within a specific time window, and recommends the top-N qualified strangers to engage with. Our experiments, including live studies in the real world, demonstrate the effectiveness of our work

Vancomycin and Gentamicin Pharmacokinetic Alterations in an Adolescent Amputee

A 14-year-old male with bilateral above-the-knee amputations presented to our hospital for treatment of a skin and soft-tissue infection. We report the experience of vancomycin and gentamicin therapy in this patient. Because these medications require weight-based dosages and pharmacokinetic monitoring of serum levels, it was necessary to obtain peak and trough levels of the two drugs in order to determine the pharmacokinetic differences in this patient compared to those in an adolescent male without amputations. To our knowledge, this is the first report describing pharmacokinetic differences in an adolescent amputee

A fixed-dose randomized controlled trial of olanzapine for psychosis in Parkinson disease

Background: Psychosis is a common and debilitating side effect of long-term dopaminergic treatment of Parkinson disease (PD). While clozapine is an effective treatment, the need for blood monitoring has limited its first-line use.  Objective: Since olanzapine shows similar receptor affinity to clozapine, we hypothesized that it might be an effective alternative to clozapine for treatment of drug-induced psychosis (DIP) in PD, and that lower doses than usual might make it tolerable. Methods: In 1998-2003 we conducted a four-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group, fixed-dose trial of olanzapine (0, 2.5mg, or 5mg) in 23 PD patients with DIP while allowing for clinically realistic dose adjustments of dopaminomimetic mid-study. The primary outcome measures were Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) ratings scored from videotaped interviews after study termination by an observer blinded to dose assignment and to interview timing, and CGI (Clinical Global Impression). The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale motor subscale (UPDRS) was the primary measure of tolerability. Results: Intention-to-treat analysis found no significant differences among treatment groups in study completion or serious adverse events. However, a disproportionate number of olanzapine vs. placebo subjects reported mild side effects (p<0.04), many citing motor worsening. Fourteen patients completed the study (seven on placebo, two on 2.5mg olanzapine, five on 5mg olanzapine). In study completers, analysis by repeated measures ANOVA revealed no significant difference between olanzapine and placebo groups in BPRS psychosis reduction (p=0.536), parkinsonism (p=0.608), or any other measured parameters (CGI, MMSE, Beck Depression Inventory, Hamilton Depression score, PDQ‑39, Schwab-England ADL assessment, and sleep scores). Conclusion: This study adds to other evidence that olanzapine is ineffective in treating medication-induced psychosis in Parkinson disease