Performance of alumina-supported Pt catalysts in an electron-beam-sustained CO2 laser amplifier

The performance of an alumina-supported Pt catalyst system used to maintain the gas purity in an electron-beam-sustained (636) isotope CO2 laser amplifier has been tested. The system characteristics using the two-zone, parallel flow reactor were determined for both continuous- and end-of-day reactor operation using on-line mass spectrometric sampling. The laser amplifier was run with an energy loading of typically 110 J-l/atm and an electron-beam current of 4 mA/sq cm. With these conditions and a pulse repetition frequency of 10 Hz for up to 10,000 shots, increases on the order of 100 ppm O2 were observed with the purifier on and 150 ppm with it off. The 1/e time recovery time was found to be approximately 75 minutes

Population Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Analysis of Buprenorphine for the Treatment of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a condition affecting newborns exposed to an opioid in utero. Symptoms of NAS include excessive crying, poor feeding, and disordered autonomic control. Up to 2/3 of infants will require pharmacologic therapies to reach symptom control. Opioids including morphine and methadone are the current first-line treatments. Buprenorphine is being investigated as a treatment of NAS. The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of BUP in infants with NAS. Poster presented at American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT) 2017 Annual Meeting, March 15-18, 2017 in Washington DC.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/petposters/1004/thumbnail.jp

Improving language mapping in clinical fMRI through assessment of grammar.

IntroductionBrain surgery in the language dominant hemisphere remains challenging due to unintended post-surgical language deficits, despite using pre-surgical functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and intraoperative cortical stimulation. Moreover, patients are often recommended not to undergo surgery if the accompanying risk to language appears to be too high. While standard fMRI language mapping protocols may have relatively good predictive value at the group level, they remain sub-optimal on an individual level. The standard tests used typically assess lexico-semantic aspects of language, and they do not accurately reflect the complexity of language either in comprehension or production at the sentence level. Among patients who had left hemisphere language dominance we assessed which tests are best at activating language areas in the brain.MethodWe compared grammar tests (items testing word order in actives and passives, wh-subject and object questions, relativized subject and object clauses and past tense marking) with standard tests (object naming, auditory and visual responsive naming), using pre-operative fMRI. Twenty-five surgical candidates (13 females) participated in this study. Sixteen patients presented with a brain tumor, and nine with epilepsy. All participants underwent two pre-operative fMRI protocols: one including CYCLE-N grammar tests (items testing word order in actives and passives, wh-subject and object questions, relativized subject and object clauses and past tense marking); and a second one with standard fMRI tests (object naming, auditory and visual responsive naming). fMRI activations during performance in both protocols were compared at the group level, as well as in individual candidates.ResultsThe grammar tests generated more volume of activation in the left hemisphere (left/right angular gyrus, right anterior/posterior superior temporal gyrus) and identified additional language regions not shown by the standard tests (e.g., left anterior/posterior supramarginal gyrus). The standard tests produced more activation in left BA 47. Ten participants had more robust activations in the left hemisphere in the grammar tests and two in the standard tests. The grammar tests also elicited substantial activations in the right hemisphere and thus turned out to be superior at identifying both right and left hemisphere contribution to language processing.ConclusionThe grammar tests may be an important addition to the standard pre-operative fMRI testing

Incorporating Farmers’ Market Tours into the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Research indicates that low-income consumers are less likely to shop at farmers’ markets and that these individuals are often those with the lowest intake of fresh fruits and vegetables. This project aimed to improve familiarity with farmers’ markets among low-income consumers through guided tours of farmers’ markets, implemented as part of the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP). EFNEP Program Assistants (PAs) in five counties in North Carolina received training and partnered with a local Cooperative Extension agent to deliver a farmers’ market tour at the mid-point of a nine-lesson series on healthy eating. Forty-eight participants completed the series, completing a pre-and post-class series behavior change assessment and dietary recall. At entry, 54% of participants said they ate food that came from a local farm, compared to 94% at exit. Interviews with all PAs found that participants: plan to visit the farmers’ market again in the future, tried new recipes with foods purchased at the market, and learned how to talk with and ask questions of farmers’ market vendors. We argue that farmers’ market tours are a promising strategy for increasing familiarity with local foods, when carried out as part of a series of nutrition education classes

A CASE STUDY OF THE CHARACTERISTICS FOR SUCCESSFUL FIRST TIME PASSING OF THE NATIONAL PHYSICAL THERAPY EXAM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO DOCTOR OF PHYSICAL THERAPY 2012-2017 COHORTS

Abstract A Case Study of the Characteristics for Successful First Time Passing of the National Physical Therapy Exam in The University of New Mexico Doctor of Physical Therapy 2012-2017 Cohorts Name: Beth Moody Jones Degrees: B.S., Physical Therapy, University of Vermont, 1982 M.S., Orthopedic Physcial Therapy,Old Dominion University, 1994 D.P.T., A.T.Still University of Health Sciences, 2004 Ed.D., University of New Mexico, 2018 Not passing the National Physical Therapy Exam (NPTE) has significant consequences. If a student does not pass the NPTE on the first attempt they can retake the examination, however a student may only take the examination a maximum of three times in any 12-month period and, effective as of January 2016, there is a 6-time lifetime limit on NPTE attempts. Individual state boards have ultimate regulatory oversight on retakes and/or remediation. In the state of New Mexico, there is an in-depth remediation program. The purpose of this study was to look at multiple variables that were presented as potential factors for success (admissions criteria, within program testing, hidden curriculum, personality traits such as grit and mindset, age and timeframe from undergraduate degree and race/ethnicity) to determine their impact on successful first time passing of the NPTE within the case boundaries of the University of New Mexico DPT 2012 -2017 cohorts. This study was a programmatic evaluation intrinsic case study design bounded with one physical therapy program over a six-year span. This study underlined the important characteristics of admissions and the curriculum, as well as student characteristics, that may lead to successful first time passage of the NPTE. Through study of the quantitative measures that were accessible, such as admissions criteria and cumulative in-program comprehensive examinations (STEP exams and PEAT exam), as well as qualitative aspects of students who were both successful and not successful in their first attempt at the NPTE, the potential predictors of success that may frame admissions policies and within curriculum policies are discussed

Effect of ion bombardment on in-plane texture, surface morphology, and microstructure of vapor deposited Nb thin films

Niobium films were deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) and ion-beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) using ion energies of 0, 250, 500 and 1000 eV, and RR ratios (ion-to-atom arrival rate ratio) of 0, 0.1, and 0.4 on (100) silicon, amorphous glass, and (0001) sapphire substrates of thickness 50–1000 nm. Besides a {110} fiber texture, an in-plane texture was created by orienting the ion beam with respect to the substrate. The in-plane texture as measured by the degree of orientation was strongly dependent on both ion-beam energy and the RR ratio. In fact, the degree of orientation in the films followed a linear relationship with the energy per deposited atom, En.En. The grain structure was columnar and the column width increased with normalized energy. The surface morphology depended on both the normalized energy of the ion beam and the film thickness. All films had domelike surface features that were oriented along the ion-beam incident direction. The dimension of these features increased with normalized energy and film thickness. Surface roughness also increased with normalized energy and film thickness, with the root-mean-square roughness increasing from 1.6 nm for the PVD sample (100 nm thick) to 36.7 nm for the IBAD film (1000 eV, R = 0.4,R=0.4, 800 nm thick). Both the surface morphology evolution and in-plane texture development in these films were the result of the different ion sputter rates among differently oriented grains. © 1997 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69738/2/JAPIAU-81-10-6754-1.pd

Development and Evaluation of a Family-Based Cooking and Nutrition Education Program

Low-income families experience many barriers to purchasing and preparing healthful foods. To help address some of these barriers, a team created a family-based cooking class, Healthy All Together, in which participants learn strategies for how to stretch their food dollars and feed their families healthful meals. In this article, we describe the development of Healthy All Together, report program impacts, and summarize program feedback from participants and instructors. Of particular importance is the idea that engaging children in cooking through a family-based class has the potential to help families consider how to use strategies to mitigate barriers to healthful cooking

Incorporating Nutrition Education Classes into Food Pantry Settings: Lessons Learned in Design and Implementation

The project reported here evaluated the effectiveness of nutrition education at food pantries. We offer best practices for future Extension-based nutrition programming with this clientele. Three classes were offered at food pantries through the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP). Entry and exit surveys were collected for each series, including 24-hour food recalls. Seventy-three percent of participants reported an increase in vegetable consumption, and 82% reported positive changes in consumption of at least one food group. Nutrition education in food pantries is promising, particularly for Extension-led programs like SNAP-Ed and EFNEP, to address nutrition behaviors among food insecure populations