Kennesaw State University Choral Ensembles Spring Concert

Please join us for an evening of choral masterworks presented by KSU choral ensembles. The evening will feature performances by the KSU Chamber Choir, led by Interim Director of the School of Music and Director of Choral Activities Dr. Leslie J. Blackwell, as well as the University Chorale and Men\u27s Ensemble, both led by Dr. Reid Masters. The Chamber Singers will be giving a preview of their performance at the 2020 ACDA Southern Division Conference.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2304/thumbnail.jp

Rotational master equation for cold laser-driven molecules

The equations of motion for the molecular rotation are derived for vibrationally cold dimers that are polarized by off-resonant laser light. It is shown that, by eliminating electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom, a quantum master equation for the reduced rotational density operator can be obtained. The coherent rotational dynamics is caused by stimulated Raman transitions, whereas spontaneous Raman transitions lead to decoherence in the motion of the quantized angular momentum. As an example the molecular dynamics for the optical Kerr effect is chosen, revealing decoherence and heating of the molecular rotation.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Weaving a Computing Fabric

As sources of information relevant to a particular domain proliferate, we need a methodology for locating, aggregating, relating, fusing, reconciling, and presenting information to users. Interoperability thus must occur not only among the information, but also among the different software applications that process it. Given the large number of potential sources and applications, interoperability becomes an extremely large problem for which manual solutions are impractical. A combination of software agents and ontologies can supply the necessary methodology for interoperability

Coming Back to Life: The Permeability of Past and Present, Mortality and Immortality, Death and Life in the Ancient Mediterranean

The lines between death and life were neither fixed nor finite to the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. For most, death was a passageway into a new and uncertain existence. The dead were not so much extinguished as understood to be elsewhere, and many perceived the deceased to continue to exercise agency among the living. Even for those more skeptical of an afterlife, notions of coming back to life provided frameworks in which to conceptualize the on-going social, political, and cultural influence of the past. This collection of essays examines how notions of coming back to life shape practices and ideals throughout the ancient Mediterranean. All contributors focus on the common theme of coming back to life as a discursive and descriptive space in which antique peoples construct, maintain, and negotiate the porous boundaries between past and present, mortality and immortality, death and life

Monkey Steering Responses Reveal Rapid Visual-Motor Feedback

The neural mechanisms underlying primate locomotion are largely unknown. While behavioral and theoretical work has provided a number of ideas of how navigation is controlled, progress will require direct physiolgical tests of the underlying mechanisms. In turn, this will require development of appropriate animal models. We trained three monkeys to track a moving visual target in a simple virtual environment, using a joystick to control their direction. The monkeys learned to quickly and accurately turn to the target, and their steering behavior was quite stereotyped and reliable. Monkeys typically responded to abrupt steps of target direction with a biphasic steering movement, exhibiting modest but transient overshoot. Response latencies averaged approximately 300 ms, and monkeys were typically back on target after about 1 s. We also exploited the variability of responses about the mean to explore the time-course of correlation between target direction and steering response. This analysis revealed a broad peak of correlation spanning approximately 400 ms in the recent past, during which steering errors provoke a compensatory response. This suggests a continuous, visual-motor loop controls steering behavior, even during the epoch surrounding transient inputs. Many results from the human literature also suggest that steering is controlled by such a closed loop. The similarity of our results to those in humans suggests the monkey is a very good animal model for human visually guided steering

The bashful and the boastful : prestigious leaders and social change in Mesolithic Societies

The creation and maintenance of influential leaders and authorities is one of the key themes of archaeological and historical enquiry. However the social dynamics of authorities and leaders in the Mesolithic remains a largely unexplored area of study. The role and influence of authorities can be remarkably different in different situations yet they exist in all societies and in almost all social contexts from playgrounds to parliaments. Here we explore the literature on the dynamics of authority creation, maintenance and contestation in egalitarian societies, and discuss the implications for our interpretation and understanding of the formation of authorities and leaders and changing social relationships within the Mesolithic

Application of Spatial Data Modeling and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for Identification of Potential Siting Options for Various Electrical Generation Sources

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) initiated an internal National Electric Generation Siting Study, which is an ongoing multiphase study addressing several key questions related to our national electrical energy supply. This effort has led to the development of a tool, OR-SAGE (Oak Ridge Siting Analysis for power Generation Expansion), to support siting evaluations. The objective in developing OR-SAGE was to use industry-accepted approaches and/or develop appropriate criteria for screening sites and employ an array of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data sources at ORNL to identify candidate areas for a power generation technology application. The initial phase of the study examined nuclear power generation. These early nuclear phase results were shared with staff from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), which formed the genesis and support for an expansion of the work to several other power generation forms, including advanced coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS), solar, and compressed air energy storage (CAES). Wind generation was not included in this scope of work for EPRI. The OR-SAGE tool is essentially a dynamic visualization database. The results shown in this report represent a single static set of results using a specific set of input parameters. In this case, the GIS input parameters were optimized to support an economic study conducted by EPRI. A single set of individual results should not be construed as an ultimate energy solution, since US energy policy is very complex. However, the strength of the OR-SAGE tool is that numerous alternative scenarios can be quickly generated to provide additional insight into electrical generation or other GIS-based applications. The screening process divides the contiguous United States into 100 x 100 m (1-hectare) squares (cells), applying successive power generation-appropriate site selection and evaluation criteria (SSEC) to each cell. There are just under 700 million cells representing the contiguous United States. If a cell meets the requirements of each criterion, the cell is deemed a candidate area for siting a specific power generation form relative to a reference plant for that power type. Some SSEC parameters preclude siting a power plant because of an environmental, regulatory, or land-use constraint. Other SSEC assist in identifying less favorable areas, such as proximity to hazardous operations. All of the selected SSEC tend to recommend against sites. The focus of the ORNL electrical generation source siting study is on identifying candidate areas from which potential sites might be selected, stopping short of performing any detailed site evaluations or comparisons. This approach is designed to quickly screen for and characterize candidate areas. Critical assumptions supporting this work include the supply of cooling water to thermoelectric power generation; a methodology to provide an adequate siting footprint for typical power plant applications; a methodology to estimate thermoelectric plant capacity while accounting for available cooling water; and a methodology to account for future ({approx}2035) siting limitations as population increases and demands on freshwater sources change. OR-SAGE algorithms were built to account for these critical assumptions. Stream flow is the primary thermoelectric plant cooling source evaluated in this study. All cooling was assumed to be provided by a closed-cycle cooling (CCC) system requiring makeup water to account for evaporation and blowdown. Limited evaluations of shoreline cooling and the use of municipal processed water (gray) cooling were performed. Using a representative set of SSEC as input to the OR-SAGE tool and employing the accompanying critical assumptions, independent results for the various power generation sources studied were calculated

Drama, performance and touch in the medieval convent and beyond

In this analysis we explore the sensory performances of the performer, rather than the spectator, in medieval convent drama, particularly the tactile experiences of clothing, props, wigs, and beards worn by female performers presenting male and female characters

Pulmonary delivery of vancomycin dry powder aerosol to intubated rabbits

TGX-221 is a potent, selective, and cell membrane permeable inhibitor of the PI3K p110β catalytic subunit. Recent studies showed that TGX-221 has anti-proliferative activity against PTEN-deficient tumor cell lines including prostate cancers. The objective of this study was to develop an encapsulation system for parenterally delivering TGX-221 to the target tissue through a prostate-specific membrane aptamer (PSMAa10) with little or no side effects. In this study, PEG-PCL micelles were formulated to encapsulate the drug, and a prodrug strategy was pursued to improve the stability of the carrier system. Fluorescence imaging studies demonstrated that the cellular uptake of both drug and nanoparticles were significantly improved by targeted micelles in a PSMA positive cell line. The area under the plasma concentration time curve of the micelle formulation in nude mice was 2.27-fold greater than the naked drug, and the drug clearance rate was 17.5-fold slower. These findings suggest a novel formulation approach for improving site-specific drug delivery of a molecular-targeted prostate cancer treatment

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty