Spatio-Temporal Statistical Modeling of Livestock Waste in Streams

Surface water runoff from large livestock operations finds its way into streams, rivers, and ultimately the larger watershed area. In this paper, the model measures the nitrate concentrations in the upper North Bosque (Texas) watershed, which is a region of concentrated dairy operations. Using 15 months of daily data collected at 17 stream monitoring sites allows the authors to obtain optimal predictions of unknown nitrate concentration at all stream locations at any given time, along with a measure of their variability

School Effectiveness Function: A Model Developed from Historical Reports Supplemented with Subjective Vocational Teacher Perceptions

A school effectiveness function based on considerations and mathematical analyses associated with Multiattribute Utility Technology was developed. The function served to unify single indicators of school effectiveness in a manner understandable to local community groups and school personnel and was capable of computation on hand held calculators with memories. The methodology has validlty and reliability, intuitive efficacy, and a capacity for objectivity in providing both an empirical algorithm and a better understanding of school effectiveness. Data were collected from 98 new educators recently employed in business and industry (the Stakeholders) on 12 published school effectiveness attributes. Weighings were calculated from the stakeholder data and indices of relative school effectiveness were computed. The methodology is general and readily adapts to new situations

Breastfeeding, breast milk and viruses

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is seemingly consistent and compelling evidence that there is no association between breastfeeding and breast cancer. An assumption follows that milk borne viruses cannot be associated with human breast cancer.</p> <p>We challenge this evidence because past breastfeeding studies did not determine "exposure" of newborn infants to colostrum and breast milk.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a prospective review of 100 consecutive births of infants in the same centre to determine the proportion of newborn infants who were "exposed" to colostrum or breast milk, as distinct from being fully breast fed. We also report a review of the breastfeeding practices of mothers of over 87,000 newborn infants in the Australian State of New South Wales.</p> <p>This study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). Approval 05063, 29 September 2005.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Virtually all (97 of 100) newborn infants in this centre were "exposed" to colostrum or breast milk whether or not they were fully breast fed. Between 82.2% to 98.7% of 87,000 newborn infants were "exposed" to colostrum or breast milk.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In some Western communities there is near universal exposure of new born infants to colostrum and breast milk. Accordingly it is possible for the transmission of human milk borne viruses. This is contrary to the widespread assumption that human milk borne viruses cannot be associated with breast cancer.</p

Instructional Management: Assessment of Competencies of Secondary Health Occupations Teachers

Health occupations teachers are facing many challenges which necessitate development of new competencies in order to facilitate a viable Health Occupations Education program. An important teacher competency is instructional management which entails obtaining instructional resources; projecting resource needs; managing budgeting and reporting responsibilities; developing and maintaining a filing system; providing for student safety and first aid needs; assisting students in developing self-discipline; and planning, organizing, managing, and maintaining the physical facilities of the laboratory. To address these challenges, data were collected in Alabama concerning Health Occupations Education teachers’ perceptions of their educational needs relative to instructional management. Overall the majority of teachers rated their competence as above average in all areas of instructional management. The highest need was combatting problems of student chemical use. The highest competency rating was providing for student safety. Further research is recommended to monitor these competencies

Gating mechanism of elongating β-ketoacyl-ACP synthases.

Carbon-carbon bond forming reactions are essential transformations in natural product biosynthesis. During de novo fatty acid and polyketide biosynthesis, β-ketoacyl-acyl carrier protein (ACP) synthases (KS), catalyze this process via a decarboxylative Claisen-like condensation reaction. KSs must recognize multiple chemically distinct ACPs and choreograph a ping-pong mechanism, often in an iterative fashion. Here, we report crystal structures of substrate mimetic bearing ACPs in complex with the elongating KSs from Escherichia coli, FabF and FabB, in order to better understand the stereochemical features governing substrate discrimination by KSs. Complemented by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and mutagenesis studies, these structures reveal conformational states accessed during KS catalysis. These data taken together support a gating mechanism that regulates acyl-ACP binding and substrate delivery to the KS active site. Two active site loops undergo large conformational excursions during this dynamic gating mechanism and are likely evolutionarily conserved features in elongating KSs

Effects of Compressed Speech Theory Applied to Health Occupations Education Instruction

The purpose of this study was to investigate (a) normal, (b) 40% compressed, and (c) 80% compressed speech presentations of conceptual data for the “Burns” chapter from the Multimedia Standard First Aid book. The material was presented to randomly assigned intact groups of health occupations education 9th, 10th, llth, and 12th grade students from two country school systems in a southern state. There were overall differences among posttest scores attributed to presentation method adjusted, in an analysis of partial variance, for reading level and pretest score

The Economic Feasibility of Forming A California Wheat Cooperative

Recent concerns relative to California farm gate prices for wheat and a lack of profitability in wheat production has been expressed by a group of California wheat growers. Their dissatisfaction has resulted in their consideration to form a California wheat grower cooperative. The cooperative would become the marketing agent for the growers and potentially allow growers to pool their production for greater market power as well as capture profits beyond the farm gate. Two feasibility issues are addressed by the study: 1) The organizational feasibility of forming the cooperative, and 2) The economic feasibility of a California wheat growers cooperative engaging in value-added marketing opportunities upstream from the farm gate that would result in increased the return to wheat grower production. The objective of the study was to evaluate those feasibilities

Investigating the structure of the oxide on Ni-Cr-Mo alloys while presenting a method for analysis of complex oxides using QUASES

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a technique that is widely used to studythin oxide films because of its extremely high surface sensitivity. Utilizing theQUASES (Quantitative Analysis of Surfaces by Electron Spectroscopy) software pack-age developed by Sven Tougaard (University of Southern Denmark), a user canobtain additional information that is not extracted in conventional XPS analysis, spe-cifically the composition as a function of depth. Presented here is the QUASES analy-sis of four Ni-Cr-Mo alloys performed while testing various inelastic mean free path(IMFP) determination methods in the context of providing a framework for the analy-sis of complex oxides in QUASES. Ni-Cr-Mo alloys are often used to replace conven-tional materials under aggressive conditions, because of their exceptional corrosionresistance. Their corrosion resistance is conferred by the formation of an inert sur-face oxide film that protects the underlying metal. Using the QUASES software, thethickness of the air-formed oxide on four Ni-Cr-Mo alloys was found to lie within therange of 2.5–3.6 nm. They were found to be composed of an inner Cr2O3layer andan outer Cr (OH)3layer, with a transition zone where the two coexisted. OxidizedMo species, MoO2and MoO3, were found in trace amounts at the boundarybetween the Cr2O3-only and mixed Cr2O3/Cr (OH)3regions of the oxide. We alsodetermined that using 20% reduced IMFP values gave results similar to thoseobtained using electron effective attenuation length (EAL) values. Auger depth pro-files showed comparable trends to the QUASES models

The potential for utilising in-hospital glucose measurements to detect individuals at high risk of previously undiagnosed diabetes: retrospective cohort study

Background Many people with undiagnosed diabetes have hyperglycaemia when admitted to hospital. Inpatient hyperglycaemia can be an indication of diabetes mellitus but can also indicate a stress response. This study reports the extent to which an in-hospital maximum observed random glucose measurement is an indicator of the need for in-hospital (or subsequent) HbA1c measurement to look for undiagnosed diabetes. Methods Blood glucose, HbA1c, age and sex were collected for all adults following admission to a UK NHS trust hospital from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2020. We restricted the analysis to those participants who were registered with a GP practice that uses the trust laboratory and who had at least some tests requested by those practices since 2008. We stratified individuals according to their maximum in-hospital glucose measurement and report the number of these with HbA1c measurement ≥48 mmol/mol (6.5%) prior to the index admission, and during and after admission. We calculated an estimated proportion of individuals in each blood glucose stratum without a follow-up HbA1c who could have undiagnosed diabetes. Results In toal, 764,241 glucose measurements were recorded for 81,763 individuals who were admitted to the Oxford University Hospitals Trust. The median (Q1, Q3) age was 70 (56, 81) years, and 53% were males. Of the population, 70.7% of individuals declared themselves to be of White ethnicity, 3.1% of Asian background, and 1.1% of Black background, with 23.1% unstated. Of those individuals, 22,375 (27.4%) had no previous HbA1c measurement recorded. A total of 1689 individuals had a diabetes-range HbA1c during or after their hospital admission (2.5%) while we estimate an additional 1496 (2.2%) may have undiagnosed diabetes, with the greatest proportion of these having an in-hospital glucose of ≥15 mmol/L. We estimate that the number needed to detect a possible new case of diabetes falls from 16 (in-hospital glucose 8 mmol/L to <9 mmol/L) to 4 (14 mmol/L to <15 mmol/L). Conclusion The number of people who need to be tested to identify an individual who may have diabetes decreases as a testing threshold based on maximum in-hospital glucose concentration increases. Among those with hyperglycaemia and no previous HbA1c measurement in the diabetes range, there appears to be a lack of subsequent HbA1c measurement. This work identifies the potential for integrating the testing and follow-up of people, with apparently unrecognised hospital hyperglycaemia across primary and secondary care

Attitudes of Experienced Health Occupations Teachers Toward Disabled Persons

The purpose of the research was to study the effects of different instructional strategies and selected demographic variables on experienced health occupations teachers* attitudes toward disabled persons using three groups: independent study, lecture, and film, in a pre/pose experimental design. MANOVA revealed no significant group effects for instructional strategies. A sequential partitioning of the sum of squares in univariate analyses revealed differences in years of occupational experience, number of courses studied, years of teaching experience, and highest degree earned. Special coursework to teach the handicapped was found to contribute to a positive attitude toward disabled students. This finding suggests that states should require special preparation for all teachers