Overview of UK 101: Academic Orientation Course

A review of UK 101, Academic Orientation Course , and its impact on retention and graduation rates at the University of Kentucky (UK). The study includes charts showing the differences in retention and graduation rates over time from 2001 to 2013. It also explores key issues and suggested next steps within the context of UK\u27s efforts to raise the number of first-year students and the use of the shared curriculum by colleges for their specialized sections to meet the needs of their new students. This white paper is the result of collaboration between many units at UK together with the Division of Undergraduate Education, including the Dean of Students Office in Student Affairs and the UK Academic Technologies Team

Key Technology, Programmatic Drivers, and Lessons Learned for Production of Proliferated Small Satellite Constellations

Proliferated small satellites are a critical element of achieving a more capable and resilient space enterprise vision. Current game-changing initiatives across the U.S. government seek to achieve robust, agile capabilities inherent with large-scale constellations and to leverage the significant investments being made in the commercial sector. Production scale and pace are critical elements for affordability. A measured balance between modularity, autonomy, rightsized verification concepts, and rigorous supply chain management permits rapid, cost effective mission deployments. Maxar (formerly Space Systems Loral), has gained unique insights to key production methods and lessons learned to enable these capabilities from several active programs, including delivery of nearly 20 SkySat-C spacecraft to Planet, development of Maxar’s WorldView Legion imaging constellation for launch in 2021, and preliminary efforts on Telesat’s LEO 200+ satellite communications constellation. In this paper, we will provide metrics from these programs along with discussion about derived insights, as well as recommendations for how the community should continue to evolve to meet the stringent performance and affordability thresholds required to achieve a resilient proliferated LEO vision

Waiting for Godot: The Fragmentation of Hope

Waiting for Godot’s many commentators have emphasized the absurdity of hope in the play, but there has not been an account of how the play reprises hope’s historical transformation and weakening in modernity. This essay provides that account, arguing that Beckett’s Waiting for Godot sponsors a form of hope appropriate to the predicaments of modern societies. Godot stages the blockage of hope by reflecting the obsolescence and fragmentation of the religious and progressive legitimations for the concept that used to be broadly convincing. Despite this blockage, however, Godot does not give in to nihilism. It, rather, models a form of responsible, self-aware hope appropriate to an historical situation where hope does not admit of rational justification. To develop this interpretation of the play and to defend its minimalist conception of hope, the essay draws on Theodor W. Adorno’s Negative Dialectics and aesthetics

Investigating heparin affinity chromatography for extracellular vesicle purification and fractionation

The purification of extracellular vesicles (EVs) remains a major hurdle in the progression of fundamental research and the commercial application of EV-based products. In this study, we evaluated the potential of heparin affinity chromatography (HAC) to purify neural stem cell-derived EVs as part of a multistep process. Bind-elute chromatography, such as HAC, is an attractive method of purification because it is highly scalable, robust and can be automated. Our findings support an interaction between EVs and heparin. The recovery of EVs using HAC based on particle counts was a minimum of 68.7%. We found HAC could remove on average 98.8% and 99.0% of residual protein and DNA respectively. In addition to EV purification, HAC was used to separate EVs into three populations based on their affinity to the heparin column. Within these populations, we detected differences in the expression of the exosome-associated protein TSG101 and the tetraspanin immunophenotype. However, the significance of these observations is not clear. Overall HAC shows promise as a potential purification method to capture EVs and this study proposes a novel application of HAC for EV fractionation. Moving forward, a better understanding of the heparin-EV interaction would be required before HAC can be more widely adopted for these applications

Measles outbreak investigation in a highly vaccinated community in the Centre region of Cameroon

Background: Measles remains a threat in many African settings due to sub-optimal routine immunisation and catchup campaigns. The Global Vaccine Action Plan goal to eliminate measles by 2020 remains unmet as several countries reported an increase in cases in 2019. In Cameroon, a measles-rubella vaccination campaign was organised in 2019 to reduce the cohort of susceptible children. However, in 2020, eleven suspected cases of measles were notified in the Sa’a Health District and five were confirmed. Objective: This report summarizes a measles outbreak investigation and contact tracing in a highly vaccinated community residing in the Sa’a Health District of Cameroon. Methods: Outbreak investigations were carried out in the Sa’a, Nlong-Onambele and Nkolmgbana health areas from 18 to 21 February 2020. A register review from December 2019 to February 2020 was carried out in all health facilities of the affected health areas. followed by contact tracing in the community. Results: Thirty households were visited in four neighbourhoods. Six missed Epidemiologically-linked cases were discovered in the community, bringing the total number of suspected and confirmed cases to 17. Thirty-five percent of the cases had not received any measles-containing vaccine; 35% of the cases were aged 5 years or older; 53% had history of travel. Community transmission only occurred in the Sa’a health area through a breakthrough case. Conclusions: This outbreak investigation portrayed the role that adequate vaccination coverage plays in preventing widespread outbreaks. Nonetheless, community sensitisation and routine immunisation require strengthening in order to erase pockets of susceptible children