The development, testing and assessment of a model for establishing perceived community needs for career education alternatives.

EducationDoctor of Education (Ed.D.

A Survey Of Florida Baseball Cases

Florida has long been a hotbed of baseball activity.1 Today, the state is home to two Major League Baseball (“MLB”) teams, fourteen minor league teams, fifteen spring training sites, both of the schools that train future big league umpires, and numerous amateur and youth team

Incidence and public health burden of sunburn among beachgoers in the United States.

The beach environment creates many barriers to effective sun protection, putting beachgoers at risk for sunburn, a well-established risk factor for skin cancer. Our objective was to estimate incidence of sunburn among beachgoers and evaluate the relationship between sunburn incidence and sun-protective behaviors. A secondary analysis, of prospective cohorts at 12 locations within the U.S. from 2003 to 2009 (n = 75,614), were pooled to evaluate sunburn incidence 10-12 days after the beach visit. Behavioral and environmental conditions were cross-tabulated with sunburn incidence. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the association between new sunburn and sun-protective behaviors. Overall, 13.1% of beachgoers reported sunburn. Those aged 13-18 years (16.5%), whites (16.0%), and those at beach locations along the Eastern Seaboard (16.1%), had the highest incidence of sunburn. For those spending ≥5 h in the sun, the use of multiple types of sun protection reduced odds of sunburn by 55% relative to those who used no sun protection (Odds Ratio = 0.45 (95% Confidence Interval:0.27-0.77)) after adjusting for skin type, age, and race. Acute health effects of sunburn tend to be mild and self-limiting, but potential long-term health consequences are more serious and costly. Efforts to encourage and support proper sun-protective behaviors, and increase access to shade, protective clothing, and sunscreen, can help prevent sunburn and reduce skin cancer risk among beachgoers

A Bayesian statistical analysis of behavioral facilitation associated with deep brain stimulation

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established therapy for Parkinson's Disease and is being investigated as a treatment for chronic depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and for facilitating functional recovery of patients in minimally conscious states following brain injury. For all of these applications, quantitative assessments of the behavioral effects of DBS are crucial to determine whether the therapy is effective and, if so, how stimulation parameters can be optimized. Behavioral analyses for DBS are challenging because subject performance is typically assessed from only a small set of discrete measurements made on a discrete rating scale, the time course of DBS effects is unknown, and between-subject differences are often large. We demonstrate how Bayesian state-space methods can be used to characterize the relationship between DBS and behavior comparing our approach with logistic regression in two experiments: the effects of DBS on attention of a macaque monkey performing a reaction-time task, and the effects of DBS on motor behavior of a human patient in a minimally conscious state. The state-space analysis can assess the magnitude of DBS behavioral facilitation (positive or negative) at specific time points and has important implications for developing principled strategies to optimize DBS paradigms.National Institutes of Health (U.S.)(R01 MH-071847)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (DP1 OD003646)National Institutes of Health (U.S.)(NS02172)IntElect Medical (Firm

Ersatz des Schwefelwasserstoffs durch Thioessigsäure

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Electron Transport through Disordered Domain Walls: Coherent and Incoherent Regimes

We study electron transport through a domain wall in a ferromagnetic nanowire subject to spin-dependent scattering. A scattering matrix formalism is developed to address both coherent and incoherent transport properties. The coherent case corresponds to elastic scattering by static defects, which is dominant at low temperatures, while the incoherent case provides a phenomenological description of the inelastic scattering present in real physical systems at room temperature. It is found that disorder scattering increases the amount of spin-mixing of transmitted electrons, reducing the adiabaticity. This leads, in the incoherent case, to a reduction of conductance through the domain wall as compared to a uniformly magnetized region which is similar to the giant magnetoresistance effect. In the coherent case, a reduction of weak localization, together with a suppression of spin-reversing scattering amplitudes, leads to an enhancement of conductance due to the domain wall in the regime of strong disorder. The total effect of a domain wall on the conductance of a nanowire is studied by incorporating the disordered regions on either side of the wall. It is found that spin-dependent scattering in these regions increases the domain wall magnetoconductance as compared to the effect found by considering only the scattering inside the wall. This increase is most dramatic in the narrow wall limit, but remains significant for wide walls.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure

Reductions in disease activity in the AMPLE trial: clinical response by baseline disease duration

Objectives: To evaluate clinical response by baseline disease duration using 2-year data from the AMPLE trial. Methods: Patients were randomised to subcutaneous abatacept 125 mg weekly or adalimumab 40 mg biweekly, with background methotrexate. As part of a post hoc analysis, the achievement of validated definitions of remission (Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) ≤2.8, Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI) ≤3.3, Routine Assessment of Patient Index Data 3 (RAPID3) ≤3.0, Boolean score ≤1), low disease activity (CDAI \u3c10, SDAI \u3c11, RAPID3 ≤6.0), Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index response and American College of Rheumatology responses were evaluated by baseline disease duration (≤6 vs \u3e6 months). Disease Activity Score 28 (C-reactive protein) \u3c2.6 or ≤3.2 and radiographic non-progression in patients achieving remission were also evaluated. Results: A total of 646 patients were randomised and treated (abatacept, n=318; adalimumab, n=328). In both treatment groups, comparable responses were achieved in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (≤6 months) and in those with later disease (\u3e6 months) across multiple clinical measures Conclusions: Abatacept or adalimumab with background methotrexate were associated with similar onset and sustainability of response over 2 years. Patients treated early or later in the disease course achieved comparable clinical responses

The Corley-Jacobson dispersion relation and trans-Planckian inflation

In this Letter we study the dependence of the spectrum of fluctuations in inflationary cosmology on possible effects of trans-Planckian physics, using the Corley/Jacobson dispersion relations as an example. We compare the methods used in previous work [1] with the WKB approximation, give a new exact analytical result, and study the dependence of the spectrum obtained using the approximate method of Ref. [1] on the choice of the matching time between different time intervals. We also comment on recent work subsequent to Ref. [1] on the trans-Planckian problem for inflationary cosmology.Comment: 6 pages, Revtex

Seven Steps Towards the Classical World

Classical physics is about real objects, like apples falling from trees, whose motion is governed by Newtonian laws. In standard Quantum Mechanics only the wave function or the results of measurements exist, and to answer the question of how the classical world can be part of the quantum world is a rather formidable task. However, this is not the case for Bohmian mechanics, which, like classical mechanics, is a theory about real objects. In Bohmian terms, the problem of the classical limit becomes very simple: when do the Bohmian trajectories look Newtonian?Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, uses latexsy

Losing weights: Failure to recognize and act on weight loss documented in an electronic health record

Background: Involuntary weight loss is associated with higher mortality.  When this weight loss is unrecognized, opportunities for timely diagnosis of significant conditions may be missed.  Objective:To use electronic health record (EHR) data to estimate the frequency of unrecognized involuntary weight loss and its implications. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of the weights recorded in an EHR of 100,000 adult patients seen in outpatient clinics over a five-year period using a novel data visualization and review tool.  We reviewed charts of a random sample of 170 patients experiencing weight loss periods.   Our outcomes included determinations of whether weight loss 1) was voluntary vs. involuntary; 2) was recognized and documented; and 3) possible explanations identifiable at the index visit or within the subsequent two years.  Results: Of 170 randomly-selected weight loss periods reviewed, 22 (13%) were involuntary, 36 (21%) were voluntary and 112 (66%) were indeterminate.  Sixty-six (39%) weight loss periods were recognized by clinician at the index visits and an additional 3 (1%) at the next PCP visits.  Possible explanations for weight loss emerged in the subsequent two years including medical conditions in 60 (45%), psycho-social conditions in 19 (14%), erroneous data entry in 9 (7%), voluntary weight loss in 8 (6%),  and postpartum weight loss in 6 (4%).   No possible explanations were found in 32 (24%).   Conclusions:Periods of weight loss were common, often involuntary and frequently not recognized or documented.  Many patients with involuntary weight loss had potential explanations that emerged within the subsequent two years