Transformative Preparation: Measuring The Intercultural Competence Development Of Higher Education And Student Affairs (hesa) Students And Exploring The Intercultural Learning Experience Across Assistantship Sites

Today’s college student body reflects, among many things, the outcome of policies geared towards increasing access and diversifying the academy, efforts to recruit international students, the vast social, political, and economic disparities among marginalized populations, and the extreme cultural polarization of our times. Students on campuses have broad and individualized perspective, approaches, and values, which are culturally rooted, embedded within our socialization and often times conflict with the experiences of other students or the student affairs professionals tasked with supporting students. Student affairs practitioners must enter the field possessing a degree of intercultural competence, defined as an appropriate skillset and mindset, to effectively work across difference and support today’s college student. While the development of intercultural competence is a life-long learning process, master’s-level preparatory programs serve as a critical space for aspiring student affairs practitioners to engage in intercultural learning and skill development. Utilizing pre and post data result from the Intercultural Development Inventory and information gathered from post-graduation interviews, this mixed-methods study examined the intercultural competence development of students in Higher Education within a student affairs master’s level preparatory and their intercultural learning experiences at the assistantship site. The study found that across assistantship sites and observed developmental change, intercultural learning was dictated by the three themes: influential relationships, impactful factors, and depth of engagement

Rhodoliths and rhodolith beds

Rhodolith (maërl) beds, communities dominated by free living coralline algae, are a common feature of subtidal environments worldwide. Well preserved as fossils, they have long been recognized as important carbonate producers and paleoenvironmental indicators. Coralline algae produce growth bands with a morphology and chemistry that record environmental variation. Rhodoliths are hard but often fragile, and growth rates are only on the order of mm/yr. The hard, complex structure of living beds provides habitats for numerous associated species not found on otherwise entirely sedimentary bottoms. Beds are degraded locally by dredging and other anthropogenic disturbances, and recovery is slow. They will likely suffer severe impacts worldwide from the increasing acidity of the ocean. Investigations of rhodolith beds with scuba have enabled precise stratified sampling that has shown the importance of individual rhodoliths as hot spots of diversity. Observations, collections, and experiments by divers have revolutionized taxonomic studies by allowing comprehensive, detailed collection and by showing the large effects of the environment on rhodolith morphology. Facilitated by in situ collection and calibrations, corallines are now contributing to paleoclimatic reconstructions over a broad range of temporal and spatial scales. Beds are particularly abundant in the mesophotic zone of the Brazilian shelf where technical diving has revealed new associations and species. This paper reviews selected past and present research on rhodoliths and rhodolith beds that has been greatly facilitated by the use of scuba

TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF POACEAE POLLEN IN AREAS OF SOUTHERN UNITED KINGDOM, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

Overall, longer Poaceae pollen seasons coincided with earlier pollen season start dates. Winter rainfall noticeably affects the intensity of Poaceae pollen seasons in Mediterranean areas, but this was not as important in Worcester. Weekly data from Worcester followed a similar pattern to that of Badajoz and Évora but at a distance of more than 1500 km and 4-5 weeks later

The static allometry of sexual and non-sexual traits in vervet monkeys

Sexual traits vary tremendously in static allometry. This variation may be explained in part by body size-related differences in the strength of selection. We tested this hypothesis in two populations of vervet monkeys, using estimates of the level of condition dependence for different morphological traits as a proxy for body size-related variation in the strength of selection. In support of the hypothesis, we found that the steepness of allometric slopes increased with the level of condition dependence. One trait of particular interest, the penis, had shallow allometric slopes and low levels of condition dependence, in agreement with one of the most consistent patterns yet detected in the study of allometry, namely that of genitalia exhibiting shallow allometries.This research was supported by NIH grant R01RR0163009

RLang: A Declarative Language for Describing Partial World Knowledge to Reinforcement Learning Agents

We introduce RLang, a domain-specific language (DSL) for communicating domain knowledge to an RL agent. Unlike existing RL DSLs that ground to \textit{single} elements of a decision-making formalism (e.g., the reward function or policy), RLang can specify information about every element of a Markov decision process. We define precise syntax and grounding semantics for RLang, and provide a parser that grounds RLang programs to an algorithm-agnostic \textit{partial} world model and policy that can be exploited by an RL agent. We provide a series of example RLang programs demonstrating how different RL methods can exploit the resulting knowledge, encompassing model-free and model-based tabular algorithms, policy gradient and value-based methods, hierarchical approaches, and deep methods

Trophic Relationships of Demersal Fishes in the Shrimping Zone Off Alvarado Lagoon, Veracruz, Mexico

The diet of demersal piscivorous fishes captured as bycatch of the commercial shrimping fleet off the Alvarado lagoonal system, Veracruz, Mexico, was studied. Nine collections distributed throughout the nortes (windy), wet, and dry seasons were made from November 1993 to January 1995. Sampling yielded a total of 646 fishes representing 10 families and 14 species, of which 44.9% had empty digestive tracts and were excluded from analysis. Trichiurus lepturus and Synodus foetens were the most abundant demersal predators in the collections. Differences in food consumption of the 7 most abundant predators were observed among the 3 seasons, with the greatest variety of prey (20 species) taken during the nortes season and the lowest variety (9 species) during the dry season. Five distinct trophic guilds were determined based on an index of relative importance of prey. Prey type and location of prey within the water column helped determine guild classification. The occurrence of different trophic guilds may allow for decreased competition for food resources on the continental shelf off Alvarado, Mexico

Association between the Use of Antibiotics and the Development of Acute Renal Injury in Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19 in a Hospital in the Peruvian Amazon

"Introduction: A significant antibiotic prescribing pattern associated with the COVID-19 pandemic has been described. Multiple protocols included empirical antimicrobials, leading to a substantial increase in antimicrobial consumption in medical care. A higher mortality rate is described among patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who received antibiotics. Objectives: To determine the association between the use of antibiotics and the development of acute renal injury in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in patients treated at the Hospital II EsSalud de Ucayali, 2021. Methods: A cross-sectionalanalytical study was conducted, evaluating the medical records of patients admitted to the intensive care unit between July 2020 and July 2021. For the statistical analysis, measures of central tendency and dispersion, statistical hypothesis contrast tests were used in relation to acute kidney injury (AKI), antibiotic use and associated factors, derived from linear regression models. Results: The factors that were positively associated with the development of AKI were sepsis (aPR: 2.86; 95% CI: 1.26–6.43), shock (aPR:2.49; 95% CI: 1.28–4.86), mechanical ventilation (aPR:9.11; 95% CI: 1.23–67.57), and use of vancomycin (aPR: 3.15; 95% CI: 1.19–8.27). Conclusions: In the Peruvian Amazon, there is a high consumption and inadequate prescription of antibiotics. The drugs most commonly used for the treatment of COVID-19 were: aminoglycosides, vancomycin, ivermectin, azithromycin, tocilizumab, and corticosteroids. The development of AKI among hospitalized patients was found to be related to vancomycin administration. In addition, an association was found with the use of mechanical ventilation, a high body mass index, and the presence of complications such as sepsis or shock. Therefore, inappropriate antibiotic use for COVID-19 has been associated with multiple negative outcomes and consequences.

Modelling the Inorganic Bromine Partitioning in the Tropical Tropopause over the Pacific Ocean

The stratospheric inorganic bromine burden (Bry) arising from the degradation of brominated very short-lived organic substances (VSL org ), and its partitioning between reactive and reservoir species, is needed for a comprehensive assessment of the ozone depletion potential of brominated trace gases. Here we present modelled inorganic bromine abundances over the Pacific tropical tropopause based on aircraft observations of VSL org of two campaigns of the Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment (ATTREX 2013 carried out over eastern Pacific and ATTREX 2014 carried out over the western Pacific) and chemistry-climate simulations (along ATTREX flight tracks) using the specific meteorology prevailing. Using the Community Atmosphere Model with Chemistry (CAM-Chem), we model that BrO and Br are the daytime dominant species. Integrated across all ATTREX flights BrO represents ~ 43 % and 48 % of daytime Bry abundance at 17 km over the Western and Eastern Pacific, respectively. The results also show zones where Br/BrO >1 depending on the solar zenith angle (SZA), ozone concentration and temperature. On the other hand, BrCl and BrONO 2 were found to be the dominant night-time species with ~ 61% and 56 % of abundance at 17 km over the Western and Eastern Pacific, respectively. The western-to-eastern differences in the partitioning of inorganic bromine are explained by different abundances of ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) , and total inorganic chlorine (Cly).Fil: Navarro, María A.. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Saiz-lopez, Alfonso. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Química Física; EspañaFil: Cuevas, Carlos Alberto. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Química Física; EspañaFil: Fernandez, Rafael Pedro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentina. Universidad Tecnologica Nacional. Facultad Regional Mendoza. Secretaría de Ciencia, Tecnología y Postgrado; ArgentinaFil: Atlas, Elliot. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Rodriguez Lloeveras, Xavier. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto de Química Física; EspañaFil: Kinnison, Douglas E.. National Center For Atmospheric Research. Amospheric Chemistry División; Estados UnidosFil: Lamarque, Jean Francois. National Center For Atmospheric Research. Amospheric Chemistry División; Estados UnidosFil: Tilmes, Simone. National Center For Atmospheric Research. Amospheric Chemistry División; Estados UnidosFil: Thornberry, Troy. State University of Colorado at Boulder; Estados Unidos. Earth System Research Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Rollins, Andrew. State University of Colorado at Boulder; Estados Unidos. Earth System Research Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Elkins, James W.. Earth System Research Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Hintsa, Eric J.. State University of Colorado at Boulder; Estados Unidos. Earth System Research Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Moore, Fred L.. State University of Colorado at Boulder; Estados Unidos. Earth System Research Laboratory; Estados Unido