Banned Books Week: Big Ideas and Freedom of Information

Banned Books Week: Big Ideas and Freedom of Information Presented by Members of Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society Taylor Vredenburg, Isaiah Russell, Harrison Jenkins, and CJ Gibson October 4, 202

Militia Commission of Isaiah K. Safford as Lieutenant

Commission of Isaiah K. Safford of Dexter, as a Lieutenant of a Company of Infantry in the Third Regiment, in the First Brigade and Third Division of the Militia of the State of Maine, by Governor Jonathon G. Hunton., September 8, 1830.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainebicentennial/1107/thumbnail.jp

Genital self-sampling compared with cervicovaginal lavage for the diagnosis of female genital schistosomiasis in Zambian women: The BILHIV study

Background: Given the potentially causal association of female genital schistosomiasis (FGS) with HIV-1 infection, improved diagnostics are urgently needed to scale-up FGS surveillance. The BILHIV (bilharzia and HIV) study assessed the performance of home-based self-collection methods (cervical and vaginal swabs) compared to cervicovaginal lavage (CVL) for the detection of Schistosoma DNA by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Methods: Between January and August 2018, a consecutive series of female participants from the Population-Cohort of the previous HIV prevention trial HPTN 071 (PopART), resident in Livingstone, Zambia were invited to take part in BILHIV if they were 18–31 years old, non-pregnant and sexually active. Genital self-collected swabs and a urine specimen were obtained and a questionnaire completed at home visits. CVL was obtained at clinic follow-up. Results: 603 women self-collected genital swabs. Of these, 527 women had CVL performed by a mid-wife during clinic follow-up. Schistosoma DNA was more frequently detected in genital self-collected specimens (24/603, 4.0%) compared to CVL (14/527, 2.7%). Overall, 5.0% (30/603) women had female genital schistosomiasis, defined as a positive PCR by any genital sampling method (cervical swab PCR, vaginal swab PCR, or CVL PCR) and 95% (573/603) did not have a positive genital PCR. The sensitivity of any positive genital self-collected swab against CVL was 57.1% (95% CI 28.9–82.3%), specificity 97.3% (95.5–98.5%). In a subset of participants with active schistosome infection, determined by detectable urine Circulating Anodic Antigen (CAA) (15.1%, 91/601), positive PCR (4.3%, 26/601), or positive microscopy (5.5%, 33/603), the sensitivity of any positive self-collected specimen against CVL was 88.9% (51.8–99.7%). Conclusions: Genital self-sampling increased the overall number of PCR-based FGS diagnoses in a field setting, compared with CVL. Home-based sampling may represent a scalable alternative method for FGS community-based diagnosis in endemic resource limited settings

Reflections on a crisis: political disenchantment, moral desolation, and political integrity

Declining levels of political trust and voter turnout, the shift towards populist politics marked by appeals to ‘the people’ and a rejection of ‘politics-as-usual’, are just some of the commonly cited manifestations of our culture of political disaffection. Democratic politics, it is argued, is in crisis. Whilst considerable energy has been expended on the task of lamenting the status of our politics and pondering over recommendations to tackle this perceived crisis, amid this raft of complaints and solutions lurks confusion. This paper seeks to explore the neglected question of what the precise nature of the crisis with which we are confronted involves, and, in so doing, to go some way towards untangling our confusion. Taking my cue from Machiavelli and his value-pluralist heirs, I argue that there is a rift between a morally admirable and a virtuous political life. Failure to appreciate this possibility causes narrations of crisis to misconstrue the moral messiness of politics in ways that lead us to misunderstand how we should respond to disenchantment. Specifically, I suggest that: (i) we think that there is a moral crisis in politics because we have an unsatisfactorily idealistic understanding of political integrity in the first place; and (ii) it is a mistake to imagine that the moral purification of politics is possible or desirable. Put simply, our crisis is not moral per se but primarily philosophical in nature: it relates to the very concepts we employ—the qualities of character and context we presuppose whilst pondering over political integrity

AB INITIO SCF STUDIES ON THE GROUND AND EXCITED STATES OF SO2SO_{2}

Author Institution: Department of Chemistry, The Ohio State UniversityAb initio SCF calculations have been performed on the ground and some excited states of $SO_{2}$. The effect of various basis sets on the ground state configuration have been examined and a basis set of 11s, 7p, 2d contracted to 7s, 5p, 2d on the sulfur, 7s, 5p, 1d contracted to 5s, 3p, 1d on the oxygen atoms has been employed to map the potential surface in a qualitative way for the ground state, ($^{1}A_{1}$), and certain interesting low-lying excited states ($^{3}A_{2}, ^{3}B_{1},^{3}B_{2}, ^{1}A_{2}, ^{1}B_{1}, ^{1}B_{2}$). Geometry optimizations are reported for these states along with selected properties. An attempt will be made to relate these calculations to the complex spectra of $SO_{2}$

ISORROPIA‐MCX: Enabling Sensitivity Analysis With Multicomplex Variables in the Aerosol Thermodynamic Model, ISORROPIA

Abstract Sensitivity analysis with atmospheric chemical transport models may be used to quantify influences of specific emissions on pollutant concentrations. This information facilitates efficient environmental decision‐making regarding emissions control strategies for pollutants that affect human health and public welfare. The multicomplex step method (MCX) is a sensitivity analysis approach that enables calculation of first‐ and higher‐order sensitivities of a nonlinear algorithm with analytical accuracy. Compared to the well‐known finite difference method, the MCX method is also straight‐forward to compute yet does not suffer from precision errors due to subtracting numbers with common leading digits and eliminates the requirement of tuning the step size. The aerosol inorganic equilibrium thermodynamic model, ISORROPIA, which treats ammonium, chloride, nitrate, sodium, sulfate, calcium, potassium, and magnesium, was augmented to leverage the multicomplex step method (ISORROPIA‐MCX) to analyze the influence that the total amount of a pollutant has on concentrations partitioned into different phases. This enables simultaneous calculation of the first‐order, second‐order, and cross‐sensitivity terms in the Taylor Series expansion when evaluating the impact of changes in input parameters on an output variable, increasing the accuracy of the estimated effect when the functions are nonlinear. ISORROPIA encodes highly nonlinear processes which showcases the computational advantages of the multicomplex step method as well as the limitations of the approach for fractured solution surfaces. With ISORROPIA‐MCX, the influence of total concentrations of aerosol precursors on aerosol acidity are evaluated with cross‐sensitivity terms for the first time

Point-of-Sale Strategies: a Tobacco Control Guide

This tobacco control guide, co-published by CPHSS and the Public Health Law Center (formerly Tobacco Control Legal Consortium) is designed to help state and local tobacco control staff build effective and sustainable comprehensive tobacco control programs. This guide focuses on ways to reduce access to tobacco and exposure to tobacco industry influence in the retail environment.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cphss/1102/thumbnail.jp

Ohio State Capitol

60 East State Street, Columbus, OH 43215exterior, facad