Automating the Surveillance of Mosquito Vectors from Trapped Specimens Using Computer Vision Techniques

Among all animals, mosquitoes are responsible for the most deaths worldwide. Interestingly, not all types of mosquitoes spread diseases, but rather, a select few alone are competent enough to do so. In the case of any disease outbreak, an important first step is surveillance of vectors (i.e., those mosquitoes capable of spreading diseases). To do this today, public health workers lay several mosquito traps in the area of interest. Hundreds of mosquitoes will get trapped. Naturally, among these hundreds, taxonomists have to identify only the vectors to gauge their density. This process today is manual, requires complex expertise/ training, and is based on visual inspection of each trapped specimen under a microscope. It is long, stressful and self-limiting. This paper presents an innovative solution to this problem. Our technique assumes the presence of an embedded camera (similar to those in smart-phones) that can take pictures of trapped mosquitoes. Our techniques proposed here will then process these images to automatically classify the genus and species type. Our CNN model based on Inception-ResNet V2 and Transfer Learning yielded an overall accuracy of 80% in classifying mosquitoes when trained on 25,867 images of 250 trapped mosquito vector specimens captured via many smart-phone cameras. In particular, the accuracy of our model in classifying Aedes aegypti and Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes (both of which are deadly vectors) is amongst the highest. We present important lessons learned and practical impact of our techniques towards the end of the paper

The Digital Age: Reminder and Confirmation Preference in Blood Donation

Introduction: It is widely accepted that individuals are more likely to comply and follow through with responsibilities when reminded and asked to confirm their commitments. With the American Red Cross’ access to fast and affordable communication and this notion in mind, there is potential to develop new recruitment strategies and better methods of ensuring blood donation commitments. In particular, understanding modes of communication with the donor population can have significant implications: avoiding loss of follow up, improving donor experience, and ensuring appropriate use of resources and staff; therefore, the American Red Cross is interested in understanding demographic differences among those who prefer different modes of communication for blood donor appointment reminders and confirmations.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1223/thumbnail.jp

Kinematics of Nearby Subdwarf Stars

We present an analysis of the space motions of 742 subdwarf stars based on the sample of Carney et al. (1994, CLLA). Hipparcos parallaxes, TYC2+HIP proper motions and Tycho2 proper motions were combined with radial velocities and metallicities from CLLA. The kinematical behavior is discussed in particular in relation to their metallicities. The majority of these sample stars have metal abundances of [Fe/H] >-1 and represent the thick disk population. The halo component, with [Fe/H] <-1.6, is characterized by a low mean rotation velocity and a radially elongated velocity ellipsoid. In the intermediate metallicity range (-1.6 < [Fe/H] <-1), we find a significant number of subdwarfs with disklike kinematics. We interpret this population of stars as a metal-weak thick disk population.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic

The participation of elementary school teachers in restorative practices : enhancing community and connectedness

Many issues confront educational leaders as they attempt to provide their students with equitable access to high quality educational experiences. One such challenge is creating the type of workplace conditions that lead to greater levels of teacher job satisfaction and lower levels of teacher isolation. A potential solution that has emerged is restorative practices (RP) which are being used to build a sense of community and connectedness among students and which might also be shown to enhance teachers’ sense of community. However, given its limited application with teachers, research was needed to explore the extent to which RP may positively contribute to the work-place conditions experienced by teachers. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine how the use of RP by elementary school teachers with other campus teachers and stakeholders contributed to their sense of connectedness and community. The study’s participants consisted of five teachers, one counselor, and one campus administrator at a south Texas elementary school. Each participant engaged in one semi-structured interview and the data were analyzed to understand the perspectives of teachers using restorative practices with their colleagues. Findings indicated that the use of RP contributed to the relational connectedness of teachers through enhancing the closeness they experienced with their colleagues and through improving their capacity as communicators. Additionally, the findings showed that RP use contributed to the teachers’ sense of community by promoting bonding among campus teams and generating a positive culture across the campus. Educational leaders and researchers may consider the benefits of RP and how to use such practices to improve job satisfaction among teachers, enhance a sense of connectedness and community among all stakeholders, and provide students with equitable access to the experienced teachers needed to produce successful outcomesEducational Leadership and Polic

Radon, From the Ground into Our Schools: Parent/Guardian Awareness of Radon Levels in Vermont Schools

Introduction. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Ex- posure to radon in schools may be harmful to schoolchildren, faculty, and staff, but there is currently no legislation mandating testing or mitigation of radon levels in Vermont schools. Objectives. The goal of our study was to assess Vermont parents’ awareness of radon’s harmful effects, as well as awareness of and support for testing and mitigation of radon levels in their children’s schools. Methods. We distributed paper and online surveys to Vermont parents of children grades K-12. 126 surveys were received and quantitatively analyzed. We held a focus group of two Vermont parents to gather qualitative data. Results. Most surveyed parents demonstrated general knowledge of radon, but only 51% believed that radon affects the lungs. 8% were confident that their children’s schools had informed them about radon levels. 91.2% believe their children’s schools should take action to address elevated radon levels and 87% would support mandated mitigation. There is some concern and lack of knowledge about the financial implications of radon mitigation. Conclusions. Most Vermont parents of children grades K-12 are unaware that radon is a lung carcinogen and do not know their children’s school’s radon levels or mitigation status. However, most are in favor of legislation that would require testing and dis- closure of schools’ high radon levels. Educating parents about school radon levels and their association with lung cancer could be a foundation for community support of legislation that mandates testing and mitigation of radon in Vermont schools.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1252/thumbnail.jp

The Lithium Content of the Galactic Halo Stars

Thanks to the accurate determination of the baryon density of the universe by the recent cosmic microwave background experiments, updated predictions of the standard model of Big Bang nucleosynthesis now yield the initial abundance of the primordial light elements with an unprecedented precision. In the case of $^7$Li, the CMB+SBBN value is significantly higher than the generally reported abundances for Pop II stars along the so-called Spite plateau. In view of the crucial importance of this disagreement which has cosmological, galactic and stellar implications, we decided to tackle the most critical issues of the problem by revisiting a large sample of literature Li data in halo stars that we assembled following some strict selection criteria on the quality of the original analyses. [Abridged]Comment: 34 pages. Accepted for publication in A&A. Includes additional references and minor correction

An Overview of the Rotational Behavior of Metal--Poor Stars

The present paper describes the behavior of the rotational velocity in metal--poor stars ([Fe/H]<-0.5 dex) in different evolutionary stages, based on Vsini values from the literature. Our sample is comprised of stars in the field and some Galactic globular clusters, including stars on the main sequence, the red giant branch (RGB), and the horizontal branch (HB). The metal--poor stars are, mainly, slow rotators, and their Vsini distribution along the HR diagram is quite homogeneous. Nevertheless, a few moderate to high values of Vsini are found in stars located on the main sequence and on the HB. We show that the overall distribution of Vsini values is basically independent of metallicity for the stars in our sample. In particular, the fast-rotating main sequence stars in our sample present similar rotation rates as their metal-rich counterparts, suggesting that some of them may actually be fairly young, in spite of their low metallicity, or else that at least some of them would be better classified as blue straggler stars. We do not find significant evidence of evolution in Vsini values as a function of position on the RGB; in particular, we do not confirm previous suggestions that stars close to the RGB tip rotate faster than their less evolved counterparts. While the presence of fast rotators among moderately cool blue HB stars has been suggested to be due to angular momentum transport from a stellar core that has retained significant angular momentum during its prior evolution, we find that any such transport mechanisms must likely operate very fast as the star arrives on the zero-age HB (ZAHB), since we do not find a link between evolution off the ZAHB and Vsini values. We present an extensive tabulation of all quantities discussed in this paper, including rotation velocities, temperatures, gravitieComment: 22 pages, 10 figure

Stochastic chemical enrichment in metal-poor systems I. Theory

A stochastic model of the chemical enrichment of metal-poor systems by core-collapse (Type II) supernovae is presented, allowing for large-scale mixing of the enriched material by turbulent motions and cloud collisions in the interstellar medium. Infall of pristine material is taken into account by following the evolution of the gas density in the medium. Analytical expressions were derived for the number of stars enriched by a given number of supernovae, as well as for the amount of mass with which the ejected material from a supernova is mixed before being locked up in a subsequently formed star. It is shown that for reasonable values of the gas density (~0.1 cm-3) and of the supernova rate (~0.25 kpc-3 Myr-1) of the Galactic halo, the resulting metallicity distributions of the extreme Population II stars show a distinct cut-off at [Fe/H] ~= -4. In fact, by assuming no low-mass Population III stars were able to form out of the primordial interstellar medium, the derived fraction of stars below [Fe/H] = -4 is in agreement with observations. Moreover, the probability is high that even the most metal-poor stars observed to date have been enriched by several contributing supernovae. This partly explains the relatively small star-to-star scatter in many chemical-abundance ratios for stars down to [Fe/H] = -4, as recently found in several observational studies. Contribution from the thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae is found to be negligible over almost the entire extremely metal-poor regime. (***abridged***)Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Smoking Profile of Woodside Juvenile Detention Center and Interventional Goal-Setting Workshop

Abstract: We studied smoking status among teenage residents at the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center (Woodside) in Vermont. Using a modified CDC survey and focus groups, we found that short-term detention residents (S group) were significantly more likely to be “smokers” than the long-term treatment residents (L group). All residents reported that stress had an important impact on their lives. Based on our findings, we implemented a goal setting workshop for both L and S groups.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1002/thumbnail.jp