Sustainability in Selleck Food Court at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Our project proposes practical solutions for reducing food waste and improving student perceptions of food sustainability at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Our solutions are derived from undergraduate student survey responses and inspired by conversations with UNL Dining and Sustainable campus groups. We collected data from two hundred and six students and focused on students with meal plans who ate at Selleck Food Court. Within the qualitative response field, students could write suggestions for improvements to Selleck Food Court. These responses revealed common themes repeatedly raised by students who are passionate about and interested in dining sustainability, whether that is in recycling options, food waste consciousness, or education. Long-term culture building is valuable in dining to promote students’ sustainable behaviors. As our first main solution, we found that signage can act as a reminder, and influence students to be more conscious. In order for us to gain measurable progress, it takes diligent and routine programming to observe long-term cultural changes in the student population. Our second main solution is for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to implement composting, specifically at Selleck Food Court. We found that students are already knowledgeable and willing to participate in composting. We acknowledge a limitation of this study was the potential self-selecting bias among the respondents. Our undergraduate student survey was advertised on around 118 bulletin boards within residence halls, within Selleck Food Court, through faculty, some academic buildings from the College of Arts and Sciences and online departmental newsletters. Respondents who are more inclined to participate in sustainable behavior may be more willing to engage in the study than students who feel indifferent towards the topic. Nonetheless, our aim was to broadly collect data and formulate solutions to the food sustainability efforts at Selleck Food Court

Effect in supralethally irradiated rats of granulocyte colony- stimulating factor and lisofylline on hematopoietic reconstitution by syngeneic bone marrow or whole organ passenger leukocytes

We have previously shown the existence of migratory hematopoietic stem cells in adult solid organs. This study demonstrates that granulocyte colony- stimulating factor (G-CSF) and lisofylline, a phosphatidic acid inhibitor that suppresses hematopoiesis-inhibiting cytokines, can enhance the engraftment of organ-based hematopoietic stem cells. When syngeneic heart grafts or liver nonparenchymal cells were transplanted into lethally irradiated (9.5 Gy) Lewis rats, complete hematopoietic reconstitution and animal survival were significantly improved by treating the recipient with G- CSF or, to a lesser extent, with lisofylline. Pretreatment of hepatic nonparenchymal cell donors with G-CSF, but not lisofylline, also resulted in striking improvement of recipient survival which was associated with an augmented subpopulation of donor stem cells. The results suggest that these drugs can be used to enhance the chimerism that we postulate to be the basis of organ allograft acceptance

Saari's homographic conjecture for planar equal-mass three-body problem in Newton gravity

Saari's homographic conjecture in N-body problem under the Newton gravity is the following; configurational measure \mu=\sqrt{I}U, which is the product of square root of the moment of inertia I=(\sum m_k)^{-1}\sum m_i m_j r_{ij}^2 and the potential function U=\sum m_i m_j/r_{ij}, is constant if and only if the motion is homographic. Where m_k represents mass of body k and r_{ij} represents distance between bodies i and j. We prove this conjecture for planar equal-mass three-body problem. In this work, we use three sets of shape variables. In the first step, we use \zeta=3q_3/(2(q_2-q_1)) where q_k \in \mathbb{C} represents position of body k. Using r_1=r_{23}/r_{12} and r_2=r_{31}/r_{12} in intermediate step, we finally use \mu itself and \rho=I^{3/2}/(r_{12}r_{23}r_{31}). The shape variables \mu and \rho make our proof simple

Efficacy of lamivudine for preventing hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic hepatitis B: A multicenter retrospective study of 2795 patients

ArticleHEPATOLOGY RESEARCH. 32(3): 173-184 (2005)journal articl

Robust H-infinity filtering for 2-D systems with intermittent measurements

This paper is concerned with the problem of robust H∞ filtering for uncertain two-dimensional (2-D) systems with intermittent measurements. The parameter uncertainty is assumed to be of polytopic type, and the measurements transmission is assumed to be imperfect, which is modeled by a stochastic variable satisfying the Bernoulli random binary distribution. Our attention is focused on the design of an H∞ filter such that the filtering error system is stochastically stable and preserves a guaranteed H∞ performance. This problem is solved in the parameter-dependent framework, which is much less conservative than the quadratic approach. By introducing some slack matrix variables, the coupling between the positive definite matrices and the system matrices is eliminated, which greatly facilitates the filter design procedure. The corresponding results are established in terms of linear matrix inequalities, which can be easily tested by using standard numerical software. An example is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed approac

A pilgrimage to gravity on GPUs

In this short review we present the developments over the last 5 decades that have led to the use of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for astrophysical simulations. Since the introduction of NVIDIA's Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) in 2007 the GPU has become a valuable tool for N-body simulations and is so popular these days that almost all papers about high precision N-body simulations use methods that are accelerated by GPUs. With the GPU hardware becoming more advanced and being used for more advanced algorithms like gravitational tree-codes we see a bright future for GPU like hardware in computational astrophysics.Comment: To appear in: European Physical Journal "Special Topics" : "Computer Simulations on Graphics Processing Units" . 18 pages, 8 figure

Markedly lower follow-up rate after liver biopsy in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases than those with viral hepatitis in Japan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) are recommended to have periodic follow-up exams because these patients are at increased risk of the presence of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which can lead to cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. We investigated the follow-up status of NAFLD patients after a liver biopsy examination.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We compared the follow-up rates of NAFLD patients who had received an ultrasonography-guided liver biopsy and patients who had received a liver biopsy for chronic viral hepatitis (hepatitis B or C).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The 1- and 3-year follow-up rates after the liver biopsy were 92.7% and 88.3% for patients with chronic HBV infection, and 93.4% and 88.2% for patients with chronic HCV infection, respectively. In contrast, the follow-up rates for NAFLD patients were 77.6% and 49.9%, respectively, which were significantly lower than those of patients with chronic viral hepatitis (<it>p </it>< 0.0001). Among NAFLD patients, the respective 1- and 3-year follow-up rates were 73.0% and 44.6% for patients with simple steatosis and 80.0% and 52.4% for patients with NASH based on a pathologic diagnosis, without significant difference between these two subgroups (<it>p </it>= 0.5202).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The outpatient-based follow-up rate after a liver biopsy was significantly lower in NAFLD patients compared to patients with chronic viral hepatitis, regardless of the presence of NASH. It is important to determine how to maintain regular hospital visits for NAFLD patients, preventing patient attrition.</p

Serratamolide is a hemolytic factor produced by Serratia marcescens

Serratia marcescens is a common contaminant of contact lens cases and lenses. Hemolytic factors of S. marcescens contribute to the virulence of this opportunistic bacterial pathogen. We took advantage of an observed hyper-hemolytic phenotype of crp mutants to investigate mechanisms of hemolysis. A genetic screen revealed that swrW is necessary for the hyper-hemolysis phenotype of crp mutants. The swrW gene is required for biosynthesis of the biosurfactant serratamolide, previously shown to be a broad-spectrum antibiotic and to contribute to swarming motility. Multicopy expression of swrW or mutation of the hexS transcription factor gene, a known inhibitor of swrW expression, led to an increase in hemolysis. Surfactant zones and expression from an swrW-transcriptional reporter were elevated in a crp mutant compared to the wild type. Purified serratamolide was hemolytic to sheep and murine red blood cells and cytotoxic to human airway and corneal limbal epithelial cells in vitro. The swrW gene was found in the majority of contact lens isolates tested. Genetic and biochemical analysis implicate the biosurfactant serratamolide as a hemolysin. This novel hemolysin may contribute to irritation and infections associated with contact lens use. © 2012 Shanks et al