The History of the Utah Education Association

This study seeks to present a history of the Teacher Organizations which have functioned in Utah from 1860 to 1940. Since 1892 their association has been known as the Utah Education Association. This study is a phase of the history of education as as such shares in the purposes claimed for such studies. A statement of general purposes of such studies is as follows: 1. To gain a knowledge of the history of the Utah Education Association as an important part of the professional training of the teacher of the school administrator. 2. The history of education is an ally in the scientific study of education rather than a competitor. It enables teachers to avoid the istakes of the past. It serves to present the educational ideals and stardards of other times. 3. The necessity for adequate interpretation of the history of education is emphasized by E. W. Knight: The history of education eables the educational worker to detect fads and frills in whatever form they may appear, and it serves as a necessary preliminary to educational reform. 4. One of the purposes in making this study was to determine what the Utah Education Association conributes to the classroom teachers of Utah. 5. It has been requested by the National Education Association that a study be made of the history of the Utah Education Association

In the Crosshairs: Second Amendment Lawyers and Cases in State and Federal Appellate Courts

Judicial behavior, the types of activities and behaviors judges become involved with in their capacity on the bench, has a profound and lasting impact on the types of decisions rendered by judges across all courts that comprise the American judiciary (Baum 2000; Baum 2006; Maveety 2002). There is a growing realization that judicial behavior encompasses more than just the making of good laws and public policy decisions (Baum, 2000; Baum 2006; Hammond, Bonneau, & Sheehan 2005; Comparato 2003). For example, Songer & Haire (1992) explore integrated approaches to the study of judicial voting through obscenity cases in the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Creating an integrated multivariate model that combines five approaches to judicial voting, the authors find that this new model correctly predicts about 80% of the judges\u27 votes on obscenity cases with an error reduction rate of almost 46%. My dissertation focuses on the judicial behavior of state Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeals judges through the lens of Second Amendment claims and issues, a polarizing American political issue over the last fifty years.;Through a descriptive and logistic regression analysis of the extent of 488 Second Amendment court rulings made in state courts of last resort and U.S. Courts of Appeals rendered between 1960 and 2009, I theorize that state Supreme Court selection methods, the presences of a state intermediate appellate courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals majority presidential party nomination panel, along with state and federal appellate circuit political ideology, urban/rural dynamics, gun ownership percentage, and homicide rates will have an impact on the outcome of Second Amendment decisions at these various judicial levels. For instance, an elected state Supreme Court system is more likely to produce a gun rights ruling, while an appellate panel with a majority of judges appointed by Democratic Presidents would be more likely to produce a gun control ruling. The results indicate state and appellate circuit political ideology (conservative→liberal spectrum) and gun ownership percentages affect the outcome of Second Amendment decisions in state Supreme Courts and the U.S. Courts of Appeals, while homicide rates affect these decisions in state courts of last resort. As such, a conservative political ideology and high gun ownership percentage in a state or appellate circuit means that it is more likely for their judges to produce a gun rights ruling, while a liberal political ideology and low gun ownership percentage means that the state or appellate circuit is more likely to produce a gun control ruling. One chapter explores these dynamics at the state Supreme Court level, while a second chapter does the same in the U.S. Courts of Appeals.;A third substantive dissertation chapter considers the impact of legal participation, litigation strategies, venue-shopping, along with interest group coordination, networking, and organization, in planned telephone interviews with pro-gun and gun control Second Amendment interest group lawyers who have litigated cases in these two levels of the state and federal judiciary between 1960 and 2009. In this chapter, it is theorized that there will be clear differences between gun rights and gun control interest groups, and heavily funded and lesser funded interest groups, with regard to the five major interview issues listed above. Twenty-one interviews with interest group lawyers will be conducted between 24 August and 15 October 2010

Checklist and Distribution of Arkansas Pteridophytes

Over the past 14 years, an effort was made to summarize and improve our knowledge of the Arkansas pteridophyte flora beyond that developed by Taylor and Demaree (1979). They presented a flora of 68 species plus 2 varieties plus 4 hybrids, for a total of 74 taxa vouchered with 1335 county-level occurrence records. Changes in accepted nomenclature, field work, and herbaria searches have added as new to the flora 10 species plus 1 variety plus 7 hybrids, supported with 74 county-level occurrence records. Another 815 county-level occurrence records were added to the known flora. The Arkansas pteridophyte flora now consists of 78 species plus 3 varieties plus 11hybrids, supported with 2224 county-level occurrence records. Achecklist, 92 distribution maps, a history of Arkansas pteridophyte floristics, corrective nomenclatural notes, and a phylogeny based ona recent national treatment on pteridophytes are provided

Methylmercury in marine ecosystems : spatial patterns and processes of production, bioaccumulation, and biomagnification

Author Posting. © International Association for Ecology and Health, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in EcoHealth 5 (2008): 399-408, doi:10.1007/s10393-008-0201-1.The spatial variation of MeHg production, bioaccumulation and biomagnification in marine food webs is poorly characterized but critical to understanding the links between sources and higher trophic levels such as fish that are ultimately vectors of human and wildlife exposure. This paper discusses both large and local scale processes controlling Hg supply, methylation, bioaccumulation and transfer in marine ecosystems. While global estimates of Hg supply suggest important open ocean reservoirs of MeHg, only coastal processes and food webs are known sources of MeHg production, bioaccumulation, and bioadvection. The patterns observed to date suggest that not all sources and biotic receptors are spatially linked and that physical and ecological processes are important in transferring MeHg from source regions to bioaccumulation in marine food webs and from lower to higher trophic levels.Supported by NIH Grant Number P42 ESO7373 from the NIEHS, SERDP funds from the Department of Defense, the ESSRF (Environmental Science Strategic Research Fund) DFO, Canada, Woods Hole Sea Grant, Woods Hole Coastal Ocean Institute, National Science Foundation, and RI-INBRE Grant #P20RR016457 from NCRR, NIH

Sulfur gases produced by the decomposition of sulfide minerals: Application to geochemical exploration

We have evaluated the potential application of sulfur gas analysis to exploration for buried sulfide mineral deposits by: (1) calculating by use of equilibrium thermodynamics, the relative abundances of gases that should be given off by decomposing sulfide minerals; and (2) determining experimentally the abundances of gases that are actually given off. The calculations indicate that the gases that should be given off by decomposing sulfide minerals are (in order of decreasing abundance) H2S, COS, CS2, CH3SH, (CH3)2S2 or SO2 or S2 (depending on Eh and pH). In contrast, our experiments show that decomposing sulfide minerals evolve only CS2 and COS, in order of decreasing abundance. Pyrite produces the largest amounts of sulfur gas. Moist (rather than saturated) and non-sterile (rather than sterile) conditions enhance gas generation from pyrite, although no large difference appeared between sterile and non-sterile experiments for other sulfide minerals. These experiments indicate that the sulfur gases CS2 and COS could be useful indicators of buried metal sulfide deposits.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/23777/1/0000015.pd

Circulating Biomarkers to Identify Responders in Cardiac Cell therapy.

Bone marrow mononuclear cell (BM-MNC) therapy in ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction (STEMI) has no biological inclusion criteria. Here, we analyzed 63 biomarkers and cytokines in baseline plasma samples from 77 STEMI patients treated with BM-MNCs in the TIME and Late-TIME trials as well as 61 STEMI patients treated with placebo. Response to cell therapy was defined by changes in left ventricular ejection fraction, systolic/diastolic volumes, and wall motion indexes. We investigated the clinical value of circulating proteins in outcome prediction using significance testing, partial least squares discriminant analysis, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Responders had higher biomarker levels (76-94% elevated) than non-responders. Several biomarkers had values that differed significantly (P < 0.05) between responders and non-responders including stem cell factor, platelet-derived growth factor, and interleukin-15. We then used these lead candidates for ROC analysis and found multiple biomarkers with values areas under the curve >0.70 including interleukin 15. These biomarkers were not involved in the placebo-treated subjects suggesting that they may have predictive power. We conclude that plasma profiling after STEMI may help identify patients with a greater likelihood of response to cell-based treatment. Prospective trials are needed to assess the predictive value of the circulating biomarkers

Fertilizing lawns

1 online resource (PDF, 4 pages)This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Loci for Liver Enzyme Concentrations in Mexican Americans: The GUARDIAN Consortium.

ObjectivePopulations of Mexican American ancestry are at an increased risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The objective of this study was to determine whether loci in known and novel genes were associated with variation in aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (n = 3,644), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (n = 3,595), and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) (n = 1,577) levels by conducting the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of liver enzymes, which commonly measure liver function, in individuals of Mexican American ancestry.MethodsLevels of AST, ALT, and GGT were determined by enzymatic colorimetric assays. A multi-cohort GWAS of individuals of Mexican American ancestry was performed. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were tested for association with liver outcomes by multivariable linear regression using an additive genetic model. Association analyses were conducted separately in each cohort, followed by a nonparametric meta-analysis.ResultsIn the PNPLA3 gene, rs4823173 (P = 3.44 × 10-10 ), rs2896019 (P = 7.29 × 10-9 ), and rs2281135 (P = 8.73 × 10-9 ) were significantly associated with AST levels. Although not genome-wide significant, these same SNPs were the top hits for ALT (P = 7.12 × 10-8 , P = 1.98 × 10-7 , and P = 1.81 × 10-7 , respectively). The strong correlation (r2  = 1.0) for these SNPs indicated a single hit in the PNPLA3 gene. No genome-wide significant associations were found for GGT.ConclusionsPNPLA3, a locus previously identified with ALT, AST, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in European and Japanese GWAS, is also associated with liver enzymes in populations of Mexican American ancestry

Diversification of an Endemic Southeast Asian Genus: Phylogenetic Relationships of the Spiderhunters (Nectariniidae: Arachnothera)

This is the publisher's version, also available at http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1525/auk.2011.11019The phylogeny of spiderhunters (Nectariniidae: Arachnothera) was reconstructed by comparing mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences of all currently recognized species and with broad geographic sampling of two particularly variable species complexes, the Little Spiderhunter (Arachnothera longirostra) and the streaky spiderhunters (A. modesta and A. affinis). It appears to be a relatively old group, whose diversification was not caused by recent sea-level changes. However, the modern, highly sympatric distribution of the large species in the Sunda lowlands was probably a result of dispersal via recent land bridges. Within the highly variable A. longirostra group, there are substantially diverged taxa in the Philippines that should be considered different species. Within the A. affinis—modesta complex, there are three distinct species and a closely related fourth, which describe a clear allopatric distribution: A. affinis in Java, A. modesta in the rest of the Sunda lowlands (except Sabah), A. magna in the Malayan highlands and mainland Southeast Asia, and A. everetti in the Bornean highlands and Sabah. Depending on whether mitochondrial or nuclear genes were compared, monophyly of the genus was disrupted by a single outgroup sunbird (Hypogramma hypogrammicum) or by all outgroup sunbirds included in the study. The discrepancy between nuclear and mitochondrial results is probably a case of deep coalescence and will require additional markers for resolution