Are We Helping? A Discussion of the Effects of TRIO Program Intervention on K - 12 Appalachian Seniors: RESEARCH

Postsecondary education is quickly becoming a requirement for many flourishing and emerging career fields. Because of this, an increased focused on postsecondary enrollment and attainment has been seen in the education community, particularly in K-12 education systems. To that end, a large number of programs and organizations have begun to provide academic and college preparation assistance to these students in the form of academic advising, college coaching, and personal enrichment. Since the enactment of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, there has been a burgeoning population of such programs like the TRIO family. This article focuses on a group of graduating high school students who were participants in such a TRIO program. Their academic metrics as well as factors like demographics and TRIO program participation were examined, and although these results will not be a component of this work, they prompted additional questions concerning what could be done to provide more effective support for these students. Concurrently, suggestions for policy were provided and include an increased focus on individual student contact and mentoring relationships, as well as a stronger focus on academic preparation in line with the academic metrics measured in this study

Validation of a novel scoring system for changes in skeletal manifestations of hypophosphatasia in newborns, infants, and children: The Radiographic Global Impression of Change scale

Hypophosphatasia (HPP) is the heritable metabolic disease characterized by impaired skeletal mineralization due to low activity of the tissue-nonspecific isoenzyme of alkaline phosphatase. Although HPP during growth often manifests with distinctive radiographic skeletal features, no validated method was available to quantify them, including changes over time. We created the Radiographic Global Impression of Change (RGI-C) scale to assess changes in the skeletal burden of pediatric HPP. Site-specific pairs of radiographs of newborns, infants, and children with HPP from three clinical studies of asfotase alfa, an enzyme replacement therapy for HPP, were obtained at baseline and during treatment. Each pair was scored by three pediatric radiologists ( raters ), with nine raters across the three studies. Intrarater and interrater agreement was determined by weighted Kappa coefficients. Interrater reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and by two-way random effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a mixed-model repeated measures ANOVA. Pearson correlation coefficients evaluated relationships of the RGI-C to the Rickets Severity Scale (RSS), Pediatric Outcomes Data Collection Instrument Global Function Parent Normative Score, Childhood Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index, 6-Minute Walk Test percent predicted, and Z-score for height in patients aged 6 to 12 years at baseline. Eighty-nine percent (8/9) of raters showed substantial or almost perfect intrarater agreement of sequential RGI-C scores (weighted Kappa coefficients, 0.72 to 0.93) and moderate or substantial interrater agreement (weighted Kappa coefficients, 0.53 to 0.71) in patients aged 0 to 12 years at baseline. Moderate-to-good interrater reliability was observed (ICC, 0.57 to 0.65). RGI-C scores were significantly (p ≤ 0.0065) correlated with the RSS and with measures of global function, disability, endurance, and growth in the patients aged 6 to 12 years at baseline. Thus, the RGI-C is valid and reliable for detecting clinically important changes in skeletal manifestations of severe HPP in newborns, infants, and children, including during asfotase alfa treatment. © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research Published by Wiley Periodicals Inc

Geochemical, spatial, and temporal relationships of the intrusives and meta-intrusives of the Pogo deposit, eastern Interior, AK

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2020The Pogo deposit is an intrusion-related gold deposit (IRGD) located approximately 90 km southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. It consists mainly of shallowly NW dipping quartz veins hosted in amphibolite facies paragneiss and predominately granite orthogneiss bodies. To date the deposit has produced over 4 million ounces of gold. U-Pb zircon dating of the orthogneisses shows they have Devonian-Mississippian protolith ages. Dates from the metamorphic zircons, established by microprobe Th data and cathodoluminescence studies, constrain a mid-Cretaceous metamorphic event to ~116 Ma. Recrystallization of kyanite to sillimanite and zircon recrystallization indicates this was a large fluid flux event that predated mineralization by 10 million years. Due to the fine-grained nature of the intrusive rocks at Pogo, identifying rocks in hand sample proved problematic. By combining XRF analysis of the rocks' major and trace elements and age data from this and previous studies, I identified and differentiated several suites of igneous rocks. The oldest is peraluminous granite, emplaced at ~2.5 ± 0.5 kb at ~109-107 Ma, predating mineralization at 104 Ma at a pressure of 2.0 kb. Non-peraluminous granite is less common and of uncertain relationship to the peraluminous granite. Next, temporally, is a body named the Football pluton (and associated dike) of granodioritic to tonalitic composition, emplaced at 2.0 ± 0.5 kb at 103 ± 2 Ma. Not only indistinguishable from age and depth of mineralization, a dike of this body is present downdip underneath the Liese veins (main zone of mineralization), making it the most likely candidate for being the causative pluton for mineralization. The final mid-Cretaceous body is the Liese pluton (and associated dikes), of quartz diorite to tonalite. This forms a large body with E-W dikes cutting the Pogo mineralization and post-dating it at 95.4 ± 0.2 Ma, emplaced at a pressure of 1.0 kb. Thermobarometry and radiometric dating indicate a consistent uplift rate of about 0.6 mm/year during the mid-Cretaceous, 116 to 95 Ma. Initially an extensional event, subduction-related magmatism began at about 105 Ma. At the same time, the thrust faults were re-activated as low angle normal faults that apparently acted as pathways for the Liese mineralization.Chapter 1: Introduction and methods -- Chapter 2: Geologic units, their compositions & distribution -- Chapter 3: Zircon geochronology and zircon compositions -- Chapter 4: Geothermobarometry of metamorphic and intrusive rocks -- Chapter 5: Summary & conclusions -- References

The Role of an Urban Tallgrass Prairie Remnant in Conservation: A Case Study in Central Iowa (USA)

Although more than 85% of Iowa (USA) was covered by tallgrass prairie at the time of settlement by Europeans in the early 19th century, less than 0.1% remains. The Richard W. Pohl State Preserve at Ames (IA) High School, surrounded on three sides by structures, roads, and other development, protects 4 ha of tallgrass prairie. The preserve, commonly referred to as Ames High Prairie (AHP), was grazed but never plowed under private ownership until its acquisition by the Ames School District in 1959. Although considered for development as a parking lot or football field in the 1960s, the residents of Ames voted in 1970 to award The Nature Conservancy (TNC) a 49-year lease to the property (until 2019). This preserve, almost completely open in the 1930s, has been subject to numerous threats, including encroachment by woody plants, entry of non-native and invasive plant species associated with human activity, and erosion associated with storm water runoff, sewer line repair, foot and bike traffic, and major flood events. Recent management activities at AHP, conducted by volunteer land stewards, high school and college students, TNC summer interns, and private contractors, has consisted of controlled burns, cutting and herbicide treatment of encroaching woody plants, manual removal and herbicide treatment of invasive herbaceous plants, and sowing of seeds (collected on site) into reopened areas. Three vascular plant inventories of the 8.9 ha preserve (1966, 1995, current study) have documented the occurrence of 465 taxa (329 native) at AHP, including 5 Iowa special concern species. This flora includes 147 native prairie plant taxa, which ranks 8th in comparison with the 26 other (and mostly larger) prairies protected as state preserves in Iowa. As a vegetation remnant, AHP protects tallgrass prairie taxa and their gene pools, maintains an example of historically abundant (but now scarce) tallgrass prairie vegetation, and provides citizens an opportunity to experience prairie

Quadrilateral-octagon coordinates for almost normal surfaces

Normal and almost normal surfaces are essential tools for algorithmic 3-manifold topology, but to use them requires exponentially slow enumeration algorithms in a high-dimensional vector space. The quadrilateral coordinates of Tollefson alleviate this problem considerably for normal surfaces, by reducing the dimension of this vector space from 7n to 3n (where n is the complexity of the underlying triangulation). Here we develop an analogous theory for octagonal almost normal surfaces, using quadrilateral and octagon coordinates to reduce this dimension from 10n to 6n. As an application, we show that quadrilateral-octagon coordinates can be used exclusively in the streamlined 3-sphere recognition algorithm of Jaco, Rubinstein and Thompson, reducing experimental running times by factors of thousands. We also introduce joint coordinates, a system with only 3n dimensions for octagonal almost normal surfaces that has appealing geometric properties.Comment: 34 pages, 20 figures; v2: Simplified the proof of Theorem 4.5 using cohomology, plus other minor changes; v3: Minor housekeepin

High Dynamic-Range Radio-Interferometric Images at 327 MHz

Radio astronomical imaging using aperture synthesis telescopes requires deconvolution of the point spread function as well as calibration of the instrumental characteristics (primary beam) and foreground (ionospheric/atmospheric) effects. These effects vary in time and also across the field of view, resulting in directionally-dependent (DD), time-varying gains. The primary beam will deviate from the theoretical estimate in real cases at levels that will limit the dynamic range of images if left uncorrected. Ionospheric electron density variations cause time and position variable refraction of sources. At low frequencies and sufficiently high dynamic range this will also defocus the images producing error patterns that vary with position and also with frequency due to the chromatic aberration of synthesis telescopes. Superposition of such residual sidelobes can lead to spurious spectral signals. Field-based ionospheric calibration as well as "peeling" calibration of strong sources leads to images with higher dynamic range and lower spurious signals but will be limited by sensitivity on the necessary short-time scales. The results are improved images although some artifacts remain.Comment: to appear in Comptes Rendus Physique (2011

An Investigation of Ionic Wind Propulsion

A corona discharge device generates an ionic wind and thrust, when a high voltage corona discharge is struck between sharply pointed electrodes and larger radius ground electrodes. The objective of this study was to examine whether this thrust could be scaled to values of interest for aircraft propulsion. An initial experiment showed that the thrust observed did equal the thrust of the ionic wind. Different types of high voltage electrodes were tried, including wires, knife-edges, and arrays of pins. A pin array was found to be optimum. Parametric experiments, and theory, showed that the thrust per unit power could be raised from early values of 5 N/kW to values approaching 50 N/kW, but only by lowering the thrust produced, and raising the voltage applied. In addition to using DC voltage, pulsed excitation, with and without a DC bias, was examined. The results were inconclusive as to whether this was advantageous. It was concluded that the use of a corona discharge for aircraft propulsion did not seem very practical

Proton‐induced Thermonuclear Reaction Rates for A = 20–40 Nuclei

Proton-induced reaction rates on 26 stable and 29 unstable target nuclei in the mass A = 20–40 region have been evaluated and compiled. Recommended reaction rates, assuming that all interacting nuclei are in the ground state, are presented in tabular form on a temperature grid in the range T = 0.01–10.0 GK. Most reaction rates involving stable targets were normalized to a set of measured standard resonance strengths in the sd shell. For the majority of reaction rates, experimental information from transfer reaction studies has been used consistently. Our results are compared with recent statistical model (Hauser-Feshbach) calculations. Reaction rate uncertainties are presented and amount to several orders of magnitude for many of the reactions. Several of these reaction rates and/or their corresponding uncertainties deviate from results of previous compilations. In most cases, the deviations are explained by the fact that new experimental information became available recently. Examples are given for calculating reaction rates and reverse reaction rates for thermally excited nuclei from the present results. The survey of literature for this review was concluded in 2000 August

Radar observations of ash eruptions

Radar systems located at Portland, Oreg., Seattle, Wash., and near Spokane, Wash., have been used extensively for observations of ash clouds from explosive volcanic eruptions at Mount St. Helens during 1980. Eruption clouds are composed of silicate particles and are therefore detectable by radar. Radar observations can be made at night and in overcast weather when conventional observations of eruptions are difficult.-from Author