I never left the borderland

I Never Left the Borderland is a memoir encouraged seven years ago. It was originally meant to be the story of a young girl and her experiences as a migrant student, but once the writing process got under way, the narrative began to evolve. It became a complicated account of how the protagonist, now an adult, felt she was experiencing an inexplicable second coming of age, wrestling with her roles as a wife, mother and scholar. The critical introduction focuses on her relationship with literature and how it kept her sane while she struggled with who she was and who others expected her to be. She tells of the process of rediscovering herself, but most importantly—of finding her voice as a woman. The introduction touches briefly on the elements of writing and the challenges in creating this work. A large focus is placed on the literature that influenced the author’s personal life and how it educated her, liberating her along the way

Characterization and Antibiotic Resistance Profile of Staphylococci in The Lower Rio Grande Valley

Staphylococci from part of the natural flora of humans and some, like Staphylococcus aureus, appear to be evolving antibiotic resistance. The Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) is an area of interest due to its proximity to the US/Mexico border where antibiotics could recently be purchased without prescription. Two libraries from community association (CA-S) and environmental association (E-S) have been collected and the staphylococci isolated. We hypothesize that their SCCmec type, which aids the staphylococci in antibiotic resistance, will not display classically defined association schemes and will surface in many species of staphylococci. This study generates antibiotic resistance profiles via antibiotic susceptibility testing, identifies the presence of Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Staphylococcus haemolyticus, the presence of the mecA gene, and SCCmec types I-V among both libraries through multiplex and standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The data produced is an insight into the composition of the staphylococci in the LRGV

Researching Real-World Web Use with Roxy: Collecting Observational Web Data with Informed Consent

Outside of a laboratory environment, it has been difficult for researchers to collect both behavioral and self-reported Web use data from the same participants. To address this challenge, we created Roxy, which is software that collects real-world Web-use data with participants' informed consent. Roxy gathers Web log data as well as the text and HTML code of each page visited by participants. In this workbench note, we describe Roxy's data-gathering capabilities and search functions, then illustrate how we used the software in a multimethod study. The use case examines selective exposure to political communication during the November 2010 U.S. general election campaign

Wavelet probabilistic neural networks

In this article, a novel wavelet probabilistic neural network (WPNN), which is a generative-learning wavelet neural network that relies on the wavelet-based estimation of class probability densities, is proposed. In this new neural network approach, the number of basis functions employed is independent of the number of data inputs, and in that sense, it overcomes the well-known drawback of traditional probabilistic neural networks (PNNs). Since the parameters of the proposed network are updated at a low and constant computational cost, it is particularly aimed at data stream classification and anomaly detection in off-line settings and online environments where the length of data is assumed to be unconstrained. Both synthetic and real-world datasets are used to assess the proposed WPNN. Significant performance enhancements are attained compared to state-of-the-art algorithms

Perceptions and behaviours of infectious diseases physicians when managing urinary tract infections due to MDR organisms

Objectives The objective of this study was to attain a better understanding of infectious diseases (ID) physicians' experience with MDR organism (MDRO) urinary tract infections (UTIs) by means of a survey on disease perception, diagnostic management and treatment preferences. Methods A nine-question survey was developed and distributed to members of the North American Emerging Infections Network (EIN) in September 2013. Results Seven hundred and fourteen out of 1461 EIN members responded to the survey (49%). The responses of 603 responders were studied. Most providers perceived an increase in the incidence of MDRO UTIs over the past 3 years (75% of adult ID responders and 63% of paediatric ID responders). One hundred and thirty-four (22%) responders prefer intravenous over oral administration of antimicrobials when both are available, 171 (28%) prefer longer durations of therapy when comparing an MDRO with a susceptible isolate of the same species and 142 (24%) order a repeat urine culture as ‘proof of cure' after treating an MDRO UTI. Nevertheless, 530 (88%) responders perceived MDRO UTIs to be of similar severity as non-MDRO UTIs. Fifty-five percent of providers prescribed fosfomycin for MDRO UTI at least once; the most common prescribing pattern (among a wide spectrum of approaches) was a single dose (16%). Conclusions Future studies on MDRO UTIs should clarify the role of resistance in patient outcomes and the comparative efficacy of different antimicrobials. Of particular interest is fosfomycin, which is unrelated to other antibiotic classes and may take a more prominent role in treating MDRO cystiti

The first CO+ image: Probing the HI/H2 layer around the ultracompact HII region Mon R2

The CO+ reactive ion is thought to be a tracer of the boundary between a HII region and the hot molecular gas. In this study, we present the spatial distribution of the CO+ rotational emission toward the Mon R2 star-forming region. The CO+ emission presents a clumpy ring-like morphology, arising from a narrow dense layer around the HII region. We compare the CO+ distribution with other species present in photon-dominated regions (PDR), such as [CII] 158 mm, H2 S(3) rotational line at 9.3 mm, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and HCO+. We find that the CO+ emission is spatially coincident with the PAHs and [CII] emission. This confirms that the CO+ emission arises from a narrow dense layer of the HI/H2 interface. We have determined the CO+ fractional abundance, relative to C+ toward three positions. The abundances range from 0.1 to 1.9x10^(-10) and are in good agreement with previous chemical model, which predicts that the production of CO+ in PDRs only occurs in dense regions with high UV fields. The CO+ linewidth is larger than those found in molecular gas tracers, and their central velocity are blue-shifted with respect to the molecular gas velocity. We interpret this as a hint that the CO+ is probing photo-evaporating clump surfaces.Comment: The main text has 4 pages, 2 pages of Appendix, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics letter