A View from Melrose

An essay by President Vivian A. Bull: Another Linfield \u27Defining Moment.\u2

Physiology and prevention of heel ulcers: The state of science

The prevalence of heel ulcers across settings is high and is increasing. Prevention of ulcers requires knowledge of their etiology and the scientific basis for preventive care. The interaction between external pressure and the heel vasculature is central to the prevention of heel ulcers. This article focuses on the prevention of heel pressure ulcers. The physiology of heel tissue perfusion, the effect of external pressure on heel perfusion, as well as what is known about strategies to reduce external pressure and approaches to improve heel skin blood flow will be discussed. It is only through understanding of the physiology of heel tissue perfusion and its relation to external pressure that effective preventive measures to reduce heel skin breakdown can be adapted in clinical practice

Does listening to a personal music player or reading a book during the uptake period of a PET-CT oncology scan cause extra 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18FDG) activity in the skeletal muscles?

Peer reviewe

Modeling Light Trapping in Nanostructured Solar Cells

The integration of nanophotonic and plasmonic structures with solar cells offers the ability to control and confine light in nanoscale dimensions. These nanostructures can be used to couple incident sunlight into both localized and guided modes, enhancing absorption while reducing the quantity of material. Here we use electromagnetic modeling to study the resonances in a solar cell containing both plasmonic metal back contacts and nanostructured semiconductor top contacts, identify the local and guided modes contributing to enhanced absorption, and optimize the design. We then study the role of the different interfaces and show that Al is a viable plasmonic back contact material

Motivation as a predictor of dental students’ affective and behavioral outcomes: Does the quality of motivation matter?

Since the motivation to study and engage in academic activities plays a key role in students’ learning experience and well-being, gaining a better understanding of dental students’ motivations can help educators implement interventions to support students’ optimal motivations. The aim of this study, grounded in self-determination theory, was to determine the predictive role of different types of motivation (autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and amotivation) in the affective and behavioral outcomes of dental students. Amotivation is the absence of drive to pursue an activity due to a failure to establish relationships between activity and behavior; controlled motivation involves behaving under external pressure or demands; and autonomous motivation is an internalized behavior with a full sense of volition, interest, choice, and self-determination. A cross-sectional correlational study was conducted in 2016, in which 924 students (90.2% response rate) from years one to six agreed to participate, granting permission to access their current GPAs and completing four self-reported questionnaires on academic motivation, study strategies, vitality, and self-esteem. The results showed that self-determined motivation (i.e., autonomous over controlled motivation) was positively associated with vitality, self-esteem, and deep study strategies and negatively associated with surface study strategies. The contrary results were found for amotivation. In the motivational model, deep study strategies showed a positive association with students’ academic performance. Contrary results were found for surface study strategies. This study extends understanding of the differentiation of motivation based on its quality types and suggests that being motivated does not necessarily lead to positive educational outcomes. Autonomous motivation, in contrast to controlled motivation and amotivation, should be supported to benefit students with regard to their approaches to learning and well-being since it can promote students’ vitality, self-esteem, deep over surface study strategies, and enhanced academic performance

Plasmonic Nanostructure Design for Efficient Light Coupling into Solar Cells

We demonstrate that subwavelength scatterers can couple sunlight into guided modes in thin film Si and GaAs plasmonic solar cells whose back interface is coated with a corrugated metal film. Using numerical simulations, we find that incoupling of sunlight is remarkably insensitive to incident angle, and that the spectral features of the coupling efficiency originate from several different resonant phenomena. The incoupling cross section can be spectrally tuned and enhanced through modification of the scatterer shape, semiconductor film thickness, and materials choice. We demonstrate that, for example, a single 100 nm wide groove under a 200 nm Si thin film can enhance absorption by a factor of 2.5 over a 10 μm area for the portion of the solar spectrum near the Si band gap. These findings show promise for the design of ultrathin solar cells that exhibit enhanced absorption

The Search for Self/Other Distinctions in the Moral Judgment of Five, Six, and Seven-Year-Olds

Ninety-six children, ages 5\u3e 6, and 7 responded to six Piagetian type story pairs that contrasted good intentions/ high damage with had intentions/low damage to determine differences in how the child judges (a) himself, and (h) another child in identical imaginary situations. The story themes included lying, stealing, and property damage. The taped and illustrated story pairs were presented twice during the testing period with (a) self as the central character, and (b) another child as the central character. No support was found for the Piagetian supposition that the child first makes autonomous choices in situations that involve self. However, older children did increase in their use of intentionality in making moral judgments

An Estimation of U.S. Industry-Level Capital-Labor Substitution

A key parameter that determines the distributional impacts of a policy shift in general equilibrium models is the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. Despite the importance of this parameter in applied modeling, its identification continues to pose a challenge. Given the structure of most growth models, we posit that the true relationship between capital and labor is likely to be close to Cobb- Douglas. Using a rich new data set from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, we estimate substitution elasticities for 28 industries, which cover the entire economy, and provide an indication of the long- and short-run estimates. We fail to reject the Cobb-Douglas specification in 20 of the 28 industries. These findings lend support to the Cobb-Douglas specification as a transparent starting point in simulation analysis.Econometric Methods; Time Series Models; Computable General Equilibrium Models