Numeric and fluid dynamic representation of tornadic double vortex thunderstorms

Current understanding of a double vortex thunderstorm involves a pair of contra-rotating vortices that exists in the dynamic updraft. The pair is believed to be a result of a blocking effect which occurs when a cylindrical thermal updraft of a thunderstorm protrudes into the upper level air and there is a large amount of vertical wind shear between the low level and upper level air layers. A numerical tornado prediction scheme based on the double vortex thunderstorm was developed. The Energy-Shear Index (ESI) is part of the scheme and is calculated from radiosonde measurements. The ESI incorporates parameters representative of thermal instability and blocking effect, and indicates appropriate environments for which the development of double vortex thunderstorms is likely

A Central Partition of Molecular Conformational Space. IV. Extracting information from the graph of cells

In previous works [physics/0204035, physics/0404052, physics/0509126] a procedure was described for dividing the $3 \times N$-dimensional conformational space of a molecular system into a number of discrete cells, this partition allowed the building of a combinatorial structure from data sampled in molecular dynamics trajectories: the graph of cells, that encodes the set of cells in conformational space that are visited by the system in its thermal wandering. Here we outline a set of procedures for extracting useful information from this structure: 1st) interesting regions in the volume occupied by the system in conformational space can be bounded by a polyhedral cone whose faces are determined empirically from a set of relations between the coordinates of the molecule, 2nd) it is also shown that this cone can be decomposed into a hierarchical set of smaller cones, 3rd) the set of cells in a cone can be encoded by a simple combinatorial sequence.Comment: added an intrduction and reference

Sharing online pedagogical practices: A global virtual collaboration & learning opportunity project

These are the slides from a session for the 2023 Social Work Distance Education Conference #SWDE2023. Session description: The Online Campus team at Columbia University’s School of Social Work created a collaboratively written, free ebook to build online educators’ skills in designing synchronous class sessions that are interactive and inclusive. Chapters were authored by 40+ online educators located around the globe, including adjunct and full time faculty, TAs, and technical support specialists. This project is an example of a global learning exchange. So far, the 1,000+ readers have been located in 19 countries. [Note: as of April 6, 2023, the updated data is 2,400 readers in 60 countries and 29,600 views of the book (the abstract was written in October 2022).] In this oral presentation, we propose to share an example of a global virtual collaboration and learning exchange: a project creating a new, free ebook that shares practical exercises for inclusive online teaching. We will share the project planning, logistics, and outcomes, along with our recommendations for others who would like to do a similar project. This ebook was created with no budget, as the ebook platform is free with no ads, and everyone involved volunteered their time, which is common in academic publishing. For social workers, contributing to the field of online education appeals to our profession’s service-oriented values and code of ethics, and creating a free resource that can be used widely speaks to the Columbia University School of Social Work’s mission, which includes “to foster social work education, practice, and research that strengthen and expand the opportunities, resources, and capabilities of all persons to achieve their full potential and well-being.” It also speaks to Columbia University’s mission, which expects “...all areas of the University to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.” The book has the potential for a much wider impact than solely for our program. It is focused on teaching in the Adobe Connect web conferencing platform, but the ideas in the book can easily be adapted to any synchronous platform. Chapter topics apply to different aspects of teaching online to students located around the world, including techniques for teaching students located in different geographical areas and timezones, and building community across distance. As a free open resource, we anticipate that it will be used by educators around the world. In its first month, the book had already had 2,600 views, and in just a few months, views have gone up to over 5,000, with 19 countries represented so far. Over the past six years of offering faculty development, our program’s online educators have consistently expressed that their favorite parts of trainings have been learning from each other. Therefore, we needed to include the voices of adjunct and full time faculty, TAs, technical support specialists, and alumni. We invited our program’s online educators to write chapters that share synchronous teaching activities they have found impactful, and this embedded the opportunity to learn from peers in our community. The book is available on the interactive ebook platform, including as audio files for each chapter, and the platform is compatible with mobile devices. For those with lower Internet bandwidth, the book is downloadable as one large ebook PDF or as separate chapter PDFs -- these different options for reading are an example of accommodating different levels of Internet access in different regions of the world. The slides include quotes from Adeline Medeiros, Aparna Samuel Balasundaram, Christine D. Holmes, Katherine Segal, Kristin Garay, and Rebecca Y. Chung, and include slide content from Suzan Koseoglu, Royce Kimmons, and Jennifer Ramsey; used with permission. The free ebook discussed in the presentation, Designing Engaging and Interactive Synchronous Online Class Sessions, can be found here: https://edtechbooks.org/designing_engaging_interactive_synchronous_online_classes More info about this book can be found here: https://www.onlinepedagogybooks.com

Career contingencies of the correctional officer

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 M35Master of Art

Virtual networking & discussion: Anti-racist pedagogical strategies for online social work education

These are the slides from a session for the 2023 Social Work Distance Education Conference #SWDE2023. Session description: We invite our colleagues to an interactive virtual networking session and conversation on the theme of pedagogical approaches that promote anti-racism in synchronous online courses. Anti-racism is an element of human rights that has global applications, as students and faculty join online courses from around the world, international students participate in U.S.-based online programs, and the social work profession takes on global challenges with a social justice perspective. Our goal for this virtual networking session is to host a conversation that will enhance peer learning and support as we all strive to move toward anti-racist online social work classrooms globally that help prepare students to become anti-racist social workers. The Online Campus at Columbia’s School of Social Work (CSSW) has been discussing anti-racist approaches to online education for several years. As Ibram X. Khendi writes in How to Be An Antiracist, Chapter 1, “anti-racist” is a verb, not a permanent label, and “Like fighting an addiction, being an antiracist requires persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination.” Therefore, throughout our faculty development, we have devoted time to discussions of concrete ways to make classrooms inclusive. For this virtual networking session, we propose to share a handout (Marquart et al, 2022) that will spark conversation and sharing of additional concrete strategies, questions, and challenges around implementing anti-racist teaching in synchronous online courses. We will begin the session with a brief review of the handout, and then open up the discussion, asking guided questions as needed. Our handout will include practical steps and considerations that have been shared during dozens of group conversations during online faculty development sessions, and will include the ideas and voices of adjunct and full time instructors, TAs, technical support, and administrators. By sharing advice and tips drawn from a community of online educators, this handout will embody an approach to knowledge generation that challenges the white supremacy culture characteristic of individualism (Okun, n.d.). The handout discussed in this session, Anti-racist pedagogical considerations and strategies for synchronous online courses, can be found here: https://doi.org/10.7916/zm02-6d5

Modeling Subsistence Change in the Late Prehistoric Period in the Interior Lower Coastal Plain of South Carolina

Recent research on Middle-Late Woodland and Mississippian subsistence-settlement change has modified substantially the traditional models of late fall, coastal to interior transhumance patterns along the southeastern Atlantic Coast. The archeological, ethnohistorical, and environmental data suggest that the interior Lower Coastal Plain of South Carolina was exploited on a year-round basis during the late prehistoric period. These data and those recovered from two archeological sites, which were investigated by the Institute of Archeology and Anthropology for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers\u27 Cooper River Rediversion Project, indicate differences in the subsistence strategies between the Middle-Late Woodland and Mississippian populations, however. The Middle-Late Woodland settlement pattern appears to reflect generalized exploitation of riverine and interriverine resources, whereas the Mississippian exploitation strategy apparently focuses on the intensive exploitation of a relatively narrow range of specific, high density, riverine resources. A series of interrelated hypotheses, deduced from economic ecological theory, characterizes the expected nature of these differences. The hypotheses are tested using paleoecological data and deriving archeological measures of functional variability for the artifact assemblages recovered from sites 38BK235 and 3BBK236 located in the riverine zone. The results support intensive exploitation of the interior riverine zone in the summer and early fall by both Middle-Late Woodland and Mississippian groups, with the Mississippian occupation having more and better defined activity areas and showing a greater range of diversity and functional specificity in the artifact assemblage.https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/archanth_anthro_studies/1006/thumbnail.jp

"Boom" and "Bust" cycles in virus growth suggest multiple selective forces in influenza a evolution

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Influenza A virus evolution in humans is driven at least in part by mutations allowing the virus to escape antibody neutralization. Little is known about the evolution of influenza in birds, a major reservoir of influenza A.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Neutralizing polyclonal antiserum was raised in chicken against reassortant influenza virus, CalX, bearing the hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) of A/California/7/2004 [H3N2]. CalX was serially passaged in the presence of anti-CalX polyclonal IgY to derive viruses capable of growth in the presence of antibody.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Polyclonal chicken antibody neutralized both HA activity and infection by CalX, but had no effect on a strain bearing an earlier human H3 and an irrelevant neuraminidase (A/Memphis/71-Bellamy/42 [H3N1]). Surprisingly, most of the antibody-resistant viruses were still at least partially sensitive to neutralization of HA activity and viral infection. Although mutant HA genes bearing changes that might affect antibody neutralization were identified, the vast majority of HA sequences obtained were identical to wild type, and no individual mutant sequence was found in more than one passage, suggesting that those mutations that were observed did not confer sufficient selective advantage to come to dominate the population. Different passages yielded infectious foci of varying size and plaques of varying size and morphology. Yields of infectious virus and relative frequency of different morphologies changed markedly from passage to passage. Sequences of bulk, uncloned PCR products from antibody-resistant passages indicated changes in the PB2 and PA proteins with respect to the wild type virus.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Each antibody-selected passage consisted of a variety of different cocirculating populations, rather than pure populations of virus able to escape antibody by changes in antibody epitopes. The ability to escape antibody is apparently due to changes in genes encoding the viral polymerase complex, probably resulting in more robust viral replication, allowing the few virus particles not completely neutralized by antibody to rapidly produce large numbers of progeny. Our data suggest that the relative success of an individual variant may depend on both its own gain and loss of fitness, as well as that of its cocirculating variants.</p

Identification of a Novel 0.7-kb Polyadenylated Transcript in the LAT Promoter Region of HSV-1 That Is Strain Specific and May Contribute to Virulence

AbstractHerpes Simplex virus expresses latency-associated transcripts (LATs) the function of which remains obscure despite increasing knowledge of their structure and expression. Upstream of the LAT coding region is a region of the genome that is poorly characterized although it lies in an area that is responsible for modulation of reactivation efficiency in two different animal models. Transcript mapping with strains 17, McKrae, KOS, and F has revealed strain differences in this region of the viral genome. Strain 17 and McKrae expressed a novel polyadenylated 0.7-kb transcript that is absent from KOS and F. This transcript is expressed in the LAT direction and has the kinetics of a true late gene during the lytic cycle of infection. A deletion mutant, 17ΔBsa, which does not express the 0.7-kb RNA, is less virulent than the parental strain 17. A rescuant with F sequence (17ΔBsa/RF) shows virulence similar to F, whereas a rescuant with strain 17 sequence (17ΔBsa/R17) is similar to strain 17. Virulence is altered by deletion or substitution in the region encoding the 0.7-kb transcript (BsaI-BsaI); however, reactivation in the mouse explant cocultivation assay or the adrenergically induced rabbit reactivation model remained unchanged. The importance of this region for virulence is discussed