Texas, War, and Empire: The American Empire in the Conquest and Annexation of the Floridas and the American Southwest

Arguments surrounding American Imperialism focus heavily on the 1890s and after, but preceding actions by the United States in the process of continental expansion present an image of imperialism in the first half of the nineteenth century. This paper examines the annexation of Florida, Texas, and the rest of the American Southwest through the lens of Mexican-American relations and international imperial competition to determine whether the United States was exercising an imperial agenda between 1803 and 1848. It then reapplies pre-existing arguments on American imperialism by Frank Ninkovich, Thomas McCormick, Dane Kennedy, and others to the same 1803-1848 timeline as an additional test for the presence of imperialism. Both processes find that the American ambition to expand southward and westward constituted imperialism because of the methods employed and circumstances surrounding these ambitions and their resultant actions. The strongest aspect of imperialism was the employment of relative power advantages by the United States to compel Mexican acquiescence to American demands for territory in lieu of monetary debts. This conclusion signifies that imperialism was present and active in American history much earlier than the 1890s, and the American expansion westward, including the concept of Manifest Destiny, were ambitions and actions colored with an imperial hue. The acknowledgement of an American Empire provides for increased understanding of American actions and motivations throughout the nation’s history, and the recognition of imperialism this much earlier than most arguments suggest opens that understanding to the early Republic in its continental expansion

Effect of lactoperoxidase on the antimicrobial effectiveness of the thiocyanate hydrogen peroxide combination in a quantitative suspension test

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The positive antimicrobial effects of increasing concentrations of thiocyanate (SCN-) and H₂O₂on the human peroxidase defence system are well known. However, little is known about the quantitative efficacy of the human peroxidase thiocyanate H₂O₂system regarding Streptococcus mutans and sanguinis, as well as Candida albicans. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the enzyme lactoperoxidase on the bactericidal and fungicidal effectiveness of a thiocyanate-H₂O₂combination above the physiological saliva level. To evaluate the optimal effectiveness curve, the exposure times were restricted to 1, 3, 5, and 15 min.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The bactericidal and fungicidal effects of lactoperoxidase on Streptococcus mutans and sanguinis and Candida albicans were evaluated by using two test mixtures of a 2.0% (w/v; 0.34 M) thiocyanate and 0.4% (w/v; 0.12 M) hydrogen peroxide solution, one without and one with lactoperoxidase. Following the quantitative suspension tests (EN 1040 and EN 1275), the growth of surviving bacteria and fungi in a nutrient broth was measured. The reduction factor in the suspension test without lactoperoxidase enzyme was < 1 for all three tested organisms. Thus, the mixtures of 2.0% (w/v; 0.34 M) thiocyanate and 0.4% (w/v; 0.12 M) hydrogen peroxide had no in vitro antimicrobial effect on Streptococcus mutans and sanguinis or Candida albicans. However, the suspension test with lactoperoxidase showed a high bactericidal and fungicidal effectiveness in vitro.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The tested thiocyanate and H₂O₂mixtures showed no relevant antimicrobial effect. However, by adding lactoperoxidase enzyme, the mixtures became not only an effective bactericidal (Streptococcus mutans and sanguinis) but also a fungicidal (Candida albicans) agent.</p

Amoeba Techniques for Shape and Texture Analysis

Morphological amoebas are image-adaptive structuring elements for morphological and other local image filters introduced by Lerallut et al. Their construction is based on combining spatial distance with contrast information into an image-dependent metric. Amoeba filters show interesting parallels to image filtering methods based on partial differential equations (PDEs), which can be confirmed by asymptotic equivalence results. In computing amoebas, graph structures are generated that hold information about local image texture. This paper reviews and summarises the work of the author and his coauthors on morphological amoebas, particularly their relations to PDE filters and texture analysis. It presents some extensions and points out directions for future investigation on the subject.Comment: 38 pages, 19 figures v2: minor corrections and rephrasing, Section 5 (pre-smoothing) extende

Case report 725

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46804/1/256_2004_Article_BF00242137.pd

Amyloidosis of the spine in a patient on long-term hemodialysis

A 54-year-old man with a history of renal failure treated with hemodialysis for over 10 years presented with clinical signs and symptoms and plain radiographic, computed tomographic and magnetic resonance imaging features of cervical vertebral osteomyelitis with spinal cord compression. Decompressive surgery revealed amyloid deposition. In the setting of chronic hemodialysis, differentation between amyloid deposition and osteomyelitis may not be possible on an imaging basis necessitating biopsy for diagnosis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46659/1/234_2004_Article_BF00593058.pd

Examination of Different Accelerometer Cut-Points for Assessing Sedentary Behaviors in Children

Background: Public health research on sedentary behavior (SB) in youth has heavily relied on accelerometers. However, ithas been limited by the lack of consensus on the most accurate accelerometer cut-points as well as by unknown effectscaused by accelerometer position (wrist vs. hip) and output (single axis vs. multiple axes). The present study systematicallyevaluates classification accuracy of different Actigraph cut-points for classifying SB using hip and wrist-worn monitors andestablishes new cut-points to enable use of the 3-dimensional vector magnitude data (for both hip and wrist placement).Methods: A total of 125 children ages 7–13 yrs performed 12 randomly selected activities (from a set of 24 differentactivities) for 5 min each while wearing tri-axial Actigraph accelerometers on both the hip and wrist. The accelerometer datawere categorized as either sedentary or non-sedentary minutes using six previously studied cut-points: 100counts-per-minute (CPM), 200CPM, 300CPM, 500CPM, 800CPM and 1100CPM. Classification accuracy was evaluated with Cohen’s Kappa(k) and new cut-points were identified from Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC).Results: Of the six cut-points, the 100CPM value yielded the highest classification accuracy (k = 0.81) for hip placement. Forwrist placement, all of the cut-points produced low classification accuracy (ranges of k from 0.44 to 0.67). Optimal sedentarycut-points derived from ROC were 554.3CPM (ROC-AUC of 0.99) for vector magnitude for hip, 1756CPM (ROC-AUC of 0.94)for vertical axis for wrist, and 3958.3CPM (ROC-AUC of 0.93) for vector magnitude for wrist placement.Conclusions: The 100CPM was supported for use with vertical axis for hip placement, but not for wrist placement. The ROC-derived cut-points can be used to classify youth SB with the wrist and with vector magnitude data

Accuracy of Neck Circumference in Classifying Overweight and Obese US Children

Objective. To evaluate classification accuracy of NC and compare it with body mass index (BMI) in identifying overweight/obese US children. Methods. Data were collected from 92 children (boys: 61) aged 7 to 13 over a 2-year period. NC, BMI, and percent of body fat (BF%) were measured in each child and their corresponding cut-off values were applied to classify the children as being overweight/obese. Classification accuracy of NC and BMI was systematically investigated for boys and girls in relation to true overweight/obesity categorization as assessed with a criterion measure of BF% (i.e., Bod Pod). Results. For boys, Cohen’s k (0.25), sensitivity (38.1%), and specificity (85.0%) of NC were smaller in comparison with Cohen’s k (0.57), sensitivity (57.1%), and specificity (95.0%) of BMI in relation to BF% categorization. For girls, Cohen’s k (0.45), sensitivity (50.0%), and specificity (91.3%) of NC were smaller in comparison with Cohen’s k (0.52), sensitivity (50.0%), and specificity (95.7%) of BMI. Conclusion. NC measurement was not better than BMI in classifying childhood overweight/obesity and, for boys, NC was inferior to BMI. Pediatricians and/or pediatric researchers should be cautious or wary about incorporating NC measurements in their pediatric care and/or research

Noncommutative Spheres and Instantons

We report on some recent work on deformation of spaces, notably deformation of spheres, describing two classes of examples. The first class of examples consists of noncommutative manifolds associated with the so called $\theta$-deformations which were introduced out of a simple analysis in terms of cycles in the $(b,B)$-complex of cyclic homology. These examples have non-trivial global features and can be endowed with a structure of noncommutative manifolds, in terms of a spectral triple (\ca, \ch, D). In particular, noncommutative spheres $S^{N}_{\theta}$ are isospectral deformations of usual spherical geometries. For the corresponding spectral triple (\cinf(S^{N}_\theta), \ch, D), both the Hilbert space of spinors \ch= L^2(S^{N},\cs) and the Dirac operator $D$ are the usual ones on the commutative $N$-dimensional sphere $S^{N}$ and only the algebra and its action on $\ch$ are deformed. The second class of examples is made of the so called quantum spheres $S^{N}_q$ which are homogeneous spaces of quantum orthogonal and quantum unitary groups. For these spheres, there is a complete description of $K$-theory, in terms of nontrivial self-adjoint idempotents (projections) and unitaries, and of the $K$-homology, in term of nontrivial Fredholm modules, as well as of the corresponding Chern characters in cyclic homology and cohomology.Comment: Minor changes, list of references expanded and updated. These notes are based on invited lectures given at the ``International Workshop on Quantum Field Theory and Noncommutative Geometry'', November 26-30 2002, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. To be published in the workshop proceedings by Springer-Verlag as Lecture Notes in Physic

A calibration protocol for population-specific accelerometer cut-points in children

PurposeTo test a field-based protocol using intermittent activities representative of children\u27s physical activity behaviours, to generate behaviourally valid, population-specific accelerometer cut-points for sedentary behaviour, moderate, and vigorous physical activity.MethodsTwenty-eight children (46% boys) aged 10&ndash;11 years wore a hip-mounted uniaxial GT1M ActiGraph and engaged in 6 activities representative of children\u27s play. A validated direct observation protocol was used as the criterion measure of physical activity. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curve analyses were conducted with four semi-structured activities to determine the accelerometer cut-points. To examine classification differences, cut-points were cross-validated with free-play and DVD viewing activities.ResultsCut-points of &le;372, &gt;2160 and &gt;4806 counts&bull;min&minus;1 representing sedentary, moderate and vigorous intensity thresholds, respectively, provided the optimal balance between the related needs for sensitivity (accurately detecting activity) and specificity (limiting misclassification of the activity). Cross-validation data demonstrated that these values yielded the best overall kappa scores (0.97; 0.71; 0.62), and a high classification agreement (98.6%; 89.0%; 87.2%), respectively. Specificity values of 96&ndash;97% showed that the developed cut-points accurately detected physical activity, and sensitivity values (89&ndash;99%) indicated that minutes of activity were seldom incorrectly classified as inactivity.ConclusionThe development of an inexpensive and replicable field-based protocol to generate behaviourally valid and population-specific accelerometer cut-points may improve the classification of physical activity levels in children, which could enhance subsequent intervention and observational studies.<br /