Student Perceptions of Environmental Quality While Attending Accelerated Medical Technology College Courses

Regional weather patterns in the southwestern United States frequently test the engineering involved in indoor air handling equipment in college facilities. Although an adequate indoor thermal environment has been found to affect student learning, little is known about students\u27 perceptions of classroom heating and ventilation and impacts on learning. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how students in accelerated medical technology courses perceived the environmental quality in their classrooms and discern whether these conditions affected overall gains in knowledge, persistence, and retention in their learning. Fourteen participants from 2 local community colleges were interviewed using purposeful sampling. Guided by Nicol and Humphrey\u27s adaptive heat model along with the theories of Maslow, Bandura, and Bronfenbrenner, the research questions centered on how students perceived the classroom environmental quality and its effects on their learning and well-being. Thematic analysis was used to reveal concerns about the operational state of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, their effect on classroom environmental quality and the student\u27s ability to attend class. Interview responses indicated that positive indoor environmental conditions are essential to students\u27 learning. Project study results led to the development of a white paper for collaborative use at each development forum. Positive implications for social change include increasing staff members\u27 knowledge about improving and maintaining adequate indoor environmental quality to support overall student achievement

A solid-state digital temperature recorder for space use

A solid-state, digital, temperature recorder has been developed for use in space experiments. The recorder is completely self-contained and includes a temperature sensor; all necessary electronics for signal conditioning, processing, storing, control and timing; and a battery power supply. No electrical interfacing with the particular spacecraft on which the unit is used is required. The recorder is small, light, and sturdy, and has no moving parts. It uses only biocompatible materials and has passed vibration and shock spaceflight qualification tests. The unit is capable of storing 2048, -10 to +45 C, 8-bit temperature measurements taken at intervals selectable by factors of 2 from 1.875 to 240 min; data can be retained for at least 6 months. The basic recorder can be simplified to accommodate a variety of applications by adding memory to allow more data to be recorded, by changing the front end to permit measurements other than temperature to be made, and by using different batteries to realize various operating periods. Stored flight data are read out from the recorder by means of a ground read-out unit

Experimental evidence for the breakdown of a Hartree-Fock approach in a weakly interacting Bose gas

We study the formation of a quasi-condensate in a nearly one dimensional, weakly interacting trapped atomic Bose gas. We show that a Hartree Fock (mean-field) approach fails to explain the presence of the quasi-condensate in the center of the cloud: the quasi-condensate appears through an interaction-driven cross-over and not a saturation of the excited states. Numerical calculations based on Bogoliubov theory give an estimate of the cross-over density in agreement with experimental results.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Letter

Modulation of CXCR4, CXCL12, and Tumor Cell Invasion Potential In Vitro by Phytochemicals.

CXCR4 is a chemokine receptor frequently overexpressed on primary tumor cells. Organs to which these cancers metastasize secrete CXCL12, the unique ligand for CXCR4, which stimulates invasion and metastasis to these sites. Similar to our previous work with the chemoprotective phytochemical, 3,3'-diindolylmethane (DIM), we show here that genistein also downregulates CXCR4 and CXCL12 and subsequently lowers the migratory and invasive potentials of breast and ovarian cancer cells. Moreover, genistein and DIM elicit a significantly greater cumulative effect in lowering CXCR4 and CXCL12 levels than either compound alone. Our data suggest a novel mechanism for the protective effects of phytochemicals against cancer progression and indicate that in combination, these compounds may prove even more efficacious