The Mind as a Weapon: A Phenomenological Exploration of how Elementary Teachers Use Mental Imagery to Prepare for Active Shooter Events

The purpose of this transcendental, phenomenological study was to understand how teachers use aspects of mental imagery as a preparatory stress inoculation tool for potentially confronting active shooters at Truman Elementary School (pseudonym). The theory guiding this study was self-efficacy theory as theorized by Albert Bandura; self-efficacy theory rationalizes the way one views oneself will be the source of motivation in subsequent performance. In the context of this study, if teachers saw themselves as successful, then they were successful. Mental imagery was generally defined as visualization techniques that prepared teachers to mentally condition themselves to deal with active shooter events. The study took place at Truman Elementary School, and the participants consisted of 10 certified teachers. Prior to conducting interviews, site documents pertaining to current training for active shooter events were reviewed. Primary data were collected by interviewing 10 teachers, followed by a focus group session with the same participants. The collected data were analyzed using Moustakas’ seven steps of phenomenological research, which included identifying key statements from the participants, clustering responses into themes, and the construction of textural and structural descriptions for each participant. Results from the study included the desire of participants to preserve life, participants desire for additional training, the need for participants to always be prepared, collaboration with other participants, and the outside influences of each participant, which aided in mental image formation. The study determined teachers used mental imagery as a stress inoculation tool for potentially confronting active shooters

Genetics of HbA1c: a case study in clinical translation.

Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) measures the amount of glucose in the blood in the previous 2-3 months and is used to test whether an individual has diabetes (HbA1c≥6.5%), or how well they are managing their diabetes. Genome-wide association studies have successfully identified multiple genomic loci influencing HbA1c, through both glycemic (factors that affect the amount blood glucose levels) and erythrocytic (factors that affect the red blood cell) pathways. Inaccuracies in HbA1c, due to non-glycemic variants, could lead to suboptimal care or adverse health consequences. A recently published example is the erythrocytic variant (rs1050828) in G6PD, which leads to the artificial lowering of HbA1c and missed diagnosis of diabetes using current thresholds. In this review we will discuss recent insights into the genetic etiology of HbA1c, and how these can translate to the clinic

Scalable Agent-Based Modeling for Complex Financial Market Simulations

In this study, we developed a computational framework for simulating large-scale agent-based financial markets. Our platform supports trading multiple simultaneous assets and leverages distributed computing to scale the number and complexity of simulated agents. Heterogeneous agents make decisions in parallel, and their orders are processed through a realistic, continuous double auction matching engine. We present a baseline model implementation and show that it captures several known statistical properties of real financial markets (i.e., stylized facts). Further, we demonstrate these results without fitting models to historical financial data. Thus, this framework could be used for direct applications such as human-in-the-loop machine learning or to explore theoretically exciting questions about market microstructure's role in forming the statistical regularities of real markets. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to implement multiple assets, parallel agent decision-making, a continuous double auction mechanism, and intelligent agent types in a scalable real-time environment

Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus for Firefighter with a Permanent Stoma

The purpose of this project was to create a unique SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) for a firefighter named Chris Gauer. This prototype consists of a SCBA headgear connected to a polycarbonate-formed stoma mask with a medical-grade sanitary silicone hose

Food Impact

Our article focused on the problem of food accuses. We split the piece into Food deserts, Food insecurity, Food acculturation, and discussion. We used professional sources from the Missouri S&T library and professional interviews. We relate most of these topics to the book outcast united then finally relating it to the area of rolla leaving students with something to think about

Development of a cell enrichment device for bone repair utilising tissue non-specific alkaline phosphatase on the surface of dental pulp stromal cells

The overall aim of this thesis was to develop a minimally manipulative, label-free microfluidic cell separator device which is able to deliver an enriched population of autologous cells, positive for tissue non-specific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) via cell capture using either antibody or non-antibody protein binding. TNAP is a promineralising cell surface marker and is potentially useful as a marker for isolation of stem cell populations for use in regenerative therapies. For clinical applications, cells would be isolated from bone marrow aspirate or orthopaedic surgical waste within intraoperative time of less than two hours, then paired with an osteoconductive scaffold to provide an alternative treatment option with potentially accelerated bone repair and regeneration. Dental Pulp Stomal Cells (DPSCs) which were used as a model system throughout this work, were shown to express 2.8 ± 1.3 x 10^5 TNAP molecules on the cells’ surface and the number of TNAP molecules per TNAP+ cell was not altered by factors such as passage number, seeding density and cell donor. Following this, a microfluidc cell separation device was designed and developed for the enrichment of TNAP+ cells, by capture and subsequent release of TNAP+ DPSCs via a surface functionalised with anti-TNAP antibodies. The recovered cells demonstrated a TNAP+ enriched population with up to a two fold enrichment of TNAP+ cells. The device also begun to meet the requirements for a minimally manipulated cell separation as minimal antibody could be detected on the surface of the recovered cells. As well, the capture and release mechanism had minimal effect on the cells’ biological characteristics, as the recovered enriched population retained a high viability and retained their osteogenic differentiation potential. The specificity to TNAP on the cells’ surface of previously identified non-antibody TNAP binding proteins, known as Affimers, was investigated for potential use within the cell separation technology. Affimer proteins were identified for expression and purification, and demonstrated specificity to recombinant TNAP protein. However, there was minimal evidence of specificity to TNAP on the cells’ surface and therefore subsequent development of the device utilised an anti-TNAP antibody instead. This thesis demonstrated a novel cell separation technology capable of providing an enriched population of viable TNAP+ cells with no obvious alterations in their biological characteristics. This provides a platform technology for potential future clinical use in bone regenerative therapies

Culture modifies the operation of prime-to-behavior effects

Culture affects the extent to which people focus on other people or on the situation in drawing inferences. Building on recent research showing that perceptions of others and situations can mediate prime-to-behavior effects, we tested whether culture would modify both the mechanism and the outcome of primed constructs on behavior. Easterners and Westerners were primed with competitiveness or cooperativeness before playing a social dilemma game with an ambiguously or unambiguously competitive player. Results indicated that the primes had different effects on the social dilemma decisions of Easterners and Westerners and that these effects were due to the different consequences the primes had for Easterners’ and Westerners’ perceptions of the other player and construals of the situation

Automated Computational Processing of 3-D MR Images of Mouse Brain for Phenotyping of Living Animals

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging provides a method to obtain anatomical information from the brain in vivo that is not typically available by optical imaging because of this organ's opacity. MR is nondestructive and obtains deep tissue contrast with 100-µm^3 voxel resolution or better. Manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI) may be used to observe axonal transport and localized neural activity in the living rodent and avian brain. Such enhancement enables researchers to investigate differences in functional circuitry or neuronal activity in images of brains of different animals. Moreover, once MR images of a number of animals are aligned into a single matrix, statistical analysis can be done comparing MR intensities between different multi-animal cohorts comprising individuals from different mouse strains or different transgenic animals, or at different time points after an experimental manipulation. Although preprocessing steps for such comparisons (including skull stripping and alignment) are automated for human imaging, no such automated processing has previously been readily available for mouse or other widely used experimental animals, and most investigators use in-house custom processing. This protocol describes a stepwise method to perform such preprocessing for mouse