Crosslinks: Improving course connectivity using online open educational resources

The flexibility of student pathways in today’s university programs can make it difficult for students to perceive the relationships between the courses they take and to integrate their knowledge and skills in a useful way. In this paper we describe a tool we have developed to help students cope with this challenge

Virginia Technology and Engineering Education Association 1978-2018: Celebrating Six Decades of Progress

(First Paragraph) Technology and engineering education in Virginia and the nation is coming to a crossroads. Recent growth in state directives, new courses, and ever-changing funding for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education influences the supply of Technology Education teachers, leading to what some say is a dire future for our profession and association. This history is gathered to emphasize the importance and value of what we teach in Virginia public schools. It also captures who was involved with the association leadership over the years

Multifidelity optimization under uncertainty for a tailless aircraft

This paper presents a multifidelity method for optimization under uncertainty for aerospace problems. In this work, the effectiveness of the method is demonstrated for the robust optimization of a tailless aircraft that is based on the Boeing Insitu ScanEagle. Aircraft design is often affected by uncertainties in manufacturing and operating conditions. Accounting for uncertainties during optimization ensures a robust design that is more likely to meet performance requirements. Designing robust systems can be computationally prohibitive due to the numerous evaluations of expensive-to-evaluate high-fidelity numerical models required to estimate system-level statistics at each optimization iteration. This work uses a multifidelity Monte Carlo approach to estimate the mean and the variance of the system outputs for robust optimization. The method uses control variates to exploit multiple fidelities and optimally allocates resources to different fidelities to minimize the variance in the estimates for a given budget. The results for the ScanEagle application show that the proposed multifidelity method achieves substantial speed-ups as compared to a regular Monte-Carlo-based robust optimization.United States. Air Force. Office of Scientific Research. Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (FA9550-15-1-0038

Integrating the processes in the evolutionary system of domestication

Genetics has long been used as a source of evidence to understand domestication origins. A recent shift in the emphasis of archaeological evidence from a rapid transition paradigm of hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists, to a protracted transition paradigm has highlighted how the scientific framework of interpretation of genetic data was quite dependent on archaeological evidence, resulting in a period of discord in which the two evidence types appeared to support different paradigms. Further examination showed that the discriminatory power of the approaches employed in genetics was low, and framed within the rapid paradigm rather than testing it. In order to interpret genetic data under the new protracted paradigm it must be taken into account how that paradigm changes our expectations of genetic diversity. Preliminary examination suggests that a number of features that constituted key evidence in the rapid paradigm are likely to be interpreted very differently in the protracted paradigm. Specifically, in the protracted transition the mode and mechanisms involved in the evolution of the domestication syndrome have become much more influential in the shape of genetic diversity. The result is that numerous factors interacting over several levels of organization in a domestication system need to be taken into account in order to understand the evolution of the process. This presents a complex problem of integration of different data types which is difficult to describe formally. One possible way forward is to use Bayesian approximation approaches that allow complex systems to be measured in a way that does not require such formality

Correction to: The Activity of Polyhomoarginine against Acanthamoeba castellanii (Biology, (2022), 11, 12, (1726), 10.3390/biology11121726)

In the original publication [1], there was a mistake in the legend for ** Figure 1—4 **. **Using a two-sample t-test and two-tailed distribution**. The correct legend appears below. **i. Figure 1: Change “(** p < 0.001 using a two-sample t-test and two-tailed distribution).” to “(** p < 0.001 using one way ANOVA).” ii. Figure 2: Change “(** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05 using a two-sample t-test and two-tailed distribution).” to “(** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05 using one way ANOVA).” iii. Figure 3: change “(** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05 using a two-sample t-test and two-tailed distribution).” to “(** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05 using one way ANOVA).” iv. Figure 4: change “(** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05 using a two-sample t-test and two-tailed distribution).” to “(** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05 using one way ANOVA).” ** There was an error in the original publication. **Full name of PHMB missing in Introduction**. A correction has been made to **Introduction**, **Paragraph Number—3**: i. Change “PHMB or chlorhexidine are widely used to treat this infection as monotherapies or in combination” to “Polyhexamethylene biguanide or chlorhexidine are widely used to treat this infection as monotherapies or in combination”. The authors state that the scientific conclusions are unaffected. This correction was approved by the Academic Editor. The original publication has also been updated

Ability of Essential Oil Vapours to Reduce Numbers of Culturable Aerosolised Coronavirus, Bacteria and Fungi

Transmission of pathogens present in the indoor air can occur through aerosols. This study evaluated the efficacy of an evaporated mix of essential oils to reduce the numbers of culturable aerosolized coronavirus, bacterium and fungus. The essential oil-containing gel was allowed to vaporize inside a glass chamber for 10 or 20 min. Aerosols of a surrogate of SARS-CoV-2, murine hepatitis coronavirus MHV-1, Escherichia coli or Aspergillus flavus spores were produced using a colli-sion nebuliser and passed through the essential oil vapours, then collected on a six-stage Andersen sampler. The six-stages of the impact sampler capture aerosols in sizes ranging from 7 to 0.65 µm. The number of culturable microbes present in the aerosols collected in the different stages were enumerated and compared to the number of culturable microbes in control microbial aerosols that were not exposed to the evaporated essential oils. After 10 and 20 min evaporation, the essential oils reduced the numbers of culturable aerosolized coronavirus by 48% (log10 reduction = 0.3; p = 0.002 vs. control) and 53% (log10 reduction = 0.3; p = 0.001 vs. control), respectively. The essential oils vaporised for 10 min, reduced the number of viable E. coli by 51% (log10 reduction = 0.3; p = 0.032 vs. control). The Aspergillus flavus spores were mostly observed in the larger aerosols (7.00 µm to 2.10 µm) and the essential oils vaporised for 10 min reduced the number of viable spores by 72% (log10 reduction = 0.6; p = 0.008 vs. control). The vapours produced by a gel containing naturally occurring essential oils were able to significantly reduce the viable numbers of aerosolized coronavirus, bacteria and fungal spores. The antimicrobial gel containing the essential oils may be able to reduce aerosol transmission of microbes when used in domestic and workplace settings