Tinkering with Technology: A Library Workshop to Support 4-H Youth Development

When University of Idaho (UI) Extension brought the Idaho 4-H Teen Conference to UI\u27s main campus, the conference organizers collaborated with UI librarians to organize a workshop in the library\u27s newly established makerspace, the Making, Innovating, and Learning Laboratory (MILL). In the MILL, the students used cutting-edge technology to foster new or existing interests in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This article describes how Extension and 4-H youth development professionals can team with librarians to use library makerspaces to introduce 4-H high school students to STEM technologies and digital literacies that will be necessary for jobs of the future

Robust Global Localization Using Clustered Particle Filtering

Global mobile robot localization is the problem of determining a robot's pose in an environment, using sensor data, when the starting position is unknown. A family of probabilistic algorithms known as Monte Carlo Localization (MCL) is currently among the most popular methods for solving this problem. MCL algorithms represent a robot's belief by a set of weighted samples, which approximate the posterior probability of where the robot is located by using a Bayesian formulation of the localization problem. This article presents an extension to the MCL algorithm, which addresses its problems when localizing in highly symmetrical environments; a situation where MCL is often unable to correctly track equally probable poses for the robot. The problem arises from the fact that sample sets in MCL often become impoverished, when samples are generated according to their posterior likelihood. Our approach incorporates the idea of clusters of samples and modifies the proposal distribution considering the probability mass of those clusters. Experimental results are presented that show that this new extension to the MCL algorithm successfully localizes in symmetric environments where ordinary MCL often fails.Comment: 6 pages. Proceedings of AAAI-2002 (in press

The Ethics of Corporate Governance

How should corporate directors determine what is the right decision? For at least the past 30 years the debate has raged as to whether shareholder value should take precedence over corporate social responsibility when crucial decisions arise. Directors face pressure, not least from ethical investors, to do the good thing when they seek to make the right choice. Corporate governance theory has tended to look to agency theory and the need of boards to curb excessive executive power to guide directors' decisions. While useful for those purposes, agency theory provides only limited guidance. Supplementing it with the alternatives - stakeholder theory and stewardship theory - tends to put directors in conflict with their legal obligations to work in the interests of shareholders. This paper seeks to reframe the discussion about corporate governance in terms of the ethical debate between consequential, teleological approaches to ethics and idealist, deontological ones, suggesting that directors are - for good reason - more inclined toward utilitarian judgments like those underpinning shareholder value. But the problems with shareholder value have become so great that a different framework is needed: strategic value, with an emphasis on long-term value creation judged from a decidedly utilitarian standpoint

Genome editing in fruit, ornamental, and industrial crops

The advent of genome editing has opened new avenues for targeted trait enhancement in fruit, ornamental, industrial, and all specialty crops. In particular, CRISPR-based editing systems, derived from bacterial immune systems, have quickly become routinely used tools for research groups across the world seeking to edit plant genomes with a greater level of precision, higher efficiency, reduced off-target effects, and overall ease-of-use compared to ZFNs and TALENs. CRISPR systems have been applied successfully to a number of horticultural and industrial crops to enhance fruit ripening, increase stress tolerance, modify plant architecture, control the timing of flower development, and enhance the accumulation of desired metabolites, among other commercially-important traits. As editing technologies continue to advance, so too does the ability to generate improved crop varieties with non-transgenic modifications; in some crops, direct transgene-free edits have already been achieved, while in others, T-DNAs have successfully been segregated out through crossing. In addition to the potential to produce non-transgenic edited crops, and thereby circumvent regulatory impediments to the release of new, improved crop varieties, targeted gene editing can speed up trait improvement in crops with long juvenile phases, reducing inputs resulting in faster market introduction to the market. While many challenges remain regarding optimization of genome editing in ornamental, fruit, and industrial crops, the ongoing discovery of novel nucleases with niche specialties for engineering applications may form the basis for additional and potentially crop-specific editing strategies.The authors would like to acknowledge funding from MINECO, Spain (PGC2018-097655-B-I00 to P Christou), Generalitat de Catalunya Grant 2017 SGR 828 to the Agricultural Biotechnology and Bioeconomy Unit (ABBU). Work in the Dhingra lab in crop improvement is supported in part by Washington State University Agriculture Research Center Hatch grant WNP00011. ES and FR acknowledge the support received from the Department of Horticulture, BW was supported in part by a Research Assistantship from the Washington State University Graduate School. The authors would also like to thank Drs A. McHughen and H. Quemada for input and clarifications on US genome editing regulations. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments

Using static web technologies and git-based workflows to re-design and maintain a library website (quickly) with non-technical staff

In 2018, a university-wide brand update prompted the University of Idaho Library to re-examine their website development practices and move towards a static web approach that leverages librarian skillsets and provides the library greater control over its systems and data. This case study describes the methodological reasons behind the decision to use the static site generator Jekyll over a Content Management System (CMS) and the practical steps taken to create a sustainable and agile development model. The article details the ways this static web approach (nicknamed “Lib-STATIC”) facilitates cross-departmental communication, collaboration, and innovative feature development for library staff members of varying technical abilities. (Post print version of published article

ULTRAENDURANCE CYCLING IN A HOT ENVIRONMENT: THIRST, FLUID CONSUMPTION, AND WATER BALANCE

ABSTRACT Armstrong, LE, Johnson, EC, McKenzie, AL, Ellis, LA, and Williamson, KH. Ultraendurance cycling in a hot environment: thirst, fluid consumption, and water balance. J Strength Cond Res 29(4): 869-876, 2015-The purpose of this field investigation was to identify and clarify factors that may be used by strength and conditioning professionals to help athletes drink adequately but not excessively during endurance exercise. A universal method to accomplish this goal does not exist because the components of water balance (i.e., sweat rate, fluid consumed) are different for each athlete and endurance events differ greatly. Twenty-six male cyclists (mean 6 SD; age, 41 6 8 years; height, 177 6 7 cm; body mass, 81.85 6 8.95 kg) completed a summer 164-km road cycling event in 7.0 6 2.1 hours (range, 4.5-10.4 hours). Thirst ratings, fluid consumed, indices of hydration status, and body water balance (ingested fluid volume 2 [urine excreted + sweat loss]) were the primary outcome variables. Measurements were taken before the event, at designated aid stations on the course (52, 97, and 136 km), and at the finish line. Body water balance during exercise was not significantly correlated with exercise time on the course, height, body mass, or body mass index. Thirst ratings were not significantly correlated with any variable. We also observed a wide range of total sweat losses (4.9-12.7 L) and total fluid intakes (2.1-10.5 L) during this ultraendurance event. Therefore, we recommend that strength and conditioning professionals develop an individualized drinking plan for each athlete, by calculating sweat rate (milliliter per hour) on the basis of body mass change (in kilograms), during field simulations of competition

Exploration of association rule mining for coding consistency and completeness assessment in inpatient administrative health data.

OBJECTIVE: Data quality assessment is a challenging facet for research using coded administrative health data. Current assessment approaches are time and resource intensive. We explored whether association rule mining (ARM) can be used to develop rules for assessing data quality. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We extracted 2013 and 2014 records from the hospital discharge abstract database (DAD) for patients between the ages of 55 and 65 from five acute care hospitals in Alberta, Canada. The ARM was conducted using the 2013 DAD to extract rules with support ≥0.0019 and confidence ≥0.5 using the bootstrap technique, and tested in the 2014 DAD. The rules were compared against the method of coding frequency and assessed for their ability to detect error introduced by two kinds of data manipulation: random permutation and random deletion. RESULTS: The association rules generally had clear clinical meanings. Comparing 2014 data to 2013 data (both original), there were 3 rules with a confidence difference >0.1, while coding frequency difference of codes in the right hand of rules was less than 0.004. After random permutation of 50% of codes in the 2014 data, average rule confidence dropped from 0.72 to 0.27 while coding frequency remained unchanged. Rule confidence decreased with the increase of coding deletion, as expected. Rule confidence was more sensitive to code deletion compared to coding frequency, with slope of change ranging from 1.7 to 184.9 with a median of 9.1. CONCLUSION: The ARM is a promising technique to assess data quality. It offers a systematic way to derive coding association rules hidden in data, and potentially provides a sensitive and efficient method of assessing data quality compared to standard methods

Data on coding association rules from an inpatient administrative health data coded by International classification of disease - 10th revision (ICD-10) codes

Data presented in this article relates to the research article entitled “Exploration of association rule mining for coding consistency and completeness assessment in inpatient administrative health data” (Peng et al. [1]) in preparation). We provided a set of ICD-10 coding association rules in the age group of 55 to 65. The rules were extracted from an inpatient administrative health data at five acute care hospitals in Alberta, Canada, using association rule mining. Thresholds of support and confidence for the association rules mining process were set at 0.19% and 50% respectively. The data set contains 426 rules, in which 86 rules are not nested. Data are provided in the supplementary material. The presented coding association rules provide a reference for future researches on the use of association rule mining for data quality assessment

Inferring Developmental Stage Composition from Gene Expression in Human Malaria

In the current era of malaria eradication, reducing transmission is critical. Assessment of transmissibility requires tools that can accurately identify the various developmental stages of the malaria parasite, particularly those required for transmission (sexual stages). Here, we present a method for estimating relative amounts of Plasmodium falciparum asexual and sexual stages from gene expression measurements. These are modeled using constrained linear regression to characterize stage-specific expression profiles within mixed-stage populations. The resulting profiles were analyzed functionally by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), confirming differentially active pathways such as increased mitochondrial activity and lipid metabolism during sexual development. We validated model predictions both from microarrays and from quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) measurements, based on the expression of a small set of key transcriptional markers. This sufficient marker set was identified by backward selection from the whole genome as available from expression arrays, targeting one sentinel marker per stage. The model as learned can be applied to any new microarray or qRT-PCR transcriptional measurement. We illustrate its use in vitro in inferring changes in stage distribution following stress and drug treatment and in vivo in identifying immature and mature sexual stage carriers within patient cohorts. We believe this approach will be a valuable resource for staging lab and field samples alike and will have wide applicability in epidemiological studies of malaria transmission

The Impossibility of a Perfectly Competitive Labor Market

Using the institutional theory of transaction cost, I demonstrate that the assumptions of the competitive labor market model are internally contradictory and lead to the conclusion that on purely theoretical grounds a perfectly competitive labor market is a logical impossibility. By extension, the familiar diagram of wage determination by supply and demand is also a logical impossibility and the neoclassical labor demand curve is not a well-defined construct. The reason is that the perfectly competitive market model presumes zero transaction cost and with zero transaction cost all labor is hired as independent contractors, implying multi-person firms, the employment relationship, and labor market disappear. With positive transaction cost, on the other hand, employment contracts are incomplete and the labor supply curve to the firm is upward sloping, again causing the labor demand curve to be ill-defined. As a result, theory suggests that wage rates are always and everywhere an amalgam of an administered and bargained price. Working Paper 06-0