Interview with Harris Wofford by Brien Williams

Biographical NoteHarris Llewellyn Wofford was born April 9, 1926, in New York City. He attended the University of Chicago and both Yale and Howard University Law Schools. During World War II he served in the Air Force. From 1954 to 1958 he served as an attorney for the Commission on Civil Rights, then in 1959 began teaching law at Notre Dame. He was an unofficial advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. and an advisor to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign. He became Kennedy’s special assistant on civil rights and helped form the Peace Corps, serving as the Peace Corps’ special representative to Africa and director of operations for Ethiopia; from 1962 to 1966 he was the associate director of the Peace Corps. In 1966 he became president of the State University of New York at Old Westbury; then, from 1970 to 1978 he was president of Bryn Mawr College. For a year he was Pennsylvania state chairman of the Democratic Party, and in 1987 he was appointed to be Pennsylvania’s secretary of labor and industry. When Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz died in 1991, Governor Casey appointed Wofford to the vacant Senate seat, and Wofford proceeded to win the special election for the seat the following November. He lost reelection in 1994 to Rick Santorum. Since leaving public office, Wofford has served as CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs AmeriCorps; been on the boards of America’s Promise, Youth Service America, and the Points of Light Foundation; served on the boards of the Center for Citizen Leadership and Malaria No More; and taught at the University of Maryland at College Park. In 2002 he received the John W. Gardner Leadership Award. At the time of this interview, he was a senior fellow at the Case Foundation and a spokesperson for Experience Wave. SummaryInterview includes discussion of: how Wofford came to be appointed to the Senate; the Pennsylvania special election of 1991; how Senator Mitchell helped fund Wofford’s campaign through the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC); first impressions of Mitchell; the Senate prayer breakfast; the story of how Mitchell listened to an opera before going to Ireland to work on the peace agreement; supporting Senator Daschle’s bid to become leader; Senator Moynihan’s role in health care reform; the failure of the Clinton health care reform legislation; Wofford’s and James Carville’s strategy to make health care central to the 1991 campaign; the “Kurks and Turds” story; health care as a more fundamental right than the right to a lawyer; Wofford’s relationship with Carville; factors leading to Wofford’s defeat when he sought reelection; the assault weapon ban; Mitchell’s relationship with Senator Dole; how the Clinton health care plan was formulated; Daschle’s alternative health care plan; the first National Service Act and the Hatch-Kennedy Serve America Bill; Wofford’s reaction to Mitchell’s retirement from the Senate; Mitchell’s career after leaving the Senate; Newt Gingrich’s leadership of the House; the need for the Senate to look at a longer-term strategy; the missed opportunities at the end of the Cold War; Mitchell’s dedication to the search for common ground and to serving the common good; and Mitchell as a statesman

Best strategies for patient education about anticoagulation with warfarin: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Patient education is an essential component in quality management of the anticoagulated patient. Because it is time consuming for clinicians and overwhelming for patients, education of the anticoagulated patient is often neglected. We surveyed the medical literature in order to identify the best patient education strategies.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Study Selection: Two reviewers independently searched the MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases (last search March 2007) using the terms "warfarin" or "anticoagulation", and "patient education". The initial search identified 206 citations, A total of 166 citations were excluded because patients were of pediatric age (4), the article was not related to patient education (48), did not contain original data or inadequate program description (141), was focused solely on patient self-testing (1), was a duplicate citation (3), the article was judged otherwise irrelevant (44), or no abstract was available (25).</p> <p>Data Extraction: Clinical setting, study design, group size, content source, time and personnel involved, educational strategy and domains, measures of knowledge retention.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Data Synthesis: A total of 32 articles were ultimately used for data extraction. Thirteen articles adequately described features of the educational strategy. Five programs used a nurse or pharmacist, 4 used a physician, and 2 studies used other personnel/vehicles (lay educators (1), videotapes (1)). The duration of the educational intervention ranged from 1 to 10 sessions. Patient group size most often averaged 3 to 5 patients but ranged from as low as 1 patient to as much as 11 patients. Although 12 articles offered information about education content, the wording and lack of detail in the description made it too difficult to accurately assign categories of education topics and to compare articles with one another. For the 17 articles that reported measures of patient knowledge, 5 of the 17 sites where the surveys were administered were located in anticoagulation clinics/centers. The number of questions ranged from as few as 4 to as many as 28, and questions were most often of multiple choice format. Three were self-administered, and 2 were completed over the telephone. Two reports described instruments along with formal testing of the validity and reliability of the instrument.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Published reports of patient education related to warfarin anticoagulation vary greatly in strategy, content, and patient testing. Prioritizing the educational domains, standardizing the educational content, and delivering the content more efficiently will be necessary to improve the quality of anticoagulation with warfarin.</p

Selection of morphological traits to improve forage characteristics of Setaria sphacelata grown in Florida.

A genetically diverse population of Setaria sphacelata was developed at Gainesville, Florida by intercrossing the cultivars ?Narok?, ?Kazungula? and ?Solander? and a local persistent population. To determine heritability of traits that may improve setaria as a forage plant in Florida, progeny of the intercrossed population underwent two cycles of selection for inflorescence number and one cycle for leaf width. The selected populations, together with cultivars and introductions, were evaluated for morphological characters, yield and forage quality in field experiments with close- and wide-spaced plants. Increase of inflorescence number was not obtained by selection but resulted in decreased plant height, inflorescence length, yield, leaf width, and leafiness. Leaf width was increased by selection and was associated with increased leafiness and whole-plant crude protein content. The results suggest good prospects for selection of setaria cultivars suited to Florida with improved yield and quality providing they tolerate winter cold and reliably produce seed

Our knowledge of knowledge infrastructures: Lessons learned and future directions

The Knowledge Infrastructures Workshop conducted at UCLA in February 2020, and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, revisited the goals and findings of the 2012 workshop held at the University of Michigan. Thirty scholars, from a diverse array of disciplines and backgrounds, charted a course for the next decade of KI research. Such infrastructures are increasingly fragile, and often brittle, in the face of open data and open source, the demise of gatekeepers, and shifting public and private boundaries that redistribute power. Participants identified new methods and new opportunities for studying KI. Among the many scholarly products they proposed are publications, grant proposals, conference sessions, and workshops on the role of libraries in data services, the death and afterlives of KI, misinformation and disinformation in KI, KI in the Anthropocene, “N simplish rules” to grow and sustain KI, university capacities for KI, designing sustainable KI, and inclusion of underrepresented groups in the design of KI. The report, position papers, and other materials will be maintained at the KI workshop site, http://knowledgeinfrastructures.org

A Comprehensive Comparative Test of Seven Widely-Used Spectral Synthesis Models Against Multi-Band Photometry of Young Massive Star Clusters

We test the predictions of spectral synthesis models based on seven different massive-star prescriptions against Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS) observations of eight young massive clusters in two local galaxies, NGC 1566 and NGC 5253, chosen because predictions of all seven models are available at the published galactic metallicities. The high angular resolution, extensive cluster inventory and full near-ultraviolet to near-infrared photometric coverage make the LEGUS dataset excellent for this study. We account for both stellar and nebular emission in the models and try two different prescriptions for attenuation by dust. From Bayesian fits of model libraries to the observations, we find remarkably low dispersion in the median E(B-V) (~0.03 mag), stellar masses (~10^4 M_\odot) and ages (~1 Myr) derived for individual clusters using different models, although maximum discrepancies in these quantities can reach 0.09 mag and factors of 2.8 and 2.5, respectively. This is for ranges in median properties of 0.05-0.54 mag, 1.8-10x10^4 M_\odot and 1.6-40 Myr spanned by the clusters in our sample. In terms of best fit, the observations are slightly better reproduced by models with interacting binaries and least well reproduced by models with single rotating stars. Our study provides a first quantitative estimate of the accuracies and uncertainties of the most recent spectral synthesis models of young stellar populations, demonstrates the good progress of models in fitting high-quality observations, and highlights the needs for a larger cluster sample and more extensive tests of the model parameter space.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (14 Jan. 2016). 30 pages, 16 figures, 9 table

Jupyter notebooks as discovery mechanisms for open science: Citation practices in the astronomy community

Citing data and software is a means to give scholarly credit and to facilitate access to research objects. Citation principles encourage authors to provide full descriptions of objects, with stable links, in their papers. As Jupyter notebooks aggregate data, software, and other objects, they may facilitate or hinder citation, credit, and access to data and software. We report on a study of references to Jupyter notebooks in astronomy over a 5-year period (2014-2018). References increased rapidly, but fewer than half of the references led to Jupyter notebooks that could be located and opened. Jupyter notebooks appear better suited to supporting the research process than to providing access to research objects. We recommend that authors cite individual data and software objects, and that they stabilize any notebooks cited in publications. Publishers should increase the number of citations allowed in papers and employ descriptive metadata-rich citation styles that facilitate credit and discovery

LEGUS and Halpha-LEGUS Observations of Star Clusters in NGC 4449: Improved Ages and the Fraction of Light in Clusters as a Function of Age

We present a new catalog and results for the cluster system of the starburst galaxy NGC 4449 based on multi-band imaging observations taken as part of the LEGUS and Halpha-LEGUS surveys. We improve the spectral energy fitting method used to estimate cluster ages and find that the results, particularly for older clusters, are in better agreement with those from spectroscopy. The inclusion of Halpha measurements, the role of stochasticity for low mass clusters, the assumptions about reddening, and the choices of SSP model and metallicity all have important impacts on the age-dating of clusters. A comparison with ages derived from stellar color-magnitude diagrams for partially resolved clusters shows reasonable agreement, but large scatter in some cases. The fraction of light found in clusters relative to the total light (i.e., T_L) in the U, B, and V filters in 25 different ~kpc-size regions throughout NGC 4449 correlates with both the specific Region Luminosity, R_L, and the dominant age of the underlying stellar population in each region. The observed cluster age distribution is found to decline over time as dN/dt ~ t^g, with g=-0.85+/-0.15, independent of cluster mass, and is consistent with strong, early cluster disruption. The mass functions of the clusters can be described by a power law with dN/dM ~ M^b and b=-1.86+/-0.2, independent of cluster age. The mass and age distributions are quite resilient to differences in age-dating methods. There is tentative evidence for a factor of 2-3 enhancement in both the star and cluster formation rate ~100 - 300 Myr ago, indicating that cluster formation tracks star formation generally. The enhancement is probably associated with an earlier interaction event

Pyrophosphate-Dependent ATP Formation from Acetyl Coenzyme A in Syntrophus aciditrophicus, a New Twist on ATP Formation.

UnlabelledSyntrophus aciditrophicus is a model syntrophic bacterium that degrades key intermediates in anaerobic decomposition, such as benzoate, cyclohexane-1-carboxylate, and certain fatty acids, to acetate when grown with hydrogen-/formate-consuming microorganisms. ATP formation coupled to acetate production is the main source for energy conservation by S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus However, the absence of homologs for phosphate acetyltransferase and acetate kinase in the genome of S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus leaves it unclear as to how ATP is formed, as most fermentative bacteria rely on these two enzymes to synthesize ATP from acetyl coenzyme A (CoA) and phosphate. Here, we combine transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolite, and enzymatic approaches to show that S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus uses AMP-forming, acetyl-CoA synthetase (Acs1) for ATP synthesis from acetyl-CoA. acs1 mRNA and Acs1 were abundant in transcriptomes and proteomes, respectively, of S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus grown in pure culture and coculture. Cell extracts of S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus had low or undetectable acetate kinase and phosphate acetyltransferase activities but had high acetyl-CoA synthetase activity under all growth conditions tested. Both Acs1 purified from S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus and recombinantly produced Acs1 catalyzed ATP and acetate formation from acetyl-CoA, AMP, and pyrophosphate. High pyrophosphate levels and a high AMP-to-ATP ratio (5.9 ± 1.4) in S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus cells support the operation of Acs1 in the acetate-forming direction. Thus, S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus has a unique approach to conserve energy involving pyrophosphate, AMP, acetyl-CoA, and an AMP-forming, acetyl-CoA synthetase.ImportanceBacteria use two enzymes, phosphate acetyltransferase and acetate kinase, to make ATP from acetyl-CoA, while acetate-forming archaea use a single enzyme, an ADP-forming, acetyl-CoA synthetase, to synthesize ATP and acetate from acetyl-CoA. Syntrophus aciditrophicus apparently relies on a different approach to conserve energy during acetyl-CoA metabolism, as its genome does not have homologs to the genes for phosphate acetyltransferase and acetate kinase. Here, we show that S.&nbsp;aciditrophicus uses an alternative approach, an AMP-forming, acetyl-CoA synthetase, to make ATP from acetyl-CoA. AMP-forming, acetyl-CoA synthetases were previously thought to function only in the activation of acetate to acetyl-CoA