The Impacts of Undergraduate Service-Learning on Post-Graduation Employment Outcomes

This article highlights the results of a study assessing service-learning’s impact on post-graduation employment for students from a large, public land-grant university who had completed their undergraduate degree. Survey data collected three years after graduation yielded 44 unique pairs matched for undergraduate major, graduation date, gender, and academic performance, but with only a single member of each pair having taken service-learning coursework. The study investigated employment outcomes including time needed to find a first job, starting salary, timing of promotions and raises, and type of employment. Paired t-tests found significantly higher starting salaries and significantly shorter time to receive a first raise for graduates with service-learning experience. No significant differences were found regarding (a) whether either set received a raise or promotion, (b) whether the job was in their desired field, (c) the overall time to find an initial job, or (d) the length of time from hiring to first promotion. These results represent the first empirical data assessing service-learning’s potential influence on economic aspects of post-university employment

Heisenberg Spin Bus as a Robust Transmission Line for Perfect State Transfer

We study the protocol known as quantum state transfer for a strongly coupled antiferromagnetic spin chain or ring (acting as a spin bus), with weakly coupled external qubits. By treating the weak coupling as a perturbation, we find that perfect state transfer (PST) is possible when second order terms are included in the expansion. We also show that PST is robust against variations in the couplings along the spin bus and between the bus and the qubits. As evidence of the quantum interference which mediates PST, we show that the optimal time for PST can be smaller with larger qubit separations, for an even-size chain or ring.Comment: 6 figures,submitte

Effectiveness of Variable Message Signs on Driving Behavior Based on a Driving Simulation Experiment

Variable message signs (VMSs), as one of the important ITS devices, provide real-time traffic information of road network to drivers in order to improve route choice and relieve the traffic congestion. In this study, the effectiveness of VMS on driving behavior was tested based on a driving simulation experiment. A road network with three levels of VMS location to route-diverging intersection and three types of VMS information format was designed in a high fidelity driving simulator platform. Fifty-two subjects who were classified by driver age, gender, and vocation successfully completed this experiment. The experimental results showed that driver characteristics, VMS location, and information format profoundly influence driving behaviors. Based on the research findings, it is suggested that VMS would be positioned between 150 m and 200 m upstream of the diverging point to balance the VMS effects on traffic safety and operation and the graphic information VMS format is better than the format with text massage only. Document type: Articl

Transcriptional suppression of breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) by wild-type p53 through the NF-κB pathway in MCF-7 cells

AbstractBreast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) has been shown to confer multidrug resistance, but the mechanisms of its regulation are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the effects of wild-type and mutant p53, and nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) (p50) on BCRP promoter activity in MCF-7 cells. Our results demonstrated that wild-type p53 markedly suppressed BCRP activity and enhanced the chemosensitivity of cells to mitoxantrone, whereas mutant p53 had little inhibitory effect. After inhibition of NF-κB, similar results were obtained. Following knockdown of endogenous p53, BCRP and p50 expressions were increased, and the chemosensitivity of the cells to mitoxantrone was decreased. We conclude that wild-type p53 acts as a negative regulator of BCRP gene transcription

Modeling acute toxicity of metal mixtures to wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) using the biotic ligand model-based toxic units method

The combined toxic effects of copper (Cu) and cobalt (Co) were predicted using the biotic ligand model (BLM) for different concentrations of magnesium (Mg2+) and pH levels, with parameters derived from Cu-only and Co-only toxicity data. The BLM-based toxic unit (TU) approach was used for prediction. Higher activities of Mg2+ linearly increased the EC50 of Cu and Co, supporting the concept of competitive binding of Mg2+ and metal ions in toxic action. The effects of pH on Cu and Co toxicity were related not only to free Cu2+ and Co2+ activity, respectively, but also to inorganic metal complexes. Stability constants for the binding of Cu2+, CuHCO3 +, CuCO3(aq), CuOH+, Mg2+, Co2+, CoHCO3+ and Mg2+ with biotic ligands were logK(CuBL) 5.87, logK(CuHCO3BL) 5.67, logK(CuCO3BL) 5.44, logK(CuOHBL) 5.07, logK(MgBL) 2.93, logK(CoBL) 4.72, logK(CoHCO3BL) 5.81 and logKMgBL 3.84, respectively. The combinations of Cu and Co showed additive effects under different conditions. When compared with the FIAM-based TU model (root mean square error [RMSE = 16.31, R-2 = 0.84]), the BLM-based TU model fitted the observed effects better (RMSE = 6.70, R-2 = 0.97). The present study supports the BLM principles, which indicate that metal speciation and major cations competition need to be accounted for when predicting toxicity of both single metals and mixtures of metals