The Origins of Public Policy During the Civil War: Freedom and Reform for African Americans

This thesis sought to determine the origins of public policy during the American Civil War and how this policy developed to address the question of the African American experience in the Union. The scope of this study relates to developmental policy between 1861 and 1865 in the Union. My research for this study comes almost entirely from first hands accounts in the form diaries, letters, documents, and official reports. The three chapters of this thesis allow me to take a close look at three policy areas as well as their origins and affects. The three aspects I studied were policy relating to the status of former or current slaves, the Union policy for African American enlistment in the army and finally, the policy addressing the Southern Antebellum way of life as it relates to the institution of slavery itself. I chose people who initiated decisions and generated ideas outside of traditional avenues of legislative power that left their mark on official United States policy.Humanitie

Heartbeat location assistance for electrocardiograms

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is the main source of heartbeat analysis throughout the medical community, due to the distinctive appearance of the QRS complex at the time of each beat. There are other signals that also exhibit distinctive patterns at the time of each heartbeat; however, the ECG is still the most prevalently used. Analyzing the ECG alone can be problematic because ECG data can be noisy. The noise often makes it appear as if the heartbeat is missing or that multiple beats occurred in quick succession. This research will analyze the association between a variety of signals and the ECG, and use those associations to predict heartbeat location with greater accuracy than just analyzing the ECG alone. After analyzing all 10 minutes of an ECG signal along with other signals such as Blood Pressure (BP) and Stroke Volume (SV), the goals of this research are: (1) Preprocess the data so that signals show clear shapes and noise is minimized; (2) Generate templates from the provided signals that correspond to a clear QRS complex in the ECG to provide information for what needs to occur in other signals in order for a beat to be annotated; (3) Compare these templates to test records and annotate beats where the templates are approximately matched. By achieving the stated goals this research will aid the medical community in determining the optimal type of template to use, and the number and type of signals required to locate beats with accuracy --Leaf iv

Bridging Home And School: Factors That Contribute To Multiliteracies Development In A Yup'ik Kindergarten Classroom

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2010Since the establishment of a Yup'ik immersion school in Bethel in the mid-1990s, immersion programming has spread to many schools in Southwestern Alaska, including the school in this study. This school maintains a K-3 Yup'ik strand and a K-3 English strand. Both strands merge in the 4 th grade. Concern that the immersion program may hinder student achievement on state mandated benchmark testing in the 3rd grade and beyond has resulted in some opposition to the immersion program. However, in 2007/2008, those and former immersion students scored higher on the English reading and writing benchmark tests than students in the English strand and 3rd and 4th grade students district wide. This ethnographic teacher action research documented the process of multiliteracies development of four kindergarten students. Home literacy practice of students was documented from parent conversations. Classroom literacy development was documented through the collection of student work samples, still photographs, and teacher comments from anecdotal notes. Findings revealed these four students showed progress in their multiliteracies development as illustrated in their drawings, writing, and singing and chanting. Some of the contributing factors that emerged were: Yup'ik/English heard at home, Yup'ik at school, and literacy materials available both at home and school

Investigating Upper Limb Vibration as an Exercise Modality for Persons with Spinal Cord Injury

Strong upper limb musculature is important for persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) to operate manual wheelchairs in order to live independent and meaningful lives. Furthermore, strong upper limb musculature can help to prevent injury and improve pain caused by overuse. Targeted upper limb vibration may be a viable option for persons with SCI to build muscle quickly and efficiently, can be performed in the home and eliminates some of the barriers associated with strength training for persons with SCI. Two research studies aimed to investigate the use of upper limb vibration for persons with SCI. The first research study assessed the feasibility of completing a single training session using upper limb vibration and compared vibration training to standard dumbbell training with respect to power output, blood lactate, heart rate and rating of perceived exertion. More than 80% of participants were able to hold the dumbbell for 45s for only three exercises on the right side and 2 exercises on the left side. Participants perceived exertion was significantly greater when training with vibration for 4 out of the 7 exercises (p < .033). The second study aimed to assess the feasibility, acceptability and implementation of a 12-week training program using upper limb vibration. The secondary aim was to assess the impact of the training program on upper limb strength, power and pain, as well as changes in wheelchair propulsion and transfer ability. The 12-week training program met some of the criteria for feasibility and implementation. One of the three participants who completed the training protocol found vibration training to be acceptable. Improvements in wheelchair propulsion and transfer ability were seen at 12-weeks compared to baseline for two participants. Other results from the 12-week training study were mixed, with no clear success for many of the outcomes. Future studies with dumbbell exercise being completed isometrically are needed to show a difference in physiological measures between vibration training and dumbbell training, which can be truly attributed solely to the addition of vibration. Furthermore, an additional study should be conducted to determine appropriate starting weight for training and appropriate training progression

Analyzing the Performance of the SOFIA Infrared Telescope

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is an airborne near-space observatory onboard a modified Boeing 747-SP aircraft, which flies at altitudes of 45,000 ft., above 99% of the Earth’s water vapor. SOFIA contains an effective 2.5 m infrared (IR) telescope that has a dichroic tertiary mirror, reflecting IR and visible wavelengths to the science instrument (SI) and focal plane imager (FPI), respectively. To date, seven different SIs have been designed to cover a wide range of wavelengths and spectral resolutions. Since the telescope operates in the infrared, different techniques, including chopping, nodding, and dithering, are used to reduce the background noise. After finishing renovations on the aircraft and software in 2013 and installing the FPI guide camera, the focus remains to determine how well the telescope pointed, whether it stayed there over the course of the observation, whether it was in focus, and what the pointing and tracking configuration and state of the telescope was. Through the use of bash scripts, and MATLAB routines, analyses of the telescope performance based on housekeeping time series- in particular centroid plots- and guide camera images will be used to determine the observatory performance

Reticulamoeba Is a Long-Branched Granofilosean (Cercozoa) That Is Missing from Sequence Databases

International audienceWe sequenced the 18S ribosomal RNA gene of seven isolates of the enigmatic marine amoeboflagellate Reticulamoeba Grell, which resolved into four genetically distinct Reticulamoeba lineages, two of which correspond to R. gemmipara Grell and R. minor Grell, another with a relatively large cell body forming lacunae, and another that has similarities to both R. minor and R. gemmipara but with a greater propensity to form cell clusters. These lineages together form a long-branched clade that branches within the cercozoan class Granofilosea (phylum Cercozoa), showing phylogenetic affinities with the genus Mesofila. The basic morphology of Reticulamoeba is a roundish or ovoid cell with a more or less irregular outline. Long and branched reticulopodia radiate from the cell. The reticulopodia bear granules that are bidirectionally motile. There is also a biflagellate dispersal stage. Reticulamoeba is frequently observed in coastal marine environmental samples. PCR primers specific to the Reticulamoeba clade confirm that it is a frequent member of benthic marine microbial communities, and is also found in brackish water sediments and freshwater biofilm. However, so far it has not been found in large molecular datasets such as the nucleotide database in NCBI GenBank, metagenomic datasets in Camera, and the marine microbial eukaryote sampling and sequencing consortium BioMarKs, although closely related lineages can be found in some of these datasets using a highly targeted approach. Therefore, although such datasets are very powerful tools in microbial ecology, they may, for several methodological reasons, fail to detect ecologically and evolutionary key lineages

Remote Exploration: Understanding Martian Surface Processes

Earth and Mars share many similar physical features, including canyons, valleys, craters, volcanoes, ice, and gullies. My research focuses on two distinct projects. The first concentrates on the formation of gullies, which are channel networks generally formed on mid-latitude crater walls on Mars. Debated gully-forming processes include the melting of snowpacks, sublimation of accumulated carbon dioxide frost, melting of snow-rich dusty mantle material, and groundwater flows. Using High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) images of gullies and working with Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) in ENVI, we are able to perform detailed studies of gully morphology, including volume calculations using slope, distance, and elevation. The second topic focuses on determining the mineral composition of Martian rocks. Using Raman spectroscopy, I am testing the mineral composition of igneous rocks and recording spectral peaks for key rock-forming minerals, such as olivine, plagioclase, potassium feldspar, quartz, and pyroxene. Raman spectroscopy is an inelastic light scattering technique that measures the change in energy of a photon. These samples and spectra will be used to help create an automated computer mineral identification algorithm that might be used on future Mars rover missions. Both projects contribute to scientific studies of remote exploration and understanding of the Martian surface