Wildcat Cafe and Brewpub

Wildcat Cafe & Brewpub is unlike any other restaurant in the Ellensburg area. It is a place for students to meet, learn, and grow. By partnering with Central Washington University, students are offered a place in which to apply what they are learning to a real business. Students will gain work experience and earn credits simultaneously. The restaurant would be located on campus and would be available to students and faculty. Having a brewery on campus enables programs, such as the craft beer certificate program to have a building in which they can brew and learn how a brewery operates. Food made in other areas on campus would provide low cost, locally made, fresh alternatives. Vegetables grown by the horticulture department, bread and other baked goods from the culinary arts would supply basic ingredients for the restaurant. Wildcat Cafe & Brewpub will be open through four periods each day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night. During late-night hours live entertainment will be the main focus, offering events ranging from an open-mic, karaoke, comedy or music. As part of a monthly contest, students will have the opportunity to have their menu item, beer, or art put on display. The winner will receive special discounts. Students who have a hand in how the business operates will have a greater sense of pride and accomplishment. My goal is to provide an exciting environment for peers to display their creative talents and passions and have fun while doing it. The Wildcat Cafe & Brewpub by Ryan Brookhart received a third-place prize in the 2014 SOURCE Business Plan Competition

A Field-Based Introduction to Urban Education at the Middle School

Middle school teachers developed objectives and suggested activities for a pilot early field experience to introduce freshman teacher candidates to urban education at the middle school level. This paper presents these objectives and activities plus data about the effects of their use by 15 teachers and 22 freshmen; an additional 30 freshmen placed in a traditional (tutoring) early field experience formed a comparison group. Project freshmen demonstrated higher sense of personal teaching efficacy and flexibility among people in a multicultural setting. In their journals, project freshmen reported more awareness of the urban environment; however, comparison group freshmen were more likely to report a sense of accomplishment. The project experience seems to have provided a “big picture” introduction to urban education, while the traditional experience gave students a taste of success at one small teaching task

Differential assessment of retrograde amnesia produced by Hypothermia following one-trial avoidance conditioning

Two different measures of the retention of avoidance conditioning, frequently used in the investigation of retrograde anmesia (RA), were examined. Rats were given a single training trial on either passive or active avoidance in a conventional black-white discrimination apparatus and step-through latencies were recorded. Task sequence, footshock and hypothermia were experimentally varied across eight groups of subjects. Each S was returned to the experimental apparatus 24 hours after training and given retention tests on both passive and active avoidance tasks. Test trial latencies failed to demonstrate any retention deficits attributable to RA, and both passive and active avoidance test latencies significantly increased. The results were interpreted in terms of the suppression of behavior resulting from conditioned emotionality, and serious questions were raised concerning the validity of single­ trial avoidance latency measures

Approaches to inverse-probability-of-treatment–weighted estimation with concurrent treatments

Objectives: In a setting with two concurrent treatments, inverse-probability-of-treatment weights can be used to estimate the joint treatment effects or the marginal effect of one treatment while taking the other to be a confounder. We explore these two approaches in a study of intravenous iron use in hemodialysis patients treated concurrently with epoetin alfa (EPO). Study Design and Setting: We linked US Renal Data System data with electronic health records (2004–2008) from a large dialysis provider. Using a retrospective cohort design with 776,203 records from 117,050 regular hemodialysis patients, we examined a composite outcome: mortality, myocardial infarction, or stroke. Results: With EPO as a joint treatment, inverse-probability-of-treatment weights were unstable, confidence intervals for treatment effects were wide, covariate balance was unsatisfactory, and the treatment and outcome models were sensitive to omission of the baseline EPO covariate. By handling EPO exposure as a confounder instead of a joint treatment, we derived stable weights and balanced treatment groups on measured covariates. Conclusions: In settings with concurrent treatments, if only one treatment is of interest, then including the other in the treatment model as a confounder may result in more stable treatment effect estimates. Otherwise, extreme weights may necessitate additional analysis steps

Simple Estimators of the Intensity of Seasonal Occurrence

Background: Edwards's method is a widely used approach for fitting a sine curve to a time-series of monthly frequencies. From this fitted curve, estimates of the seasonal intensity of occurrence (i.e., peak-to-low ratio of the fitted curve) can be generated. Methods: We discuss various approaches to the estimation of seasonal intensity assuming Edwards's periodic model, including maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), least squares, weighted least squares, and a new closed-form estimator based on a second-order moment statistic and non-transformed data. Through an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study, we compare the finite sample performance characteristics of the estimators discussed in this paper. Finally, all estimators and confidence interval procedures discussed are compared in a re-analysis of data on the seasonality of monocytic leukemia. Results: We find that Edwards's estimator is substantially biased, particularly for small numbers of events and very large or small amounts of seasonality. For the common setting of rare events and moderate seasonality, the new estimator proposed in this paper yields less finite sample bias and better mean squared error than either the MLE or weighted least squares. For large studies and strong seasonality, MLE or weighted least squares appears to be the optimal analytic method among those considered. Conclusion: Edwards's estimator of the seasonal relative risk can exhibit substantial finite sample bias. The alternative estimators considered in this paper should be preferred

The Use of Molecular Beacon siRNA to Induce Degradation of SARS CoV-2 mRNA in Infected Cells

Undergraduate Basi

A Semiparametric Model Selection Criterion with Applications to the Marginal Structural Model

Estimators for the parameter of interest in semiparametric models often depend on a guessed model for the nuisance parameter. The choice of the model for the nuisance parameter can affect both the finite sample bias and efficiency of the resulting estimator of the parameter of interest. In this paper we propose a finite sample criterion based on cross validation that can be used to select a nuisance parameter model from a list of candidate models. We show that expected value of this criterion is minimized by the nuisance parameter model that yields the estimator of the parameter of interest with the smallest mean-squared error relative to the expected value of an initial consistent reference estimator. In a simulation study, we examine the performance of this criterion for selecting a model for a treatment mechanism in a marginal structural model (MSM) of point treatment data. For situations where all possible models cannot be evaluated, we outline a forward/backward model selection algorithm based on the cross validation criterion proposed in this paper and show how it can be used to select models for multiple nuisance parameters. We evaluate the performance of this algorithm in a simulation study of the one-step estimator of the parameter of interest in a MSM where models for both a treatment mechanism and a conditional expectation of the response need to be selected. Finally, we apply the forward model selection algorithm to a MSM analysis of the relationship between boiled water use and gastrointestinal illness in HIV positive men

Natural History of Coastal Peruvian Solifuges with a Redescription of \u3ci\u3eChinchippus peruvianus\u3c/i\u3e and an additional new species (Arachnida, Solifugae, Ammotrechidae)

Two species of Chinchippus (Ammotrechidae) were studied in central Peru. Both species are endemic to the hyper-arid coastal desert and appear to derive most of their energy and nutrients from maritime prey, such as intertidal amphipods feeding on beach-cast algae or as arthropod scavengers feeding upon seabird and pinniped carcasses. Data on the spatial distribution of the two species were obtained from analyzing stomach contents of one common predator, the gecko Phyllodactylus angustidigitus, and suggest that both species are more abundant in insular than in mainland habitats. We redescribe Chinchippus peruvianus Chamberlin 1920, known only from a female specimen and describe the male for the first time while C. viejaensis is recognized as new. The new species is distinguished from C. peruvianus by its darker coloration, smaller size, and differences in cheliceral dentition

Eight Essential Principles for Improving Grading

Done well, grading can play a key role in a balanced district assessment system