Florida's Halfbeak, Hemiramphus spp., Bait Fishery

Two species of halfbeaks, ballyhoo, Hemiramphus brasiliensis, and balao, H. balao, form the basis of a relatively small but valuable bait fishery in southeastern Florida. Halfbeak landings increased rapidly in the late 1960's but are now relatively stable (about 450,000 kg or 1 million lb annually), and their ex-vessel price is about $600,000. Fishing methods, which had changed in the late 1960's when landings increased, have changed little since the 1970's. Data from a fishery-dependent survey (1988-91) show that catch rates were highest from October to February, when catches were dominated by large ballyhoo (>200 mm or 8 inches fork length (FL)); rates were lowest from May to September, when catches contained both species in more equal numbers and the size range was greater (about 150-250 mm FL) than it was for winter landings. There was little bycatch, and only flyingfishes (Exocoetidae) and needlefishes (Belonidae) occurred consistently. Comparisons of the 1988-91 data with similar data reported from 1974 indicated that halfbeak populations have remained relatively stable

A statistical framework for recovering intensity mapping autocorrelations from crosscorrelations

Intensity mapping experiments will soon have surveyed large swathes of the sky, providing information about the underlying matter distribution of the early universe. The resulting maps can be used to recover statistical information, such as the power spectrum, about the measured spectral lines (for example, HI, [CII], and [OIII]). However precise power spectrum measurements, such as the 21 cm autocorrelation, continue to be challenged by the presence of bright foregrounds and non-trivial systematics. By crosscorrelating different data sets, it may be possible to mitigate the effects of both foreground uncertainty and uncorrelated instrumental systematics. Beyond their own merit, crosscorrelations could also be used to recover autocorrelation information. Such a technique was proposed in Beane et al. (2019) for recovering the 21 cm power spectrum. Generalizing their result, we develop a statistical framework for combining multiple crosscorrelation signals in order to infer information about the corresponding autocorrelations. We do this first within the Least Squares Estimator (LSE) framework, and show how one can derive their estimator, along with several alternative estimators. We also investigate the posterior distribution of recovered autocorrelation and associated model parameters. We find that for certain noise regimes and cosmological signal modeling assumptions this procedure is effective at recovering autospectra from a set of crosscorrelations. Finally, we showcase our framework in the context of several near-future line intensity mapping experiments.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, to be submitted to MNRA

Chromaticity Effects on the Outcomes of Spheroid-based Scored Events

The immense popularity of spheroid-based scored events (colloquially ``football games'') motivates the desire to better understand the underlying mechanisms affecting their outcomes. By construction of these events, participants must distinguish the spheroidal ball from not only the background, but also their team and enemy players, which are marked by self-assigned linear combinations of specific frequencies of electromagnetic magnetic radiation, known as uniform color. We investigate chromatic effects on the outcome of such events. We do this by finding the correlation between the color contrast and the success of several key spheroidal ball match tactics. We perform this analysis for the 2020 NFL regular season, focusing on moves in which uniform colors may be a factor in performance. We conduct a primary analysis using each team's cumulative results over the season, but in doing so neglect non-uniformity in the chosen uniform color per individual. We then conduct a secondary analysis of the performance per game of a single team, the Seattle Seahawks, which exhibited large uniform color variability for the 2020 NFL regular season. In this work, tackles and completions are considered. The Pearson correlation coefficient is then calculated for both tactics. We find little evidence of chromaticity effects, with correlation values of $r_t=-0.0885\pm 0.1819$ and $r_c-0.0292\pm0.1825$, respectively, for the primary analysis.Comment: 8 pages, 4 Figure

Educating on the Impact of Gravitational Insecurity in Children with Sensory Processing Disorder

Gravitational insecurity impacts 15-21% of children with sensory processing disorder, yet little to no research is available on the topic. Therefore, a program was created to provide education to therapists and therapy students in order to better provide education on the topic to others.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonessummer2023/1000/thumbnail.jp

Community Perspectives on COVID-19 Recovery: A Report on 2021 Community Conversations

As Chicago works to come back from the pandemic, years of disinvestment and structural racism have made economic recovery harder for some communities than others. To have a truly equitable recovery, it's important to understand the on-going impact the pandemic has had on Black and Latinx communities hit hard by job loss, sickness, and death. In collaboration with The Chicago Community Trust and We Rise Together: For an Equitable and Just Recovery, New America Chicago commissioned a report from BECOME to learn more about how these communities were recovering and what is still needed from local and federal policymakers for these communities to not just recover but thrive.We Rise Together is a coalition of corporate and philanthropic funders working with the community to accelerate equitable economic recovery in the Chicago region. Housed at The Chicago Community Trust, We Rise Together is increasing employment opportunities for Black and Latinx workers, strengthening businesses of color, and spurring investment in disinvested neighborhoods. Because We Rise Together is committed to grounding the initiative's efforts in the lived experiences of Chicago's most marginalized communities, the decision was made to host Community Conversations across Chicago neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by the pandemic.  A team from BECOME worked with New America Chicago, The Trust, and We Rise Together to plan seven Community Conversations in collaboration with nonprofits from each neighborhood. Participants had strong recommendations for support and resources to help their neighborhoods recover economically from the pandemic. Consistently, across all neighborhoods, we heard that people struggled and continue to struggle economically and emotionally as a result of the pandemic. Still, most found unexpected positives in the midst of the pandemic

Experimental Design for the Gemini Planet Imager

The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a high performance adaptive optics system being designed and built for the Gemini Observatory. GPI is optimized for high contrast imaging, combining precise and accurate wavefront control, diffraction suppression, and a speckle-suppressing science camera with integral field and polarimetry capabilities. The primary science goal for GPI is the direct detection and characterization of young, Jovian-mass exoplanets. For plausible assumptions about the distribution of gas giant properties at large semi-major axes, GPI will be capable of detecting more than 10% of gas giants more massive than 0.5 M_J around stars younger than 100 Myr and nearer than 75 parsecs. For systems younger than 1 Gyr, gas giants more massive than 8 M_J and with semi-major axes greater than 15 AU are detected with completeness greater than 50%. A survey targeting young stars in the solar neighborhood will help determine the formation mechanism of gas giant planets by studying them at ages where planet brightness depends upon formation mechanism. Such a survey will also be sensitive to planets at semi-major axes comparable to the gas giants in our own solar system. In the simple, and idealized, situation in which planets formed by either the "hot-start" model of Burrows et al. (2003) or the core accretion model of Marley et al. (2007), a few tens of detected planets are sufficient to distinguish how planets form.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, revised after referee's comments and resubmitted to PAS

Australia's first Allied Health Prescribing Program - enabling new models of patient care and practice scope for allied health professionals

Background - Non-medical prescribing provides patients with timely access to medicines and health services. A framework for allied health professional (AHP) prescribing trials within Queensland Health (Allied Health Professions’ Office of Queensland) enabled endorsed credentialed physiotherapists and pharmacists working in the public health system to enrol in the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Allied Health Prescribing Training Program. The principles underpinning this framework incorporated those identified in the Health Professionals Prescribing Pathway. Aim - To design and deliver an allied health prescribing training program that would ultimately enable a new model of patient care across multiple Queensland public health practice settings, focusing on best practice via the Quality Use of Medicines and the NPS MedicineWise Prescribing Competencies Framework (the nationally available standard for health professional prescribing in Australia). Methods - A remote, interprofessional AHP prescribing training program was developed with enrolment offered to appropriately credentialed Queensland Health physiotherapists and pharmacists. The QUT program design included an extended period of supervised practice with an authorised prescriber within specific practice settings and with support by the local facility. Results and Discussion - Twenty participants (12 physiotherapists and 8 pharmacists) have undertaken the QUT prescribing training program to date. Following training completion, participants reported an increase in degree of confidence and understanding regarding various prescribing learning objectives (including safe and effective prescribing, professional, legal and ethical aspects, communicating medication orders, prescribing safely within their select area of practice, prescribing safely for complex patients in their area of practice). The training provided will enable implementation of a new model of patient care within public hospitals by AHPs within an approved prescribing trial framework. Future prescribing programs may include more diverse allied health cohorts targeting patient populations in different practice settings but still focusing on enabling safe, effective, appropriate and judicious prescribing under agreed processes and within a legislative framework