Baseline Water Quality for Lanana Creek Within the Nacogdoches Area

Lanana Creek is one of two springs that surround Nacogdoches, TX. Lanana Creek starts southwest of Lake Naconiche, conjoining with several other bodies of water along its path, and becomes part of the Angelina River. This body of water eventually ends in the Gulf of Mexico which may contribute to the dead zone. Contaminants in water may be of small concentration; however, prolonged exposure could produce many negative effects. To monitor future change in the creek, whether natural or human-induced, a baseline of targeted species for the creek waters must be established as a “snapshot” of the Nacogdoches Lanana Creek area. Events that could change the baseline include, but are not limited to, floods, fertilizers and pesticides used in rural farms, and urban runoff

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): Building Community Among Farmers and Non-Farmers

Conflict at the rural-urban interface may often be due to a lack of social connections or communication between farmers and non-farmers. Extension educators may be at a loss as to how to bring these two groups together. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), or a variation of CSA, may be one avenue for developing connections. Findings from a qualitative study of a Midwestern CSA reveal a number of ways CSA met the goals of participants while also building community among farmers and non-farmers. Extension personnel might promote CSA at the rural-urban interface to build community and support for local agriculture

Contour-Driven Atlas-Based Segmentation

We propose new methods for automatic segmentation of images based on an atlas of manually labeled scans and contours in the image. First, we introduce a Bayesian framework for creating initial label maps from manually annotated training images. Within this framework, we model various registration- and patch-based segmentation techniques by changing the deformation field prior. Second, we perform contour-driven regression on the created label maps to refine the segmentation. Image contours and image parcellations give rise to non-stationary kernel functions that model the relationship between image locations. Setting the kernel to the covariance function in a Gaussian process establishes a distribution over label maps supported by image structures. Maximum a posteriori estimation of the distribution over label maps conditioned on the outcome of the atlas-based segmentation yields the refined segmentation. We evaluate the segmentation in two clinical applications: the segmentation of parotid glands in head and neck CT scans and the segmentation of the left atrium in cardiac MR angiography images

Reconceptualising Rural Cancer Inequalities : Time for a New Research Agenda

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

HOW TO DEVELOP AND USE CONCEPT INVENTORIES IN BIOLOGY

Scientific teaching is based on the principle that teaching should be conducted with the same rigor as scientific research. Concept inventories are multiple choice questions which assess student understanding and expose misconceptions in key concepts in an area of study (Redish, 2000). Validated concept inventories (Adams and Wieman, 2010) are useful tools in scientific teaching for assessing student gains in conceptual understanding and for comparing the effectiveness of different teaching strategies. Although published concept inventories currently exist for a number of biological topics there are still many gaps. However, there is increasing consensus for the steps that should be taken to develop a validated concept inventory. In this workshop you will participate in the process of developing concept inventories using as examples the challenging topics of meiosis and speciation. You will also work in small groups to come up with exercises that you can use with your students to improve their learning gains. In addition we will discuss ways to share concept inventories and the data they generate. References Adams W .and Wieman C. 2010. Development and validation of instruments to measure learning of expert-like thinking. International Journal of Science Education. Redish, E. F. (2000). Discipline-based education and education research: the case of physics. J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. 21, 85–96

Minuteman 2 launched small satellite

The goal of LEOSat Industries' Spring 1994 project was to design a small satellite that has a strong technology demonstration or scientific justification and incorporates a high level of student involvement. The satellite is to be launched into low earth orbit by the converted Minuteman 2 satellite launcher designed by Minotaur Designs, Inc. in 1993. The launch vehicle shroud was modified to a height of 90 inches, a diameter of 48 inches at the bottom and 35 inches at the top for a total volume of 85 cubic feet. The maximum allowable mass of the payload is about 1100 lb., depending on the launch site, orbit altitude, and inclination. The satellite designed by LEOSat Industries is TerraSat, a remote-sensing satellite that will provide information for use in space-based earth studies. It will consist of infrared and ultraviolet/visible sensors similar to the SDI-developed sensors being tested on Clementine. The sensors will be mounted on the Defense Systems, Inc. Standard Satellite-1 spacecraft bus. LEOSat has planned for two satellites orbiting the Earth with trajectories similar to that of LANDSAT 5. The semi-major axis is 7080 kilometers, the eccentricity is 0, and the inclination is 98.2 degrees. The estimated mass of TerraSat is 145 kilograms and the estimated volume is 1.8 cubic meters. The estimated cost of TerraSat is $13.7 million. The projected length of time from assembly of the sensors to launch of the spacecraft is 13 months

The Surprising Complexity of Virus-Host Cell Interaction Revealed by the Powerful Systems Biology Approaches of Genomics and Proteomics

Understanding interaction between viruses and host cells during infection process is the first step in discovering appropriate drugs and vaccines against viral diseases. Advance technologies based on genomics and proteomics approaches provide great tools to disclose the complexity of virus-host interaction. In this essay, the application of RNAi screens method and proteomics-based approaches on influenza virus will be elucidated as an example. Using those methods, the primary factors controlling viral replication pathway were discovered. These findings are useful for the development of potential strategies to overcome viral diseases