POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF NEW CARIBBEAN-AREA WINTER FRESH TOMATO AND CUCUMBER SUPPLIES ON THE U.S. INDUSTRY

Crop Production/Industries,

GENERAL CROPLAND RETIREMENT: EFFECTS ON THE SOUTH OF RETIRING LOW-NET-RETURN ACREAGE VS. RETIRING HIGH-COST PRODUCTION

Land Economics/Use,

Graphic Design & Painting

Starting with the desire to explore the connection between GD and painting, I realized the only difference between the two is the context in which the work is created. Both graphic design and painting seek to impart messages upon the viewer and explore a certain perspective. Success can be measured in both disciplines by the effectiveness of the communicated message

Comparison of Face Recognition Neural Networks

Selles töös uuriti kolme hiljuti avaldatud näotuvastuseks treenitud tehisnärvivõrku. Kõik need\n\rvõrgud on seni näidanud häid tulemusi kõrge kvaliteediga piltide identifitseerimist kontrollivates\n\rtestides. Huvi tekitas küsimus, kas need võrgud on võimelised samaväärseid tulemusi saavutama\n\rmadalama kvaliteediga arhiivipiltide peal. Loodi uus testandmestik Eesti Rahvusarhiivi piltidest ja\n\rvõrreldi, kui täpsed on võrgud tuvastama, kas kaks nägu kuuluvad samale või erinevatele\n\rinimestele. Parim korratava tulemusega närvivõrk saavutas uute andmete peal täpsuse 91.18%.\n\rTöö autor soovitab sama närvivõrguga Eesti Rahvusarhiivi andmete peal tööd jätkata.The goal of this work was to compare three face recognition neural networks that had been\n\rrecently published. All of those networks had shown good results on a benchmark containing\n\rmostly higher quality images of celebrities. The interest lies in finding whether these networks\n\rare able to perform as well on a different dataset of lower quality archive images. A new\n\rbenchmark dataset was created on images from the National Archives of Estonia. Then the\n\raccuracy of determining whether two face images belong to the same person or not was\n\rmeasured on the new dataset. The network with the strongest reproducible result showed a\n\rstrong results on the new benchmark, an accuracy of 91.18%. A suggestion is made by the\n\rauthor of using the same network for further work on the images from the National Archives\n\rdataset

Motivational Interviewing Intervention for COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy Within an Inpatient Setting

BACKGROUND: Evidence shows that vaccinations lessen disease and death yet many people remain hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. PROBLEM: By some estimates, COVID-19 has resulted in $16 trillion in lost wages, healthcare costs, disruptions in the healthcare system, and the economic infrastructure of the country. METHOD: An exhaustive literature search was conducted resulting in 13 full-text articles. A quality improvement (QI) intervention was developed using the Health Belief Model as a framework and the Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals Model to translate evidence into practice. INTERVENTION: Patients from two medical-surgical units of a small community hospital were screened to identify unvaccinated patients. An evidence-based, personalized, motivational interviewing intervention was initiated to determine if a statistically significant decrease in vaccine hesitancy would result. The project leader used a pretest-posttest numerical rating scale (NRS) to measure vaccine hesitancy before and after the intervention. RESULTS: Results of the QI project showed intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19 was statistically significantly greater after the use of a motivational interviewing intervention than before motivational interviewing with a medium effect size (z = -2.69) indicating clinical significance, p = .007, r = 0.37. CONCLUSION: Despite the statistical and clinical significance found in this QI project of a decrease in vaccine-hesitancy, it was determined that there is a limited benefit for the use of motivational interviewing in this inpatient setting due to 97.6%, (n = 41) of those scoring less than 4 on the 1-10 scale showing no change in intention to be vaccinated. Those who scored less than 4 on the NRS were termed “vaccine-resistant.

Direct laser written polymer waveguides with out of plane couplers for optical chips

Optical technologies call for waveguide networks featuring high integration densities, low losses, and simple operation. Here, we present polymer waveguides fabricated from a negative tone photoresist via two-photon-lithography in direct laser writing, and show a detailed parameter study of their performance. Specifically, we produce waveguides featuring bend radii down to 40 {\mu}m, insertion losses of the order of 10 dB, and loss coefficients smaller than 0.81 dB/mm, facilitating high integration densities in writing fields of 300 {\mu}m x 300 {\mu}m. A novel three-dimensional coupler design allows for coupling control as well as direct observation of outputs in a single field of view through a microscope objective. Finally, we present beam-splitting devices to construct larger optical networks, and we show that the waveguide material is compatible with the integration of quantum emitters

Factors Driving Demography and Temporal Variability in PH of the Acid Weed, Desmarestia Herbacea

Demographic studies allow for a better understanding of how populations change over time and establish a baseline to examine how biotic and abiotic factors influence populations. The annual alga Desmarestia herbacea, or the acid weed, accumulates sulfuric acid within cell vacuoles, likely as a chemical defense mechanism. Whether intracellular pH varies among different life history stages is poorly understood. A D. herbacea population in the Stillwater Cove, California kelp bed was assessed for two years in order to measure how internal pH varies relative to demographics, season, grazing pressure and oceanography. The timing of both spring recruitment and fall senescence varied interannually. Sporophyte recruitment occurred during the upwelling season in mid-March, two weeks earlier than previously reported, and thalli reached maximum length during the Oceanic season, then senesced during the Davidson Current season. Maximum mean thallus length varied inversely as a function of density, with smaller plants present in 2015 when densities were higher. In contrast in 2016, individuals were significantly larger, their densities were lower, and the population senescence period extended much longer into January 2017. The ontogenetic shift in intracellular pH of D. herbacea varied with life history stage and was strongly seasonal in both years and may be driven by ocean temperature. Specifically, in 2016, the pH was highest during the recruitment season (1.38 ± 0.14), followed by a decline in pH during the growth period (0.60 ± 0.01), followed by an elevation during the senescence period (0.65 ± 0.02). Benthic invertebrate grazers had a strong, significant and negative effect on the early recruitment of D. herbacea both in permanent plots and an herbivore exclusion experiment. Plots with higher herbivore grazing pressure had significantly lower recruitment. Higher densities, and smaller individuals in 2015 may have been correlated with higher temperatures in 2015 associated with ENSO events. These findings suggest that despite inter-annual variability in demographic patterns, strong, seasonal shifts in intracellular pH may reflect ontogenetic shifts in chemical defense to protect vulnerable growth phases of life history