Fellowship training in Acute Care Surgery: from inception to current state.

Recognizing the need for urgent and emergent surgical care across America, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma developed and implemented, and oversees, the Acute Care Surgery Fellowship Training Program. Now in its 10th year, the fellowship has become an established post-General Surgery Fellowship Training Program, with 20 approved programs and 82 fellows trained. Consistent with the desire to have this non-Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) fellowship one with the highest standards, several educational improvements have occurred since its origin. The following is an account of the background and evolution of what has become a significant educational contribution to surgery

Jackson State University's Center for Spatial Data Research and Applications: New facilities and new paradigms

Jackson State University recently established the Center for Spatial Data Research and Applications, a Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing laboratory. Taking advantage of new technologies and new directions in the spatial (geographic) sciences, JSU is building a Center of Excellence in Spatial Data Management. New opportunities for research, applications, and employment are emerging. GIS requires fundamental shifts and new demands in traditional computer science and geographic training. The Center is not merely another computer lab but is one setting the pace in a new applied frontier. GIS and its associated technologies are discussed. The Center's facilities are described. An ARC/INFO GIS runs on a Vax mainframe, with numerous workstations. Image processing packages include ELAS, LIPS, VICAR, and ERDAS. A host of hardware and software peripheral are used in support. Numerous projects are underway, such as the construction of a Gulf of Mexico environmental data base, development of AI in image processing, a land use dynamics study of metropolitan Jackson, and others. A new academic interdisciplinary program in Spatial Data Management is under development, combining courses in Geography and Computer Science. The broad range of JSU's GIS and remote sensing activities is addressed. The impacts on changing paradigms in the university and in the professional world conclude the discussion

Cosmic string catalysis of skyrmion decay

The Callan-Witten picture is developed for monopole catalyzed skyrmion decay in order to analyze the corresponding cosmic string scenario. It is discovered that cosmic strings (both ordinary and superconducting) can catalyze proton decay, but that this catalysis only occurs on the scale of the core of the string. In order to do this we have to develop a vortex model for the superconducting string. An argument is also given for the difference in the enhancement factors for monopoles and strings

Hyperbolicity in a class of one-dimensional maps

In this paper we provide a direct proof of hyperbolicity for a class of onedimensional maps on the unit interval. The maps studied are degenerate forms of the standard quadratic map on the interval. These maps are important in understanding the Newhouse theory of infinitely many sinks due to homoclinic tangencies in two dimensions

Avoiding the Rut in Program Development and Delivery: Improving Our Understanding of Learning Style Preferences

A better understanding of learning style preferences can help us to avoid developing and delivering our educational programs from the perspective of our preferred learning style alone. A study of community development educators found most preferred to learn in a social context; take energy from the surrounding environment; gather information using the senses; make sense of this information using logic and objectivity; and orient themselves in an ordered, structured manner. Results have implications for planners of professional development activities, for administrators charged with forming and managing programming teams, and for Extension professionals motivated to better meet clientele needs

Using a Retrospective Pre-Post Questionnaire to Determine Program Impact

This article describes how Extension program impact was documented using a retrospective pretest. The method, employed with 35 economic development professionals involved in a traditional Extension educational program, illustrated change in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior. Characteristics of this type of program evaluation are discussed in relation to its implementation

Soybean cyst nematode disease

Microscopic worms burrowing through cells, injecting foreign compounds through hypodermic-needle-like structures, altering the basic biology of the cells being fed upon. Worms that grow so large in just a few weeks that they rupture out of the tissue they are feeding upon. Sound like a science fiction movie plot? Believe it or not, it is the basic biology of a widespread, serious pathogen of soybeans - the soybean cyst nematode

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThree studies are presented dealing with the relationship between ground temperatures, surface meteorological parameters, and different vegetation cover. These observations are related to borehole temperature profiles and the record they provide of climate change at the decadal to centennial time scale. The first study examines how borehole temperatures respond to surface temperature changes using three boreholes in northwestern Utah that have been repeatedly logged for temperature over a period of 29 years. Systematic subsurface temperature changes of up to 0.6 °C are observed in the upper sections of these boreholes. Synthetic temperature profiles computed from surface data at nearby meteorological stations reproduce both the amplitude and pattern of the transient temperature observations, fitting observations to within 0.03 °C or better. This provides observational confirmation of the strong coupling between surface temperature change and borehole temperature transients. The second study compares observations from a set of meteorological stations in the Cascades Mountains in Oregon that show vegetation cover can significantly affect ground temperatures due primarily to the influence of trees shading the ground from incoming solar radiation. During the period between 2000 and 2004, air temperature differences between the two sites decreased only slightly from 1.7 °C to 1.1 °C, while ground temperature differences were cut nearly in half from 2.8 °C to 1.5 °C. These changes are directly connected to the decrease in solar radiation over the study period as the forest grew back. Subsurface temperatures are reproducible using the Noah land surface model, but are largely influenced by incoming solar radiation. The third section addresses the importance of public and educational outreach in the realm of climate change, which led to the development and publishing of meteorological and subsurface data from the Emigrant Pass Observatory located in the Grouse Creek Mountains in northwestern Utah through a website. The primary goals of this website are to provide a tutorial for understanding both local climate and climate change, and their relation to diffusion of temperatures into the Earth's subsurface, to facilitate access to available climate data, and to provide educational lesson ideas for using real data to understand local climate change