Death of Gray Wolves, Canis lupus, in Porcupine Erethizon dorsatum, Dens in Wisconsin

Three Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) were found dead in porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) dens in northern Wisconsin between 1996-2000. Use of these dens appeared to be cases of shelter-seeking behavior by wolves suffering from sarcoptic mange

Telehealth Services to Improve Nonadherence: A Placebo-Controlled Study

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/tmj.2006.12.289.The objective of this study was to test whether a telehealth intervention could improve the compliance with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) by patients with sleep apnea. These patients had been nonadherent for the initial 3 months of therapy even after receiving the initial standard and then supplemental audiotaped/videotaped patient education for adhering to CPAP nightly. The materials and methods included a randomized testing of experimental and placebo interventions. Interventions were delivered by nurses to two groups in their homes by telehealth over a 12-week period. The placebo intervention was used to control for Hawthorne effect, time and attention influences and the novelty of having telehealth in the home. Results following the telehealth interventions were that significantly more patients in the experimental group 1 (n = 10) than the placebo group 2 (n = 9) were adhering nightly to CPAP (χ2 = 4.55, p = 0.033). Group 1 patients reported greater satisfaction with their intervention. However, both groups rated telehealth delivery positively. The mean cost of each 20-minute telehealth visit was $30 while the total cost of the telehealth intervention for each patient was$420. These costs included telehealth equipment, initial installation, longdistance telephone charges, nurse salary, and intervention materials. Conclusions are that telehealth interventions are a potentially cost-effective service for increasing adherence to prescribed medical treatments. Replication studies with large samples and in other clinical groups are recommended

Automated frequency tuning of SRF cavities at CEBAF

An automated cavity tuning procedure has been implemented in the CEBAF control system to tune the superconducting RF (SRF) cavities to their operating frequency of 1497 MHz. The capture range for coarse tuning algorithm (Burst Mode) is more than 20 cavity bandwidths (5 kHz). The fine tuning algorithm (Sweep Mode) calibrates the phase offset in the detuning angle measurement. This paper describes the implementation of these algorithms and experience of their operation in CEBAF control system. 3 refs., 5 figs

Exploring the Microbiome of Healthy and Diseased Peri-Implant Sites Using Illumina Sequencing

Aim To compare the microbiome of healthy (H) and diseased (P) peri-implant sites and determine the core peri-implant microbiome. Materials and Methods Submucosal biofilms from 32 H and 35 P sites were analyzed using 16S rRNA sequencing (MiSeq, Illumina), QIIME and HOMINGS. Differences between groups were determined using Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA), t-tests and Wilcoxon rank sum test and FDR-adjusted. The peri-implant core microbiome was determined. Results PCoA showed partitioning between H and P at all taxonomic levels. Bacteroidetes, Spirochetes and Synergistetes were higher in P, while Actinobacteria prevailed in H (p\u3c0.05). Porphyromonas and Treponema were more abundant in P and while Rothia and Neisseria were higher in H (p\u3c0.05). The core peri-implant microbiome contained Fusobacterium, Parvimonas and Campylobacter sp. T. denticola and P. gingivalis levels were higher in P, as well as F. alocis, F fastidiosum and T. maltophilum (p\u3c0.05). Conclusion The peri-implantitis microbiome is commensal-depleted and pathogen-enriched, harboring traditional and new pathogens. The core peri-implant microbiome harbors taxa from genera often associated with periodontal inflammation

Phylogeny of Prokaryotes and Chloroplasts Revealed by a Simple Composition Approach on All Protein Sequences from Complete Genomes Without Sequence Alignment

The complete genomes of living organisms have provided much information on their phylogenetic relationships. Similarly, the complete genomes of chloroplasts have helped to resolve the evolution of this organelle in photosynthetic eukaryotes. In this paper we propose an alternative method of phylogenetic analysis using compositional statistics for all protein sequences from complete genomes. This new method is conceptually simpler than and computationally as fast as the one proposed by Qi et al. (2004b) and Chu et al. (2004). The same data sets used in Qi et al. (2004b) and Chu et al. (2004) are analyzed using the new method. Our distance-based phylogenic tree of the 109 prokaryotes and eukaryotes agrees with the biologists tree of life based on 16S rRNA comparison in a predominant majority of basic branching and most lower taxa. Our phylogenetic analysis also shows that the chloroplast genomes are separated to two major clades corresponding to chlorophytes s.l. and rhodophytes s.l. The interrelationships among the chloroplasts are largely in agreement with the current understanding on chloroplast evolution

Millimeter Wave Thin-Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator in Sputtered Scandium Aluminum Nitride

This work reports a millimeter wave (mmWave) thin-film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) in sputtered scandium aluminum nitride (ScAlN). This paper identifies challenges of frequency scaling sputtered ScAlN into mmWave and proposes a stack and new fabrication procedure with a sputtered Sc0.3Al0.7N on Al on Si carrier wafer. The resonator achieves electromechanical coupling (k2) of 7.0% and quality factor (Q) of 62 for the first-order symmetric (S1) mode at 21.4 GHz, along with k2 of 4.0% and Q of 19 for the third-order symmetric (S3) mode at 55.4 GHz, showing higher figures of merit (FoM, k2xQ) than reported AlN/ScAlN-based mmWave acoustic resonators. The ScAlN quality is identified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), identifying the bottlenecks in the existing piezoelectric-metal stack. Further improvement of ScAlN/AlN-based mmWave acoustic resonators calls for better crystalline quality from improved thin-film deposition methods.Comment: 3 pages, 7 figures, submitted to JMEM

Statistical Mechanics of Glass Formation in Molecular Liquids with OTP as an Example

We extend our statistical mechanical theory of the glass transition from examples consisting of point particles to molecular liquids with internal degrees of freedom. As before, the fundamental assertion is that super-cooled liquids are ergodic, although becoming very viscous at lower temperatures, and are therefore describable in principle by statistical mechanics. The theory is based on analyzing the local neighborhoods of each molecule, and a statistical mechanical weight is assigned to every possible local organization. This results in an approximate theory that is in very good agreement with simulations regarding both thermodynamical and dynamical properties

The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array Dish I: Beam Pattern Measurements and Science Implications

The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) is a radio interferometer aiming to detect the power spectrum of 21 cm fluctuations from neutral hydrogen from the Epoch of Reionization (EOR). Drawing on lessons from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER), HERA is a hexagonal array of large (14 m diameter) dishes with suspended dipole feeds. Not only does the dish determine overall sensitivity, it affects the observed frequency structure of foregrounds in the interferometer. This is the first of a series of four papers characterizing the frequency and angular response of the dish with simulations and measurements. We focus in this paper on the angular response (i.e., power pattern), which sets the relative weighting between sky regions of high and low delay, and thus, apparent source frequency structure. We measure the angular response at 137 MHz using the ORBCOMM beam mapping system of Neben et al. We measure a collecting area of 93 m^2 in the optimal dish/feed configuration, implying HERA-320 should detect the EOR power spectrum at z~9 with a signal-to-noise ratio of 12.7 using a foreground avoidance approach with a single season of observations, and 74.3 using a foreground subtraction approach. Lastly we study the impact of these beam measurements on the distribution of foregrounds in Fourier space.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Replaced to match accepted ApJ versio

Pedagogy as influencing nursing students’ essentialized understanding of culture

Sherpa Romeo yellow journal. Permission to deposit published version.In this qualitative study, we explored how students understood “culture.” Participants defined culture and wrote narratives regarding specific cultural encounters. The sample comprised both nursing (n=14) and non-nursing (n=8) students to allow for comparison groups. Content analysis of the narratives revealed two broad paradigms of cultural understanding: essentialist and constructivist. Essentialist narratives comprised four themes: determinism (culture defied individual resistance); relativism (the possibility of making value judgments disappeared); Othering (culture was equated to exotica, and emphasized difference); and reductionism (personhood was eclipsed by culture). In contrast, the constructivist narratives were characterized by influence (non-determinism); dynamism (culture was dynamic and evolutionary); and relationship-building. The unintended negative consequences of essentialist notions of culture were revealed in the nursing students’ narratives. Pedagogy is implicated in nursing students’ essentialized understanding of culture.University of Lethbridge Research FundYe

Considering Intra-individual Genetic Heterogeneity to Understand Biodiversity

In this chapter, I am concerned with the concept of Intra-individual Genetic Hetereogeneity (IGH) and its potential influence on biodiversity estimates. Definitions of biological individuality are often indirectly dependent on genetic sampling -and vice versa. Genetic sampling typically focuses on a particular locus or set of loci, found in the the mitochondrial, chloroplast or nuclear genome. If ecological function or evolutionary individuality can be defined on the level of multiple divergent genomes, as I shall argue is the case in IGH, our current genetic sampling strategies and analytic approaches may miss out on relevant biodiversity. Now that more and more examples of IGH are available, it is becoming possible to investigate the positive and negative effects of IGH on the functioning and evolution of multicellular individuals more systematically. I consider some examples and argue that studying diversity through the lens of IGH facilitates thinking not in terms of units, but in terms of interactions between biological entities. This, in turn, enables a fresh take on the ecological and evolutionary significance of biological diversity