Can Memoirs Be Used For Spiritual Development in a Book Group?

Biographies have historically been used by Christians for instruction and encouragement. The current trend in biographical writing is the memoir. Can spiritual memoirs be used as an effective tool for learning more about Scripture, doctrine or the Christian life? Approximately twenty spiritual memoirs were read and evaluated to determine if there was a central theme or series of themes that provided a story-based context for exploring greater biblical truths. This article reviews the genre of spiritual memoirs, discusses their strengths and weaknesses, and suggests a method for preparing them for a book group format

High temperature properties of sodium, potassium, and cesium thirteenth progress report

Thermophysical properties of sodium, potassium, and cesium at high temperatures - density of liquid potassium and vapor pressure of cesiu

Training Clinical Judgment Skills for Interpreting Feeding Behavior in Preterm Infants: A Comparison of Video and In Vivo Simulation

Health and feeding outcomes for preterm infants depend upon healthcare providers’ ability to recognize non-verbal signs of distress during bottle-feeding. Methods of training future providers’ to interpret feeding behavior in preterm infants are unclear. This study used a pre-test/post-test design to compare the effects of in- vivo simulation and video-simulation training on students’ knowledge of feeding abnormalities, clinical judgment, and documentation accuracy. Fifty-two graduate level speech-language pathology students were assigned to the in-vivo (N= 27) or video-simulation (N= 25) group. Results revealed that both methods proved beneficial for increasing knowledge and clinical judgment skills. Participants trained using video-simulation training documented a greater number of distress signs. The use of patient simulators to train graduate level speech-language pathology students to use correct clinical judgment for managing abnormal feeding behavior is efficacious

Large-Scale Assessment of Polygon-Edge Boulder Clustering in the Martian Northern Lowlands

Two features evident in many images of the martian northern low-lands are polygonal fractures (especially northwards of 60N) and meter-scale surface boulders. Since their first observation, several attempts have been made to classify and study these polygons as well as how the forces that form these polygons may modify the surface. Surface boulders have been used as a potential indicator of such modification, though current studies find evidence both for and against their association with the underlying polygons. Both these investigations are limited by the same fundamental challenge: map-ping the location of surface boulders manually is not practical at large scales. Here, we use the Martian Boulder Automatic Recognition System (MBARS) to provide image-wide assessments of boulder location and size, enabling large-scale assessment of boulder populations. To compare these boulder locations with the underlying polygons, we modified the 2-D Fourier analysis described by Orloff in 2013 to analyze boulder locations. When compared with Orloffs observations of polygon scales, this provides an avenue for large-scale comparison of boulder-cluster scale and polygon scale

Dosimetric impact of gastrointestinal air column in radiation treatment of pancreatic cancer

OBJECTIVE: Dosimetric evaluation of air column in gastrointestinal (GI) structures in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) of pancreatic cancer. METHODS: Nine sequential patients were retrospectively chosen for dosimetric analysis of air column in the GI apparatus in pancreatic cancer using cone beam CT (CBCT). The four-dimensional CT (4DCT) was used for target and organs at risk (OARs) and non-coplanar IMRT was used for treatment. Once a week, these patients underwent CBCT for air filling, isocentre verification and dose calculations retrospectively. RESULTS: Abdominal air column variation was as great as ±80% between weekly CBCT and 4DCT. Even with such a large air column in the treatment path for pancreatic cancer, changes in anteroposterior dimension were minimal (2.8%). Using IMRT, variations in air column did not correlate dosimetrically with large changes in target volume. An average dosimetric deviation of mere -3.3% and a maximum of -5.5% was observed. CONCLUSION: CBCT revealed large air column in GI structures; however, its impact is minimal for target coverage. Because of the inherent advantage of segmentation in IMRT, where only a small fraction of a given beam passes through the air column, this technique might have an advantage over 3DCRT in treating upper GI malignancies where the daily air column can have significant impact. Advances in knowledge: Radiation treatment of pancreatic cancer has significant challenges due to positioning, imaging of soft tissues and variability of air column in bowels. The dosimetric impact of variable air column is retrospectively studied using CBCT. Even though, the volume of air column changes by ± 80%, its dosimetric impact in IMRT is minimum

Discrete Symmetries in Covariant LQG

We study time-reversal and parity ---on the physical manifold and in internal space--- in covariant loop gravity. We consider a minor modification of the Holst action which makes it transform coherently under such transformations. The classical theory is not affected but the quantum theory is slightly different. In particular, the simplicity constraints are slightly modified and this restricts orientation flips in a spinfoam to occur only across degenerate regions, thus reducing the sources of potential divergences.Comment: 8 pages, v2: Minor change