Cultural Resources Survey of the Leander Rehabilitation Center, Williamson County, Texas

In August-September 1996, personnel from Prewitt and Associates, Inc., conducted a cultural resources survey of ca. 725 acres of the former Leander Rehabilitation Center. The project area lies adjacent to U.S. Highway 183 and FM 620 in southern Williamson County, Texas. The survey resulted in additional documentation of one previously recorded prehistoric archeological site (41 WM452), the identification and recording of four historic archeological sites (41WM892, 41WM893, 41WM896, and 41WM897), and reconnaissance-level documentation of 45 historic buildings and structures. Site 41WM452 is an extensive upland lithic scatter and lithic procurement site which lacks subsurface deposits, features, and datable materials. Site 41WM892 is a wood-chopper camp that contains a number of rock alignments and limited artifact deposits dating to the first decade of the twentieth century. Site 41WM893 is a remnant of a railroad spur used during the 1937-1941 construction of Marshall Ford Dam (now Mansfield Dam). Site 41WM896 contains a small number of features and sparse artifact deposits associated with the 1937-1945 Rhodes farmstead. Site 41WM897 is an isolated historic well with unknown associations. None of these archeological sites contains important information, and it is recommended that they be considered not eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places or for designation as State Archeological Landmarks. The 45 buildings and structures, at 36 locations, are associated with the former State Dairy and Hog Farm. This farm was established in 1942, expanded after 1945, and reached its peak years of production as a hog farm between 1950 and the late 1960s, Created to serve the needs of the State Board of Control and the State Hospital, the facility is significant for its success in food production for eleemosynary institutions in Austin and throughout Texas, as well as for its role in the application of modern psychiatric treatment based on the therapeutic value of manual labor. Among the surveyed resources are dwellings, an office and warehouse building, a dormitory, a variety of agricultural buildings and structures, and infrastructural elements, all built between 1943 and 1955. Twenty-one of the 45 surveyed resources are recommended as being eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criteria A and C as Contributing resources in a historic district and for designation as State Archeological Landmarks

Using Hospital Bed Capacity Prediction During COVID-19 to Determine Feature Importance

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing hospital capacity limitations in the United States, causing hospitals in certain regions to hit maximum capacity. The purpose of this study is to investigate key features of COVID-19 related admissions to help create a higher level of public understanding and help guide healthcare management professionals and governments when considering preventive measures. The introduction of preventative measures and new regulations during the pandemic have led to the generation of multiple types of models and feature selection methods in the field of Machine Learning that are increasingly complicated. This study focuses on the exploration of feature selection through building multiple models, one simple linear model and one decision tree model for prediction on inpatient hospitalization rates. This will result in a highly interpretable model that can be more readily understood and easily used

Recent Observations of the Distribution of Woodchucks (Marmota monax) in Arkansas

During the last couple of decades, the distribution of the woodchuck (Marmota monax) appeared to be expanding southward in Arkansas (Tumlison et al. 2001). An increase in the frequency of new sightings led us to re-evaluate the present status of this species of squirrel in the state. The woodchuck is not easily confused with other mammals, therefore we sought records of sightings to update information about its distribution. Recent range expansion had been documented in southwestern Arkansas, so we placed notices in stores and advertised in local newspapers in that region to intensively seek new records of sightings from the public. Results of that effort, coupled with information gathered from a statewide survey of personnel of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, indicated that woodchucks are most common in the western Interior Highlands, and that the species apparently continues to expand its range southward in Arkansas

Porosity Controls Spread of Excitation in Tectorial Membrane Traveling Waves

Cochlear frequency selectivity plays a key role in our ability to understand speech, and is widely believed to be associated with cochlear amplification. However, genetic studies targeting the tectorial membrane (TM) have demonstrated both sharper and broader tuning with no obvious changes in hair bundle or somatic motility mechanisms. For example, cochlear tuning of Tectb[superscript –/–] mice is significantly sharper than that of Tecta[superscript Y1870C/+] mice, even though TM stiffnesses are similarly reduced relative to wild-type TMs. Here we show that differences in TM viscosity can account for these differences in tuning. In the basal cochlear turn, nanoscale pores of Tecta[superscript Y1870C/+] TMs are significantly larger than those of Tectb[superscript –/–] TMs. The larger pore size reduces shear viscosity (by ∼70%), thereby reducing traveling wave speed and increasing spread of excitation. These results demonstrate the previously unrecognized importance of TM porosity in cochlear and neural tuning.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01-DC00238)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowship Program (Grant 1122374)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Training Grant

Solving discrete logarithms on a 170-bit MNT curve by pairing reduction

Pairing based cryptography is in a dangerous position following the breakthroughs on discrete logarithms computations in finite fields of small characteristic. Remaining instances are built over finite fields of large characteristic and their security relies on the fact that the embedding field of the underlying curve is relatively large. How large is debatable. The aim of our work is to sustain the claim that the combination of degree 3 embedding and too small finite fields obviously does not provide enough security. As a computational example, we solve the DLP on a 170-bit MNT curve, by exploiting the pairing embedding to a 508-bit, degree-3 extension of the base field.Comment: to appear in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS

Duality in Binocular Rivalry: Distinct Sensitivity of Percept Sequence and Percept Duration to Imbalance between Monocular Stimuli

Visual perception is usually stable and accurate. However, when the two eyes are simultaneously presented with conflicting stimuli, perception falls into a sequence of spontaneous alternations, switching between one stimulus and the other every few seconds. Known as binocular rivalry, this visual illusion decouples subjective experience from physical stimulation and provides a unique opportunity to study the neural correlates of consciousness. The temporal properties of this alternating perception have been intensively investigated for decades, yet the relationship between two fundamental properties - the sequence of percepts and the duration of each percept - remains largely unexplored

Binocular Rivalry in Children on the Autism Spectrum

When different images are presented to the eyes, the brain is faced with ambiguity, causing perceptual bistability: visual perception continuously alternates between the monocular images, a phenomenon called binocular rivalry. Many models of rivalry suggest that its temporal dynamics depend on mutual inhibition among neurons representing competing images. These models predict that rivalry should be different in autism, which has been proposed to present an atypical ratio of excitation and inhibition [the E/I imbalance hypothesis; Rubenstein & Merzenich, 2003]. In line with this prediction, some recent studies have provided evidence for atypical binocular rivalry dynamics in autistic adults. In this study, we examined if these findings generalize to autistic children. We developed a child-friendly binocular rivalry paradigm, which included two types of stimuli, low- and high-complexity, and compared rivalry dynamics in groups of autistic and age- and intellectual ability-matched typical children. Unexpectedly, the two groups of children presented the same number of perceptual transitions and the same mean phase durations (times perceiving one of the two stimuli). Yet autistic children reported mixed percepts for a shorter proportion of time (a difference which was in the opposite direction to previous adult studies), while elevated autistic symptomatology was associated with shorter mixed perception periods. Rivalry in the two groups was affected similarly by stimulus type, and consistent with previous findings. Our results suggest that rivalry dynamics are differentially affected in adults and developing autistic children and could be accounted for by hierarchical models of binocular rivalry, including both inhibition and top-down influences