Snagboats and "Dead-Heads": Interpreting Maritime History Onboard the W. T. Preston

The W. T. Preston, constructed at Seattle's Lake Union Drydock in 1939, removed navigational hazards from the tributaries of Puget Sound. The W. T. Preston was active until 1981 and was the last working sternwheeler on Puget Sound. It remains one of two extant sternwheel snag-boats in the United States. In 1983, the vessel was placed in dry berth in Anacortes, Washington, and opened for tours. Unfortunately, the tours failed because they did not address the interpretation of maritime resources within a museum setting. This article will discuss recent efforts by staff at the Anacortes Museum to improve the interpretation of maritime resources onboard the W. T. Preston. Résumé Construit au Lake Union Drydock de Seattle en 1939, le W.T. Preston avait pour tâche de retirer les obstacles à la navigation dans les affluents du détroit Puget Sound. Le bâtiment resta en activité jusqu'en 1981 et fut le dernier bateau à roue arrière à sillonner les eaux du détroit Puget Sound. Il demeure l'un des deux seuls bateaux déblayeurs à roue arrière existant aux États-Unis. En 1983, le navire fut placé en cale sèche à Anacortes (État de Washington) afin qu'on puisse le visiter. Malheureusement, la population s'en désintéressa, car les visites guidées ne misaient pas sur l'interprétation des ressources maritimes comme on le fait dans un musée. L'article parle des efforts récemment déployés par le personnel du musée d'Ana-cortes en vue d'améliorer l'interprétation des ressources maritimes offerte à bord du W.T. Preston

Good People, Bad Jobs Situations: A Middle Manager’s Dilemma

Middle managers play a critical role in successful library operations in both public and academic settings. Their alignment with and their ability to carry out the vision of upper management is critical to moving the organization forward at all levels. The authors offer practical strategies for any middle manager who finds herself in a position where she is not in sync with her boss, situations that can range from uncomfortable to disastrous. They examine a variety of issues and circumstances such as misunderstandings, unanticipated changes in the organization, lack of fit with the organizational culture, different work expectations, and incompatible work styles that lead to conflicts and challenges between the middle manager and her boss. Because the library management literature does not address this area well, the authors suggest approaches for coping, determining possible exit strategies as well as behaviors to avoid based on reading management literature from a range of other sources and from personal experiences

Taking the learning beyond the individual:how reflection informs change in practice

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this research was to explore the value of reflection and its application to practice through the implementation of educational modules within a new Diabetes Care and Education Master Degree Programme in Kuwait, and to realise how this teaching intervention informs changes in practice. METHODS: A small exploratory case study was conducted within the Dasman Diabetes Institute, Kuwait. A qualitative approach using focus group interviews was carried out with seventeen participants all of whom are studying on the Diabetes Care and Education Master Degree Programme in Kuwait. An inductive approach to thematic analysis, which focused on examining themes within data, was performed. RESULTS: The results indicate that participants value the opportunity to study through organised, structured and assessed reflection. The learning provides useful information and support to the participant by highlighting the role which reflection plays to enhance personal and professional development, the value of educational theory, continuing professional development, collaboration and enhancing patient education and practice. CONCLUSIONS: The significance of reflection is often seen in the literature as an important aspect of professional competence. This research has highlighted the value of reflection as a key component within a new educational programme

The early medieval origin of Perth, Scotland

The radiocarbon results (and Bayesian modeling) of 15 samples of carbonized food residues removed from the external surface of rim sherds of cooking pots indicate that shellyware pottery first appeared in Perth, Scotland, around cal AD 9101020 (95% probability) and that it had disappeared by cal AD 10201140 (95% probability). Previously, it had been suggested that this pottery could not date to before AD 1150. These data, together with 14C analyses carried out on leather artifacts and a sample of wattle from a ditch lining, also demonstrate that there was occupation in Perth about 100 yr or more prior to the granting of royal burgh status to Perth in the 1120s

Good People, Bad Job Situations: A Middle Manager\u27s Dilemma

Middle managers play a critical role in successful library operations in both public and academic settings. Their alignment with and their ability to carry out the vision of upper management is critical to moving the organization forward at all levels. The authors offer practical strategies for any middle manager who finds herself in a position where she is not in accord with her boss, situations that can range from uncomfortable to disastrous. They examine a variety of issues and circumstances such as misunderstandings, unanticipated changes in the organization, lack of fit with the organizational culture, different work expectations, and incompatible work styles that lead to conflicts and challenges between the middle manager and her boss. Because the library management literature does not address this area well, the authors suggest approaches for coping, determining possible exit strategies as well as behaviors to avoid. The recommendations are based on reading management literature from a range of other sources and from personal experiences

An Algorithm for Cellular Reprogramming

The day we understand the time evolution of subcellular elements at a level of detail comparable to physical systems governed by Newton's laws of motion seems far away. Even so, quantitative approaches to cellular dynamics add to our understanding of cell biology, providing data-guided frameworks that allow us to develop better predictions about and methods for control over specific biological processes and system-wide cell behavior. In this paper we describe an approach to optimizing the use of transcription factors in the context of cellular reprogramming. We construct an approximate model for the natural evolution of a synchronized population of fibroblasts, based on data obtained by sampling the expression of some 22,083 genes at several times along the cell cycle. (These data are based on a colony of cells that have been cell cycle synchronized) In order to arrive at a model of moderate complexity, we cluster gene expression based on the division of the genome into topologically associating domains (TADs) and then model the dynamics of the expression levels of the TADs. Based on this dynamical model and known bioinformatics, we develop a methodology for identifying the transcription factors that are the most likely to be effective toward a specific cellular reprogramming task. The approach used is based on a device commonly used in optimal control. From this data-guided methodology, we identify a number of validated transcription factors used in reprogramming and/or natural differentiation. Our findings highlight the immense potential of dynamical models models, mathematics, and data guided methodologies for improving methods for control over biological processes

Monotherapy with major antihypertensive drug classes and risk of hospital admissions for mood disorders

Major depressive and bipolar disorders predispose to atherosclerosis, and there is accruing data from animal model, epidemiological, and genomic studies that commonly used antihypertensive drugs may have a role in the pathogenesis or course of mood disorders. In this study, we propose to determine whether antihypertensive drugs have an impact on mood disorders through the analysis of patients on monotherapy with different classes of antihypertensive drugs from a large hospital database of 525 046 patients with follow-up for 5 years. There were 144 066 eligible patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria: age 40 to 80 years old at time of antihypertensive prescription and medication exposure >90 days. The burden of comorbidity assessed by Charlson and Elixhauser scores showed an independent linear association with mood disorder diagnosis. The median time to hospital admission with mood disorder was 847 days for the 299 admissions (641 685 person-years of follow-up). Patients on angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers had the lowest risk for mood disorder admissions, and compared with this group, those on β-blockers (hazard ratio=2.11; [95% confidence interval, 1.12–3.98]; P=0.02) and calcium antagonists (2.28 [95% confidence interval, 1.13–4.58]; P=0.02) showed higher risk, whereas those on no antihypertensives (1.63 [95% confidence interval, 0.94–2.82]; P=0.08) and thiazide diuretics (1.56 [95% confidence interval, 0.65–3.73]; P=0.32) showed no significant difference. Overall, our exploratory findings suggest possible differential effects of antihypertensive medications on mood that merits further study: calcium antagonists and β-blockers may be associated with increased risk, whereas angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers may be associated with a decreased risk of mood disorders

The prophetic muse: The didactic imperative of Gerard Manley Hopkins, R. S. Thomas, and William Blake

This thesis seeks to analyse what the word 'prophetic' means, in practice, and has identified the following as categories of activity within which prophetic endeavour is carried out, viz: compulsion to utter; call and commissioning; prophet as medium; authority; critical function; context; witness; task; sight; revelation; language and rhetorical persuasion; vocation; failure in mission; faithfulness and cost; burden and gift. An analysis of the prophetic activity and characteristics of some of the Hebrew Bible prophets instigated these criteria and the categories have been applied as a structural methodology to three poets: Gerard Manley Hopkins, R S Thomas, and William Blake, who lived and wrote within three different timeframes. One of these was a Priest, one a Minister, the other neither, but all were in their own unique ways with their prophetic 'poetry of protest' working both within and against organised and structured religion. Within this analysis therefore, this thesis seeks to articulate a chiasmus between poetry and prophecy as activities which explore the human realm, and between poets and prophets as inspired individuals working within and against wider society. The question of both divine revelation to and inspiration of these poet/prophets is a thorny one, and no attempt has been made to 'prove' the existence of these forces other than to accept, according to the personal testimony that has been left to us, the writers' experience of the a priori nature of these phenomena and their active presence within the articulation of vision. This exploration seeks to locate prophetic poetry within an already-existing arena where other interpreters have trodden, and accordingly the Chapter One Introduction reviews some ways in which others have approached the subject. However, with a grounding intention - an analysis in Chapter Two of some of the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible - this thesis carries the connection forward from other approaches into its own territory and seeks to locate prophetic utterance and prophetic characteristics within an identifiable and imposable structure of activity which could be applied to writers outwith the biblical canon, projecting the phenomenon of prophecy into the literary realm. Accordingly, Chapters Three, Four, and Five endeavour to analyse the ways in which the poets here discussed could be designated as prophets. Overall, the thesis proposes that there exists an underlying solum of prophecy as a diachronic phenomenon that can arise in synchronic form within ongoing human timescales, with the object of interjecting 'truths' by way of individual voices in specific times, from the eternal and ideal realm into the temporal and real world, in order to leave behind didactic imperatives to us that challenge and change our perspective and therefore our behaviour