A Look at Veterinary Technicians

Veterinary technicians should actually be termed animal technicians, although the paraprofessional vocation is most generally associated with the veterinary profession. Other situations where animal technicians are employed include biological research at various laboratories, drug and feed companies, animal production facilities, and others. It should be emphasized that the animal technician serves primarily as an assistant to senior biological workers, technologists, and other scientists as well as to veterinarians

OPserver: interactive online-computations of opacities and radiative accelerations

Codes to compute mean opacities and radiative accelerations for arbitrary chemical mixtures using the Opacity Project recently revised data have been restructured in a client--server architecture and transcribed as a subroutine library. This implementation increases efficiency in stellar modelling where element stratification due to diffusion processes is depth dependent, and thus requires repeated fast opacity reestimates. Three user modes are provided to fit different computing environments, namely a web browser, a local workstation and a distributed grid.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Participation And performance In 8.02x Electricity And Magnetism: The First Physics MOOC From MITx

Massive Open Online Courses are an exciting new avenue for instruction and research, yet they are full of unknowns. In the Spring of 2013, MITx released its first introductory physics MOOC through the edX platform, generating a total enrollment of 43,000 students from around the world. We describe the population of participants in terms of their age, gender, level of education, and country of origin, highlighting both the diversity of 8.02x enrollees as well as gender gap and retention. Using three midterm exams and the final as waypoints, we highlight performance by different demographic subpopulations and their retention rates. Our work is generally aimed at making a bridge between available MOOC data and topics associated with the Physics Education Research community.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in the Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings, Portland OR 201

The new e-commerce/home delivery retail distribution paradigm

The purpose of this article is to set forth a basic outline of the new e-commerce home delivery retail distribution paradigm. Special attention will be placed on how it is being implemented and the as yet unresolved contracting, regulatory and risk transfer issues involving selection, retention, and use of motor carriers, particularly for the rapidly developing final delivery of consumer goods

A Low Upper Limit to the Lyman Continuum Emission of two galaxies at z 3

Long exposure, long-slit spectra have been obtained in the UV/optical bands for two galaxies at z=2.96 and z=3.32 to investigate the fraction of ionizing UV photons escaping from high redshifts galaxies. The two targets are among the brightest galaxies discovered by Steidel and collaborators and they have different properties in terms of Lyman-alpha emission and dust reddening. No significant Lyman continuum emission has been detected. The noise level in the spectra implies an upper limit of f_{rel,esc}\equiv 3 f(900)/f(1500)< 16% for the relative escape fraction of ionizing photons, after correction for absorption by the intervening intergalactic medium. This upper limit is 4 times lower than the previous detection derived from a composite spectrum of 29 Lyman break galaxies at z 3.4. If this value is typical of the escape fraction of the z 3 galaxies, and is added to the expected contribution of the QSO population, the derived UV background is in good agreement with the one derived by the proximity effect.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, ApJ Letters in pres

Ab initio oscillator strengths for transitions between J=1 odd and J=1,2 even excited states of Ne I

Ab initio theory is developed for radiative transitions between excited states of neon. Calculations of energies for even excited states J=1, J=2 supplement our previous calculations for J=1 odd excited states. Line strengths for transitions between J=1 odd and J=1,2 even states of Ne I are evaluated. A comparison with experiments and semiempirical calculations is given.Comment: 5 page

What levels of cholesterol should be treated for primary prevention?

The levels of cholesterol that should be treated for primary prevention are based on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels of > 100 mg/dL to > 190 mg/dL and vary according to whether the patient's risk is high, moderate, or low. See the table to estimate risk. Grade of recommendation for medication indications: A (on the basis of high-quality randomized controlled trials). Grade of recommendation for lifestyle indications: B (on the basis of extrapolations from randomized controlled trials)

Scottish theme towns: have new identities enhanced development?

Three small towns in southwest Scotland have recently been branded as distinct theme towns, based on books, artists and food. This is an attempt to make them more attractive to visitors and thereby improve their economy. The objective of this research is to establish whether the new identities possessed by the towns have enhanced their development. It is argued, using data reviewing the past decade, that they have all developed, albeit at different rates, in terms of the economy and culture. Moreover, it is maintained that social capital has been enhanced and is a factor whose importance has been under-appreciated by planners and observers of this type of process. The relevance of the new identity to the pre-branding identity is also seen as a factor in successful development and ideas of authenticity and heritage are brought to bear on the relationship

Safety fitness determinations: what is FMCSA measuring?

Big Data and regulatory Improv are drowning due proces