Using Outdoor Experiential Training To Stimulate Emotional Intelligence Competencies and Group Leadership Skills Among Undergraduate Students

This study reports on the use of outdoor experiential training as a methodology for accelerating the group citizenship and leadership behaviors of undergraduate students. Using the emotional intelligence foundational skills of interpersonal competence and intrapersonal insight as a frame of reference for skill acquisition and measurement, it outlines the results of a self-assessment instrument and a small group problem solving exercise. Students reported a significant increase in group citizenship skills and the problem solving exercise indicated behavioral manifestations of these skills. The importance of incorporating the lessons of outdoor experiential training into an engaged classroom environment, mythological limitations, and opportunities for further research are discussed

Non-Interactive Anonymous Router with Quasi-Linear Router Computation

Anonymous routing is an important cryptographic primitive that allows users to communicate privately on the Internet, without revealing their message contents or their contacts. Until the very recent work of Shi and Wu (Eurocrypt’21), all classical anonymous routing schemes are interactive protocols, and their security rely on a threshold number of the routers being honest. The recent work of Shi and Wu suggested a new abstraction called Non-Interactive Anonymous Router (NIAR), and showed how to achieve anonymous routing non-interactively for the first time. In particular, a single untrusted router receives a token which allows it to obliviously apply a permutation to a set of encrypted messages from the senders. Shi and Wu’s construction suffers from two drawbacks: 1) the router takes time quadratic in the number of senders to obliviously route their messages; and 2) the scheme is proven secure only in the presence of static corruptions. In this work, we show how to construct a non-interactive anonymous router scheme with sub-quadratic router computation, and achieving security in the presence of adaptive corruptions. To get this result, we assume the existence of indistinguishability obfuscation and one-way functions. Our final result is obtained through a sequence of stepping stones. First, we show how to achieve the desired efficiency, but with security under static corruption and in a selective, single-challenge setting. Then, we go through a sequence of upgrades which eventually get us the final result. We devise various new techniques along the way which lead to some additional results. In particular, our techniques for reasoning about a network of obfuscated programs may be of independent interest

The Impact of Different Antibiotic Regimens on the Emergence of Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacteria

Backgroud: The emergence and ongoing spread of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria is a major public health threat. Infections caused by antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are associated with substantially higher rates of morbidity and mortality compared to infections caused by antimicrobial-susceptible bacteria. The emergence and spread of these bacteria is complex and requires incorporating numerous interrelated factors which clinical studies cannot adequately address. Methods/Principal Findings: A model is created which incorporates several key factors contributing to the emergence and spread of resistant bacteria including the effects of the immune system, acquisition of resistance genes and antimicrobial exposure. The model identifies key strategies which would limit the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant bacterial strains. Specifically, the simulations show that early initiation of antimicrobial therapy and combination therapy with two antibiotics prevents the emergence of resistant bacteria, whereas shorter courses of therapy and sequential administration of antibiotics promote the emergence of resistant strains. Conclusions/Significance: The principal findings suggest that (i) shorter lengths of antibiotic therapy and early interruption of antibiotic therapy provide an advantage for the resistant strains, (ii) combination therapy with two antibiotics prevents the emergence of resistance strains in contrast to sequential antibiotic therapy, and (iii) early initiation of antibiotics is among the most important factors preventing the emergence of resistant strains. These findings provide new insights into strategies aimed at optimizing the administration of antimicrobials for the treatment of infections and the prevention of the emergence of antimicrobial resistance

On the unexplained stratospheric ozone losses during cold Arctic Januaries

Using a combination of data from Match, POAM II, POAM III and MLS we show that the chemical loss rate of Arctic O3 during January of four cold winters (1992, 1995, 1996, and 2000) is consistently faster than can be accounted for by assuming complete activation of reactive chlorine and standard reaction kinetics. However, O3 loss rates measured during late February and early March 1996 are shown to be consistent with observations of ClO. The faster than expected O3 loss rates during January are shown to occur when air parcels are illuminated at high solar zenith angles (SZAs between ~85 and 94°), and to result in cumulative O3 loss of ~0.5 ppmv. The cause of the rapid January O3 loss is unclear, but may be related to a photolytic process at high SZA that is poorly represented by current photochemical models

STRUCTURE AND METAMORPHISM OF BLUESCHIST ECLOGITE-FACIES ROCKS FROM THE NORTHEASTERN OMAN MOUNTAINS

The northern part of the Saih Hatat window, Oman, shows high-pressure metamorphic rocks derived from shelf sediments and pre-Permian continental basement, and is atypical of sub-ophiolite metamorphism elsewhere. The high-pressure rocks are divided into structural units originally bounded by foreland-propagating thrusts formed during ophiolite obduction, although now many contacts are backthrusts, normal faults or extensional shear zones. Metamorphic breaks exist across many unit boundaries. A tectonic model relates all the high-P units to a single convergent event in the Late Cretaceous. The As Sifah eclogites were exhumed in two stages: 1) tectonic emplacement against other units at c. 20-25 km depth, and 2) exhumation of the entire high-P zone by culmination collapse after obduction. -from Author

Structure of the Main Central Thrust zone and extrusion of the High Himalayan deep crustal wedge, Kishtwar-Zanskar Himalaya

The Main Central Thrust is a crustal-scale ductile shear zone between 1.5 and 3 km wide which places the Oligocene-Miocene metamorphic rocks of the High Himalayan zone south or SW over the unmetamorphosed or weakly metamorphosed rocks of the Lesser Himalaya. The high strain zone of the Main Central Thrust is coincident with an inverted metamorphic field gradient from biotite to kyanite grade over a structural thickness of 1500 m. Kyanite-grade rocks metamorphosed at 9.5-10 kbar were exhumed from depths of 33-37 km along the Main Central Thrust hanging wall and emplaced over Lesser Himalayan rocks never buried deeper than 10-12 km. Exhumation of the deepest buried kyanite-grade rocks occurred along the zone. Above the Main Central Thrust zone approximately 45 km width (28 km structural thickness) of the High Himalaya exposes sillimanite-grade gneisses, migmatites and 19.5-21.5 Ma old leucogranites formed at pressures between 4.5 and 7 kbar and depths of 16-25 km. A NE-dipping normal fault ductile shear zone at the top of the slab (Zanskar Shear Zone) shows condensed but right way-up isograds from sillimanite to chlorite grade over 2-400 metres structural thickness. 40Ar/ 39Ar geochronology shows that most of the High Himalayan slab had cooled below 350°C by 16 Ma supporting models linking the two bounding faults of the High Himalaya both kinematically and temporally. There is no evidence of melting along the Main Central Thrust zone and the Himalayan leucogranites were generated 10-30 km structurally above the Main Central Thrust. Frictional heating along the Main Central Thrust could not therefore have played any role in generating the leucogranites. Thus far, there is little evidence for late Miocene reactivation along the Main Central Thrust, as seen elsewhere along the Main Central Thrust in Nepal

PRESSURE, TEMPERATURE AND TIME CONSTRAINTS ON HIMALAYAN METAMORPHISM FROM EASTERN KASHMIR AND WESTERN ZANSKAR

Himalayan metamorphism in the Kashmir and Zanskar sector of the High Himalaya resulted from thrust- and fold-related crustal thickening within the Indian plate following the collision of India and Asia at c.50 Ma. Peak metamorphism, based on 40Ar/ 39Ar hornblende ages, occurred pre-30.7 ± 2.0 Ma at the top of the slab, and in the middle of the slab was pre-22 ± 1.0 Ma, probably 25-28 Ma. The lower structural levels in Zanskar record peak metamorphic conditions around 700-750°C and 8 kbar, reflecting depths of burial of 28-30 km. A new younger schistosity, which is not present in the higher structural levels, was developed under kyanite grade conditions. The regional distribution of high temperatures recorded by thermobarometry does not support the concept of additional heat being supplied by fractional heating along the Main Central thrust or magmatic heat resulting from anatexis. -from Author

Structure of the Main Central Thrust zone and extrusion of the High Himalayan deep crustal wedge, Kishtwar-Zanskar Himalaya

The Main Central Thrust is a crustal-scale ductile shear zone between 1.5 and 3 km wide which places the Oligocene-Miocene metamorphic rocks of the High Himalayan zone south or SW over the unmetamorphosed or weakly metamorphosed rocks of the Lesser Himalaya. The high strain zone of the Main Central Thrust is coincident with an inverted metamorphic field gradient from biotite to kyanite grade over a structural thickness of 1500 m. Kyanite-grade rocks metamorphosed at 9.5-10 kbar were exhumed from depths of 33-37 km along the Main Central Thrust hanging wall and emplaced over Lesser Himalayan rocks never buried deeper than 10-12 km. Exhumation of the deepest buried kyanite-grade rocks occurred along the zone. Above the Main Central Thrust zone approximately 45 km width (28 km structural thickness) of the High Himalaya exposes sillimanite-grade gneisses, migmatites and 19.5-21.5 Ma old leucogranites formed at pressures between 4.5 and 7 kbar and depths of 16-25 km. A NE-dipping normal fault ductile shear zone at the top of the slab (Zanskar Shear Zone) shows condensed but right way-up isograds from sillimanite to chlorite grade over 2-400 metres structural thickness. 40Ar/ 39Ar geochronology shows that most of the High Himalayan slab had cooled below 350°C by 16 Ma supporting models linking the two bounding faults of the High Himalaya both kinematically and temporally. There is no evidence of melting along the Main Central Thrust zone and the Himalayan leucogranites were generated 10-30 km structurally above the Main Central Thrust. Frictional heating along the Main Central Thrust could not therefore have played any role in generating the leucogranites. Thus far, there is little evidence for late Miocene reactivation along the Main Central Thrust, as seen elsewhere along the Main Central Thrust in Nepal