Landing your first academic job: a cohort study of recent graduates from the UNC at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science

The academic job market for entry level librarians remains highly competitive, and students should begin preparing themselves for the job market from the moment they are accepted into an LIS program. Lag time in selecting applicants for academic positions remains high, so students should begin the process of applying for positions well in advance of their anticipated graduation date. To prepare for this competitive job market, LIS students should expect to dedicate a significant amount of time engaging with the profession outside of the classroom, including paid LIS-related work, for-credit practicums, scholarly creativity, attending conferences, and becoming involved with professional organizations. For LIS students that supplement coursework with these activities, academic librarianship remains a viable path of employment for entry level candidates. However, job placement can remain difficult for candidates interested in very specific positions or in limited geographic areas, even for well qualified LIS graduates

Rest Interval Length Does Not Affect Total Exercise Volume During Lower Body Resistance Training

Please refer to the pdf version of the abstract located adjacent to the title

The Factors That Impact Patient Portal Utilization

Spawned by legislative mandates, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, and individuals desiring to have more personal accountability for their health and healthcare, the introduction and use of electronic personal health information (ePHI) has grown substantially. Given that most ePHI is maintained within the healthcare delivery system, an information portal is required for individuals to have access to the ePHI. As a result, the legislation required the introduction and use of patient portals to grant such access. Despite substantial financial incentives and disincentives for healthcare organizations to provide and promote the use of patient portals, actual utilization of patient portals has fallen significantly short of expectations and desires. It has been posited that limited patient portal utilization may have been related to multiple factors, with no definitive set of factors empirically established as the root cause. While patient age and gender exhibit some relation to patient portal utilization, those factors are not able to be modified, thereby limiting any potential to change utilization. Therefore, there is an interest to identify other variables that can be modified to have an impact on patient portal utilization. The study sought to contribute to the body of knowledge concerning factors that impact the utilization of patient portals, specifically, how patient literacies, i.e., computer/Internet, health, and numeracy impact patient portal utilization. These literacies for 400 University of Maryland Medical System patients were assessed via self-administered surveys, with the results compared to their actual patient portal utilization. The goal was to identify related correlations between literacy scores and utilization, using the correlations to construct a portal use index capable of accurately predicting utilization based on these literacies. However, Kendall tau-b correlation coefficients indicated an absence of significant correlations between patient literacies and patient portal use

Spatial Context And The Role Of Competition In Oviposition Habitat Selection By Cope’S Grey Treefrog (Hyla Chrysoscelis) And Culex Restuans Mosquitoes

The Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) is an influential ecological model for predicting distribution of populations. Since its inception, attempts have been made to improve the IFD, including addition of spatial context. Spatial contagion is a newer ecological concept wherein quality of a habitat patch may affect the perception of neighboring patches. Using Cope’s gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis) and Culex mosquitoes (Culex restuans), I conducted a series of outdoor mesocosm experiments to test key predictions of the IFD and address how it interacts with spatial contagion effects. I found some support for the IFD prediction that individual H. chrysoscelis should avoid habitat patches with higher densities of conspecifics although there was not a clear linear relationship, as would be expected. There was a strong effect of distance from the nearest tree line on oviposition habitat selection and an interaction between distance and conspecific density. It is possible that the costs of movement by ovipositing H. chrysoscelis females may outweigh the potential costs of intraspecific competition, which would violate the IFD assumption that individuals are free. Conversely, a second experiment using H. chrysoscelis revealed that the presence of conspecifics can affect the hierarchy of habitat patches by causing females to avoid larger pools that have been previously described as optimal. My results suggest that individuals are capable of distinguishing patches based upon conspecific densities, but the relationship may be a binary threshold rather than a linear relationship. Using C. restuans, I found that while females avoided patches containing conspecifics, resource availability was a more significant predictor of where egg rafts were laid. Resource availability did not have a reward contagion. While competition does play a role in habitat selection, these results suggest that other environmental factors may be more crucial in habitat selection

A model for selection of eyespots on butterfly wings

The development of eyespots on the wing surface of butterflies of the family Nympalidae is one of the most studied examples of biological pattern formation.However, little is known about the mechanism that determines the number and precise locations of eyespots on the wing. Eyespots develop around signaling centers, called foci, that are located equidistant from wing veins along the midline of a wing cell (an area bounded by veins). A fundamental question that remains unsolved is, why a certain wing cell develops an eyespot, while other wing cells do not. We illustrate that the key to understanding focus point selection may be in the venation system of the wing disc. Our main hypothesis is that changes in morphogen concentration along the proximal boundary veins of wing cells govern focus point selection. Based on previous studies, we focus on a spatially two-dimensional reaction-diffusion system model posed in the interior of each wing cell that describes the formation of focus points. Using finite element based numerical simulations, we demonstrate that variation in the proximal boundary condition is sufficient to robustly select whether an eyespot focus point forms in otherwise identical wing cells. We also illustrate that this behavior is robust to small perturbations in the parameters and geometry and moderate levels of noise. Hence, we suggest that an anterior-posterior pattern of morphogen concentration along the proximal vein may be the main determinant of the distribution of focus points on the wing surface. In order to complete our model, we propose a two stage reaction-diffusion system model, in which an one-dimensional surface reaction-diffusion system, posed on the proximal vein, generates the morphogen concentrations that act as non-homogeneous Dirichlet (i.e., fixed) boundary conditions for the two-dimensional reaction-diffusion model posed in the wing cells. The two-stage model appears capable of generating focus point distributions observed in nature. We therefore conclude that changes in the proximal boundary conditions are sufficient to explain the empirically observed distribution of eyespot focus points on the entire wing surface. The model predicts, subject to experimental verification, that the source strength of the activator at the proximal boundary should be lower in wing cells in which focus points form than in those that lack focus points. The model suggests that the number and locations of eyespot foci on the wing disc could be largely controlled by two kinds of gradients along two different directions, that is, the first one is the gradient in spatially varying parameters such as the reaction rate along the anterior-posterior direction on the proximal boundary of the wing cells, and the second one is the gradient in source values of the activator along the veins in the proximal-distal direction of the wing cell

Atmospheric parameters and rotational velocities for a sample of Galactic B-type supergiants

High resolution optical spectra of 57 Galactic B-type supergiant stars have been analyzed to determine their rotational and macroturbulent velocities. In addition, their atmospheric parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity and microturbulent velocity) and surface nitrogen abundances have been estimated using a non-LTE grid of model atmospheres. Comparisons of the projected rotational velocities have been made with the predictions of stellar evolutionary models and in general good agreement was found. However for a small number of targets, their observed rotational velocities were significantly larger than predicted, although their nitrogen abundances were consistent with the rest of the sample. We conclude that binarity may have played a role in generating their large rotational velocities. No correlation was found between nitrogen abundances and the current projected rotational velocities. However a correlation was found with the inferred projected rotational velocities of the main sequence precursors of our supergiant sample. This correlation is again in agreement with the predictions of single star evolutionary models that incorporate rotational mixing. The origin of the macroturbulent and microturbulent velocity fields is discussed and our results support previous theoretical studies that link the former to sub-photospheric convection and the latter to non-radial gravity mode oscillations. In addition, we have attempted to identify differential rotation in our most rapidly rotating targets.Comment: Submitted to MNRAS, 16 page

Schottky mass measurements of heavy neutron-rich nuclides in the element range 70\leZ \le79 at the ESR

Storage-ring mass spectrometry was applied to neutron-rich $^{197}$Au projectile fragments. Masses of $^{181,183}$Lu, $^{185,186}$Hf, $^{187,188}$Ta, $^{191}$W, and $^{192,193}$Re nuclei were measured for the first time. The uncertainty of previously known masses of $^{189,190}$W and $^{195}$Os nuclei was improved. Observed irregularities on the smooth two-neutron separation energies for Hf and W isotopes are linked to the collectivity phenomena in the corresponding nuclei.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

Evidence of Final-State Suppression of High-p_T Hadrons in Au + Au Collisions Using d + Au Measurements at RHIC

Transverse momentum spectra of charged hadrons with ${p_{T} <}$ 6 GeV/c have been measured near mid-rapidity (0.2 $< \eta <$ 1.4) by the PHOBOS experiment at RHIC in Au + Au and d + Au collisions at ${\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}} = \rm {200 GeV}}$. The spectra for different collision centralities are compared to ${p + \bar{p}}$ collisions at the same energy. The resulting nuclear modification factor for central Au + Au collisions shows evidence of strong suppression of charged hadrons in the high-$p_{T}$ region (${>2}$ GeV/c). In contrast, the d + Au nuclear modification factor exhibits no suppression of the high-$p_{T}$ yields. These measurements suggest a large energy loss of the high-$p_{T}$ particles in the highly interacting medium created in the central Au + Au collisions. The lack of suppression in d + Au collisions suggests that it is unlikely that initial state effects can explain the suppression in the central Au + Au collisions.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics EPS (July 17th-23rd 2003) in Aachen, German