The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) Vector Magnetic Field Pipeline: Overview and Performance

The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) began near-continuous full-disk solar measurements on 1 May 2010 from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). An automated processing pipeline keeps pace with observations to produce observable quantities, including the photospheric vector magnetic field, from sequences of filtergrams. The primary 720s observables were released in mid 2010, including Stokes polarization parameters measured at six wavelengths as well as intensity, Doppler velocity, and the line-of-sight magnetic field. More advanced products, including the full vector magnetic field, are now available. Automatically identified HMI Active Region Patches (HARPs) track the location and shape of magnetic regions throughout their lifetime. The vector field is computed using the Very Fast Inversion of the Stokes Vector (VFISV) code optimized for the HMI pipeline; the remaining 180 degree azimuth ambiguity is resolved with the Minimum Energy (ME0) code. The Milne-Eddington inversion is performed on all full-disk HMI observations. The disambiguation, until recently run only on HARP regions, is now implemented for the full disk. Vector and scalar quantities in the patches are used to derive active region indices potentially useful for forecasting; the data maps and indices are collected in the SHARP data series, hmi.sharp_720s. Patches are provided in both CCD and heliographic coordinates. HMI provides continuous coverage of the vector field, but has modest spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution. Coupled with limitations of the analysis and interpretation techniques, effects of the orbital velocity, and instrument performance, the resulting measurements have a certain dynamic range and sensitivity and are subject to systematic errors and uncertainties that are characterized in this report.Comment: 42 pages, 19 figures, accepted to Solar Physic

Socioeconomic Mediators of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Congenital Heart Disease Outcomes: A Population-Based Study in California.

Background Racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities exist in outcomes for children with congenital heart disease. We sought to determine the influence of race/ethnicity and mediating socioeconomic factors on 1-year outcomes for live-born infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and dextro-Transposition of the great arteries. Methods and Results The authors performed a population-based cohort study using the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development database. Live-born infants without chromosomal anomalies were included. The outcome was a composite measure of mortality or unexpected hospital readmissions within the first year of life defined as >3 (hypoplastic left heart syndrome) or >1 readmissions (dextro-Transposition of the great arteries). Hispanic ethnicity was compared with non-Hispanic white ethnicity. Mediation analyses determined the percent contribution to outcome for each mediator on the pathway between race/ethnicity and outcome. A total of 1796 patients comprised the cohort (n=964 [hypoplastic left heart syndrome], n=832 [dextro-Transposition of the great arteries]) and 1315 were included in the analysis (n=477 non-Hispanic white, n=838 Hispanic). Hispanic ethnicity was associated with a poor outcome (crude odds ratio, 1.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.37-2.17). Higher maternal education (crude odds ratio 0.5; 95% CI , 0.38-0.65) and private insurance (crude odds ratio, 0.65; 95% CI , 0.45-0.71) were protective. In the mediation analysis, maternal education and insurance status explained 33.2% (95% CI , 7-66.4) and 27.6% (95% CI , 6.5-63.1) of the relationship between race/ethnicity and poor outcome, while infant characteristics played a minimal role. Conclusions Socioeconomic factors explain a significant portion of the association between Hispanic ethnicity and poor outcome in neonates with critical congenital heart disease. These findings identify vulnerable populations that would benefit from resources to lessen health disparities

Investigating the Use of a Structured Self-determination Curriculum with Students with Gifts and Talents

The purpose of K-12 education in the 21st century is to graduate students fully prepared for college and careers. The skills necessary for a successful transition from postsecondary education to adulthood are the skills of self-determination. These skills include: (a) goal setting, (b) self-evaluation, (c) collaboration, (d) listening and communication, and (e) problem solving. Though elementary students with gifts and talents express an interest in career exploration, and often choose careers that require postsecondary education, they do not receive the guidance or skills to prepare them for life beyond school. No curriculum currently exists to teach these skills to students with gifts and talents. The purpose of this study was to teach self-determination skills to students with gifts and talents. The goal was to determine the impact of systematic, structured instruction on the skills of self-determination for students with gifts and talents. Specifically this study compared the use of a structured self-determination curriculum with a traditional scope and sequence curriculum. The results of this study demonstrate that elementary students with gifts and talents can learn the skills of self-determination through direct instruction using a structured self-determination curriculum. While the students who received the structured curriculum showed growth in their knowledge of self-determination skills over all phases of the study, the students who received the traditional scope and sequence curriculum showed no significant growth over time

Rethinking the Purposes and Processes for Designing Digital Portfolios

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/88056/1/JAAL.50.6.3.pd

Resistance to autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease in an APOE3 Christchurch homozygote: a case report.

We identified a PSEN1 (presenilin 1) mutation carrier from the world's largest autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease kindred, who did not develop mild cognitive impairment until her seventies, three decades after the expected age of clinical onset. The individual had two copies of the APOE3 Christchurch (R136S) mutation, unusually high brain amyloid levels and limited tau and neurodegenerative measurements. Our findings have implications for the role of APOE in the pathogenesis, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease

Messaging in Scalaness: A Programming Language for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents the design and implementation of three types of messaging primitives for the Scalaness programming language. The main idea behind this project was to extend the current version of Scalaness to include new messaging abstractions. Scalaness is a special purpose variant of Scala for running on the hub of a wireless sensor network. The three types of messages considered here are data reports from nodes to hub via a collection tree, small values sent from hub to nodes, and larger values sent from hub to nodes. These primitives are defined in the abstract, then implemented in Scala, and the necessary specifications for translation from Scalaness command to back end Scala code are made

GPI spectra of HR 8799 c, d, and e from 1.5 to 2.4μ\mum with KLIP Forward Modeling

We explore KLIP forward modeling spectral extraction on Gemini Planet Imager coronagraphic data of HR 8799, using PyKLIP and show algorithm stability with varying KLIP parameters. We report new and re-reduced spectrophotometry of HR 8799 c, d, and e in H & K bands. We discuss a strategy for choosing optimal KLIP PSF subtraction parameters by injecting simulated sources and recovering them over a range of parameters. The K1/K2 spectra for HR 8799 c and d are similar to previously published results from the same dataset. We also present a K band spectrum of HR 8799 e for the first time and show that our H-band spectra agree well with previously published spectra from the VLT/SPHERE instrument. We show that HR 8799 c and d show significant differences in their H & K spectra, but do not find any conclusive differences between d and e or c and e, likely due to large error bars in the recovered spectrum of e. Compared to M, L, and T-type field brown dwarfs, all three planets are most consistent with mid and late L spectral types. All objects are consistent with low gravity but a lack of standard spectra for low gravity limit the ability to fit the best spectral type. We discuss how dedicated modeling efforts can better fit HR 8799 planets' near-IR flux and discuss how differences between the properties of these planets can be further explored.Comment: Accepted to AJ, 25 pages, 16 Figure

Strategic Leadership: Do Supply Chain Management Leaders make Better Senior Executives?

Starting in the 1990’s, various companies began to see Logistics and Supply Chain Management as tools to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace (Li et. Al., 2006). The rise of Supply Chain Management (SCM) as a critical element of various companies’ strategies raises the question of the abilities of various leaders. For most companies, there is an assumption that the senior leader(s) should be a person whose operational and tactical experiences are in the basic function the company performs (i.e., a manufacturing company would be best led by an engineer that progressed through the manufacturing process/floor/plant/etc.) However, the assumption that tactical success will result in strategic success is likely flawed. Furthermore, many organizations struggle to develop talented managers to become excellent strategic leaders. It is estimated that organizations in the United States spend up to $200 billion annually to train their workforce (Salas and Cannon-Bowers, 2001). A second study identified that over half of CEOs (62%) recognized the importance and challenges of developing trained employees (Mourao, 2018). While neither study focused specifically on strategic leadership or training, both highlight the importance companies have traditionally placed on the development of their organizations’ individuals. Given this importance across all levels of the organization, it would be safe to assume that the critical nature of strategic leadership would be equally, if not more, important to develop key employees’ skills. However, the question becomes how to select and develop the best candidates for strategic development. Traditionally, organizations were likely to choose managers for promotion that matched their primary business (Breaugh, 2011). For example, a manufacturing firm would like choose an engineer with an operations background to be its CEO or key strategic The assumption is that the functions, skills and abilities that make a person successful in an area, lead to their promotion to higher and higher levels within that organization and would be best suited to the C-level. Perhaps a better approach would be to develop strategic leaders from a pool of managers that have strategic level responsibilities within their organization. The implication is that a SCM executive is often positioned earlier in their career and has boarder set of responsibilities than many functional leaders and could possibly be a better candidate for the strategic level position. This abstract is an early step in developing the literature, theories, propositions and methodology needed to examine the role of SCM leaders as future strategic leaders in organizations

Prediction of preterm birth with and without preeclampsia using mid-pregnancy immune and growth-related molecular factors and maternal characteristics.

OBJECTIVE:To evaluate if mid-pregnancy immune and growth-related molecular factors predict preterm birth (PTB) with and without (±) preeclampsia. STUDY DESIGN:Included were 400 women with singleton deliveries in California in 2009-2010 (200 PTB and 200 term) divided into training and testing samples at a 2:1 ratio. Sixty-three markers were tested in 15-20 serum samples using multiplex technology. Linear discriminate analysis was used to create a discriminate function. Model performance was assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). RESULTS:Twenty-five serum biomarkers along with maternal age <34 years and poverty status identified >80% of women with PTB ± preeclampsia with best performance in women with preterm preeclampsia (AUC = 0.889, 95% confidence interval (0.822-0.959) training; 0.883 (0.804-0.963) testing). CONCLUSION:Together with maternal age and poverty status, mid-pregnancy immune and growth factors reliably identified most women who went on to have a PTB ± preeclampsia