Detection and Characterization of Preferential Flow Paths in the Downstream Area of a Hazardous Landfill

We have used surface-based electrical resistivity tomography to detect and characterize preferential hydraulic pathways in the immediate downstream area of an abandoned, hazardous landfill. The landfill occupies the void left by a former gravel pit and its base is close to the groundwater table and lacking an engineered barrier. As such, this site is remarkably typical of many small- to medium-sized waste deposits throughout the densely populated and heavily industrialized foreland on both sides of the Alpine arc. Outflows of pollutants lastingly contaminated local drinking water supplies and necessitated a partial remediation in the form of a synthetic cover barrier, which is meant to prevent meteoric water from percolating through the waste before reaching the groundwater table. Any future additional isolation of the landfill in the form of lateral barriers thus requires adequate knowledge of potential preferential hydraulic pathways for outflowing contaminants. Our results, inferred from a suite of tomographically inverted surfaced-based electrical resistivity profiles oriented roughly perpendicular to the local hydraulic gradient, indicate that potential contaminant outflows would predominantly occur along an unexploited lateral extension of the original gravel deposit. This finds its expression as a distinct and laterally continuous high-resistivity anomaly in the resistivity tomograms. This interpretation is ground-truthed through a litholog from a nearby well. Since the probed glacio-fluvial deposits are largely devoid of mineralogical clay, the geometry of hydraulic and electrical pathways across the pore space of a given lithological unit can be assumed to be identical, which allows for an order-of-magnitude estimation of the overall permeability structure. These estimates indicate that the permeability of the imaged extension of the gravel body is at least two to three orders-of-magnitude higher than that of its finer-grained embedding matrix. This corroborates the preeminent role of the high-resistivity anomaly as a potential preferential flow path.

Independent contribution of parental migrant status and educational level to adiposity and eating habits in preschool children.

Background/Objective:Little is known about the precise role of parental migrant status (MS) and educational level (EL) on adiposity and various eating habits in young children. Therefore, we assessed their independent contribution in preschoolers.Subjects/Methods:Of 655 randomly selected preschoolers, 542 (5.1±0.6 years; 71% of parental MS and 37% of low parental EL) were analysed. Body composition was measured by bioelectrical impedance. Eating habits were assessed using a semiqualitative food frequency questionnaire and analysed according to five messages developed by the Swiss Society for Nutrition, based on factors implicated in childhood obesity: (1) 'Drinking water and decreasing sweetened drinks', (2) 'Eating fruit and vegetables', (3) 'Decreasing breakfast skipping', (4) 'Reducing fatty and sweet foods' and (5) 'Reducing the intake of meals and snacks in front of television'.Results:Children of migrant and low EL parents had higher body fat, ate more meals and snacks while watching television and had more fruit and fatty foods compared with their respective counterparts (all P0.04). Children of low EL parents also consumed less water and vegetables compared with their counterparts (all P0.04). In most instances, we found an independent contribution of parental MS and EL to adiposity and eating habits. A more pronounced effect was found if both parents were migrants or of low EL. Differences in adiposity and eating habits were relatively similar to the joint parental data when assessed individually for maternal and paternal MS and EL.Conclusions:Parental MS and EL are independently related to adiposity and various eating habits in preschoolers.European Journal of Clinical Nutrition advance online publication, 3 November 2010; doi:10.1038/ejcn.2010.248.

Competing tunneling and capacitive paths in Co-ZrO2 granular thin films

The ac electrical response is studied in thin films composed of well-defined nanometric Co particles embedded in an insulating ZrO2 matrix which tends to coat them, preventing the formation of aggregates. In the dielectric regime, ac transport originates from the competition between interparticle capacitive Cp and tunneling Rt channels, the latter being thermally assisted. This competition yields an absorption phenomenon at a characteristic frequency 1/(RtCp), which is observed in the range 1010 000 Hz. In this way, the effective ac properties mimic the universal response of disordered dielectric materials. Temperature and frequency determine the complexity and nature of the ac electrical paths, which have been successfully modeled by an Rt-Cp network.

Preparing Tomorrow's Transportation Workforce: A Midwest Summit, 2010

regional transportation workforce development summits held across the United States in 2009 and 2010 as part of a coordinated initiative to ultimately develop a national strategy to address future transportation workforce issues. The initiative is being led by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). This particular summit was hosted by Iowa State University’s Midwest Transportation Consortium (MTC) and Institute for Transportation (InTrans). The purpose of the Midwest summit was to assess the educational and training needs of the future transportation workforce and identify strategies to address those needs across various career paths. It addressed a broad spectrum of topics including strategies to attract women and under-represented minority groups, pre-college opportunities and strategies, post-secondary education, post-college continuing education, professional licensure, and specific industry perspectives. The goals of the summit were (1) to gain an improved understanding of the transportation workforce needs of Iowa and the surrounding states and (2) to identify best practices in addressing the workforce development needs. This event had two tracks: one focused on pre-college education and the other focused primarily on college education and practitioners. Attendees provided a good cross-section of the larger transportation industry. From what was learned at the summit, Iowa State University, like other regional hosts, can develop a “profile of needs” for Iowa including specific job categories over specific time horizons. The summit was also successful in identifying best practices in addressing the workforce needs that can be utilized by us and others as potential tools or in a “national-level list of attributes.” Each regional summit has provided some guidance in developing statewide profiles. The collection of best practices or tools from all the regional summits can be shared and applied to address state (or regional) needs profiles to attract, develop, and retain an effective workforce.

Achievement goals in educational contexts: A social psychology perspective

Research on achievement goals usually defines mastery goals as the desire to acquire knowledge, and performance goals as the desire to outperform (or not to underperform) others. Educational contexts are most of the time social contexts, involving various persons and groups, of various hierarchical positions, and various cultural and ideological contexts. Surprisingly, most research in the achievement goal field has been conducted at an individual level of analysis. In the present paper, we will review the social consequences and antecedents of goal endorsement. This research indicates that goals strongly affect the way one behaves with co-learners. Moreover, it suggests that more than merely individual dispositions, goals reflect the social relation students have with other persons, institutions, and with the society to which they belong. We conclude this paper by setting an agenda for future achievement goal research.

Environment and dispersal paths override life strategies and residence time in determining regional patterns of invasion by alien plants.

We describe a novel dissimilarity framework to analyze spatial patterns of species diversity and illustrate it with alien plant invasions in Northern Portugal. We used this framework to test the hypothesis that patterns of alien invasive plant species richness and composition are differently affected by differences in climate, land use and landscape connectivity (i.e. Geographic distance as a proxy and vectorial objects that facilitate dispersal such as roads and rivers) between pairs of localities at the regional scale. We further evaluated possible effects of plant life strategies (Grime's C-S-R) and residence time. Each locality consisted of a 1 km(2) landscape mosaic in which all alien invasive species were recorded by visiting all habitat types. Multi-model inference revealed that dissimilarity in species richness is more influenced by environmental distance (particularly climate), whereas geographic distance (proxies for dispersal limitations) is more important to explain dissimilarity in species composition, with a prevailing role for ecotones and roads. However, only minor differences were found in the responses of the three C-S-R strategies. Some effect of residence time was found, but only for dissimilarity in species richness. Our results also indicated that environmental conditions (e.g. climate conditions) limit the number of alien species invading a given site, but that the presence of dispersal corridors determines the paths of invasion and therefore the pool of species reaching each site. As geographic distances (e.g. ecotones and roads) tend to explain invasion at our regional scale highlights the need to consider the management of alien invasions in the context of integrated landscape planning. Alien species management should include (but not be limited to) the mitigation of dispersal pathways along linear infrastructures. Our results therefore highlight potentially useful applications of the novel multimodel framework to the anticipation and management of plant invasions. (C) 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Audit report on the Office of Treasurer of State, Iowa Educational Savings Plan Trust for the year ended June 30, 2012

Audit report on the Office of Treasurer of State, Iowa Educational Savings Plan Trust for the year ended June 30, 2012

Educational expansion, intergenerational mobility and over-education

[eng] There is a vast literature on intergenerational mobility in sociology and economics. Similar interest has emerged for the phenomenon of over-education in both disciplines. There are no studies, however, linking these two research lines. We study the relationship between social mobility and over-education in a context of educational expansion. Our framework allows for the evaluation of several policies, including those affecting social segregation, early intervention programs and the power of unions. Results show the evolution of social mobility, over-education, income inequality and equality of opportunity under each scenario.

Educational attainment and timing of fertility decisions

This paper focuses on timing of fertility decisions, conditional on the level of educational attainment of parents. Timing of fertility and educational attainment of parents rationalize the negative relationship observed in the data between hourly wages and childbearing. It is shown how the recent evolution in total fertility rates observed in developed countries could be in part the result of a transition from an early childbearing regime to a late childbearing regime. I develop a general equilibrium overlapping generations model in order to understand the joint determination of timing of childbearing decisions together with other household economic decisions in a life cycle framework. I show how idiosyncratic uncertainty might have asymmetric efects on completed fertility depending on timing of childbearing, generating the diferences in completed fertility observed between households that difer in their level of educational attainment.

Educational Leave/Assistance Report FY 2013

Iowa Code section 70A.25(3)(b) states the department shall report the direct and indirect costs of educational leave and educational assistance granted to its employees during the preceding fiscal year. The report shall include the number of employees granted educational leave and the amount of tuition reimbursement allowed; the number of employees granted leave from work to attend classes and who continued to receive their salary and the number of hours of work which those employees were excused; and the number of employees granted a temporary leave of absence from work to attend the classes without pay and the amount of time missed.

Audit report on the Office of Treasurer of State, Iowa Educational Savings Plan Trust for the year ended June 30, 2013

Audit report on the Office of Treasurer of State, Iowa Educational Savings Plan Trust for the year ended June 30, 2013

Personalized care in neuro-oncology coming of age: why we need MGMT and 1p/19q testing for malignant glioma patients in clinical practice.

Histological subtyping and grading by malignancy are the cornerstones of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of tumors of the central nervous system. They shall provide clinicians with guidance as to the course of disease to be expected and the choices of treatment to be made. Nonetheless, patients with histologically identical tumors may have very different outcomes, notably in patients with astrocytic and oligodendroglial gliomas of WHO grades II and III. In gliomas of adulthood, 3 molecular markers have undergone extensive studies in recent years: 1p/19q chromosomal codeletion, O(6)-methylguanine methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter methylation, and mutations of isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) 1 and 2. However, the assessment of these molecular markers has so far not been implemented in clinical routine because of the lack of therapeutic implications. In fact, these markers were considered to be prognostic irrespective of whether patients were receiving radiotherapy (RT), chemotherapy, or both (1p/19q, IDH1/2), or of limited value because testing is too complex and no chemotherapy alternative to temozolomide was available (MGMT). In 2012, this situation has changed: long-term follow-up of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group 9402 and European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer 26951 trials demonstrated an overall survival benefit from the addition to RT of chemotherapy with procarbazine/CCNU/vincristine confined to patients with anaplastic oligodendroglial tumors with (vs without) 1p/19q codeletion. Furthermore, in elderly glioblastoma patients, the NOA-08 and the Nordic trial of RT alone versus temozolomide alone demonstrated a profound impact of MGMT promoter methylation on outcome by therapy and thus established MGMT as a predictive biomarker in this patient population. These recent results call for the routine implementation of 1p/19q and MGMT testing at least in subpopulations of malignant glioma patients and represent an encouraging step toward the development of personalized therapeutic approaches in neuro-oncology.

Iowa Board of Educational Examiners Licensure Handbook, January 15, 2013

Iowa Board of Educational Examiners Licensure Handbook