The effect of the advanced placement examination for credit policy by the Florida State universities on the acceleration of a student's postsecondary education

The purpose of this research study was to determine if the Advanced Placement program as it is recognized by the universities in the Florida State University System (SUS) truly serves as an acceleration mechanism for those students who enter an SUS institution with passing AP scores. Despite mandates which attempt to control uniformity of policy, each public university in Florida determines which courses will be exempted and the number of credits they will grant for passing Advanced Placement courses.^ This is a descriptive study in which the AP policies of each of the SUS institutions were compared. Additionally, the college attendance and graduation data on members of a cohort of 593 Broward County high school graduates of the class of June, 1992 were compared. Approximately 28% of the cohort members entered university with passing Advanced Placement scores.^ The rate of early and on time graduation was significantly dependent on the Advanced Placement standing of the students in the cohort. Given the financial and human cost involved, it is recommended that all state universities bring their Advanced Placement policies into line with each other and implement a uniform Advanced Placement policy. It is also recommended that a follow-up study be conducted with a new cohort bound under the current 120 credit limitation for graduation. ^

Club Ratios: A Four-Year Trend Analysis

This article is based on research of the United States club industry conducted over the four-year period of 2003-2006. Twenty ratios were reported, covering the five general classes of financial ratios. The ratio results suggested that 2003 was a banner year for the club industry.

Job Satisfaction of Club Financial Executives

Studying the job satisfaction of financial management personnel in the club industry may offer additional information to management of clubs to better work with and retain their associates. It is also hoped that the results of this study will provide hospitality students aspiring to become financial management personnel in the club industry with a glimpse of the job satisfaction level of financial executives in the club industry

Satisfaction: Is Money Everything?

When people are asked whether they are satisfied with their jobs or careers, the first item that comes to mind, most of the time, is money. Then other factors such as advancement, work hours, autonomy, flexibility, etc. are soon added to the total equation. In this study, 140 financial and technology professionals in the lodging industry shared their satisfaction level and perceived importance of carious attributes of their career.

Private Club Financial Performance

This article reveals the median financial results for the club industry for 2011 using 24 financial ratios. The results are based on the submission of balance sheet and selected income statement numbers from 80 clubs. The ratios are reported as median results for the entire sample as well as the median results for the top and low performing clubs delineated by return on assets. The biggest differences between the two extreme groups of clubs are (1) average collection period, (2) operating cash flows to current liabilities and long-term debt, (3) fines interest earned, (4) fixed charge coverage ratio, (5) food and beverage inventory turnovers, (6) profit margin, (7) return on assets, (8) operating efficiency ratio, (9) labor cost percentage.

Age determination of sediment cores of the Golf of Lions

Siliciclastic turbidites represent huge volumes of sediments, which are of particular significance for (1) petroleum researchers, interested in their potential as oil reservoirs and (2) sedimentologists, who aim at understanding sediment transport processes from continent to deep-basins. An important challenge when studying marine turbidites has been to establish a reliable chronology for the deposits. Indeed, conventional marine proxies applied to hemipelagic sediments are often unreliable in detrital clays. In siliciclastic turbidites, those proxies can be used only in hemipelagic intervals, providing a poor constraint on their chronology. In this study, we have used sediments from the Rhône Neofan (NW Mediterranean Sea) to demonstrate that pollen grains can provide a high-resolution chronostratigraphical framework for detrital clays in turbidites. Vegetation changes occurring from the end of Marine Isotopic Stage 3 to the end of Marine Isotopic Stage 2 (from ~30 to ~18 ka cal. BP) are clearly recorded where other proxies have failed previously, mainly because the scarcity of foraminifers in these sediments prevented any continuous Sea Surface Temperature (SST) record and radiocarbon dating to be obtained. We show also that the use of palynology in turbidite deposits is able to contribute to oceanographical and sedimentological purposes: (1) Pinus pollen grains can document the timing of sea-level rise, (2) the ratio between pollen grains transported from the continent via rivers and dinoflagellate cysts (elutriating) allows us to distinguish clearly detrital sediments from pelagic clays. Finally, taken together, all these tools show evidence that the Rhône River disconnected from the canyon during the sea-level rise and thus evidence the subsequent rapid starvation of the neofan at 18.5 ka cal. BP. Younger sediments are hemipelagic: the frequency of foraminifers allowed to date sediments with radiocarbon. First results of Sea Surface Temperature obtained on foraminifers are in good agreement with the dinoflagellate cysts climatic signal. Both provide information on the end of the deglaciation and the Holocene.

Data compilation on the biological response to ocean acidification: environmental and experimental context of data sets and related literature

The exponential growth of studies on the biological response to ocean acidification over the last few decades has generated a large amount of data. To facilitate data comparison, a data compilation hosted at the data publisher PANGAEA was initiated in 2008 and is updated on a regular basis (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.149999). By January 2015, a total of 581 data sets (over 4 000 000 data points) from 539 papers had been archived. Here we present the developments of this data compilation five years since its first description by Nisumaa et al. (2010). Most of study sites from which data archived are still in the Northern Hemisphere and the number of archived data from studies from the Southern Hemisphere and polar oceans are still relatively low. Data from 60 studies that investigated the response of a mix of organisms or natural communities were all added after 2010, indicating a welcomed shift from the study of individual organisms to communities and ecosystems. The initial imbalance of considerably more data archived on calcification and primary production than on other processes has improved. There is also a clear tendency towards more data archived from multifactorial studies after 2010. For easier and more effective access to ocean acidification data, the ocean acidification community is strongly encouraged to contribute to the data archiving effort, and help develop standard vocabularies describing the variables and define best practices for archiving ocean acidification data.

Early growth characteristics and the risk of reduced lung function and asthma : a meta-analysis of 25,000 children

Peer reviewed

Early growth characteristics and the risk of reduced lung function and asthma : a meta-analysis of 25,000 children

Peer reviewed

Seawater carbonate chemistry and Mytilus edulis biological processes during experiments, 2010

CO2 emissions are leading to an acidification of the oceans. Predicting marine community vulnerability towards acidification is difficult, as adaptation processes cannot be accounted for in most experimental studies. Naturally CO2 enriched sites thus can serve as valuable proxies for future changes in community structure. Here we describe a natural analogue site in the Western Baltic Sea. Seawater pCO2 in Kiel Fjord is elevated for large parts of the year due to upwelling of CO2 rich waters. Peak pCO2 values of >230 Pa (>2300 µatm) and pHNBS values of <7.5 are encountered during summer and autumn, average pCO2 values are ~70 Pa (~700 µatm). In contrast to previously described naturally CO2 enriched sites that have suggested a progressive displacement of calcifying auto- and heterotrophic species, the macrobenthic community in Kiel Fjord is dominated by calcifying invertebrates. We show that blue mussels from Kiel Fjord can maintain control rates of somatic and shell growth at a pCO2 of 142 Pa (1400 µatm, pHNBS = 7.7). Juvenile mussel recruitment peaks during the summer months, when high water pCO2 values of ~100 Pa (~1000 µatm) prevail. Our findings indicate that calcifying keystone species may be able to cope with surface ocean pHNBS values projected for the end of this century when food supply is sufficient. However, owing to non-linear synergistic effects of future acidification and upwelling of corrosive water, peak seawater pCO2 in Kiel Fjord and many other productive estuarine habitats could increase to values >400 Pa (>4000 µatm). These changes will most likely affect calcification and recruitment, and increase external shell dissolution.

Seawater carbonate chemistry and conditions of Mytilus edulis extracellular body fluids and shell composition in a pH-treatment experiment: Acid-base status, trace elements and delta11B, 2012

Mytilus edulis were cultured for 3 months under six different seawater pCO2 levels ranging from 380 to 4000 µatm. Specimen were taken from Kiel Fjord (Western Baltic Sea, Germany) which is a habitat with high and variable seawater pCO2 and related shifts in carbonate system speciation (e.g., low pH and low CaCO3 saturation state). Hemolymph (HL) and extrapallial fluid (EPF) samples were analyzed for pH and total dissolved inorganic carbon (CT) to calculate pCO2 and [HCO3]. A second experiment was conducted for 2 months with three different pCO2 levels (380, 1400 and 4000 µatm). Boron isotopes (delta11B) were investigated by LA-MC-ICP-MS (Laser Ablation-Multicollector-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry) in shell portions precipitated during experimental treatment time. Additionally, elemental ratios (B/Ca, Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca) in the EPF of specimen from the second experiment were measured via ICP-OES (Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry). Extracellular pH was not significantly different in HL and EPF but systematically lower than ambient water pH. This is due to high extracellular pCO2 values, a prerequisite for metabolic CO2 excretion. No accumulation of extracellular [HCO3] was measured. Elemental ratios (B/Ca, Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca) in the EPF increased slightly with pH which is in accordance with increasing growth and calcification rates at higher seawater pH values. Boron isotope ratios were highly variable between different individuals but also within single shells. This corresponds to a high individual variability in fluid B/Ca ratios and may be due to high boron concentrations in the organic parts of the shell. The mean delta11B value shows no trend with pH but appears to represent internal pH (EPF) rather than ambient water pH.

Arterial stiffness and arteriovenous fistula failure of maturation

PURPOSE: Increased arterial stiffness is a common finding in patients with end-stage renal disease. Following creation of an arteriovenous fistula (AVF), appropriate dilation of the feeding artery must occur to facilitate AVF maturation. Arterial stiffness may impair the arterial dilation required to facilitate AVF development and contribute to subsequent failure to mature (FTM). The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the association between measurements of central and peripheral arterial stiffness, and AVF FTM.

METHODS: Patients undergoing AVF creation in a single centre (Belfast City Hospital, UK) between January and December 2015 were invited to have their carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), brachial-radial PWV and augmentation index (AI) measured prior to AVF creation. Subsequent AVF outcomes were identified.

RESULTS: Fifty-nine patients who had an AVF procedure were included in the final analysis (mean age 62 years); 50.8% had diabetes mellitus. The mean pre-operative arterial diameter for all AVFs was 3.9 mm. Average values for carotid-femoral PWV were 9.5 m/s, brachial-radial PWV 7.7 m/s and AI 25.6%. Using logistic regression, these arterial stiffness parameters did not predict AVF FTM: carotid-femoral PWV (P = 0.20), brachial-radial PWV (P = 0.13), AI (P = 0.50).

CONCLUSIONS: This is the largest study to date exploring the association between arterial stiffness and AVF FTM. The measured central and peripheral arterial stiffness parameters were not associated with AVF FTM. Further research is needed to define if non-invasive arterial physiological measurements would be clinically useful in the prediction of AVF FTM.

Di and tripeptides from marine sources can target adipogenic process and contribute to decrease adipocyte number and functions

The effect of 11 marine-derived cryptides was investigated on proliferation, differentiation and maturation of human white pre-adipocytes (HWP). They were all formerly identified as potent Angiotensin-Converting-Enzyme inhibitors.Val-Trp (VW),Val-Tyr (VY), Lys-Tyr (KY), Lys-Trp (KW), Ile-Tyr (IY), Ala-Pro (AP),Val-Ile-Tyr (VIY), Leu-Lys-Pro (LKP), Gly-Pro-Leu (GPL), Ala-Lys-Lys (AKK) and Val-Ala-Pro (VAP) were previously found in fish products and coproducts as well as other marine resources like wakame. Treatment with AP, VAP and AKK greatly affected viability of HWP during the proliferation period while KW and VW treatment reduced the number of viable cells during the differentiation stage. A GPL and IY incubation during the differentiation stage allowed the decrease of their final lipid content, of the GPDH activity and of the mRNA level of adipocyte markers (aP2, GLUT4, LPL and AGT). Moreover, a down regulation of both PPARγ and C/EBPα expression, two key regulators of adipogenesis,was observed.These findings indicate that small bioactive peptides from marine protein hydrolysates can target adipogenesis and thus could regulate energy metabolism disorders

Bacterial diseases in marine bivalves

Bivalve aquaculture is seriously affected by many bacterial pathogens that cause high losses in hatcheries as well as in natural beds. A number of Vibrio species, but also members of the genera Nocardia and Roseovarius, are considered important pathogens in aquaculture. The present work provides an updated overview of main diseases and implicated bacterial species affecting bivalves. This review focuses on aetiological agents, their diversity and virulence factors, the diagnostic methods available as well as information on the dynamics of the host-parasite relationship.