Explore the vast range of titles available.

We investigate how varying the number of multiple image constraints and the available redshift information can influence the systematic errors of strong lens models, specifically, the image predictability, mass distribution, and magnifications of background sources. This work will not only inform upon Frontier Field science, but also for work on the growing collection of strong lensing galaxy clusters, most of which are less massive and are capable of lensing a handful of galaxies.

Research supports the use of culturally responsive education (CRE) strategies to improve student learning outcomes. The Illinois State Board of Education (2020) published the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards (CRTL) mandating all preservice teacher programs implement the standards by 2025. However, there is no mandate for in-service teachers. The problem is a lack of professional development concerning the Illinois CRTL Standards for rural Illinois teachers, which serves as a barrier for implementation of teaching practices with the potential to improve student learning outcomes for all students. There is a gap in research on effective CRE professional development for rural educators. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to identify the perceptions of rural Illinois teachers regarding the Illinois CRTL Standards and to suggest strategies for creating CRE professional development. The social identity and self-efficacy theories formed the theoretical framework for the study. The research questions addressed the perceived benefits, challenges, and needs of rural Illinois educators regarding the CRTL standards. This basic qualitative study used a questionnaire and a follow-up to collect data from 15 in-service rural Illinois educators, selected by convenience sampling, who had not participated in a preservice program on the CRTL standards. A thematic analysis of the data was conducted. Findings revealed positive academic outcomes as perceived benefits, outside barriers and teacher bias as challenges, and administrator support and professional development as perceived needs. Recommendations to improve CRE professional development and change the CRTL were provided.

To determine factors associated with active duty military women being within Navy weight standards 6 months following childbirth. Inclusion criteria for this study were active duty women who delivered a nonanomalous fetus at a Naval Hospital and who remained in the area and their weight was recorded 6 months following childbirth. Multivariate logistic regressions, adjusted for 14 covariates, determined the factors for achieving acceptable weight. Among 1,009 women who participated in this prospective cohort study, 68% began within Navy body weight standards and 52% had a normal body mass index (BMI) (<25). Six months after childbirth, 48% were within Navy body weight standards and 32% had a BMI <25. Only 2 factors, BMI at first visit and cesarean delivery, significantly influenced the percentage of women who met the weight standards at 6 months. Lowering the prepregnancy BMI and avoiding a cesarean delivery may improve the percentage of active duty women who meet weight standards 6 months after childbirth.

Seaports are essential for international commerce as they facilitate movement of cargo through global trade networks. Failure of a seaport to remain operational during a disruptive event, such as a natural disaster or security threat, not only affects that seaport and the economy it supplies but can have far reaching impacts on supply chains worldwide. Enhancing seaport resiliency is essential to maintaining functionality in the event of crises that pose a threat to trade continuity and economic stability.This research explores the efficacy of using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to enhance resiliency building efforts in three case studies representing different operational areas of a seaport: Infrastructure/construction, coastline replenishment, and seaport security. The ability of a UAS to adequately monitor these areas will be evaluated by (1) Examining UAS data that was collected monthly over a 5-year period and during test flights, (2) Identifying goals to measure the ability of the UAS to perform tasks (3) Evaluating these findings as a basis for developing best practices for UAS deployment in the future.

Driven by the unprecedented wealth of high quality data that is accumulating for the Frontier Fields, they are becoming some of the best-studied strong lensing clusters to date, and probably the next few years. As will be discussed intensively in this focus meeting, the FF prove transformative for many fields: from studies of the high redshift Universe, to the assembly and structure of the clusters themselves. The FF data and the extensive collaborative effort around this program will also allow us to examine and improve upon current lens modeling techniques. Strong lensing is a powerful tool for mass reconstruction of the cores of galaxy clusters of all scales, providing an estimate of the total (dark and seen) projected mass density distribution out to 0.5 Mpc. Though SL mass may be biased by contribution from structures along the line of sight, its strength is that it is relatively insensitive to assumptions on cluster baryon astrophysics and dynamical state. Like the Frontier Fields clusters, the most “famous” strong lensing clusters are at the high mass end; they lens dozens of background sources into multiple images, providing ample lensing constraints. In this talk, I will focus on how we can leverage what we learn from modeling the FF clusters in strong lensing studies of the hundreds of clusters that will be discovered in upcoming surveys. In typical clusters, unlike the Frontier Fields, the Bullet Cluster and A1689, we observe only one to a handful of background sources, and have limited lensing constraints. I will describe the limitations that such a configuration imposes on strong lens modeling, highlight measurements that are robust to the richness of lensing evidence, and address the sources of uncertainty and what sort of information can help reduce those uncertainties. This category of lensing clusters is most relevant to the wide cluster surveys of the future.

The rate of maternal mortality in the United States (U.S.) is higher than any other industrialized nation, at 23.8 per 100,000 deliveries from 2000-2014. Although maternal mortality ratios decreased by 44% globally from 1990 to 2015, emerging evidence suggests that maternal mortality in the U.S. has been increasing.2-4 One study quotes 700 maternal deaths every year, with 50,000 \"near misses.\"1 By one metric, Missouri ranks as the 44 -worst state for maternal mortality in the U.S.5.

Purpose of review Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one cause of maternal mortality in the USA. There are many cardiac conditions which pose significant risk to maternal health, and these women should be offered options to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Individualized contraceptive counseling focusing on woman’s desire for future pregnancy, comorbid conditions, and desire for hormone or non-hormonal (contraceptive) options is paramount to avoid adverse or unwanted side effects. The purpose of this review is to give general guidance on prescribing both hormonal and non-hormonal contraceptives for providers caring for women with heart disease. Recent findings Specific recommendation for the use of either non-hormonal or hormonal contraception requires knowledge of the types of contraceptive options available, cost, failure rates, and contraindications to use. Newer progestin-only options have become available and should be considered first-line therapy for women with cardiovascular disease. Summary The physiologic burden of pregnancy on the cardiovascular system can cause significant maternal morbidity and mortality for women with underlying CVD. These women should be offered safe and effective options for birth control, and both cardiology and obstetrical providers alike should possess fundamental knowledge of appropriate options.

Massive galaxy clusters are capable of magnifying background sources and thus act as natural telescopes to the distant Universe. My dissertation focuses on modeling the mass distributions of these clusters in order to determine to what degree intrinsic properties of background sources such as luminosity, star formation rate, and size have been magnified. With accurate and precise lens models, we can compute the luminosity functions of the most distant galaxies at z > 8, pushing beyond the limits of HST deep fields, which will help to understand the formation of galaxies during the epoch of re-ionization. We can also use cluster lensing to zoom into galaxies at z ∼ 2 to study their star formation morphologies on scales smaller than a kiloparsec, science that will not be feasible for field galaxies until JWST comes online. In addition to creating lens models, my dissertation also looks at the systematic errors associated with lens modeling techniques. As I will show, lens model accuracy can depend on the number of constraints as well as the availability of spectroscopic redshifts used in the modeling process. Understanding the systematic errors of lens models will be necessary in the next decade, when several wide-field surveys will reveal thousands of new strong lensing systems, for which higher resolution imaging and spectroscopic data may not be obtained for all systems.

In today’s high-stakes educational environment, high school English teachers are faced with revamping curricula to meet the new common core standards while continuing to adapt to the newest research in writing studies. Unfortunately, these demands do not always match up. Instructors, then, must be open to trying innovative teaching methods that will allow them to meet the new demands and help students transfer the writing skills they learn in their writing courses to the other classes they will take. Because genre is so pervasive in our lives, Rhetorical Genre Scholars maintain that thinking about writing through the lens of genre is key, and that it is important for teachers to instruct their students on genre in writing courses. If teachers can successfully instill an understanding of genre and its implications in students, these students will have a much better chance of correctly negotiating between their background knowledge, including what they have learned in previous writing courses and their own values, and the new genres they will be asked to take up in other disciplines. In an attempt to contribute to the ongoing conversation on teaching genre in the writing classroom, this study looks at a course promoting this pedagogy in a high school freshman composition course to see if teaching “genre awareness,” a term coined by Amy Devitt, could possibly connect high school and college writing studies. The study focuses on how students struggle with this new way of conceptualizing writing and what sort of assignments moved them to a new understanding of the role writing plays in their lives. Using a classroom in rural Illinois, I took on the role of a teacher researcher. Through the collection of student work, student reflections, pre and post course surveys, and a writing workshop, I analyzed how students began to understand the threshold concepts associated with writing and genres. The study showed that while students struggled with the concepts and still had some troublesome knowledge that stopped them from fully understanding genres as a social act, they made progress in becoming “boundary crossers” that could see writing in this new way.

Massive foreground galaxy clusters magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, permitting a view into both the extremely distant and intrinsically faint galaxy populations. We present here the z ~ 6 - 8 candidate high-redshift galaxies from the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS), a Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope survey of 41 massive galaxy clusters spanning an area of ~200 arcmin^2. These clusters were selected to be excellent lenses and we find similar high-redshift sample sizes and magnitude distributions as CLASH. We discover 321 candidate galaxies with photometric redshifts between z ~ 6 to z ~ 8, including extremely bright objects with H-band magnitudes of m_AB ~ 23 mag. As a sample, the observed (lensed) magnitudes of these galaxies are among the brightest known at z> 6, comparable to much wider, blank-field surveys. RELICS demonstrates the efficiency of using strong gravitational lenses to produce high-redshift samples in the epoch of reionization. These brightly observed galaxies are excellent targets for follow-up study with current and future observatories, including the James Webb Space Telescope.