Current evidence underscores a need to transform how we do clinical research, shifting from academic-driven priorities to co-led community partnership focused programs, accessible and relevant career pathway programs that expand opportunities for career development, and design of trainings and practices to develop cultural competence among research teams. Failures of equitable research translation contribute to health disparities. Drivers of this failed translation include lack of diversity in both researchers and participants, lack of alignment between research institutions and the communities they serve, and lack of attention to structural sources of inequity and drivers of mistrust for science and research. The Duke University Research Equity and Diversity Initiative (READI) is a program designed to better align clinical research programs with community health priorities through community engagement. Organized around three specific aims, READI-supported programs targeting increased workforce diversity, workforce training in community engagement and cultural competence, inclusive research engagement principles, and development of trustworthy partnerships.

Aesop's Fables is an enduring collection of short stories with morals that is credited to Aesop, a slave who lived in early Ancient Greece about 2600 years ago. Undoubtedly many later ancient Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristotle and Archimedes were told Aesop's fables in their youth. In a race described in ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’, one of the most famous of Aesop's fables, a tortoise, running in a steady constant manner, beats a hare that is racing irregularly. The lesson of the fable is often interpreted as ‘slow but steady wins the race’ or ‘consistent, effective effort leads to success’ (see [1]) and is applicable to many human activities. The fable illustrates the general problem of working toward an objective when the rate of work is either constant or varies randomly.

Surgical site infections (SSIs) are among the most common healthcare-associated infections in low- and middle-income countries. To encourage establishment of actionable and standardized SSI surveillance in these countries, we propose simplified surveillance case definitions. Here, we use NHSN reports to explore concordance of these simplified definitions to NHSN as ‘reference standard.’

Our knowledge of the universe comes from recording the photon and particle fluxes incident on the Earth from space. We thus require sensitive measurement across the entire energy spectrum, using large telescopes with efficient instrumentation located on superb sites. Technological advances and engineering constraints are nearing the point where we are recording as many photons arriving at a site as is possible. Major advances in the future will come from improving the quality of the site. The ultimate site is, of course, beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, such as on the Moon, but economic limitations prevent our exploiting this avenue to the degree that the scientific community desires. Here we describe an alternative, which offers many of the advantages of space for a fraction of the cost: the Antarctic Plateau.

Due to the wide bandgap and other key materials properties of 4H-SiC, SiC MOSFETsoffer performance advantages over competing Si-based power devices. For example,SiC can more easily be used to fabricate MOSFETs with very high voltage ratings,and with lower switching losses. Silicon carbide power MOSFET development hasprogressed rapidly since the market release of Cree’s 1200V 4H-SiCpower MOSFET in 2011. This is due to continued advancements in SiC substratequality, epitaxial growth capabilities, and device processing. For example,high-quality epitaxial growth of thick, low-doped SiC has enabled thefabrication of SiC MOSFETs capable of blocking extremely high voltages (up to15kV); while dopant control for thin highly-doped epitaxial layers has helpedenable low on-resistance 900V SiC MOSFET production. Device design andprocessing improvements have resulted in lower MOSFET specific on-resistance foreach successive device generation. SiC MOSFETs have been shown to have a longdevice lifetime, based on the results of accelerated lifetime testing, such ashigh-temperature reverse-bias (HTRB) stress and time-dependent dielectricbreakdown (TDDB).

Mathematical programming-based systems analysis is used to examine the consequences of alternative operation configuration for the agricultural operations within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Continuation versus elimination of the total operation as well as individual operating departments are considered. Methodology includes a firm systems operation model combined with capital budgeting and an integer programming based investment model. Results indicate the resources realize a positive return as a whole, but some enterprises are not using resources profitably. The integer investment model is found to be superior for investigating whether to continue multiple interrelated enterprises.

This paper describes the system architecture of a newly constructed radio telescope – the Boolardy engineering test array, which is a prototype of the Australian square kilometre array pathfinder telescope. Phased array feed technology is used to form multiple simultaneous beams per antenna, providing astronomers with unprecedented survey speed. The test array described here is a six-antenna interferometer, fitted with prototype signal processing hardware capable of forming at least nine dual-polarisation beams simultaneously, allowing several square degrees to be imaged in a single pointed observation. The main purpose of the test array is to develop beamforming and wide-field calibration methods for use with the full telescope, but it will also be capable of limited early science demonstrations.

This study introduces a special series on validity studies of the Cognition Battery (CB) from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function (NIHTB) (Gershon, Wagster et al., 2013) in an adult sample. This first study in the series describes the sample, each of the seven instruments in the NIHTB-CB briefly, and the general approach to data analysis. Data are provided on test–retest reliability and practice effects, and raw scores (mean, standard deviation, range) are presented for each instrument and the gold standard instruments used to measure construct validity. Accompanying papers provide details on each instrument, including information about instrument development, psychometric properties, age and education effects on performance, and convergent and discriminant construct validity. One study in the series is devoted to a factor analysis of the NIHTB-CB in adults and another describes the psychometric properties of three composite scores derived from the individual measures representing fluid and crystallized abilities and their combination. The NIHTB-CB is designed to provide a brief, comprehensive, common set of measures to allow comparisons among disparate studies and to improve scientific communication. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–12)

Using Burgers’ equation with mixed Neumann–Dirichlet boundary conditions, we highlight aproblem that can arise in the numerical approximation of nonlinear dynamical systems oncomputers with a finite precision floating point number system. We describe the dynamicalsystem generated by Burgers’ equation with mixed boundary conditions, summarize some ofits properties and analyze the equilibrium states for finite dimensional dynamical systemsthat are generated by numerical approximations of this system. It is important to notethat there are two fundamental differences between Burgers’ equation with mixedNeumann–Dirichlet boundary conditions and Burgers’ equation with both Dirichlet boundaryconditions. First, Burgers’ equation with homogenous mixed boundary conditions on a finiteinterval cannot be linearized by the Cole–Hopf transformation. Thus, on finite intervalsBurgers’ equation with a homogenous Neumann boundary condition is truly nonlinear. Second,the nonlinear term in Burgers’ equation with a homogenous Neumann boundary condition isnot conservative. This structure plays a key role in understanding the complex dynamicsgenerated by Burgers’ equation with a Neumann boundary condition and how this structureimpacts numerical approximations. The key point is that, regardless of the particularnumerical scheme, finite precision arithmetic will always lead to numerically generatedequilibrium states that do not correspond to equilibrium states of the Burgers’ equation.In this paper we establish the existence and stability properties of these numericalstationary solutions and employ a bifurcation analysis to provide a detailed mathematicalexplanation of why numerical schemes fail to capture the correct asymptotic dynamics. Weextend the results in [E. Allen, J.A. Burns, D.S. Gilliam, J. Hill and V.I. Shubov,Math. Comput. Modelling 35 (2002) 1165–1195] and provethat the effect of finite precision arithmetic persists in generating a nonzero numericalfalse solution to the stationary Burgers’ problem. Thus, we show that the results obtainedin [E. Allen, J.A. Burns, D.S. Gilliam, J. Hill and V.I. Shubov, Math. Comput.Modelling 35 (2002) 1165–1195] are not dependent on a specifictime marching scheme, but are generic to all convergent numerical approximations ofBurgers’ equation.

The seventh annual Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC) was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from February 5 to 7, 2010, with 224 attendees onsite. The theme for the meeting was “Advancing Excellence in Teaching Political Science.” Using the working-group model, the TLC track format encourages in-depth discussion and debate on research dealing with the scholarship of teaching and learning.