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Abstract While the familiar Hanukkah story of the ‘miracle of the oil’ is often dismissed as quaint and fanciful, it may be seen as a final link in an interesting chain of traditions about the sanctity of Judaism’s holiest of places. In the book of Exodus, one type of oil is used to light the lamps and another oil is used to anoint the Tabernacle and make it inviolate. The Tabernacle became part of the First Temple so there was no need to anoint the Holy of Holies there. In the time of the First Temple, some considered the Temple to be inviolate. When the First Temple was destroyed, no aspect of the new Temple was anointed. In the 160s BCE, during the Antiochene persecution, some felt the need to explain how the Temple could have been violated. The author of Daniel 9 reinterpreted Jeremiah’s prophecies of the 70 years of exile to be 70 weeks of years so that everything that had befallen the Judeans was seen as part of God’s overarching plan. The complex issues of continuity/discontinuity between, and the violability/inviolability of the temples, underlie Dan. 9 and related texts.

While the effectiveness of online instruction has been well established, there remains a limited understanding of the correlation between language skills and performance across various instructional sections. This study investigates the language proficiency outcomes of college students in online and on-ground language instruction, focusing on four essential language skills: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. Data were collected from students enrolled in third-semester language courses in French, German, Italian, and Spanish during the Spring semesters of 2019 and 2021 with on-ground and online instruction respectively in a public university in the United States. Descriptive statistics, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and pairwise correlation analysis were used to analyze the students’ performance in both modalities. The results indicate that students generally outperformed in the online modality, demonstrating a significantly higher positive correlation range compared to on-ground instruction. This finding suggests that multi-modality language instruction has the potential to foster more integrated and cohesive language proficiency development. The implications firstly show the positive correlation range in the online modality indicates that college instructors may be more capable of implementing effective online teaching methods due to various reasons. Secondly, college students’ potential for self-directed learning in the online setting may contribute to their enhanced outcomes. However, the study also reveals challenges for less taught languages, such as the need for additional support in terms of resource curation and networking opportunities for instructors.

The articles for the Special Section on Play highlight the complexity of play and the many ways occupational therapy practitioners study and promote play with children, families, and adults across individual, school, family, political, and cross-cultural settings. The authors of the articles in this issue view the importance of play across the lifespan and through multiple research lenses, including play preference, environmental supports for and barriers to play, the skills required to succeed in play, and the extent to which play is self-determined. The guest editors offer suggestions for how to enhance occupational therapy’s voice in the study and promotion of play as a primary lifelong occupation.

The growth of nonemployer businesses as a share of the working-age population has been little studied relative to the decline of employer business rate in the United States. We show that local labor markets specializing in routine task-intensive jobs have experienced a higher adoption of information technology as well as the growth of nonemployer businesses primarily through increasing self-employment in nonroutine manual task-intensive jobs that are less frequently outsourced to business service firms. © 2024 Wiley Periodicals LLC.

The sheep case in Analects 13.18 has generated a heated debate in contemporary Chinese philosophy for more than a decade. One side in this debate criticizes Confucius’ view in the sheep case and the other side defends Confucius’ position. Neither side’s reading of 13.18 is satisfactory. I argue that something important in the text has been overlooked and this omission may explain why neither side gives a satisfying reading. I offer in this essay a new reading of the sheep case which pays attention to what the existent interpretations have overlooked in the text. This new focus will give us a new perspective to reframe the issue in question and to defend the Confucian position in a more convincing way. On the new interpretation, Confucius’ position in the sheep case suggests a sensible and reasonable way for the state to balance some important social interests which the state seeks to protect.

Occupational therapists view play through a unique lens. Considering play as a human occupation, and one to which all people have a right, places occupational therapists among a special group of professionals championing play. This State of the Science article seeks to increase awareness regarding the occupational therapy profession’s contributions and to situate those contributions within the larger body of literature on play while also promoting further study of play as an occupation.

Core concepts in occupational therapy have often developed over time with contributions from multiple clinicians and scholars. This makes it difficult to determine exactly from where, or from whom, ideas originated. Without original sources, we cannot chart the historical development of ideas and honor those whose scholarship made it possible. This article documents the process undertaken to properly cite one such common concept in occupational therapy, the just-right challenge; illustrates the value of doing so; and advocates for the importance of thorough historical scholarship.

BackgroundCancer is the second-leading cause of death in the United States. Most studies have reported rural versus urban and Black versus White cancer disparities. However, few studies have investigated racial disparities in rural areas.ObjectiveWe conducted a literature review to explore the current state of knowledge on racial and ethnic disparities in cancer attitudes, knowledge, occurrence, and outcomes in rural United States.MethodsA systematic search of PubMed and Embase was performed. Peer-reviewed articles published in English from 2004-2023 were included. Three authors independently reviewed the articles and reached a consensus.ResultsAfter reviewing 993 articles, a total of 30 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the present review. Studies revealed that underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in rural areas were more likely to have low cancer-related knowledge, low screening, high incidence, less access to treatment, and high mortality compared to their White counterparts.ConclusionUnderrepresented racial and ethnic groups in rural areas experienced a high burden of cancer. Improving social determinants of health may help reduce cancer disparities and promote health.

We report the first measurements of cumulants, up to 4th order, of deuteron number distributions and proton-deuteron correlations in Au+Au collisions recorded by the STAR experiment in phase-I of Beam Energy Scan (BES) program at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Deuteron cumulants, their ratios, and proton-deuteron mixed cumulants are presented for different collision centralities covering a range of center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair sNN=7.7 to 200 GeV. It is found that the cumulant ratios at lower collision energies favor a canonical ensemble over a grand canonical ensemble in thermal models. An anti-correlation between proton and deuteron multiplicity is observed across all collision energies and centralities, consistent with the expectation from global baryon number conservation. The UrQMD model coupled with a phase-space coalescence mechanism qualitatively reproduces the collision-energy dependence of cumulant ratios and proton-deuteron correlations.

Electronic waste (e-waste) or discarded electronic devices that are unwanted, not working, or have reached their end of life pose significant threats to human and environmental health. This is a major concern in Africa, where the majority of e-waste is discarded. In the year 2021, an estimated 57.4 million metric tons of e-waste were generated worldwide. Globally, COVID-19 lockdowns have contributed to increased e-waste generation. Although Africa generates the least of this waste, the continent has been the dumping ground for e-waste from the developed world. The flow of hazardous waste from the prosperous ‘Global North’ to the impoverished ‘Global South’ is termed “toxic colonialism”. Agbogbloshie, Ghana, an e-waste hub where about 39% of e-waste was treated, was listed among the top 10 most polluted places in the world. The discard of e-waste in Ghana presents an issue of environmental injustice, defined as the disproportionate exposure of communities of color and low-income communities to pollution, its associated health and environmental effects, and the unequal environmental protection provided through policies. Despite the economic benefits of e-waste, many civilians (low-income earners, settlers, children, and people with minimal education) are exposed to negative health effects due to poverty, lack of education, and weak regulations. We critically examine the existing literature to gather empirical information on e-waste and environmental injustice. Comprehensive policies and regulations are needed to manage e-waste locally and globally.

Abstract Objectives Listening2Faces (L2F) is a therapeutic, application-based training program designed to improve audiovisual speech perception for persons with communication disorders. The purpose of this research was to investigate the feasibility of using the L2F application with young adults with autism and complex communication needs. Methods Three young adults with autism and complex communication needs completed baseline assessments and participated in training sessions within the L2F application. Behavioral supports, including the use of cognitive picture rehearsal, were used to support engagement with the L2F application. Descriptive statistics were used to provide (1) an overview of the level of participation in L2F application with the use of behavioral supports and (2) general performance on L2F application for each participant. Results All three participants completed the initial auditory noise assessment (ANA) as well as 8 or more levels of the L2F application with varying accuracy levels. One participant completed the entire L2F program successfully. Several behavioral supports were used to facilitate participation; however, each individual demonstrated varied levels of engagement with the application. Conclusions The L2F application may be a viable intervention tool to support audiovisual speech perception in persons with complex communication needs within a school-based setting. A review of behavioral supports and possible beneficial modifications to the L2F application for persons with complex communication needs are discussed.

In 2019, there was no entity specifically dedicated to health promotion and education practitioners in Connecticut or New England. This made it difficult for health promotion practitioners and students to network, collaborate, and engage in professional development. The purpose of this article is to share our experiences developing the new Connecticut Chapter of the Society for Public Health Education (CT SOPHE), including how we leveraged student interns during the first two years to promote organizational growth. To build our membership, it was important to determine who would be interested in joining CT SOPHE and so we focused on three groups: the current workforce/professionals, future workforce/students, and future leaders/interns. Over the course of these two years, three interns were recruited to help with creating a needs assessment (MPH student) and program development (two BS students); the organization was established by an MPH student as her internship project. Three former interns share how their experience working with the CT SOPHE board has helped them develop crucial leadership skills early in their careers. Embedding student interns into the framework and operations of CT SOPHE demonstrates an intentional and strategic commitment to the sustainability of both the organization and the workforce.

In this paper, we develop an indoor positioning system using smartphones. An indoor positioning system plays a vital role in indoor spaces such as home, office, university, airport, and hospital buildings by locating and tracking persons, devices, and assets. Our indoor positioning system is applicable in any indoor spaces which has smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and robots with a Wi-Fi connection. We used Wi-Fi-based fingerprinting technique t o build o ur indoor positioning system because a Wi-Fi-based system can leverage existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and hence, it is cost effective. A major challenge in implementing a Wi-Fi-based fingerprinting technique is the missed access points (APs) problem. In this paper, we address this critical challenge by proposing a localization procedure called ‘cosine similarity + k-means clustering'. In this localization procedure, we leverage k-means clustering algorithm in identifying the wrong location estimates produced by the cosine similarity measure because of missed APs problem. To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed localization procedure, we collected data from three different scenarios, specifically, home, office, a nd university f or creating signal m ap a nd performing localization tests. Additionally, we tested both stationary and walk data. Our experimental results prove that our ‘cosine similarity + k-means clustering’ localization procedure is effective in mitigating the detrimental impact of missed APs, and consequently, it significantly improves localization accuracy.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold; we first review our approach to cultural discourse analysis and then explicate the role of “discursive hubs” within it. The six discursive hubs we discuss are A Hub of Being: How is identity expressed? Acting: How do we express what we are doing? Relating: How do we express that we are related to each other? Feeling: How do we express what we feel? Dwelling: How do we express where we are (place) in our natural world (or material environment)? Timing: How do we express the understanding of process or sequencing over time? Our chapter brings to the fore several features of the general construct, discursive hub. Each feature of a hub adds an essential aspect to studies of cultural discourses. The set of features offers a systematic guideline for the design and execution of cultural discourse analytic studies into discursive hubs. Specifically, the set of features includes (a) The research question each hub raises; (b) the specific bits of discourse each concept of “discourse hub” makes relevant; (c) the socio-cultural functions of each hub within discourses or what that hub does within a discourse and (d) symbolic instantiations of that hub (in language, images, sounds and other signs) in actual cases of cultural discourse. Our discussion of the discourse hubs then turns to the heuristic role they play in the conduct of cultural discourse analyses. We emphasise that the hubs often work deeply together and thus their interrelationships breathe social life into cultural discourses. © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Shi-xu; individual chapters, the contributors.

Currently, liquid biopsy method is mainly used for tumor detection based on genomic molecular alterations in vitro. Liquid biopsy is superior to traditional tissue biopsy techniques and its diagnosis time of disease and repeated diagnosis of liquid biopsy are new breakthroughs in clinical application. Liquid biopsy method can be used to detect most human disease based on genetic biomarkers from body fluids, among which, special biomarkers in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples are the main research objects, and have made good achievements in preliminary clinical applications. The application of optical spectroscopy in the field of liquid biopsy has aroused great interest among researchers and demonstrated the potential of its clinical application for oncology. The aim of this study is to reveal the optical spectroscopic characteristics of the main biochemical components of CSF of brain tumor using visible resonance Raman (VRR) spectroscopy ex vivo. Tumor-associated proteins, glucose, lactate and other metabolites released to CSF can be used as markers for liquid biopsy. We studied the VRR spectra of CSF samples from 7 types of brain tumor patients. The characteristic VRR modes that were found and may be used as a combination of multiple analyte biomarkers include amyloid-β and tau protein, excess neurotransmitters such as glutamic acid derived from the exchange with interstitial fluid (ISF), DNA, glucose, lactate, etc. for optical liquid biopsy analyses. Another interesting finding was that CSF of different types of tumors showed different images similar to the crystallization of water under the optical microscope. Considering our previous study, the current study on CSF provides another proof that the VRR system can provide a complete scan region of 200 - 4000cm-1 as a clinical tool for non-invasive diagnosis of brain disease. © 2024 SPIE.

The advancement in treating medical data grows significantly daily. An accurate data classification model can help determine patient disease and diagnose disease severity in the medical domain, thus easing doctors' treatment burdens. Nonetheless, medical data analysis presents challenges due to uncertainty, the correlations between various measurements, and the high dimensionality of the data. These challenges burden statistical classification models. Machine Learning (ML) and data mining approaches have proven effective in recent years in gaining a deeper understanding of the importance of these aspects. This research adopts a well-known supervised learning classification model named a Decision Tree (DT). DT is a typical tree structure consisting of a central node, connected branches, and internal and terminal nodes. In each node, we have a decision to be made, such as in a rule-based system. This type of model helps researchers and physicians better diagnose a disease. To reduce the complexity of the proposed DT, we explored using the Feature Selection (FS) method to design a simpler diagnosis model with fewer factors. This concept will help reduce the data collection stage. A comparative analysis has been conducted between the developed DT and other various ML models, such as Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Gaussian Naive Bayes (GNB), to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed model. The results of the DT model establish a notable accuracy of 93.78% and an ROC value of 0.94, which beats other compared algorithms. The developed DT model provided promising results and can help diagnose heart disease. © 2024, Zarka Private University. All rights reserved.