Evergreen Valley College

Background: Equine sinonasal disorders are significant diseases whose investigation and treatment have undergone significant changes over the past decade. No large study has described the signalments, pre-referral management, or the clinical and nasal

Artificial intelligence systems continue to increase in sophistication, renewing the questions of what structurally distinguishes conscious experience from computation. This paper develops a unified framework for consciousness by combining Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) with a weakened form of Integrated Information Theory (IIT). The aim is to articulate a mechanistic account in which recurrent feedback stabilizes perceptual contents and structural integration unifies them into a single, irreducible experiential field, and then to evaluate whether contemporary AI architectures exhibit these features. Using this framework, the analysis examines the consciousness-relevant organization of two major classes of models: Large Language Models (LLMs) and Emergent Models (EMs). The discussion shows that EMs, due to their intrinsically recurrent dynamics and globally interdependent state evolution, more closely approximate the structural conditions identified by the RPT and weak IIT account than do standard feedforward transformer-based LLMs. The paper also reconsiders the debate between phenomenal and access consciousness by providing an RPT and weak IIT interpretation of the Sperling experiment and by showing how EMs offer a way to render the posited structure of phenomenal consciousness empirically tractable.

A significant challenge in establishing sustainable human settlements on the Moon lies in cultivating food within extraterrestrial environments. Lunar regolith, the Moon’s surface material, is composed of rock fragments, minerals, and volcanic glass, and poses substantial limitations for plant growth due to its lack of essential nutrients. This study employs statistical regression analysis to evaluate the correlation and impact of microbial additives and nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (N-P-K) fertilizers on the growth of bush bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) seeds in a lunar soil simulant. The microbial additive used, TPS Plant Foods Billions of Microbes, contains five strains of Bacillus bacteria, four strains of mycorrhizae, and one strain of Trichoderma. The fertilizer applied was Fruit & Bloom Booster NPK 2-15-15. Bush beans were chosen for their rapid germination, resilience to temperature fluctuations, and disease resistance. Specific regression analyses were conducted to assess the individual and combined effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and microbial inputs on plant growth. The results demonstrated that both TPS Billions and nitrogen significantly enhanced plant growth, as evidenced by a 500–2000% increase in number of leaves and leaf area in the 60% lunar soil mixture. These findings suggest that targeted microbial and nitrogen-based amendments can effectively support plant cultivation in lunar regolith, offering valuable insights for future lunar agricultural systems and long-term human habitation.

The innovation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) techniques has significantly reduced the price of genome sequencing, lowering barriers to future medical research; it is now feasible to apply genome sequencing to studies where it would have previously been costinefficient. Identifying damaging or pathogenic mutations in vast amounts of complex, highdimensional genome sequencing data may be of particular interest for researchers. Thus, this paper’s aims were to train machine learning models on the attributes of a genetic mutation to predict LoFtool scores (which measure a gene’s intolerance to loss-of-function mutations). These attributes included, but were not limited to, the position of a mutation on a chromosome, changes in amino acids, and changes in codons caused by the mutation. Models were built using the univariate feature selection technique f-regression combined with K-nearest neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC), Decision Trees, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). These models were evaluated using five-fold cross-validated averages of r-squared, mean squared error, root mean squared error, mean absolute error, and explained variance. The findings of this study include the training of multiple models with testing set r-squared values of 0.97.

Abstract Science identity, or one's sense of recognition and competence as a scientist, is an invaluable tool for predicting student persistence and success, but is understudied among undergraduates completing preparatory work for later studies in medicine, nursing, and allied health (“pre‐health career students”). In the United States, pre‐health career students make up approximately half of all biology students and, as professionals, play important roles in caring for an aging, increasingly diverse population, managing the ongoing effects of a pandemic, and navigating socio‐political shifts in public attitudes toward science and evidence‐based medicine. Pre‐health career students are also often members of groups marginalized and minoritized in STEM education, and generally complete their degrees in community college settings, which are chronically under‐resourced and understudied. Understanding these students' science identities is thus a matter of social justice and increasingly important to public health in the United States. We examined science identity and engagement among community college biology students using two scales established and validated for use with STEM students attending four‐year institutions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used on two sub‐samples drawn from the pool of 846 participants to confirm that the factor structures functioned as planned among the new population. Science identity values were then compared between pre‐health career students (pre‐nursing and pre‐allied health) and other groups. Pre‐health career students generally reported interest and performance/competence on par with their traditional STEM, pre‐med, and pre‐dentistry peers, challenging popular assumptions about these students' interests and abilities. However, they also reported significantly lower recognition than traditional STEM and pre‐med/dentistry students. The implications for public health, researchers, and faculty are discussed.

This is the first part of a two-part paper. Our paper was motivated by two classical papers: A paper of Sir Charles Wheatstone published in 1844 on representing certain powers of an integer as sums of arithmetic progressions and a paper of J. J. Sylvester published in 1882 for determining the number of ways a positive integer can be represented as the sum of a sequence of consecutive integers. There have been many attempts to extend Sylvester Theorem to the number of representations for an integer as the sums of different types of sequences, including sums of certain arithmetic progressions. In this part of the paper, we will make yet one more extension: We will describe a procedure for computing the number of ways a positive integer can be represented as the sums of all possible arithmetic progressions, together with an example to illustrate how this procedure can be carried out. In the process of doing this, we will also give an extension of Wheatstone’s work. In the second part of the paper, we will continue on the problems initiated by Wheatstone by studying certain relationships among the representations for different powers of an integer as sums of arithmetic progressions.

L-lysine amino acid is cocrystallized with L-mandelic acid by the slow evaporation method. Single crystal X-ray analysis reveals that lysine-mandelic acid crystallized as a dihydrate form. In the crystalline state, the lysine molecule exists in the cationic form in which the backbone and side chain amino groups are protonated and the carboxylic acid is deprotonated. The carboxylic acid proton of the mandelic acid is transferred to the lysine side chain and thus carries a negatively charged ion. The lattice water molecules are located near the amino groups of the lysine. Intermolecular interactions formed between lysinium, mandelate and lattice water molecules are qualitatively analyzed using Hirshfeld surfaces and 2D-fingerprint plots. The energetics of different dimeric complexes is quantitatively analyzed using PIXEL energy analysis. Topological parameters derived from QTAIM framework are used to delineate the nature of different intermolecular interactions formed in the title complex.

The inhibition of corrosion of carbon steel in well water using diethylenetriamine penta (methylene phosphonic acid) (DETPMP), Zinc ions and dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTAB) was investigated using weight-loss measurement, electrochemical polarization and impedance methods. Inhibition efficiency of above ternary inhibitor reaches maximum values at 93 %. The biocidal efficiency of DTAB was studied which reaches maximum of 88 % at 125 ppm DETPMP, 10 ppm Zn2+ and 150 ppm DTAB. The shape of DC polarization profile revealed the new ternary system which acts as anodic type inhibitor. AC impedance spectroscopic studies indicated the formation of a protective film onto the metal surface in the presence of inhibitors. Analyses of the protective film using scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, atomic force microscopy and Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy have revealed that the film consists of Zn(OH)2, oxides and hydroxides of iron and the inhibitor molecules in the form of a complex.

The Community College Presidency at the Millennium by George B. Vaughan and Iris M. Weisman. Community College Press, Washington, D.C. 1998, 173 pages. $26 AACC members or $33 nonmembers (Paper, ISBN 0-87117-311-5). Reviewed by H. Clay Whitlow. In The Community College Presidency at the Millennium, George Vaughan and Iris Weisman have made a valuable contribution to the literature on the community college presidency. The book essentially presents a longitudinal study of the presidency that started in 1984 when 591 of 838 public community college presidents participated in Vaughan's first career and life-style survey. The survey was repeated in 1991 (with 837 out of 1,097 public community college presidents responding) and in 1996 (when 680 out of 926 presidents participated). The survey asked a wide variety of questions (55 in number) relating to each president's age, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, position held before first presidency, and other background information. Vaughan and Weisman have compiled this wealth of information from the three surveys in a way that is eminently readable. They also have enhanced the data by including personal interviews with 13 community college presidents. The authors begin by taking a brief look at the history of community colleges, from the of Joliet Junior College in 1901 to the 1960s and 1970s when the number of community colleges nationwide grew dramatically. In 1961 there were 405 public community colleges in the United States. By 1977 that number had grown to 1,030. This created a substantial group of individuals referred to by the authors as founding presidents. These presidents or their proteges represented the majority of public community college presidents in the 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, we have no record of presidential life during these boom years for community colleges. Thanks to Vaughan and Weisman, future generations of presidents and scholars will be able to study the community college presidency from 1984 forward. Chapter 2 provides a personal profile of the public community college presidency based on survey responses. A reader learns, for example, that the average age of current presidents is 54 (increased from 51 in 1984); male presidents are much more likely to be married than female presidents (95 % versus 60 %); the most popular civic organization among presidents is Rotary, with 62 % belonging; 47 % of presidents are Democrats, and 26 % are Republicans; women, and to a lesser extent minorities, have increased their numbers among presidents. From 1991 to 1996, the percentage of women presidents increased from 11 % to 18 %, whereas the percentage of minorities went from 11 % in 1991 to 14 % in 1996. One interesting and disturbing item is the time presidents put into their jobs, perhaps to the detriment of their personal lives. Just 24% of those responding to the 1996 survey reported taking a vacation of two weeks or more in the last year. Of those, 69% performed presidential work while on vacationing. There is also fascinating information in Chapter 3 on presidents' perceptions of stress and risk in their jobs and on their plans to move to another position or retire. Lest the reader get bogged down in quantitative data, Chapter 4 begins a summary of telephone interviews with current presidents. …