Frederick Community College

Understanding the long-term variability of nighttime Spread F (SF) and its drivers is crucial for improving the knowledge of ionospheric disturbances, which impact radio communication, GNSS positioning, and space weather forecasting. This study exploits the long-term ionogram dataset from the EB040 ionosonde in Spain (1955–2022) to investigate the climatology of nighttime SF and its dependence on solar activity. We analyze the diurnal, seasonal, and solar-cycle variability of both Range Spread F (RSF) and Frequency Spread F (FSF). The results reveal a strong inverse relationship between SF occurrence and solar activity, with SF maxima during solar minima. SF is confirmed as a predominantly nighttime phenomenon in western European mid-latitudes, primarily occurring between 20:00 and 05:00 UT, peaking near the solstices, with higher occurrence in June–July than in December–January, and with RSF accounting for 69% of SF events. Complementary analysis using GNSS-derived detrended Total Electron Content (d-TEC) and Rate of TEC index (ROTI) maps (2012–2016) quantifies the connection with Medium-Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs). Approximately 85% of SF occurrences at EB040 coincide with MSTID activity, with correlation coefficients above 0.96 between their onset times. MSTID activity exhibits the same seasonal pattern as SF, peaking at the solstices—particularly in June–July—and displaying the same inverse dependence on solar activity. Furthermore, 62% of RSF events at EB040 are associated with strong ROTI activity, especially during summer, and 83% of RSF events lasting over two hours correspond to strong ROTI activity. Overall, these findings highlight MSTIDs as the dominant electrodynamic driver of mid-latitude SF and underline the seasonal and solar activity dependencies of SF variability, providing new constraints for understanding ionospheric dynamics.

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Contribution:</i> Case study of a rural-focused educational program with two components: 1) introducing high school students and teachers to smart and connected technologies (SCTs) that can be used to solve local problems and 2) engaging the local community in supporting local technology-driven entrepreneurship. <p xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Background:</i> Rural communities typically lag behind in terms of participation in the digital economy, and use of technology in general. Yet they often have the most to gain, due to high rates of self-employment and fewer private-sector job opportunities. <p xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Research Questions:</i> Can a broadly scoped rural technology education program lead to improvements in 1) student and teacher SCT awareness; 2) SCT skills; and 3) aspirations for future SCT use directed toward entrepreneurship and overall community wellbeing? <p xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Methodology:</i> A multidisciplinary team used a mixed-methods approach to engage a rural high school robotics team as well as the local community. Over the course of one year, students took part in hands-on-training with SCTs (“PETE-Kits” and associated curriculum) and brainstormed entrepreneurial projects via ideation events. Community members were involved at the beginning and end of the project, including judging a “shark-tank” style event where student business ideas using SCT were presented. <p xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><i>Findings:</i> Results from student pre/post activity assessments suggest that the program was effective at increasing comfort with technology and combining technical skills with entrepreneurial opportunities. Post surveys from community members, including teachers, demonstrated clear support for the program and an appreciation of how SCTs/digital skills could benefit the local economy and wellbeing.

e13657 Background: With demanding schedules, oncologists often struggle to stay updated on the latest clinical trial data from publications, especially without access to pre-curated databases. Traditionally, building annotated clinical trial databases required extensive time and manual effort. To address these challenges, we explored assembling an L-SLR library of clinical trial data using extractions generated by an agentic LLM system and evaluated the system’s accuracy and associated time savings. Methods: Agentic LLM systems are autonomous systems where multiple LLMs maintain control over how they accomplish tasks with no human input or supervised training. Our system used three OpenAI LLM models (o1, o3, o1-mini) in a matrix of processes to emulate trained human experts by following an annotation manual, subdividing complex processes into smaller subtasks, and documenting its reasoning for traceable results. This methodology is inspired by the recent development from DeepSeek reinforcement learning and reasoning capabilities. Annotations were created for 4 review variables (population, intervention/comparator, outcome, study design) and 32 extraction variables, including clinical TNM staging, histology, biomarker, associated risk factors, treatment path (line, prior therapy etc.), interventions, intervention type; study randomization, phase and sample size; analysis type, follow-up period; reported outcomes (median and landmark overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS) and other progression measures, response data, quality of life data); subgroup analyses, safety/toxicity. Accuracy of review and extraction was evaluated on publications in three cancer types: NSCLC, PC, BC compared to human results. Results: Our agentic LLM system generated annotations for 4 review variables for 19,407 publications (6,916 NSCLC, 6,978 PC, 5,513 BC) publications, and 32 extraction variables for 2,424 (1,356 NSCLC, 587 PC, 481 BC) publications. Accuracy for the review variables ranged from 93.8% to 97.2%. For extraction variables, accuracy exceeded 90% for all variables (91.5%-99.1%) with 50% of variables above 95%. Our system completed the annotations in 5.34 hours, compared to an estimated 727.39 hours by trained human researchers, resulting in 99.27% time savings. Conclusions: Our living SLR system can accurately review and extract clinical trial publications with performance comparable to human experts. This level of accuracy highlights our system’s potential to deliver real-time clinical data, empowering oncologists to make more informed treatment decisions, with the hopes of ultimately improving patient outcomes.

Coral reefs around the world are threatened by multiple stressors, including changing temperatures, overfishing, pollution, and disease. The survival and resilience of corals will depend on their ability to adjust to these environmental challenges through adaptive evolutionary processes. Since the 1970s, the reef-building corals of the Florida Reef Tract (the world’s third largest barrier reef) have declined due to a complex mix of local and global pressures: a pattern reflected throughout the Caribbean. Elkhorn coral, the region’s dominant reef-builders, once had a Florida population in excess of 500,000 colonies. Even before the 2023 bleaching event, only 200 elkhorn genets remained. Despite the historical loss of reef-building corals, active restoration efforts have shown that corals can survive and reach sexual maturity in Florida and the Caribbean. However, the health of Caribbean reefs and their long-term resiliency will depend on restored populations to sexually reproduce and adaptively evolve to changing environmental conditions. Unfortunately, no wild-born juvenile corals have been observed along the Florida reef tract in the past 15 years and there is evidence that normal development of very young corals is being disrupted throughout the Caribbean, preventing the completion of the coral life cycle. A return to growth via sexual reproduction on Florida and Caribbean reefs will be essential for increasing genetic diversity and the regeneration of the tract at the necessary pace, scale, and resiliency to meet our goals. The “Closing the Coral Circle” workshop united international experts in coral biology and ecology, advanced forensics, engineered biology, and robotics to tackle this critical conservation challenge. Together, we discussed various aspects of coral biology, as well as biological, chemical, and physical factors in the corals’ environment that could be hindering the completion of the coral life cycle. Major themes identified fell into two categories: (1) problems for recruitment that are well-understood, and (2) knowledge gaps in our understanding of coral recruitment dynamics and how these might contribute to the problems. In this presentation, we will discuss the outcomes of the workshop including our “service blueprint” for coral recruitment, which is a visual map of the challenges, knowledge gaps, and potential solutions, (available on Zenodo) to aid the community in project planning.

Health care in the United States is among the most technologically advanced in the world, but it is largely failing to meet the needs of the nation. The US can claim international excellence in important areas of care, such as cancer treatment, and it leads the world in biomedical innovation and building a well-prepared and dedicated clinical workforce. The Affordable Care Act was a major step forward in expanding access to health care in the US. However, Americans are faced with staggering health costs, inadequate access to care, pervasive health inequities, and lagging life expectancy compared with other developed nations. In this article, part of the National Academy of Medicine's Vital Directions for Health and Health Care: Priorities for 2025 initiative, we present a partial road map for transforming the US health care system. We propose bold national goals: affordable and equitable care for all, an additional decade of healthy birthdays after retirement, elimination of racial and ethnic disparities in health, substantial reduction in health care expenditures, and, most important, improved health outcomes. To achieve these goals, we recommend changes to ensure coverage for all, invest in primary care and social determinants of health, create financing to incentivize population health, and improve transparency and accountability. Major systemic transformation of the US health care system is not just required; it is a moral and economic imperative.

Arid and semi-arid regions, including Cyprus, are increasingly experiencing severe weather events due to climate change. These events, characterized by prolonged droughts and flash floods, pose significant challenges to the environment, economy, and societal well-being. This paper aims to analyze the challenges of Flood Risk Management (FRM) in dry areas, focusing on Cyprus as a case study. It reviews historical data on temperature and rainfall patterns, flood types, and severity to propose effective, nature-based mitigation measures. The study examines temperature and rainfall trends over the last 30 years in Cyprus, categorizes floods since 1859 based on severity, and identifies prevalent flood types. The investigation reveals a decrease in annual rainfall and an increase in average temperatures in Cyprus, leading to heightened flood risks. The study categorizes floods into fluvial, pluvial, flash, and coastal types, with pluvial floods being the most common due to urbanization. The paper underscores the role of community and individual participation in adopting nature-based solutions such as permeable materials, rain gardens, tree planting, and roof gardens. Addressing flood risks in Cyprus requires a combined effort of government initiatives and community engagement. The adoption of sustainable, eco-friendly practices can significantly mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on flood hazards. This holistic approach is imperative for enhancing resilience against future climate-related challenges in Cyprus and similar arid regions.

Mobile devices in specific, cell phones have become progressively trendy. Even though the usage of mobile devices can accelerate the learning process, there may be obstacles to utilizing it for learning purposes. This study directed to recognize and examine the barriers and catalysts of using mobile devices as an educational device from the perspective of educators. The numerous barriers impeding the effective integration of mobile devices in the classroom have been identified. This study has uncovered several key findings that shed light on the challenges hindering the effective integration of mobile devices in the classroom.

Contactin-associated protein-like 2 autoimmunity is an uncommon disorder resulting in peripheral nerve hyperexcitability or encephalitis. In a fifth of cases, onset may be provoked by thymoma, but other associations are largely unknown. We report a patient with anti-contactin-associated protein-like 2-related peripheral nerve hyperexcitability arising in the setting of Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 4F and discuss potential mechanisms underlying the association.