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Since 1920, the Hadley School for the Blind in Winnetka, Illinois, has provided distance learning (via correspondence courses) to individuals who are visually impaired (that is, are blind or have low vision) and their families to support the acquisition of specialized skills and to attain the knowledge needed for full participation in life (Wolffe, 2001). Although distance learning has been in existence since 1920, its application to the preparation of teachers is more recent. A variety of models of distance education are implemented throughout the country. The model used for this study was video teleconferencing. The video teleconferencing model gave the faculty, onsite students (at Hunter College), and students at the remote site (Genesee Community College) the ability to interact with each other simultaneously and to discuss course content and materials. At the end of both the fall and spring semesters, the onsite and remote-site students were asked to complete a form, entitled Student Evaluation of Distance Learning, which consisted of 10 questions using a Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 to 4 (strongly agree to strongly disagree), with statements regarding the experience each student encountered during each course. In the fall semester, the technical difficulties that occurred were related to audio and visual connections between the two sites. At the end of the fall semester and before the start of the spring semester, the technology at the Hunter College site was upgraded with new cameras and audio equipment that provided echo cancellation on every microphone in the room. This audio upgrade contained components that matched the equipment at the Genesee site and provided for increased compatibility. In the spring semester, each class was analyzed individually. In general, it appeared that the technology improved between the fall 2000 and the spring 2001 semesters, but that the quality of the auditory output was still an issue for the remote-site students.

The phenomenon of intercellular transfer of cellular material, including membranes, cytoplasm, and even organelles, has been observed for decades. The functional impact and molecular mechanisms of such transfer in the immune system remain largely elusive due to the absence of a robust in vivo model. Here, we introduce a new tumor mouse model, where tumor cells express the soluble ultra-bright fluorescent protein ZsGreen, which allows detection and measurement of intercellular transfer of cytoplasm from tumor cells to infiltrating immune cells. We found that in addition to various types of myeloid lineage cells, a large fraction of T regulatory cells and effector CD8 T cells acquire tumor material. Based on the distribution of tumor-derived ZsGreen, the majority of T cells integrate captured cytoplasm into their own, while most myeloid cells store tumor material in granules. Furthermore, scRNA-seq analysis revealed significant alterations in transcriptomes of T cells that acquired tumor cell cytoplasm, suggesting potential impact on T cell function. We identified that the participation of T cells in intercellular transfer requires cell-cell contact and is strictly dependent on the activation status of T lymphocytes. Finally, we propose to name the described phenomenon of intercellular transfer for tumor infiltrating T cells the "mosquito effect". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eileen Gray's houses along the Cote d'Azur 'Villa E1027' (1926-1929) and 'Tempe a Pailla' (1932-1934) are noted as 'among the first convincing attempts to adapt Modernist forms to a hot climate'. Her published drawings and commentary display a preoccupation with well-being and a strong interest in geometry, movement and daily ritual. By organizing the circulation of her buildings in relation to the path of the sun, Gray connected these rituals to solar rhythms. Villa E1027 was analysed using bioclimatic theory and computer simulation which brought to light new evidence of solar alignments in Gray's architecture along with rigorous design of solar shading, and considered use of thermal mass. Her writings to accompany the publication of the building display a critique of the application of hygiene that indicate an environmental awareness that is only picked up in the later bioclimatic theory of the 1960s. This building is a case study of significant interest for early modern environmental architecture. Keywords: Eileen Gray; bioclimatic simulation, INTRODUCTION: HYGIENIC COMFORT It is true that many works are a bit cold, but isn't that because we are influenced by the recent past? And aren't the principles of hygiene [...]

This paper considers the problem of beamforming in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems. Assuming perfect channel state information at the receiver, the choice of the beamforming vector is made possible through a noiseless limited-rate feedback of one or more bits per coefficient to the transmitter. This paper proposes the use of beamforming codebooks based on quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and phase-shift keying (PSK) constellations, which essentially eliminates the need for storage of the codebook. We show that such codebooks perform arbitrarily close to the perfect feedback case as the constellation size increases, and that full diversity order is achieved. We demonstrate an equivalence between the beamforming codebook search problem with that of noncoherent sequence detection. Based on this we propose fast beamforming vector search algorithms. Monte-Carlo simulations are presented to show that the performance is comparable to the best known codebooks, and that the search complexity can be reduced by several orders of magnitude. Index Terms--Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), beamforming, limited feedback, vector quantization, wireless communications.

A meta-analysis investigates the effect of music content on consumers based on their sex and race, and its tendency to establish mood. Results reveal that music content has an impact on actions and attitudes of consumers.

This correspondence considers block detection for blind wireless digital transmission. At high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), block detection errors are primarily due to the received sequence having multiple possible decoded sequences with the same likelihood. We derive analytic expressions for the probability of detection ambiguity written in terms of a Dedekind zeta function, in the zero noise case with large constellations. Expressions are also provided for finite constellations, which can be evaluated efficiently, independent of the block length. Simulations demonstrate that the analytically derived error floors exist at high SNR. Index Terms--Blind detection, block detection, error floor, fading, noncoherent communication, number theory, sequence detection, wireless communications.