Wearing the Letter Jacket: Legitimate Participation in a Collaborative Science,Mathematics, Engineering,and Technology Education Reform Project

This study examines one NSF‐funded Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation and describes the complexities of such a science education reform effort. A theoretical model based in community, culture, and identity is used to address key questions: How did institutional ideologies, structures, policies, and practices influence the Collaborative's success? What unique problems were associated with the university and school partnership? How did K‐12 teachers' participation affect their development and the success of the Collaborative? Findings indicate that though K‐12 participants were deemed as “pedagogy experts” and shared the inquiry‐based culture espoused in the Collaborative, they felt both as project insiders and outsiders. This was due to issues of status between university faculty and K‐12 teachers; teachers' less‐than‐active role in the Collaborative; and the constraints and narrow focus that resulted from long‐established institutional, social, and political structures and that marginalized, delegitimized, excluded, and proved unattractive to teachers.     

HPLC quantification of 5‐hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid in human lung cancer tissues

A simple and cost‐effective HPLC method was established for quantification of 5‐hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (5‐HETE) in human lung cancer tissues. 5‐HETE from 27 patients' lung cancer tissues were extracted by solid‐phase extraction and analyzed on a Waters Symmetry C₁₈ column (4.6 × 250 mm, 5 µm) with a mobile phase consisting of methanol, 10 mm ammonium acetate, and 1 m acetic acid (70:30:0.1, v:v:v) at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The UV detection wavelength was set at 240 nm. The calibration curve was linear within the concentration range from 10 to 1000 ng/mL (r² > 0.999, n = 7), the limit of detection was 1.0 ng/mL and the limit of quantitation was 10.0 ng/mL for a 100 µL injection. The relative error (%) for intra‐day accuracy was from 93.14 to 112.50% and the RSD (%) for intra‐day precision was from 0.21 to 2.60% over the concentration range 10–1000 ng/mL. By applying this method, amounts of 5‐HETE were quantitated in human lung cancer tissues from 27 human subjects. The established HPLC method was validated to be a simple, reliable and cost‐effective procedure that can be applied to conduct translational characterization of 5‐HETE in human lung cancer tissues. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extensions of saddlepoint-based bootstrap inference

We propose two substantive extensions to the saddlepoint-based bootstrap (SPBB) methodology, whereby inference in parametric models is made through a monotone quadratic estimating equation (QEE). These are motivated through the first-order moving average model, where SPBB application is complicated by the fact that the usual estimators, method of moments (MOME), least squares, and maximum likelihood (MLE), all have mixed distributions and tend to be roots of high-order polynomials that violate the monotonicity requirement. A unifying perspective is provided by demonstrating that these estimators can all be cast as roots of appropriate QEEs. The first extension consists of two double saddlepoint-based Monte Carlo algorithms for approximating the Jacobian term appearing in the approximated density function of estimators derived from a non-monotone QEE. The second extension considers inference under QEEs from exponential power families. The methods are demonstrated for the MLE under a Gaussian distribution, and the MOME under a joint Laplace distribution for the process.     

Total synthesis of hectochlorin

Hectochlorin (1) is a marine natural product with significant fungicidal activity. A synthesis effort was initiated to develop a flexible route to hectochlorin which would allow access to analogues with potentially improved activity and/or attributes relative to the natural product. A successful total synthesis of hectochlorin is described. [structure: see text]     

The formation of hetero-epitaxial deposits of strontium sulfate on mica surfaces

As a continuation of an investigation concerning the fate of²²⁶Ra during uranium ore milling and long-term tailings storage we have grown hetero-epitaxial deposits of strontium sulfate on mica surfaces. The deposits formed readily on the substrate from supersaturated aqueous solutions of the parent ions and appear to be strongly adherent.