This study extended the findings of Tighe and Schatschneider (2015) by investigating the predictive utility of separate dimensions of morphological awareness as well as vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension in adult basic education (ABE) students. We competed two- and three-factor structural equation models of reading comprehension. A three-factor model of real word morphological awareness, pseudoword morphological awareness, and vocabulary knowledge emerged as the best fit and accounted for 79% of the reading comprehension variance. The results indicated that the constructs contributed jointly to reading comprehension; however, vocabulary knowledge was the only potentially unique predictor (p = 0.052), accounting for an additional 5.6% of the variance. This study demonstrates the feasibility of applying a latent variable modeling approach to examine individual differences in the reading comprehension skills of ABE students. Further, this study replicates the findings of Tighe and Schatschneider (2015) on the importance of differentiating among dimensions of morphological awareness in this population.

Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is currently a major cause of skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) in the United States. Seasonal variation of MRSA infections in hospital settings has been widely observed. However, systematic time-series analysis of incidence data is desirable to understand the seasonality of community acquired (CA)-MRSA infections at the population level. In this paper, using data on monthly SSTI incidence in children aged 0–19 years and enrolled in Medicaid in Maricopa County, Arizona, from January 2005 to December 2008, we carried out time-series and nonlinear regression analysis to determine the periodicity, trend, and peak timing in SSTI incidence in children at different age: 0-4 years, 5-9 years, 10-14 years, and 15-19 years. We also assessed the temporal correlation between SSTI incidence and meteorological variables including average temperature and humidity. Our analysis revealed a strong annual seasonal pattern of SSTI incidence with peak occurring in early September. This pattern was consistent across age groups. Moreover, SSTIs followed a significantly increasing trend over the 4-year study period with annual incidence increasing from 3.36% to 5.55% in our pediatric population of approximately 290,000. We also found a significant correlation between the temporal variation in SSTI incidence and mean temperature and specific humidity. Our findings could have potential implications on prevention and control efforts against CA-MRSA.

The large-scale use of antivirals during influenza pandemics poses a significant selection pressure for drug-resistant pathogens to emerge and spread in a population. This requires treatment strategies to minimize total infections as well as the emergence of resistance. Here we propose a mathematical model in which individuals infected with wild-type influenza, if treated, can develop de novo resistance and further spread the resistant pathogen. Our main purpose is to explore the impact of two important factors influencing treatment effectiveness: i) the relative transmissibility of the drug-resistant strain to wild-type, and ii) the frequency of de novo resistance. For the endemic scenario, we find a condition between these two parameters that indicates whether treatment regimes will be most beneficial at intermediate or more extreme values (e.g., the fraction of infected that are treated). Moreover, we present analytical expressions for effective treatment regimes and provide evidence of its applicability across a range of modeling scenarios: endemic behavior with deterministic homogeneous mixing, and single-epidemic behavior with deterministic homogeneous mixing and stochastic heterogeneous mixing. Therefore, our results provide insights for the control of drug-resistance in influenza across time scales.

Recent advances in nonequilibrium statistical physics have provided unprecedented insight into the thermodynamics of dynamic processes. The author recently used these advances to extend Landauer’s semi-formal reasoning concerning the thermodynamics of bit erasure, to derive the minimal free energy required to implement an arbitrary computation. Here, I extend this analysis, deriving the minimal free energy required by an organism to run a given (stochastic) map π from its sensor inputs to its actuator outputs. I use this result to calculate the input-output map π of an organism that optimally trades off the free energy needed to run π with the phenotypic fitness that results from implementing π. I end with a general discussion of the limits imposed on the rate of the terrestrial biosphere’s information processing by the flux of sunlight on the Earth.

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 1 No. 1 (2007) - Table of Contents

"Introduction to the Journal" by Samantha Kavky, Claudia Mesch, and Amy H. Winter, p. i-iii.

"Anti-Surrealist Cross-Word Puzzles: Breton, Dalí and Print in Wartime America" by Julia Pine, p. 1-29.

"William Carlos Williams’ A Novelette: an American Counterproposal to French Surrealism" by Céline Mansanti, p. 30-43

"The Vernacular as Vanguard: Alfred Barr, Salvador Dalí, and the U.S. Reception of Surrealism in the 1930s" by Sandra Zalman, p. 44-67

"Ben Cobb, Anarchy and Alchemy: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky" by David Church, p. 68-71

"Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted" by Marta Julia Clapp, p. 72-76

"Robert Desnos, Surrealism, and 'Poetic Politics'" by Terri J. Gordon, p. 77-80

"Dali and the Specter of Cinema" by Frédérique Camille Joseph-Lowery, p. 81-84

"Julia Kelly's Art, Ethnography and the Life of Objects: Paris, c. 1925-1935" by Susan Power, p. 85-90

"The Janus-faced Legacy of Joseph Beuys" by Tatjana Myoko von Prittwitz, p. 91-93

"A.J. Meek, Clarence John Laughlin: Prophet Without Honor" by Jeffrey Ian Ross, p. 94-98

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 2 No. 1 (2008) - Table of Contents

“Surrealism and Ethnography: Introduction” by Amy H. Winter, p. i-vi. 

“Totemic Landscapes and Vanishing Cultures Through the Eyes of Wolfgang Paalen and Kurt Seligmann” by Marie Mauzé, p. 1-24.

“Surrealist Visions of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Legacy of Colonialism: the Good, the (Revalued) Bad, and the Ugly” by Keith Jordan, p. 25-63.

“Surrealism and Inuit Art: The Fascination of the Far North” by Florence Duchemin-Pelletier, p. 64-94.

“Bound Objects and Blurry Boundaries: Surrealist Display and (Anti)Nationalism” by Susan Power, p. 95-113.

“Man Ray’s Lost and Found Photographs: Arts of the Americas in Context” by Wendy Grossman, p. 114-139.

“T.J. Demos, The Exiles of Marcel Duchamp” by Bradley Bailey, p. 140-144. 

“The Dalí Renaissance: New Perspectives on His Life and Art after 1940 and Danser Gala: L’Art Bouffe de Salvador Dalí” by Mary Ann Caws, p. 145-146.

“Review of ‘The Art of Lee Miller’: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2007” by Peter Barberie, p. 147-151.

“Frida Kahlo in Philadelphia: Life and Death” by Samantha Kavky, p. 152-156.

“Thinking the ‘Post-Indian’: Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World” by Claudia Mesch, p. 157-161.

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 10 No. 1 (2019) - Table of Contents

“Introduction to the Special Issue on Max Ernst” by Samantha Kavky, p. 1-6. 

“Napoleon in the Wilderness: The Transmogrification of a Picture by Max Ernst” by Martin Schieder, p. 7-23.

“Seeing Through an (American) Temperament: Max Ernst’s Microbes, 1946-1953” by Danielle M. Johnson, p. 24-45. 

“Max Ernst and the Aesthetic of Commercial Tourism: Max Among Some of His Favorite Dolls” by Carolyn Butler Palmer, p, 46-68.

“Arizona Dream: Maxime Rossi Meets Max Ernst” by Julia Drost, p. 69-83.

“Glowing Like Phosphorus: Dorothea Tanning and the Sedona Western” by Catriona McAra, p. 84-105.

“Conference Review: ‘SURREALISMS: the Inaugural Conference of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism’” by Kristen Strange, p. 106-110. 

“Exhibition Review of ‘A Home for Surrealism: Fantastic Painting in Midcentury Chicago’” by Jennifer R. Cohen, p. 111-114.

“Exhibition Review: ‘Native American Art at Documenta 14 and the Issue of Democracy’” by Claudia Mesch, p. 115-120.   

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 7 No. 1 (2013) - Table of Contents

“Introduction to the Issue and Special Section on Native American Surrealisms” by Claudia Mesch, p. i-iv. 

“George Morrison’s Surrealism” by W. Jackson Rushing III, p. 1-18. 

“César Moro’s Transnational Surrealism” by Michele Greet, p. 19-51. 

“A Modernist Moment: Native Art and Surrealism at the University of Oklahoma” by Mark A. White, p. 52-70.

“The Opposite of Snake: Surrealism and the Art of Jimmie Durham” by Mary Modeen, p. 71-95. 

“‘My World is Surreal,’ or ‘The Northwest Coast’ is Surreal” by Charlotte Townsend-Gault, p. 96-107. 

“Complexity and Contradiction in Native American Surrealism” by Robert Silberman, p. 108-130. 

“Review of ‘Double Solitaire: The Surreal Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy’ & Kay Sage, ‘The Biographical Chronology and Four Surrealist One Act Plays’” by Larry List, p. 131-134.

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 6 No. 1 (2012) - Table of Contents

“Notes for a Historiography of Surrealism in America, or the Reinterpretation of the Repressed” by Samantha Kavky, p. i-ix.

“What Makes a Collection Surrealist?: Twentieth-Century Cabinets of Curiosities in Paris and Houston” by Katharine Conley, p. 1-23.

“Dalí, Magritte, and Surrealism’s Legacy, New York c. 1965” by Sandra Zalman, p. 24-38.

“‘What Makes Indians Laugh’: Surrealism, Ritual, and Return in Steven Yazzie and Joseph Beuys” by Claudia Mesch, p. 39-60. 

“Cracking up an Alligator: Ethnography, Juan Downey’s Videos, and Irony” by Hjorleifur Jonsson, p. 61-86.

“Review of Effie Rentzou, ‘Littérature Malgré Elle: Le Surréalisme et la Transformation du Littéraire’” by Pierre Taminiaux, p. 87-90.

“In Wonderland: the Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States” by Susan L. Aberth, p. 91-94.