Presentations | High School Interns | Conferences | Press Coverage | TV Coverage | Awards | Scientific Publications
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| Christ the King School, Burlington, VT, 7th and 8th Graders, February 19, 1999 | |||||||||
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This presentation introduced these grade school students to the project that was being prepared to fly onboard the KC-135. The students were shown various pieces of hardware and given the science rationale behind the project. In addition, the students learned about the effects of microgravity on humans and various substances, liquids for example. During this presentation, students were asked to create a small experiment to fly onboard the KC-135. Two weeks later the best experiment was selected and sent along with the University students to fly onboard the KC-135. The experiment, designed by two 7th grade girls, that was selected was a bottle containing oil (yellow) and water (stained blue with water coloring). The students were interested in determining how the two fluids would behave in a microgravity environment. | ||||||||
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| Christ the King School, Burlington, VT, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Graders, March 30, 1999 | |||||||||
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Upon returning from their March 1999 KC-135 flight, the undergraduate students returned to the school to discuss their experiences. The rationale behind the experiment was presented along with videos showing the KC-135 training and flight. The undergraduates discussed the various sensations felt throughout the flight, including a couple of incidences of upset stomachs. The two girls who designed and built the oil and water experiment presented their scientific rationale and their hypothesis about what would happen to the fluids. A vote was then taken to determine what the other students believed would happen during the fluid experiment. After the vote, the video showing the fluids mixing in microgravity and the air pocket moving to the center of the bottle was shown. This presentation was covered by the local newspaper (“7th-graders launch test with UVM” by Susan Green, The Burlington Free Press, March 31, 1999 - Page 1C.) and a TV station (WCAX-TV, Channel 3, Burlington, Vermont, March 30, 1999). | ||||||||
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| University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, MA, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Regional Student Conference, April 10th, 1999 | |||||||||
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Two flyers from the March 1999 flights presented at this meeting. Dan Barnett did an oral presentation entitled “Activity of Drosophila in a Microgravity Environment” and Dan Cheung did a poster presentation called “Effects of Microgravity on Drosophila.” Both presentations were well received by the faculty and students present. | ||||||||
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| Flynn Elementary School, Burlington, VT, 3rd Graders, April 27, 1999 | |||||||||
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The 3rd graders were introduced to the concept of gravity, shown the hardware that flew onboard the KC-135, and given the scientific rationale behind the Drosophila experiments. The students were taught how the KC-135 flight profile provides microgravity and viewed the inflight videos. Since the Drosophila experiment will be flown onboard a sounding rocket in the near future, the students were introduced to rocketry by launching a small (3 foot high) rocket. | ||||||||
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| University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, Students and Faculty at the University, May 13, 1999 | |||||||||
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This presentation was the end of the semester presentation given by the undergraduate students involved with the rocket launch and KC-135 flights. The students presented the equipment they designed and built, focusing on the rationale behind the design and the final product. The four undergraduate students that were selected to fly onboard the March 1999 KC-135 flights discussed their experience and showed portions of the training and inflight videos taken by NASA and themselves. | ||||||||
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| University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, High School Students, May 18, 1999 | |||||||||
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As part of Math, Science, and Career Day at the University of Vermont, local high school students attended presentations throughout the campus. Over 115 students attended the four half-hour tours that covered several engineering projects being worked on in the Mechanical Engineering Department. The KC-135 project was presented for 15 minutes (4 times), including the inflight video and hardware flown. | ||||||||
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| Christ the King School, Burlington, VT, 6th Graders, June 14, 1999 | |||||||||
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The 6th grade students had just finished a unit on spaceflight, so their teacher asked if we could give a presentation on the history of spaceflight as well as our most recent results from the KC-135 experiment. Both Russian and American spacecraft and accomplishments were presented along with up-to-date results on the activity profiles of the Drosophila (fruit flies) during the KC-135 flight. | ||||||||
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| University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, High School Students, July 4 – 9, 1999 | |||||||||
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The students staying at the University for this week are part of the Summer Program for High School Students sponsored by the University of Vermont College of Engineering and Mathematics and The Governor’s Institutes of Vermont. This program is designed to encourage high school students to pursue careers in the fields of engineering and mathematics. Students are housed in campus dorms and participate in a variety of activities to develop first-hand awareness of curriculum requirements and career opportunities. During their stay at the University, the students attended presentations on the KC-135 flights as well as viewed the various displays around the Engineering Building devoted to the KC-135 and rocket flights. | ||||||||
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| University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, High School Students, August 2 – 6, 1999 | |||||||||
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This is part of the Vermont EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) High School Outreach Program. A teacher and several students from South Burlington High School are participating in this program. They are performing a variety of ground-based experiments throughout the school year using the Drosophila monitoring equipment designed for the sounding rocket and KC-135 flights. The week of August 2 – 6 was used to train the students on using the various devices and how to properly handle the Drosophila (fruit flies). These experiments teach the students about the scientific process and provide valuable ground based Drosophila activity measurements that can be used to further examine the sounding rocket and KC-135 data. | ||||||||
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| University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, Students and Faculty from UVM and Norwich University, October 7, 1999 | |||||||||
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Students from the August 1999 flights presented an overview of the experiment and its results along with NASA’s video coverage of the pre-flight training and inflight experience. This meeting was an awards ceremony for the Vermont Space Grant Consortium, which had donated money for the KC flights. Awards were presented to the students that flew onboard the March 1999 and August 1999 flights for their “excellent participation and contributions.” These awards are currently on display in Votey Building (University of Vermont) and Partridge Hall (Norwich University). | ||||||||
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| Norwich University, Northfield, VT, Students and Faculty at the University, October 14, 1999 | |||||||||
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The Norwich students from the August 1999 flights presented a detailed background on the Drosophila experiment as well as their pre-flight training and flight experiences. NASA and personal video coverage was used to illustrate the effects of flying onboard the KC-135 on the participants. Preliminary results from both KC-135 experiments were presented and discussed during a question and answer session. A wide audience including the Dean of Engineering and the President of the University attended this event. | ||||||||
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| Northfield High School, Northfield, VT, 11th and 12th Graders, October 20, 1999 | |||||||||
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Two separate presentations were given by one of the Norwich students from the August 1999 flights to an 11th grade Honors Science class and a 12th grade AP Biology class. The presentation covered the project background and rationale along with the KC-135 pre-flight training and flight experience. | ||||||||
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| Mater Christi School, Burlington, VT, 8th Graders, October 29, 1999 | |||||||||
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Presentations to both 8th grade classes were given by two of the UVM students involved with the August 1999 flights. One of the students had attended the school as a child, so returning was very entertaining for him as well as the students. The speakers provided the background and rationale of the project along with the KC-135 pre-flight training and flight experience. In addition, a brief introduction to the physics behind creating microgravity was presented. This introduction allowed the students to understand how the Space Shuttle, KC-135, drop towers, etc. provide microgravity. | ||||||||
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| Baird Center, Burlington, VT, 7-14 year old children, November 16, 1999 | |||||||||
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The Baird Center is a place where emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children attend school. Depending upon their level of problems, a number of these children also live on the campus. A member of the August 1999 flight crew presented the background of the project as well as the KC-135 training and flight experience. | ||||||||
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| Hamilton Wenham Regional High School, Hamilton, MA, December 23, 1999 | |||||||||
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One of the August flyers presented for two classes of 9th grade students at his former high school. The presentation covered the project’s experimental background along with the KC-135 training and flight experience. This presentation occurred late in the school year since the presenter was working out in California and did not return to the area until December 20, 1999. | ||||||||
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| Mater Christi School, Burlington, VT, 7th Graders, February 7, 2000 | |||||||||
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Both 7th grade classes were introduced to the KC-135 and rocket experiments. The scientific rationale was explained and the videos on the hypobaric chamber runs and the KC-135 flights were shown. During the presentation, these students were asked if they would be interested in flying some experiments on the KC-135 with the undergraduates. The students were very interested in creating a number of scientific experiments, so we decided to set up a time to return since their ideas were too numerous to discuss in the remaining class time. | ||||||||
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| Mater Christi School, Burlington, VT, 7th Graders, February 17, 2000 | |||||||||
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The soon-to-be KC-135 flyers returned to the classroom to discuss possible experiments to be flown on the KC-135 by the 7th grade students. Before discussing the various student ideas, a lecture was given on the changes experienced by the human body during microgravity. This presentation gave the students ideas for even more possible experiments. The soon-to-be flyers and students discussed a variety of ideas, including hypotheses and possible reasons for success or failure of experiments. By the end of the day, the experiments had been narrowed down to 10 possible experiments. Again, due to time constraints, it was decided that the another meeting was necessary to determine exactly which experiments would fly and what protocols the students wanted to use. | ||||||||
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| Mater Christi School, Burlington, VT, 7th Graders, February 24, 2000 | |||||||||
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The 7th grade students had narrowed their choices down to 5 different experiments covering a range of disciplines. The soon-to-be flyers and students discussed the scientific rationale behind each experiment, the results expected, and the protocol to be followed. At this time, the soon-to-be flyers took the experiments back to the University of Vermont to be prepared for transportation to Houston. These experiments included a device for blowing bubbles in microgravity, a container half-filled with water containing a plastic fish (in case some harm might occur to a real fish), a ball made half of steel and the other half styrofoam, a series of tunnels and tracks that holds various marbles, and a container half-filled with Jell-O. | ||||||||
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| Mater Christi School, Burlington, VT, 7th Graders, April 13, 2000 | |||||||||
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The experiments that flew onboard the KC-135 were returned to the students and the results presented and discussed. The students performed several experiments on the ground to determine how their experiments differed from microgravity or hypergravity. Using videotaped footage, the students had the chance to see their experiments in action. The results of the Drosophila experiment were also presented at this time. | ||||||||
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| Norwich University, Northfield, VT, Students and Faculty (including Board of Trustees), May 8, 2000 | |||||||||
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The Norwich students from the March 2000 flights presented a detailed background on the Drosophila experiment as well as their pre-flight training and flight experiences. NASA and personal video coverage was used to illustrate the effects of flying onboard the KC-135 on the participants. Results from the KC-135 experiments were presented and discussed during a question and answer session. | ||||||||
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| Milton Elementary School, Milton, VT, 3rd and 4th Grade Students, June 6, 2000 | |||||||||
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One of the KC-135 flyers discussed the KC-135 experiment and showed the video footage. The talk focused on the differences between Earth’s gravity and microgravity, including fluid behavior, changes to the human body, and, of course, fruit flies. In addition, the various ways to obtain microgravity (KC-135, rockets, Space Shuttle, Space Station) were also presented. | ||||||||
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| University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, High School Students, June 25 – 30, 2000 | |||||||||
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The 61 students staying at the University for this week are part of the Summer Program for High School Students sponsored by the University of Vermont College of Engineering and Mathematics and The Governor’s Institutes of Vermont. This program is designed to encourage high school students to pursue careers in the fields of engineering and mathematics. Students are housed in campus dorms and participate in a variety of activities to develop first-hand awareness of curriculum requirements and career opportunities. During their stay at the University, the students attended presentations on the KC-135 and rocket flights, watched videos of the hypobaric chamber runs and KC-135 flights, as well as viewed the various displays around the Engineering Building devoted to the KC-135 and rocket flights. | ||||||||
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| A varitey of students from different schools and other
educational institutions visit the University of Vermont to learn more
about engineering. Presentations on the KC-135 and rocket flights
are often given to these visitors and typically last from 30
minutes to 1 hour. The following groups have learned about these programs: |
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Abnaki students, August 4, 2000 - Twenty-four 7th-9th grade students | ||||||||
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Brown's River School - Underhill, Vermont, October 4, 2000 - Forty-two 8th grade students | ||||||||
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Camel's Hump School - Richmond, Vermont, November 6, 2000 - Forty-two 8th grade students | ||||||||
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Southwest Vermont Career Education Center - Bennington, Vermont, December 1, 2000 - Thirteen high school students | ||||||||
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| Students from area high schools interested in engineering can spend a semester or longer working on the Drosophila project alongside undergraduate and graduate engineering students. These students come to the University for 3 to 4 hour periods once or twice a week for an entire semester. They are taught how to use the various machines in our shop, build electronics, and general engineering knowledge. The first couple of weeks are spent training the student, after which they receive projects to design and complete with the knowledge they have gained. The following students have participated in this program: | |||||||||
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Spring 2000 - Aidan Grace, 8th grade student from the Galier
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Fall 2000 - Ben Lackey, 11th grade student from Mount Mansfield Union High School |
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| American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Regional Student Conference, April 10, 1999, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, MA. | |||||||||
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Dan Barnett, “Activity of Drosophila in a Microgravity
Environment” (Oral Presentation)
Dan Cheung, “Effects of Microgravity on Drosophila” (Poster Presentation) |
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| 20th Annual International Gravitational Physiology Meeting, June 6-11, 1999, Orlando, FL. | |||||||||
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Mark S. Miller and Tony S. Keller, “Measuring Drosophila (Fruit Fly) Activity during Microgravity Exposure” (Oral Presentation and Publication) | ||||||||
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The information presented at this meeting is published in: Miller, M.S. and T.S. Keller (1999): Measuring Drosophila (Fruit Fly) Activity During Microgravity Exposure. Journal of Gravitational Physiology 6(1), 99-100. | ||||||||
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| 16th Annual American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology Meeting, October 25-28, 2000, Montreal, Canada. | |||||||||
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Mark S. Miller and Tony S. Keller, "Effects of Short Duration Microgravity on Drosophila Melanogaster (Fruit Fly) Activity" (Poster Presentation) | ||||||||
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The abstract from this meeting is published in: Miller, M.S. and T.S. Keller (2000): Effects of Short Duration Microgravity on Drosophila Melanogaster (Fruit Fly) Activity. Gravitational and Space Biology Bulletin 14(1), 17. | ||||||||
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| WCAX-TV, Channel 3, Burlington, Vermont, March 23 and 24, 1999 | |||||||||
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The station aired NASA footage of the students experiencing weightlessness and explaining their inflight experiments. The footage aired during both evening newscasts (March 23) as well as during the morning show (March 24). | ||||||||
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| WCAX-TV, Channel 3, Burlington, Vermont, March 30, 1999 | |||||||||
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The station covered the presentation of the KC-135 flight to the 7th grade students from Christ the King School. An experiment designed and built by two of the 7th grade girls was selected to fly with ours onboard the KC-135. The aired footage focused on the experiment flown by the 7th grade students and the undergraduate presentation of the KC-135 experience. | ||||||||
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| WCAX-TV, Channel 3, Burlington, Vermont, March 10, 2000 | |||||||||
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The station picked up the live video feed supplied by NASA of one of our fliers, Wendal Chaffee. The news story was broadcast live as well as on the late news and the morning news the following week. | ||||||||
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| The Seventh Annual Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) Award Ceremony and Reception was held on October 7, 1999 at the University of Vermont. At the ceremony, flyers from the August 1999 KC-135 flights discussed their experience. After the presentation, two award plaques were given to UVM by VSGC in recognition of the work performed throughout the KC-135 projects. A third plaque was given to Norwich University for their participation in the August KC-135 flights. The two UVM plaques, along with a variety of pictures, are on display in the main hallway of Votey Building (the engineering building at the University of Vermont). The Norwich plaque is on display in Partridge Hall (the engineering building at Norwich University). | |||||||||
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The award given for the March KC-135 flights reads: | ||||||||
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Presented by the Vermont Space Grant Consortium to the UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT TEAM Dan Barnett Megan Carroll Daniel Cheung Noel Nutting For their Excellent Participation and Contributions to the KC-135 flights, March 1999 |
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The award given for the August KC-135 flights reads: | ||||||||
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Presented by the Vermont Space Grant Consortium to the Joint Venture UVM / NORWICH UNIVERSITY TEAM Geoff Gaida - UVM Martha Price - NU Marko Rosenfeldt - UVM Robert Sewell - NU For their Excellent Participation and Contributions to the KC-135 flights, August 1999 |
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| The Eighth Annual Vermont Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) Award Ceremony and Reception was held on September 25, 2000 at the University of Vermont. The March 2000 KC-135 flights and sounding rocket flight was presented. After the presentation, an award plaque was given to UVM by VSGC in recognition of the work performed during this third set of flights. An additional plaque was given to Norwich University for their participation in these flights. The UVM plaque, along with a variety of pictures, is on display in the main hallway of Votey Building (the engineering building at the University of Vermont). The Norwich plaque is on display in Partridge Hall (the engineering building at Norwich University). | |||||||||
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The award given for the August KC-135 flights reads: | ||||||||
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Presented by the Vermont Space Grant Consortium to the Joint Venture UVM / NORWICH UNIVERSITY TEAM Wendal Chaffee - UVM Michael Fortney - UVM Jessica Kopczynski - NU Martha Price - NU For their Excellent Participation and Contributions to the KC-135 flights, March 10 & 11, 2000 |
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Miller, M.S. and T.S. Keller (1999): Measuring Drosophila (Fruit Fly) Activity During Microgravity Exposure. Journal of Gravitational Physiology 6(1), 99-100. | ||||||||
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Miller, M.S. and T.S. Keller (2000): Effects of Short Duration Microgravity on Drosophila Melanogaster (Fruit Fly) Activity. Gravitational and Space Biology Bulletin 14(1), 17. | ||||||||
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Additional publications will occur once the data is completely analyzed. | ||||||||