It is owned and operated by the Southern Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. It was founded in 1892 in Graysville, Tennessee, as Graysville Academy and was the first Adventist school in the southern U.S. Due to the need for additional space for expansion the school relocated in 1916 and was renamed Southern Junior College. In 1944, Southern began awarding baccalaureate degrees and was renamed Southern Missionary College. In 1996 the institution started conferring master's degrees and adopted its current name.Southern offers associate, baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral degrees. The university and its programs are accredited by multiple organizations including the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Its Institute of Archaeology offers an undergraduate degree in biblical archaeology; Southern is one of only two schools which offer the degree. It is known for its emphasis on Adventist beliefs and conservative religious and social practices, and is considered the most conservative of the Seventh-day Adventist schools in North America. The college operates a radio station (WSMC-FM), a health food store and a wellness center. Enrollment was 3,053 students in 2010, its highest level to date.S.
Sedentary behavior contributes to obesity and metabolic dysfunction, yet few interventions individualize exercise intensity using fuel-based metrics such as the respiratory exchange ratio (RER; VCO2/VO2). This study investigated the effects of metabolically guided walking combined with whole-food, plant-based nutrition on body composition and metabolic outcomes in sedentary overweight and obese women. Forty-four women mean age 43 years; BMI 30.1 kg·m-2) were randomized to low-intensity continuous training (LICT; RER ≈ 0.75), moderate-intensity intermittent training (MIIT; RER ≈ 0.85), or high-intensity continuous training (HICT; RER ≈ 0.95). Following a 2-week dietary lead-in with an individualized ~200 kcal·day-1 energy deficit, participants completed an 8-week RER-guided walking program (5 sessions·week-1; 15-50 min·session-1). Assessments included air-displacement plethysmography (BodPod) body composition, resting metabolic rate and substrate utilization, and oxygen uptake at the first ventilatory threshold (VT1). Data were analyzed using ANCOVA, mixed-factorial ANOVA, and Pearson correlations. Percent body fat decreased significantly across participants (p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.827), with MIIT demonstrating the most favorable integrated outcomes. MIIT elicited the largest reductions in total body mass (-11.2%), fat mass (-25.9%), and percent body fat (-17.1%), alongside improvements in VT1 VO2 (Δ = 1.487 ± 0.895 L·min-1; p = 0.038). Resting respiratory quotient (RQ) declined in LICT and MIIT but increased in HICT, corresponding with increased fat oxidation in LICT and MIIT and reduced fat oxidation in HICT. Changes in RQ were significantly associated with changes in percent body fat (r = 0.316, p = 0.039). Metabolically guided moderate-intensity intermittent walking combined with whole-food, plant-based nutrition produced the most consistent improvements in adiposity, substrate utilization, and submaximal fitness, supporting the public-health feasibility of a community-deliverable, substrate-informed walking prescription.
Identifying the origin of perforating lesions on fossil bone is often difficult, and many are considered tooth traces, in spite of more likely and more parsimonious etiologies. Much of this confusion stems from tooth trace criteria that are ambiguous when the context for the lesions is not considered. Mistaken identification of tooth traces has led to misleading interpretations of animal behavior. This study of tooth traces on fossil bones critically reviews previous criteria and applies them to assessing bones from an Edmontosaurus annectens bonebed within the Lance Formation, Wyoming, USA. Of the 3013 bones examined, thirteen bones had features indicative of tooth traces based on gross appearance. Of these, one bone had perforations determined to have a different etiology. Twelve bones had traces attributed to tooth marks, including four bones with Knethichnus parallelum and Linichnus serratus ichnotaxa. Tyrannosaurus rex was identified as the likely inflictor of traces attributable to both ichnotaxa, by comparison of denticle density of carnivore teeth within the bonebed with striation/serration density of the traces. The importance of context in the analysis of perforating lesions on fossil bones is shown through the mistaken identification of features such as neurovasculature foramina and lesions associated with pathology as tooth traces. This study contributes to the literature on biting behavior and refines the criteria used to identify perforations caused by bite marks. The application of these refined criteria also proved useful in accurately identifying tooth traces on bone. This, in turn, enhances the guidelines for recognizing perforations as tooth traces and encourages further research on this topic.
Magmatic–hydrothermal systems transport heat through coupled conduction and buoyancy-driven fluid flow in porous rock, behavior conventionally modeled with grid-based finite-difference simulators such as HYDROTHERM. We demonstrate that a physics-informed neural network (PINN), built on the NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo framework using automatic differentiation and mesh-free collocation, can produce a stable two-dimensional time-dependent solution for a magma-chamber configuration based on the Rio Pisco pluton in the Peruvian Coastal Batholith. Boundary conditions and material parameters are taken from a prior HYDROTHERM study of the same pluton, and 28 temperature samples digitized from that study are used as a supervised constraint. The PINN couples Fourier conduction, advective heat transport, Darcy flow with a temperature-dependent permeability law, and a mass-conservation formulation; the mass-conservation equation is written in two-phase form, but in the regime studied here, the simulation remains below the boiling curve, so the steam-phase saturation stays at zero and the formulation reduces to its single-phase liquid–water limit. The network reproduces the conductive temperature gradient and a directionally consistent buoyancy-driven flow field, with weaker and less organized circulation than the reference simulation, and a cooling time of approximately 1.6×105 years, comparable to the ∼175,000 years reported for the matching k=10−16m2 HYDROTHERM reference scenario from which the supervised training data was digitized. We discuss the conditions under which the mesh-free, automatically differentiable PINN approach offers a useful alternative to grid-based solvers.
Background:Nursing students often lack the leadership and communication skills needed to serve as innovative change agents in health care. These skills are rarely emphasized within undergraduate curricula.Problem:This innovation addressed challenges students face in delivering concise, solution-focused pitches to health care leaders on clinical and system issues.Approach:Using a single-group pretest-posttest design, 19 of 50 enrolled students completed all components, including a knowledge quiz and self-assessment survey. Students presented paired pitches before a faculty panel; the top 5 advanced to an interdisciplinary panel.Outcomes:Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed significant gains in skill and attitude toward pitch development and delivery, although anxiety levels remained unchanged. Increasing rehearsal opportunities and faculty coaching may reduce this anxiety in future iterations.Conclusions:Integrating pitches, the 4th P, into nursing education broadens dissemination and strengthens communication, advocacy, and innovation across undergraduate and graduate programs.
