Growing Alternatives: An Exploration Of Veganic Agriculture In The United States And Opportunities For Future Synergies

Veganic farming is a growing agricultural approach rooted in the exclusion of farmed animal inputs and promotion of diverse, plant-based ecologies. It offers a range of direct and indirect benefits, spanning from farm soil health to climate resiliency to improved human/non-human animal welfare (e.g., farmer/worker livelihood; consumer food safety; animal rights). Veganic farmers\u27 experiences, worldviews, and motivations vary, however many include dimensions of social and environmental justice akin to that of the agroecology movement. This dissertation examines veganic agriculture and complementary approaches through three distinct discussions. First, veganic agriculture is explored in relation to soil health and fertility strategies reported through a sample of 25 veganic farmers in the United States (U.S.). Subsequently, it is proposed that there is value in Agricultural Outreach Professionals (AOPs) (e.g., University Extension personnel) gaining a greater familiarity to veganic approaches, not only to serve veganic farmers, but the greater agricultural community that could benefit from an expanded toolbox of resiliency strategies. Next, veganic agriculture is considered in context to agroecology with exploration of future synergies between the two approaches. This paper provides a foundational contribution of veganic agricultural principles as identified through the aforementioned field work with veganic farmers in the U.S.. These are then discussed in comparison with agroecological principles, using the thirteen principles outlined by Wezel et al. (2020) as a guide. Findings suggest that despite the misalignment on the integration of farmed animals (and the associated animal inputs), there is high compatibility and opportunity for transdisciplinary engagement across the two respective sciences/practices/movements going forward. Lastly, the co-creation of knowledge is examined with specific emphasis on agriculture and the application to agroecology. The intersection between ‘traditional’ and ‘scientific’ knowledge highlights potential for integration of farmer-centered perspective for improved process and outcomes. While the focus is on agroecology, it extends the same potential benefits to veganic agriculture. Given the expanding veganic farming community, participatory co-creation of knowledge may become an increasingly important tool for learning and knowledge development within and outside of the U.S.. As a whole, this dissertation is guided with the concept of a sustainable transition framework, specifically through the multi-level perspective (MLP). The concepts explored illuminate the plethora of ways veganic farming offers alternatives to the prevailing agrifood paradigm, especially when paired with other approaches, such as agroecology

Mounded Growth of Organic Semiconductor Thin Films: Desorption and Next-Layer Nucleation

The mechanisms governing thin film growth play a crucial role in determining the final properties of thin films. Advanced techniques, such as in situ coherent x-ray scattering, offer valuable insights into the surface dynamics associated with these growth mechanisms. A well-ordered, smooth thin film is highly desirable due to its superior physical properties. However, molecular diffusion on the film\u27s surface is hindered by the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier, which inhibits the downward movement of molecules across step edges. This leads to the formation of mounds that steepen as the film grows due to restricted inter-layer transport. This dissertation presents in situ x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) measurements of diindenoperylene (DIP) vapor deposition on thermally oxidized silicon surfaces across a temperature range of 40 $^{\circ}$C to 120 $^{\circ}$C. Our observations indicate that DIP forms a nearly complete two-dimensional first layer before transitioning into mounded growth during subsequent deposition stages. Within these mounds, local step flow was observed, revealing terrace-length-dependent behavior in the step edge dynamics. This terrace-length dependence led to unstable growth, characterized by rapid roughening ($\beta$ \u3e 0.5) and a deviation from a symmetric error-function-like height profile. At higher temperatures, we observed that grooves between the mounds tended to heal , resulting in nearly flat, poly-crystalline films. A numerical analysis using a (1 + 1) - dimensional model suggests that terrace-length-dependent desorption of ad-molecules plays a key role in influencing step dynamics and morphology evolution. Desorption, the process in which surface atoms (adatoms) gain enough energy to escape into the vacuum, is found to suppress growth rates during thin film formation. Additionally, desorption time scales, when shorter than the time required for diffusion to defect sites, step edges, or kinks, significantly influence surface morphology during crystal growth. New layer nucleation, a critical process in mounded thin film growth, is examined using a lab-developed Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) growth simulation program. Our results suggest that larger nucleation critical sizes at higher temperatures contribute to the transition from mounded to flat films. By comparing experimental data with KMC simulation results and theoretical models, we estimate key parameters such as the additional Ehrlich-Schwoebel energy barrier ($\Delta E_{s}$) and the molecular thermal attempt rate ($v_{0}$). These findings enhance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying mounded growth and offer potential insights for improving thin film growth in materials beyond DIP, paving the way for more controlled and high-quality film production

Ultra-Brief CBT for Primary Care Visits: Pilot Training and Implementation

This study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of an Ultra-Brief Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (UB-CBT) intervention for depression and anxiety symptoms in routine primary care visits. The UB-CBT is responsive to the limited access to specialized mental health services, particularly evidence-based interventions, for individuals with depressive and anxiety disorders in the U.S. Most Americans with symptoms of depression and anxiety first report their concerns to their primary care provider (PCP) in routine visits, and the UB-CBT was designed to provide tools for managing these symptoms during these interactions. The UB-CBT training workshop was developed and piloted with 38 providers at three adult primary care and four family medicine sites in Vermont. PCPs completed questionnaires before and after the training. Data were analyzed using mixed qualitative and quantitative methods. Regarding training targets, most providers (79.7%) reported that they learned new information about depression and anxiety treatment and even more providers (88.6%) learned new information about how to address these symptoms in visits. From pre- to post-training, mean scores for provider attitudes toward psychotherapy and perceived competence talking to patients about mental health symptoms and therapy increased, but means scores for perceived comfort in talking to patients about mental health concerns decreased slightly. Data illustrated that most providers found the training and intervention highly feasible and acceptable. Providers especially liked the user friendliness and general feasibility of the intervention. Providers offered ideas about developing online versions of the material and raised some concerns about their ability to administer the intervention in a timely manner. The discussion outlines several steps that will address these concerns and improve the UB-CBT training experience and intervention. The UB-CBT intervention and training program have potential to increase patient access to mental health tools in primary care

Advancing Quantitative Research Of Smoker Stigmatization

The ongoing tobacco epidemic has wrought devastation on the health and prosperity of United States citizens for decades. Though tobacco denormalization efforts successfully reduced population-level smoking rates in recent decades, these declines are not uniform across some minoritized segments of the population. Tobacco denormalization strategies themselves often emulate facets of stigmatization, and thus unsurprisingly are associated with increases in perceived and perpetrated smoker stigma. The consequences of this stigma are largely unknown, and the available research relies on scales of dubious theoretical and psychometric merit, or on purely qualitative methods with small sample sizes. This dissertation presents a series of studies introducing quantitative measures of both implicit and explicit stigma. The first two studies validate self-report measures of public stigma and self-stigma toward smokers in large samples. Both measures demonstrated excellent fit through confirmatory factor analysis and expected relationships with hypothetically related constructs. The second two studies introduced and validated a novel web-based task measuring implicit stigma, and then applied that task to measuring implicit smoker stigma. The results indicated an overall pro-nonsmoker bias and some group differences based on smoking status and endorsement of explicit smoker stigma. Overall, the four studies substantively advance the field and together they constitute the most comprehensive investigation of smoking stigma to date

A Self-Affirmation Intervention For Responsible Parties in Restorative Justice

Background and purpose: Restorative justice is a response to crime in which the offender, or the “responsible party,” engages in a process with community stakeholders in which they learn about the harm caused by the crime and complete a “contract” in which they take action to make amends and participate in community engagement and personal development activities (Zehr, 2002). Research demonstrates that responsible parties who can adopt the difficult mindset of responsibility taking, perspective taking, and motivated engagement accrue the most benefits from restorative justice (Hipple et al., 2015). The purpose of this study is to test the effect of a values-affirmation intervention (Steele, 1988) on psychological processes and contract completion among responsible parties. Method: I recruited 116 responsible parties undergoing a restorative justice process from nine restorative justice centers to complete a Qualtrics study. Qualtrics randomly assigned participants to write for ten minutes about either their values (self-affirmation condition) or a neutral control topic. Next, participants completed measures of two mediator variables: self-integrity and existential connection, and measures of three dependent variables: responsibility taking, cognitive empathy, and contract readiness. Four months later, I documented whether or not the participant had completed their contract. Results: Compared to the control condition, those in the values-affirmation condition reported higher contract readiness and cognitive empathy, but did not report greater responsibility taking or contract completion. The effect of self-affirmation on contract readiness was mediated by self-integrity but not by existential connection. The effect of self-affirmation on cognitive empathy was mediated by existential connection but not by self-integrity. Conclusion: Restorative justice practitioners might incorporate values-affirmation into the process to help prepare responsible parties for the difficult tasks of empathy and motivation

Management of Low Back Pain in the Outpatient Setting

https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/2213/thumbnail.jp

Concurrent Associations Between Sweet And Cooling E-Cigarette Use And Combustible Cigarette Use And Quit Attempts Among Adult Dual Users

Combustible cigarette (CC) smoking is a leading cause of premature death in the United States. Federal regulators have signaled their intention to position electronic cigarettes (ECs) as a widely available, appealing, and well-regulated alternative nicotine product in the context of an overarching reduced nicotine content mandate in CCs. Prior research supports the efficacy of ECs as a smoking cessation tool in clinical contexts through the complete substitution of ECs for CCs. However, little data exists regarding the day-to-day naturalistic patterns of flavored EC use, or the role of non-tobacco flavored ECs in facilitating CC reduction and cessation. The current study examined the fine-grained naturalistic patterns of CC and flavored EC use among fifty-nine participants who used both products and desired to quit smoking CCs. Participants reported their daily use of both CCs and ECs over eight weeks. Study aims were to characterize flavored EC use patterns and investigate associations between the use of specific flavors of ECs and brief CC abstinence, CC reduction, and CC quit attempts. Sweet flavors were most commonly used by participants, followed by cooling- and tobacco-flavored ECs. Participants were statistically significantly more likely to be non-abstinent from CCs on days that they had used ECs, though this relationship was cross-sectional. Associations between the use of specific flavors of EC and CC cessation-related outcomes were not significant, suggesting that models were underpowered. Sensitivity analyses suggested that hybrid sweet/cooling flavors may be associated with different CC-related behavioral correlates than cooling-only flavors. Overall, findings suggest that participants who use ECs concurrently with CCs without external guidance may not intuit how to use ECs as complete substitutes for CCs. Research and policy related to flavored ECs must also grapple with issues of consistency in defining and categorizing different types of EC flavors

Anxiety Screening in a Rural Primary Care Setting

Anxiety disorders are one of the most commonly occurring mental health condition. It is recommended to screen for anxiety in adults under the age of 65, but there is insufficient research to make this recommendation for older adults. Caledonia County in northeastern Vermont is a rural area with a large proportion of older adults, and this unique population could benefit from anxiety screening.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/2209/thumbnail.jp

Enhancing Chip Security With Physical Unclonable Functions And Self-Destruction

Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are the current state of the art solution to hardware security. A silicon-based PUF exploits local manufacturing variations to produce a secure encryption key that is repeatable, intrinsic, random, unique, and low-cost. In many ways, a PUF can be considered a unique digital ‘fingerprint’ for chip identification and authentication. In this dissertation we cover the properties and industry standard metrics for assessing a PUF. Results in this dissertation, are supported by hardware measurement data from multiple silicon test chips implemented in GLOBALFOUNDRIES 12-nm, TSMC 5-nm, and TSMC 3-nm Fin Field-Effect Transistor (FinFET) Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technologies.We will target three main areas of research: PUF topologies, PUF stability, and PUF feature extensions. Regarding PUF topologies, we will provide an overview of the most common PUF topologies that exist in the industry and provide a comparison to our innovative Pre-Amplifier PUF. In general, the most challenging aspect of a PUF design is to achieve a repeatable and stable key across a wide set of test conditions. For PUF stability, we detail and compare multiple techniques that have been proposed and highlight the single test condition stable bit identification technique that we have developed and utilized to achieve as low as a “zero” Bit Error Rate (BER) in silicon testing. Further, we propose accelerated aging techniques that eliminate the need for storing stable bitcell locations, while still achieving a “zero” BER. PUF feature extensions represent one of the highlights of our research. We demonstrate the first ever silicon-proven methods and structures for a self-destructible PUF that can corrupt and physically destroy the underlying data used to generate the PUF encryption key, blocking future authentication attempts. This tamper response is done by exploiting well-known semiconductor reliability failure mechanisms. In our work, we propose a simultaneous electromigration (EM), and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) directed to the PUF array data. The result is an irreversible corruption of the secure encryption key to enhance chip security. Outside of using self-destruct as a tamper response, we propose techniques to utilize these concepts to thwart counterfeit integrated circuits that try to emulate or duplicate the original chip functionality. As an End of Life (EOL) recycling step, PUF self-destruct can be used to safely disable chip functions and corrupt sensitive data

A Closer Look At Digital Histopathological Slide(s) Analysis Software.

Computer-aided detection or diagnosis systems, which are deployed to detect abnormalities in histological samples, can play a key role in detecting a range of anomalies found in histologic samples. In fact, the earliest venture into the use of computerized image analysis and digital image processing was to analyze microscopy images, not in face recognition/detection, as many would claim. This automated image analysis continues to be transformative for many areas, including in areas of research and medicine like pathology and promises to offer highly accurate and efficient qualitative and quantitative analysis algorithms. Due to these potentials, these algorithms and other related automated analysis techniques have attracted the attention of research in the field. These are deployed in a wide range of research topics, including cancer detection, classification, and even monitoring management response. This study aimed to provide a technical assessment of two analysis approaches that are utilized in software platforms: positive pixel count per tissue area analysis and cell-by-cell analysis approach. These two are commonly used in many digital histopathological slide analysis software(s) in research settings, including ImageScope and HALO, that respectively deploy the above algorithms and thus were used as proxies for this study. We found that both the algorithms we worked with could only characterize IHC markers to some extent, HALO more so than ImageScope. The complicated nature of IHC assessment criteria, guided by the biology of the markers was the biggest influence on the challenges in image analysis. These need to be considered during algorithm development to obtain reliable automated analysis systems applicable in real-world research and/or hospital environments