Come away with me: the uses and gratifications of leisure travel magazine readership

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 5,2013).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Berkley HudsonIncludes bibliographical references.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2013.Dissertations, Academic -- University of Missouri--Columbia -- Journalism."May 2013"This study examines the uses and gratifications of reading leisure travel magazines. A mixed method was applied. It sought to confirm four motivations based on past research and to find new motivations. Furthermore, it aimed to correlate these motivations with intensity of one's intent to travel to foreign places, one's frequency of domestic travel, one's frequency of foreign travel and the intensity of one's interest in foreign places. Finally, it examined whether a difference in motivations existed between primarily print readers and primarily electronic readers. Ten interviews with leisure travel magazines readers were conducted, and then an online survey was administered in which 269 people responded (231 actually completed). This study confirmed four motivations (Surveillance, Interaction, Diversion, and Guidance) from previous research and found two new motivations, Inspiration and Retrospection. Furthermore, it discovered that people who frequently travel domestically are more likely to be motivated by Inspiration to read leisure travel magazines and that people who have high interest in foreign places are motivated to read as a form of diversion and to obtain guidance. No significant relationship was found between motivations and intensity of one's intent to travel to foreign places or one's frequency of foreign travel. Additionally, no significant difference in motivations exists between primarily print platform readers and primarily electronic platform readers

Effect of Pore Water in Rock Formation on the Behavior of Cryogenic Fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing has revolutionized the oil and gas industry by increasing hydrocarbon production from unconventional sources. However, waterless or reduced-water fracturing technologies have been researched due to rising concerns on the heavy use of water for hydraulic fracturing. Cryogenic fracturing is implemented by subjecting cryogenic fluid on rock formation. The idea is that a large thermal gradient, perhaps caused by evaporation of a liquified gas can induce fractures when brought into contact with a much warmer rock under downhole conditions. Rapid cooling of the rock at warm reservoir temperature will induce contraction and subsequent tensile fractures are created. Fractures created in the rocks surrounding the borehole can thus be achieved without the use of water. Many unconventional gas formations have low water saturations, however near wellbore water saturation can be present from prior drilling and completion operations. This study investigates the effect of the presence of pore water in rock formation on the practice of cryogenic fracturing. Although we understand cryogenic fracturing can create fractures in reservoir rocks, the effect of water in the pore space of reservoir rocks has not been fully investigated. The freezing of water in formations can play a competing role with contraction of the rock, as the volume of water expands by 9% upon freezing. This thesis reports results from a laboratory study of cryogenic fracturing in water-saturated specimens. Liquid nitrogen was utilized to create a strong thermal gradient generating local tensile stress in submersion tests and in the saturated rocks surrounding a borehole. We have developed experimental setups and procedures to conduct cryogenic fracturing tests without confining stress. Cubic blocks (8ʺ×8ʺ×8ʺ) of Berea Upper Grey sandstone and concrete were iii tested. Cryogen transport, measurements, and fracture characterization were integrated in experimental setups. Borehole pressure, liquid nitrogen, and temperature can be monitored during experiments. Acoustic signals were used to characterize fractures before and after the tests. Cryogenic tests conducted on water-saturated specimens in boreholes in the absence of confining stress were able to create cracks on the outer surface of the specimens and alter rock properties. By comparing the results from the unstressed concrete and sandstone, we found the generation and geometry of fractures in water-saturated specimens is dependent on material properties such as permeability and pore distribution. The freezing of pore water in highly porous sandstones intensifies the damage done to the pore structure, to some extent, and favors the expansion of micro-fractures in the mineral skeleton to generate large fractures. Water in the formation expands as it freezes and can prevent cryogenic fracturing in strong, low-permeability reservoir rocks (concrete) by creating a barrier to nitrogen pressure permeation near the wellbore. On the other hand, from submersion tests it is evident that weak rocks subjected to cryogenic fracturing, such as shale, can create fractures along bedding planes even though they have low permeability. This may be utilized to enhance gas recovery in shale reservoirs. Fractures were created by generating a strong thermal gradient in saturated sandstone and shale core specimens submerged in liquid nitrogen. Submersion time, cryogen amount, temperature, and fracture characterization were integrated in experiments. Acoustic signals were used to characterize fractures before and after tests. Saturated concrete blocks also fractured due to the strong thermal gradient generated by liquid nitrogen submersion

OER Initiatives and the Liberal Arts College

Presentation slides for a webinar hosted by the Partnership for Liberal Arts Collaboration and Exploration (PLACE) and co-presented with Caitlin Carter (Franklin & Marshall College) and Ron Joslin (Macalester College). The presenters discussed their work in support of OER awareness, adoption, and creation at their institutions, each at a different stage in the process. After detailing the current situation at each campus, the presenters offer common obstacles faced in the liberal arts college context and practical advice for overcoming them

The Nelson Memorandum: How two HELIOS members are responding

UT Librarie

The Role of the HEART score and Clinical Decision Units in ED Patients with Chest Pain

Every year, millions of patients present to Emergency Departments across the country complaining of chest pain. Even after traditional ED testing which includes electrocardiograms, laboratory testing, and chest radiography, chest pain patients still have a small but real risk of serious illness. The HEART score is a new tool that has been validated to help risk-stratify patients. Clinical Decision Units decrease cost and length of stay without compromising patient safety, allowing for complete evaluations of these patients

Revolutionize your Undergraduate Instruction with Top Hat!

Lightning talk slides as presented at Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA) Annual Conference, 2017.Presenters discuss Top hat educational application for use in undergraduate classroom instruction. Provides overview of Top Hat, discusses pilot program for School of Pharmacy 1st year courses, and compares the strengths and weaknesses of this approach

Fighting Impostor Syndrome: How Librarians Are Bridging the Gap Between the Humanities and the Sciences

While many librarians possess undergraduate degrees in the humanities, increasingly, there are excellent job prospects emerging in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. New graduates and librarians who are going through a career change are faced with what seems like an insurmountable challenge: how to build the skills to transition successfully into positions outside of their backgrounds. This session will demonstrate how two librarians with humanities degrees obtained fulfilling careers in the sciences. Caitlin Carter is the Pharmacy Liaison Librarian at the University of Waterloo, and Kate Mercer is the Systems Design Engineering Liaison Librarian and a PhD Candidate in Pharmacy, also at the University of Waterloo. Caitlin and Kate will share how they transitioned into STEM fields, provide tips for getting started in the sciences with a humanities background, how to integrate yourself into a science faculty, and offer best practices for identifying and using transferable skills. Outcomes – Strategies and tools for making the transition from the humanities to the STEM fields. - Insight into collaborating with science faculty on research, embedded instruction, and information services

Fighting Impostor Syndrome: How Librarians Are Bridging the Gap Between the Humanities and the Sciences

While many librarians possess undergraduate degrees in the humanities, increasingly, there are excellent job prospects emerging in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. New graduates and librarians who are going through a career change are faced with what seems like an insurmountable challenge: how to build the skills to transition successfully into positions outside of their backgrounds. This session will demonstrate how two librarians with humanities degrees obtained fulfilling careers in the sciences. Caitlin Carter is the Pharmacy Liaison Librarian at the University of Waterloo, and Kate Mercer is the Systems Design Engineering Liaison Librarian and a PhD Candidate in Pharmacy, also at the University of Waterloo. Caitlin and Kate will share how they transitioned into STEM fields, provide tips for getting started in the sciences with a humanities background, how to integrate yourself into a science faculty, and offer best practices for identifying and using transferable skills. Outcomes – Strategies and tools for making the transition from the humanities to the STEM fields. - Insight into collaborating with science faculty on research, embedded instruction, and information services

Trust, Trust Repair, and Public Health: A Scoping Review Protocol

Trust can be defined as “a willingness to be vulnerable to another for a given set of tasks” and thus, trust and public health are inextricably linked. State actors are key participants in population health, organizing, among other things, mandates and guidelines that target health behaviors and encourage the uptake of medicines, screenings, diagnostics, and control of health conditions. Effective implementation of these crucial, government-sponsored health efforts is conditional on the public’s belief that the state is trustworthy and has one\u27s best interest in mind – positioning trust in government as a central determinant of public health. Trusting relationships between patients, health systems, and health care providers are also essential, as high-quality, safe care and adherence with healthcare professionals’ recommendations heavily depend upon trust. In many countries, trust in government and health care providers are inseparable, as governments are the primary providers of healthcare. Despite these critical relationships, existing studies that link trust and public health outcomes often focus on contemporaneous factors, many of which are endogenous to public health outcomes (e.g., support for the incumbent political party). For example, Sopory and colleagues reported a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of trust during public health emergency events among 68 studies from 28 countries that included individuals who were directly affected by a public health emergency. Importantly, no studies from South America or Africa were included. The shortage of research on the sociostructural, historical, economic, and political sources of low trust limits our understanding of how trust deficits might be remedied so as to improve population health. Understanding why trust is low as well as how to repair trust are thus of critical importance

Making Ends Meet: Women’s Social Capital Development in Regional Informal Economies

The project examines how women workers and employers navigate the informal sector of Michigan’s economy. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis has impacted women especially, with layoffs in service sector jobs and women leaving the labor force to care for children. Women engage the labor market through social networks and “brokerage institutions” such as churches, schools, gyms, neighborhoods, to find household service workers and to find work. The research design employs mixed methodologies - archival data analysis and in-depth interviews - to map and model supply chains and networks in the connections between formal and informal work in Lansing’s regional informal economy