Advent Health Downtown Orlando Heroes

My service-learning project that I partnered with Advent Health Downtown Orlando to join in accomplishing is synonymous to their mission: extending the healing ministry of Christ. While volunteering with Advent Health and the city of Orlando, I was able to work with patients from all works of life alongside the hardest working healthcare professionals that I call the heroes of downtown Orlando. The biggest act of love and support you can give to this world is serving one another with your time- which is exactly what Advent Health does. While volunteering with Advent, I was given the opportunity to shadow Orthopedic Trauma nurses and Orthopedic Surgery Physician Assistants. While working with the nurses, I gained clinical experience with patients that were in their most vulnerable moments, giving them support and care alongside the nurses. To see their faces light up when you give them encouragement and hope is the most rewarding part. While shadowing the PAs, I gained insight into what the healthcare world is truly like from a physician assistant’s point of view, and I was able to be a listening ear for them as I assisted them in their daily duties while working with patients.https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hip-2023fall/1014/thumbnail.jp

Nesting Success of Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles, Lepidochelys kempi, at Rancho Nuevo, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 1982–2004

The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, Lepidochelys kempi, was on the edge of extinction owing to a combination of intense egg harvesting and incidental capture in commercial fishing trawls. Results from a cooperative conservation strategy initiated in 1978 between Mexico and the United States to protect and restore the Kemp’s ridley turtle at the main nesting beach at Rancho Nuevo, Tamaulipas, Mexico are assessed. This strategy appears to be working as there are signs that the species is starting to make a recovery. Recovery indicators include: 1) increased numbers of nesting turtles, 2) increased numbers of 100+ turtle nesting aggregations (arribadas), 3) an expanding nesting season now extending from March to August, and 4) significant nighttime nesting since 2003. The population low point at Rancho Nuevo was in 1985 (706 nests) and the population began to significantly increase in 1997 (1,514 nests), growing to over 4,000 nests in 2004. The size and numbers of arribadas have increased each year since 1983 but have yet to exceed the 1,000+ mark; most arribadas are still 200–800+ turtles

Effects of Lightning on Trees: A Predictive Model Based on in situ Electrical Resistivity

The effects of lightning on trees range from catastrophic death to the absence of observable damage. Such differences may be predictable among tree species, and more generally among plant life history strategies and growth forms. We used field‐collected electrical resistivity data in temperate and tropical forests to model how the distribution of power from a lightning discharge varies with tree size and identity, and with the presence of lianas. Estimated heating density (heat generated per volume of tree tissue) and maximum power (maximum rate of heating) from a standardized lightning discharge differed 300% among tree species. Tree size and morphology also were important; the heating density of a hypothetical 10 m tall Alseis blackiana was 49 times greater than for a 30 m tall conspecific, and 127 times greater than for a 30 m tall Dipteryx panamensis. Lianas may protect trees from lightning by conducting electric current; estimated heating and maximum power were reduced by 60% (±7.1%) for trees with one liana and by 87% (±4.0%) for trees with three lianas. This study provides the first quantitative mechanism describing how differences among trees can influence lightning–tree interactions, and how lianas can serve as natural lightning rods for trees

A criterial interlocutor tally for successful talker adaptation?

Part of the remarkable efficiency of listening is accommodation to unfamiliar talkers’ specific pronunciations by retuning of phonemic intercategory boundaries. Such retuning occurs in second (L2) as well as first language (L1); however, recent research with emigrés revealed successful adaptation in the environmental L2 but, unprecedentedly, not in L1 despite continuing L1 use. A possible explanation involving relative exposure to novel talkers is here tested in heritage language users with Mandarin as family L1 and English as environmental language. In English, exposure to an ambiguous sound in disambiguating word contexts prompted the expected adjustment of phonemic boundaries in subsequent categorisation. However, no adjustment occurred in Mandarin, again despite regular use. Participants reported highly asymmetric interlocutor counts in the two languages. We conclude that successful retuning ability requires regular exposure to novel talkers in the language in question, a criterion not met for the emigrés’ or for these heritage users’ L1

Misunderstanding corruption and community: comparative cultural politics of corruption regulation in the Pacific

This paper will take as its empirical foundation the author’s experience of corruption and regulation in small Pacific island states. The argument is that notions of corruption and strategies for its regulation suitable for modernized societies, which lack cultural specificity and community engagement, may in fact stimulate corruption relationships in transitional cultures. The other consequence of the imposition of inappropriate definitions and regulation strategies is a profound misunderstanding of communities of dependence. In fact, corruption control can misconstrue and exacerbate economic and political dependence environments, fostering the conditions for corruption which accompany socio-economic development. Two remedies are suggested. First, corruption requires an appreciation which is ‘community-centered’, while at the same time not being neutralized by disconnected cultural relativity. Second, an enterprise theory of corruption in modernized societies and international political/commercial entities may assist in the relevant translation of global anti-corruption policies in a way which advances good governance in traditional communities. This is so when corruption is conceived as dependant on phases of modernization, and the tensions which arise when the interests of societies at different phases intersect. Corporate citizenship and compliance with anti-corrupt business practices by major corporations with a commercial interest in these transitional economies may be more beneficial than deference to uniform international codes of governance

Investigation of International Space Station Major Constituent Analyzer Anomalous ORU 02 Performance

The Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) is a mass spectrometer based system that measures the major atmospheric constituents on the International Space Station. In 2011, two MCA ORU 02 analyzer assemblies experienced premature on-orbit failures. These failures were determined to be the result of off-nominal ion source filament performance. Recent product improvements to ORU 02 designed to improve the lifetime of the ion pump also constrained the allowable tuning criteria for the ion source filaments. This presentation describes the filament failures as well as the corrective actions implemented to preclude such failures in the future

Microbial enhanced waterflooding pilot project, Mink Unit, Delaware-Childers (OK) field

The first microbial-enhanced waterflood field project was initiated in October of 1986. The site selected for the project is in the Mink Unit of Delaware-Childers field in Nowata County, Oklahoma. The pilot area consists of four adjacent inverted five-spot patterns drilled on 5-acre spacing. There are 21 injection and 15 production wells on this pilot. Four of the 21 injection wells were treated with microbial formulation. Laboratory screening criteria were developed to evaluate microorganisms for this project. Several different microbial formulations were tested. Injectivity and microbial field survivability tests were conducted during the baseline period on two off-pattern wells, and a chemical tracer, fluorescein, was injected into the four injection wells during the baseline period. Methodologies for field applications of microorganisms in ongoing waterfloods were developed as a result of this project. Results from the field pilot showed that microorganisms could be injected into an ongoing waterflood without causing any problems in injectivity. Microbial treatment did improve oil production rate, and water/oil ratios for producing wells nearest the microbially treated injection wells continue to be more favorable than baseline values. 23 refs., 30 figs., 28 tabs