An Evaluation of Design Rule Spaces as Risk Containers

It is well understood that software development can be a risky enterprise and industrial projects often overrun budget and schedule. Effective risk management is, therefore, vital for a successful project outcome. Design Rule Spaces (DRSpaces) have been used by other researchers to understand why implemented software is error-prone. This industrial case study evaluates whether such spaces are durable, meaningful, and isolating risk containers. DRSpaces were created from UML class diagrams of architectural design artefacts. In our study, object orientated metrics were calculated from the UML diagrams, and compared to the error-proneness of the DRSpace implementation, to determine whether architectural coupling translated into implementation difficulties. A correlation between architectural coupling and error-proneness of DRSpaces was observed in the case study. Software developers were asked to identify DRSpaces they found difficult to implement, in order to understand which factors, other than architectural coupling, were also important. The qualitative results show agreement between the code areas developers found difficult to implement and the error-prone DRSpaces. However, the results also show that architectural coupling is just one risk factor of many. The case study suggests that architectural DRSpaces can be used to facilitate a targeted risk review prior to implementation and manage risk

The Connection Between Emotional Stress and Developing Graves\u27 Disease

Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disease where the body’s immune system attacks the thyroid and causes the overproduction of thyroid hormone. It also causes hyperthyroidism where the thyroid is essentially in hyperdrive. This study aimed to identify the effects of long-term emotional stress on the development of Graves’ disease. More specifically, it looked to see if this type of stress triggered the overabundance of thyroid-stimulating immunoglobulins (TSIs), the antibodies that attack the thyroid, causing growth and the production of too much thyroid hormone. The expected outcome is that that the participants that have not been officially diagnosed with the disease and experience the symptoms of hyperthyroidism will have elevated levels of T3 and T4; therefore, the overabundance of TSIs

Relationship of School Breakfast Environment and Participation to Child Dietary Intake and Body Weight in Five Rural Appalachian Schools

Objective The purposes of this study were two-fold: 1) to assess the school breakfast environment at four rural Appalachian schools for the contribution of foods to calories, fat, and fiber; and 2) to assess the dietary intake of students in these schools in relation to where breakfast was consumed (home, school, or both places) and by student weight status. Setting Four rural Appalachian schools with fourth and fifth grade students in East Tennessee. Subjects 255 fourth grade children completed a 24-hour dietary recall with a trained NDS-R interviewer and were weighed and measured by the Coordinated School Health Program. Design Assessment of baseline data from an intervention study targeting 4th and 5th grade students in one rural East Tennessee county, Youth Can!, was used. School food service managers submitted school menus and production sheets for 18 days, and vendor bid sheets for analysis of the school breakfast environment. NDS-R software was used to analyze each breakfast food item for calories, fat, and fiber content per serving and production sheets were used to determine amounts of each breakfast food item served. Dietary recalls for days when school breakfast could be consumed were analyzed for energy and target nutrients using NDS-R software. Weight status was calculated as at risk of or overweight and not at risk of overweight based on BMI percentile for age. Statistics Descriptive statistics were used to describe the school breakfast environment in terms of calories, fat and saturated fat (grams, percent calories) and fiber (grams) from foods sold on a per person basis. Food items also were grouped by the five meal components of the School Breakfast Program and ranked according to the total items served. Relationships between dietary intake and breakfast location and child weight status were evaluated using analysis of variance. Relationships between breakfast location and child weight were examined using chi-square tests. Results On average in these school environments fat provided slightly less than half the calories (43%); 15% of calories were from saturated fat. The top ranked foods for servings sold for each meal component were biscuits, sausage, 2% milk, orange juice, and gravy. Children consuming breakfast at home and school had significantly higher percent breakfast contribution to the entire day for energy and calcium compared to children who only ate breakfast at home or school. While children who ate breakfast at home had significantly lower percent breakfast contributions to the entire day for percent calories from fat, protein compared to children who ate at school. Children who ate breakfast only at school had lower percent breakfast contribution to the entire day for iron and vitamin A compared to children who ate breakfast only at home. Breakfast consumption regardless of location had no impact on child weight status. Conclusion The high fat content school breakfast environment reinforces the importance of healthy school food policies and technical support and resources for food service programs to provide low-fat meal options. However, children are not consuming all the breakfast items being served at school. Further research is needed to determine the impact physical activity and socio-economic status have on weight

Low income, supermarket accessibility, and the transportation network: A multimodal analysis identifying areas of poor accessibility and intervention strategies in Indianapolis, Indiana

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service estimates that 23.5 million people live in food deserts, over half of which are considered low-income residents. Accurately defining a food desert is crucial as the designated areas can benefit from grant opportunities and funding priority. To qualify as an urban food desert, the USDA requires that at least 500 residents or one-third of the population live outside a one-mile buffer from a supermarket as well as have a median income of less than 80% of the area average or a poverty rate of greater than 20%. Approaches in the literature to identify low accessibility areas (food deserts) include simple spatial analyses, travel cost models, grocery cost models, and activity-based models. Although using cost as a measure of access is beneficial, the travel cost components are ill-defined, especially for transit. Additionally, defining food deserts as a ratio of travel cost to median household income may more accurately reflect areas with poor accessibility to healthy food by utilizing a combined measure instead of distinct income and access components. ^ This paper develops a cost surface for auto, transit, and walking to determine the average travel cost to the nearest supermarket for each mode in Indianapolis using Spatial Analyst in ArcGIS 10.2. Given the results from ArcGIS, spatial lag models are used to model the proportion of household income spent on traveling to supermarkets as a function of socioeconomic variables. The results show that a higher crime density, no college degree, and living outside of I-465 are all correlated with poorer accessibility to healthy food. These explanatory variables had similar effects for driving and walking, but the transit network was less sensitive to education and crime and more location-dependent. For this study, working with the police department and community to reduce crime as well as expanding the transit network are both recommended as potential interventions. Results from this analysis can provide valuable insight into the reasons behind the existence of food deserts

Effective Networked Nonprofit Organizations: Defining the Behavior and Creating an Instrument for Measurement

This correlational research design, which included a convenience sample of 157 nonprofit staff and board member responses to a Likert-type survey, was used to conduct a principle components analysis (PCA) to develop subscales related to networked nonprofits. As defined in the study, a networked nonprofit has a set of intentionally built trusting relationships and has systems and strategies that engage various stakeholders in meaningful conversations. They achieve their missions by developing strong partnerships where they invest in the goals of other organizations to mobilize resources for a common shared mission and values. While there were correlations between the level respondents rated their organization as a networked nonprofit, or networkedness, and effectiveness reported by respondents, the two networked nonprofit subscales revealed as a result of PCA (Stakeholder/External and Systems Vision/Internal) included elements found in effective as well as networked nonprofits. Also, the Maturity of Practice items were narrowed and reviewed through bivariate correlation. While they correlate to one another, they did not correlate to the networkedness or effectiveness measures. This seems to indicate a disconnect between the actual practice of networkedness as evidenced through social media and evaluation measures and the networked mindset or organizational culture. In other words, the way respondents perceive their levels of effectiveness and networkedness may indeed not align with actual behaviors. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may not be modified. All use must give me credit as the original author. A video author introduction in MP4 format accompanies this dissertation. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. The electronic version of this Dissertation is at Ohiolink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd and Antioch University\u27s AURA, http://aura.antioch.edu

Ecological life history of Crangonyx pseudogracilis Bousfield (Crustacea: Amphipoda) in the Green Bottom Wildlife Management Area, Cabell County, West Virginia

Although the genus Crangonyx has been studied in the Appalachian area, most of this work has concentrated on subterranean species. A Crangonyx pseudogracilis population from the Green Bottom Wildlife Management Area (GBWMA), Cabell County, West Virginia was sampled weekly from March 1995 through July 1996 to investigate the ecological life history of the amphipod. A total of 1508 amphipods were collected. Amphipods were present in the study sites from November through July, at which time they migrated to deeper waters. Crangonyx pseudogracilis had a one year life cycle and bred from November to May. Adult amphipods began to die off in May and were gone by June. Males averaged 5.88 mm and females averaged 8.73 mm in length. There was no significant seasonal variation in sex ratio. Females produced several broods per year and ovigerous females were found from November 2 until May 8. They carried an average of 53.55 eggs and there was a low correlation between fecundity and length. The median tolerance limit (TLm) for low pH was 4.06, and a 96 hour laboratory test at this value produced a 65 percent survival rate. Plant detritus was the preferred food year round and comprised between 47 and 62 percent of the diet

Effect of a Core Conditioning Program on Lumbar Paraspinal Area, Asymmetry and Pain Score in Military Working Dogs with Lumbosacral Pain

Introduction: Lumbosacral pain and stenosis are common causes of retirement from duty for Military Working Dogs (MWDs). Working dogs that receive surgical management for this condition often have a poor prognosis for return to duty after recovery. Humans with chronic low back pain demonstrate paraspinal muscle asymmetry, pain and dysfunction that often improve in response to an exercise program. This study investigated whether dogs with mild lumbosacral pain have decreased lumbar paraspinal muscle area, symmetry, and density, as well as increased pain and dysfunction compared to control dogs. Additionally, response of pain and dysfunction to an exercise program was assessed. Materials and Methods: Visual Analog Scale (VAS) scores for lumbosacral pain, functional questionnaire scores for search and detection tasks, and computed tomography images were evaluated for eight MWDs with lumbosacral pain along with eight control dogs. Mean cross-sectional muscle area (CSA)-to-vertebral ratio, asymmetry and density were determined for five lumbar paraspinal muscles bilaterally at the L5, L6 and L7 caudal endplates. Four dogs with lumbosacral pain rested and four dogs completed an eight-week core stabilizing exercise program. Repeated assessments of lumbosacral pain, dysfunction and muscle parameters for dogs with lumbosacral pain were made at the conclusion of the exercise program. Results: The multifidus lumborum and longissimus lumborum muscles demonstrated significantly reduced CSA (p= 0.020, p = 0.021, respectively) in dogs with lumbosacral pain. Muscle density was decreased in dogs with lumbosacral pain for multifidus lumborum (p = 0.030) and quadratus lumborum (p = 0.011). Multifidus lumborum muscle CSA (p = 0.019), symmetry (p = 0.002) and density (p = 0.024) were significantly higher than at baseline for dogs with LS pain after completion of the exercise program. Functional questionnaire scores improved significantly for exercised dogs (p = 0.031) but did not improve for rested dogs (p = 0.828). Discussion: Military Working Dogs with mild lumbosacral pain and dysfunction had significantly smaller CSA, symmetry and density for both multifidus lumborum and longissimus lumborum muscle groups. An 8-week core strengthening program was associated with significantly improved performance in evaluated tasks for dogs with lumbosacral pain

The intersection of religion, spirituality and social work : implications for clinical practice

Although a substantial body of literature has emerged in recent years addressing the role of religion in clinical social work practice, we know very little about what actually happens in clinical practice. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine what we could learn from the practice wisdom of clinical practitioners about how issues of religion and spirituality actually emerge in their practice. The sample was comprised of twelve licensed clinical practitioners who agreed to engage in a face-to-face interview to discuss their practice wisdom. The sample was skewed towards white, heterosexual women, which is representative of the field. The research schedule included demographic background questions, more open-ended qualitative questions and a religious value scale. Findings were that all participants discussed issues of religion and spirituality in their practice although the frequency varied. This suggested that the field is making progress in integrating this content in practice. Religion was not the presenting problem in any of the case examples presented. Rather religion tended to emerge during treatment in connection with other issues. Three such issues were identified: (1) religion/spirituality as a need for external controls; (2) as part of personal identity development and separation-individuation issues; (3) as a sense of connection for persons struggling with isolation