Toward Sustainability: Helping Communities Engage With and Protect the Environment - 2013 Annual Report

From the coastal sand dunes of Michigan's Lower Peninsula to the warm waters of the Amazon River Basin, the Mott Foundation has long supported the stewardship of the world's most precious natural resources. The Foundation's latest annual report highlights five examples of that work and introduces an important and exciting new focus in Mott's grantmaking, advancing climate change solutions

The Use of Test Pits to Investigate Subsurface Fracturing and Glacial Stratigraphy in Tills and Other Unconsolidated Materials

Author Institution: Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering, The Ohio State University ; Bennett and Williams Environmental Consultants Inc.Joints and fractures, common in Ohio glacial tills, often influence shallow ground water flow paths and rates. Environmental site investigations in glacial till and lacustrine sediments should include determination of the glacial stratigraphy and evaluation of the presence, extent, and density of subsurface fractures. The test pit is one approach to directly assess fracturing and stratigraphy. The design and construction of deep test pits is examined in this research report, which includes an extensive literature review and case studies from three test pit sites in Ohio. A generic design is recommended that may be used for 1-meter, 2-meter, 3-meter, or 4-meter deep test pits. Scaled drawings are included

Sheep pregnancy checking by ultrasonic sound (1993)

Ultrasonic sound waves of about 2 million cycles per second can pass through living tissue. Used to determine sheep pregnancy, these sound waves are painless and have no harmful after-effects to the ewe or fetus

The 1990 update to strategy for exploration of the inner planets

The Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration (COMPLEX) has undertaken to review and revise the 1978 report Strategy for Exploration of the Inner Planets, 1977-1987. The committee has found the 1978 report to be generally still pertinent. COMPLEX therefore issues its new report in the form of an update. The committee reaffirms the basic objectives for exploration of the planets: to determine the present state of the planets and their satellites, to understand the processes active now and at the origin of the solar system, and to understand planetary evolution, including appearance of life and its relation to the chemical history of the solar system

Impact of Perfectionism, Social Media, and Sleep Hygiene, on Stress in Students from Health Professions Programs

Title: Impact of Perfectionism, Social Media, and Sleep Hygiene, on Stress in Students from Health Professions Programs Purpose: Explore the impact and relationships of perfectionism, sleep, and social media on stress in health profession students. Methods: After IRB approval, 62 health pre-professional/professional students completed this non-experimental survey via Qualtrics. The survey consisted of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), questions about social media usage, and demographic characteristics. Surveys were completed in 2021. Results: Participant demographics included: 50 female, 12 male; Mean Age (24.16); Program of Study (23 PT, 9 OT, 13 PA, 17 Undergraduate); GPA (3.00-3.49=10, 3.50-3.99=36, 4.00=16). The FMPS average was 89.2742 (76.0619 percentile). Correlations between Perfectionism and PSS (r = .463), Daily Screen Time and PSS (r=.294), and PSQI and PSS (r=.611) were significant. Mean global score for PSQI was 6.77. Average sleep per night was 7.32 hours. Mean total PSS score was 22.500 with 4.8% in the low-stress category (0-13), 69.4% in the moderate-stress category (14-26), and 25.8% in the high-stress category (27-40). 52.2% of the variability seen in perceived stress was related to perfectionism, sleep, and social media. Conclusion: A majority of students reported moderate stress, poor sleep quality, and higher than average perfectionism scores. There are other factors related to stress than what was included in this study. Faculty should be aware of the impact that sleep, perfectionism, and social media have on student stress and should provide strategies to assist with stress management

Exposure to holoendemic malaria results in elevated Epstein-Barr virus loads in children

Perennial and intense malaria transmission (holoendemic malaria) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection are 2 cofactors in the pathogenesis of endemic Burkitt lymphoma (eBL). In the present study, we compared EBV loads in children living in 2 regions of Kenya with differing malaria transmission intensities: Kisumu District, where malaria transmission is holoendemic, and Nandi District, where malaria transmission is sporadic. For comparison, blood samples were also obtained from US adults, Kenyan adults, and patients with eBL. Extraction of DNA from blood and quantification by polymerase chain reaction give an EBV load estimate that reflects the number of EBV-infected B cells. We observed a significant linear trend in mean EBV load, with the lowest EBV load detected in US adults and increasing EBV loads detected in Kenyan adults, Nandi children, Kisumu children, and patients with eBL, respectively. In addition, EBV loads were significantly higher in Kisumu children 1-4 years of age than in Nandi children of the same age. Our results support the hypothesis that repeated malaria infections in very young children modulate the persistence of EBV and increase the risk for the development of eBL

A national training program for simulation educators and technicians: evaluation strategy and outcomes

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.BACKGROUND: Simulation-based education (SBE) has seen a dramatic uptake in health professions education over the last decade. SBE offers learning opportunities that are difficult to access by other methods. Competent faculty is seen as key to high quality SBE. In 2011, in response to a significant national healthcare issue--the need to enhance the quality and scale of SBE--a group of Australian universities was commissioned to develop a national training program--Australian Simulation Educator and Technician Training (AusSETT) Program. This paper reports the evaluation of this large-scale initiative. METHODS: The AusSETT Program adopted a train-the-trainer model, which offered up to three days of workshops and between four and eight hours of e-learning. The Program was offered across all professions in all states and territories. Three hundred and three participants attended workshops with 230 also completing e-learning modules. Topics included: foundational learning theory; orientation to diverse simulation modalities; briefing; and debriefing. A layered objectives-oriented evaluation strategy was adopted with multiple stakeholders (participants, external experts), methods of data collection (end of module evaluations, workshop observer reports and individual interviews) and at multiple data points (immediate and two months later). Descriptive statistics were used to analyse numerical data while textual data (written comments and transcripts of interviews) underwent content or thematic analysis. RESULTS: For each module, between 45 and 254 participants completed evaluations. The content and educational methods were rated highly with items exceeding the pre-established standard. In written evaluations, participants identified strengths (e.g. high quality facilitation, breadth and depth of content) and areas for development (e.g. electronic portfolio, learning management system) of the Program. Interviews with participants suggested the Program had positively impacted their educational practices. Observers reported a high quality educational experience for participants with alignment of content and methods with perceived participant needs. CONCLUSIONS: The AusSETT Program is a significant and enduring learning resource. The development of a national training program to support a competent simulation workforce is feasible. The Program objectives were largely met. Although there are limitations with the study design (e.g. self-report), there are strengths such as exploring the impact two months later. The evaluation of the Program informs the next phase of the national strategy for simulation educators and technicians with respect to content and processes, strengths and areas for development

Clinical Utility of Advanced Microbiology Testing Tools

Advanced microbiology technologies are rapidly changing our ability to diagnose infections, improve patient care, and enhance clinical workflow. These tools are increasing the breadth, depth, and speed of diagnostic data generated per patient, and testing is being moved closer to the patient through rapid diagnostic technologies, including point-of-care (POC) technologies. While select stakeholders have an appreciation of the value/importance of improvements in the microbial diagnostic field, there remains a disconnect between clinicians and some payers and hospital administrators in terms of understanding the potential clinical utility of these novel technologies. Therefore, a key challenge for the clinical microbiology community is to clearly articulate the value proposition of these technologies to encourage payers to cover and hospitals to adopt advanced microbiology tests. Specific guidance on how to define and demonstrate clinical utility would be valuable. Addressing this challenge will require alignment on this topic, not just by microbiologists but also by primary care and emergency room (ER) physicians, infectious disease specialists, pharmacists, hospital administrators, and government entities with an interest in public health. In this article, we discuss how to best conduct clinical studies to demonstrate and communicate clinical utility to payers and to set reasonable expectations for what diagnostic manufacturers should be required to demonstrate to support reimbursement from commercial payers and utilization by hospital systems