Nebraska public guardianship of unbefriended patients: a preliminary review of health outcomes and cost savings

Unbefriended patients often experience an extended length of stay in the hospital while their medical providers await legal appointment of a public guardian to make their medical decisions. The medically unnecessary days the unbefriended patient spends in the hospital equates to high costs for the hospital, but more importantly, negative health outcomes for the patient. The purpose of this study is to provide literature and data to support recommendations for possible changes in Nebraska’s public guardianship appointment process. A literature review seeks to answer: (1) What is the median hospital length of stay for an unbefriended patient without a guardian compared to the unbefriended patient with a guardian? (2) What are the health outcomes for unbefriended patients without a guardian compared to those with a guardian? (3) What are the cost savings for a hospital when an unbefriended patient receives a public guardian? The literature review findings will also inform an outline for a future cost savings study of the unbefriended patient population in a Nebraska hospital

Forming a personal sense of identity in the contemporary world : challenges and difficulties

This article considers some normative cultural changes that have contributed to the identity "crises" faced at least by persons living in Western cultures. Identity is conceptualized as a self-structure that provides a frame of reference for processing self-relevant information, answering questions about the meaning and purpose of one’s life, and regulating the processes that individuals use to cope and adapt in everyday life. Individuals living in the modern world characterized by accelerating technological, social, and economic changes face major challenges and problems as they attempt to form and maintain a coherent sense of personal identity. Not all people, however, deal with these identity confl icts in the same fashion. Research reveals reliable differences in how individuals negotiate or manage to avoid the tasks of constructing, maintaining, and reconstructing a sense of identity in the modern world. Three identity processing orientations are highlighted: informational, normative, and diffuse-avoidant. Although an informational processing orientation is associated with resources and skills that maximize adaptability in the modern world, those resources do not provide a set of values or frame of reference for deciding what goals people should commit to or what they should live for. Some of values used to justify identity choices in the modern world are considered

DETECTING FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH SPRINGWHEAT YIELD STABILITY IN SOUTH DAKOTA ENVIRONMENTS

Conventional yield stability analyses are focused on yield stability itself by using single linear regression method and/or additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) analysis. It is likely that yield stability for a genotype is associated with many factors such as fertilizer level, soil types, weather conditions, and/or yield components. Detection of factors highly associated with yield stability, therefore, will help breeders develop cultivars adapted to diverse environments or to specific environments. In this study, we conducted correlation analysis based on both environments and genotypes for a data set with 22 spring wheat genotypes, which were evaluated in 18 environments (combinations of years and locations) in South Dakota from 2009 to 2011. In addition, a multiple linear regression method was used to detect the associations of three agronomic traits with yield stability. The results showed that yield had diverse correlations each of three traits among different environments, indicating the importance of these three traits varied among environments. Our results also showed that plant height played a consistent important role on spring wheat yield production while the other two traits played less frequent role on yield production based on multiple linear regression analyses

Identity development and forgivingness: tests of basic relations and mediational pathways

Adaptive identity development leads to increases in personality traits that allow for social well-being. The current study tested this claim with respect to forgivingness, a dispositional tendency to forgive others. In a sample of university undergraduates (N = 214), we examined the relations between forgivingness and two indicators of identity development: commitment and exploration. Forgivingness uniquely positively related with both identity variables, controlling for the other. Next, we tested mediational models to examine the mechanisms underlying these relationships. Our results suggest that, in part, the association between identity development and forgivingness is mediated by levels of agreeableness and neuroticism, as measured by the Big Five Inventory

STATISTICAL TESTS FOR STABILITY ANALYSIS WITH RESAMPLING TECHNIQUES

Crop trials or crop performance trials (CPT), which are among the most important activities associated with plant breeding programs, are commonly used to measure the performance stability of genotypes. Several methods which include variation, regression, and cluster analyses for determination of crop stability have been proposed and are commonly used. However, many of these approaches require the use of normally distributed data. Thus, commonly used statistical tests, like the t- or F-test may not be appropriate when the assumptions of data are violated. In this study, two resampling techniques (jackknife and bootstrapping) were integrated into several crop stability analyses. An upland cotton data set from China was analyzed to demonstrate the utility of these methods in measuring performance stability

2010 Winter Wheat Variety Yield Results and Planting Tips

Conditions were very dry for planting last September for the western and central part of the state. And while there were good rains in early October, the cold temperatures led to a slow start for the wheat. Fortunately November was warmer than average, which allowed most locations to get decent fall growth. The northwest part of the state suffered a hard freeze on May 8th causing some freeze injury to the crop. Spring and early summer conditions were wet for most of the state, favoring increased disease pressure. The north central part of South Dakota was dry in June, which caused some drought stress in those areas. Harvest was hampered by rainy and humid conditions in July and early August. This made it difficult to get the grain dry enough to harvest and frequent rains on the ripe grain caused lower test weights in some areas. Yields from the Crop Performance Testing Program averaged 59 bu/A statewide, ranging from 28 bu/A at Bison to 84 bu/A at Selby. The results for Winner and Martin are not reported due to heavy weed pressure at Winner and high yield variation at Martin. Locations with higher than ideal trial variation (CV\u3e14) were Bison (dry fall, freeze injury), Kennebec (cheatgrass), Brookings non-intensive (disease pressure) and Beresford (storm damage). The top performing varieties at East River locations in 2010 were Expedition, Art, Settler CL, Overland and Lyman; while Hatcher, Lyman, Wesley, Camelot, Millennium and Wahoo did the best in West River locations. The varieties Overland, Expedition, Smoky Hill, Lyman, Wendy, Millennium, Wesley and Darrell had the best three-year statewide average yields. 2011 variety recommendations are included in this publication. Changes include: dropping NuDakota (not tested in 2010) and Arapahoe (poor yield performance) from the recommendations moving Harding down from the recommended to the acceptable/promising list, moving Lyman and Smoky Hill up from the acceptable/promising to the recommended list and adding Art and Settler CL to the acceptable/ promising list

2009 Winter Wheat Variety Yield Results and Planting Tips

2009 turned out to be mixed bag for winter wheat production in South Dakota. Some areas in the west and central part of the state did not get much rain in the fall. Dry conditions in these areas delayed germination, setting back seedling development and resulting in thin stands. The Wall, Martin, and Pierre locations were within this dry region. At Martin, a combination of thin stands and downy brome weed pressure adversely affected plant development and yield. Yield results from Martin are not included in this report. Most locations in the eastern part of the state had adequate moisture in the fall to get winter wheat off to a good start. Weather conditions remained cool and wet for most of the growing season in the western part of the state. These conditions slowed down crop development and delayed harvest. Two locations (Sturgis and Bison) were not harvested in time for the results to be included in this publication. Yield results from the two locations will be included in the publication EC774 – 2009 Crop Performance Results, which will be available at the end of the year

The Revised Identity Style Inventory: Factor Structure and Validity in Italian Speaking Students

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the factor structure and convergent and discriminant validity of scores on an Italian translation of the Revised Identity Style Inventory (ISI-5) with samples of 237 adolescents (50 males, Mage = 18.04, SD = .86) and 268 university students (42 males, Mage = 22.71, SD = 3.70). Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicated that a three-factor solution provided a good fit, which was invariant across age and sex groups. The theoretically relationships between scores on the ISI and scores on measures of reasoning and identity processes, identity commitment, and social desirability were partially consistent, thus further studies are needed to give more evidence to the convergent and discriminant validity

Forming a Personal Sense of Identity in the Contemporary World: Challenges and Difficulties

This article considers some normative cultural changes that have contributed to the identity “crises” faced at least by persons living in Western cultures. Identity is conceptualized as a self-structure that provides a frame of reference for processing self-relevant information, answering questions about the meaning and purpose of one’s life, and regulating the processes that individuals use to cope and adapt in everyday life. Individuals living in the modern world characterized by accelerating technological, social, and economic changes face major challenges and problems as they attempt to form and maintain a coherent sense of personal identity. Not all people, however, deal with these  identity confl icts in the same fashion. Research reveals reliable differences in how individuals negotiate or manage to avoid the tasks of constructing, maintaining, and reconstructing a sense of identity in the modern world. Three identity processing orientations are highlighted: informational, normative, and diffuse-avoidant. Although an informational processing orientation is associated with resources and skills that maximize adaptability in the modern world,  those resources do not provide a set of values or frame of reference for deciding what goals people should commit to or what they should live for. Some of values used to justify identity choices in the modern world are considered

Cognitive Processes and Identity Formation: The Mediating Role of Identity Processing Style

Identity formation is conceptualized in terms of a social‐cognitive model that postulates stylistic differences in how people negotiate or manage to evade the challenge of constructing, maintaining, and/or reconstructing their sense of identity. Some people adopt an informed, refl ective orientation to identity conflicts and questions; others take a more automatic, normative approach; whereas others procrastinate and delay identity decisions until situational demands and consequences dictate how they react. The role that general rational and automatic cognitive processes and identity processing styles play in identity formation is considered. Research that has evaluated the theoretical hypothesis according to which the linkage between rational and automatic reasoning processes and measures of identity formation is mediated by identity processing style is reviewed. The fi ndings indicated that rational and automatic cognitive processes generally did account for signifi cant variance on measures of identity formation including strength of commitment, types of selfattributes within which one’s identity was grounded, and identity status. However, the fi ndings further revealed that identity processing styles at least in part mediated most of the relationships between cognitive processes and identity formation. In all of the analyses, identity processing styles explained a greater amount of the unique variation in measures of identity formation than the cognitive variables