Peer Mentorship in Nursing Schools: A Pilot Study

Undergraduate Theoretical Proposa

The formal approaches and multicultural considerations of assessing aphasia for the neurogenic population from the perspective of a monolingual clinician

Aphasia is a neurogenic disorder, most commonly caused by stroke, which affects speaking, listening, reading, and/or writing skills. Persons with aphasia are typically left with communication limitations despite unaffected cognition. Many of the standardized assessments available for aphasia examination are not realistic instruments. Formal assessments are time consuming and rarely include multicultural or multilingual materials. The clinician must allow every opportunity for the PWA to demonstrate their communicative abilities during an aphasia assessment. This requires providing stimuli materials relevant to the PWA’s culture, assessing in the PWA’s primary language, and conducting the exam quickly to prevent fatigue. The ECLS-B is an informal aphasia screener developed for English-dominant, monolingual speech pathologists. It serves as practical assessment of communication skills for Spanish- or English-dominant PWA in the acute setting. The ECLS-B examines cognitive-linguistic skills, auditory comprehension, and oral expression

Every Step of Rome

Through this project I created a publication that depicted my time in Rome during my semester abroad through photographs, imagery, typography and graphic elements. In Rome, I collected research to create a publication that shows what I did through the semester. I collected information to create infographics and visual elements in a publication. Information includes things like how many steps I took to what I spent my time and money on. I then used this information to create a comprehensive report of what I did during the semester. I also collected historical information and interesting facts on the sites I visited and why they are of importance. This publication allowed me to explore the aspects that make up a well-designed publication. When I returned from Italy, I designed the piece, looking at how photography and imagery interacted with typography on each page. I also took an in-depth look at how typography works in a publication format. I wanted to focus on how a publication is successful through the style of each page and how each single page combines to create a whole publication. I included infographic elements through this publication to document my time in Rome in a visually interesting way. Looking at how each infographic element interacts with the aspects around it allowed me to further my knowledge of infographics and typography. Once everything was designed, I printed and bound the publication so others may easily interact with it. I also prepared a poster about my research and book to share with others

The Coronary Circulation in an \u3cem\u3eIn Vitro\u3c/em\u3e Multi-Scale Model of the Stage 1 Norwood Procedure

Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) is a congenital heart disease where the left ventricle and ascending aorta are underdeveloped. The first of three palliative surgeries for this malformation is the Norwood procedure. In this surgery, an opening is made between the left and right atrium so that all blood can flow into the right ventricle (RV). A reconstructed aorta is anastomosed (connected) to the RV so that the RV can pump oxygenated blood to the body (the systemic circulation). To divert part of the systemic blood flow to the pulmonary circulation, the modified Blalock-Taussig Shunt (mBTS) is connected from the innominate artery to the pulmonary artery. However, Norwood patients with an mBTS may experience retrograde flow from the coronary circulation (which supplies blood to the heart) to the pulmonary circulation via the mBTS. This shunt steal of coronary blood can lead to detrimental issues such as myocardial ischemia leading to right ventricular dysfunction. In this study, a multi-scale model of the Norwood procedure couples a three-dimensional (3D) test section of the reconstructed aortic arch with a lumped parameter network (LPN) describing the Norwood patient\u27s global hemodynamics. Previously, only in silico multi-scale models of the Norwood circulation have modeled the coronary circulation and the effects of varying mBTS sizes on coronary perfusion. Here, a novel in vitro coronary circulation model is adapted from such in silico studies and implemented into a previously validated in vitro mock circulatory system (MCS) of the Norwood with mBTS palliation. The MCS was verified against an analytical model and validated using a patient-specific test section and data. A parametric test in which the size of the mBTS inner diameter was varied from 3mm to 4mm was performed. The results showed that increasing mBTS size results in decreased diastolic aortic pressure, which decreases coronary blood flow (CBF) during diastole

An improved method for isolation of RNA from bone

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bone physiology is increasingly appreciated as an important contributor to metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes. However, progress in understanding the role of bone in determining metabolic health is hampered by the well-described difficulty of obtaining high quality RNA from bone for gene expression analysis using the currently available approaches.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed a simple approach to isolate bone RNA that combines pulverizing the bone and the phenol-guanidinium based RNA extraction in a single step while maintaining near-freezing temperatures. This single step method increases the yield of high quality RNA by eight-fold, with RNA integrity numbers ranging from 6.7 to 9.2.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our streamlined approach substantially increases the yield of high-quality RNA from bone tissue while facilitating safe and efficient processing of multiple samples using readily available platforms. The RNA obtained from this method is suitable for use in gene expression analysis in real-time quantitative PCR, microarray, and next generation sequencing applications.</p

Comparison of Two Reminder Interventions to Achieve Adequate Water Intake and Hydration in Women: A Pilot Study

Introduction: This pilot study examined the effectiveness of 2 different 5-week reminder interventions to achieve adequate water intake and hydration in women as well as the effects of body composition and self-efficacy on hydration. Methods: Twenty-two apparently healthy adult women were randomly assigned to the 64 oz. motivational water bottle group (n = 11), or the water reminder – daily tracker app group (n = 11). Body composition, predicted VO2max, and self-efficacy were assessed at baseline, post 5-week intervention, and after a 30-day follow-up period. Urine markers (color, specific gravity, and pH) were reported at baseline, weekly throughout the 5-week intervention, and the last 3 days of the 30-day follow-up period. During the interventions, participants self-reported daily step count, resting heart rate, water intake, and symptoms of dehydration. Results: Both 5-week reminder interventions successfully increased water intake by an average of 29% with a mean daily consumption of 72.05 + 18.75 ounces, meeting recommendations. Based on regression analysis, self-efficacy predicted daily water intake at the end of the 5-week intervention (p = 0.03). Urine markers of hydration classified several participants as dehydrated at the end of 5 weeks. In addition, there was a significant inverse relationship between BMI and Ucol at baseline (p = 0.05), week 5 (p = 0.05), and follow-up (p = 0.04), indicating that women with a higher BMI were more dehydrated. In hydrated participants, memory and ability to concentrate significantly improved (p = 0.019). Results indicated there were no significant differences in water intake and hydration between the 2 groups at baseline, week 5, and follow-up. Conclusions: Both 5-week interventions successfully increased water intake. However, based on urine markers of hydration women may be more prone to involuntary, chronic dehydration due to a higher body fat percentage