Effects of various home freezer wraps on frozen ground pork

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1985 C525Master of Scienc

MS

thesisOne hundred and four families who had received services from the Intermountain Cystic Fibrosis Pediatric Gastrointestinal Center within the past year agreed to participate in a retrospective, exploratory study of the relationship between stressful life events and the severity of cystic fibrosis (CF). Supporting the hypotheses, life events of both the primary caretaker and the CF child were found to be related to CF severity. Of the various measures of CF severity, two measures of pulmonary involvement, current antibiotic therapy and the x-ray component of the Shwachman score were found to be the most strongly related to stressful life events. A multiple regression analysis of the primary caretaker's life events identified eight events which accounted for 19% of the variability of each of these two pulmonary measures. In declining order of importance, these life events included marital separation, vacations, change in work responsibilities, a loan of less than $10,000, gaining a new family member, divorce, change in living conditions, and change in social activities. It was concluded that these events may interfere with the primary care taker's ability to provide home pulmonary therapy. Alternative interpretations were discussed

INTERACTIONS AMONG CLIMATE, FIRE, AND ECOSYSTEM PROCESSES ACROSS MULTIPLE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL SCALES IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN FORESTS

Warmer and drier climate conditions over recent decades are contributing to widespread increases in fire activity across western North America. The combined impacts of changing climate and fire activity threaten to undermine the longstanding resilience of forest ecosystems to wildfires, potentially leading to ecological transformations. This context creates a pressing need to understand the direct effects of climate and wildfire on ecosystem processes, and how longer-term changes in climate, fire activity, and ecosystem processes interact to determine ecological trajectories. This dissertation advances our understanding of the causes and ecosystem consequences of wildfire and changing fire regimes in northern Rocky Mountain forests over years to millennia. In Chapter 1, I utilized extensive field sampling in two recent wildfires in western Montana to document how fires alter microclimatic conditions in biologically meaningful ways for regenerating and surviving vegetation. Through a subsequent study that tracked conifer seedling demography over the first three years following these wildfires, Chapter 2 highlights how spatial heterogeneity in fire effects can facilitate tree regeneration following wildfires, provided suitable post-fire climate. Overall, forests are exhibiting early signs of resilience to these two fire events. Chapters 3 and 4 utilized paleoecological methods to address questions of long-term ecosystem change, and relationships among climate, fire activity, and ecosystem processes. In Chapter 3 I used a high-resolution, multiproxy lake-sediment record from the northern Rockies to reconstruct fire activity and ecosystem change over the past 4800 years. Changes in vegetation and fire activity coincident with increased effective moisture c. 2000 years ago highlight the overarching impact of climate on shaping ecosystem processes. Past wildfires had diverse, detectable impacts on biogeochemical processes, and evidence of ecosystem resilience to wildfires was consistent across variations in climate, vegetation, and fire activity over the late Holocene. Chapter 4 addressed variability in fire activity across a broader landscape, much of it burned during the historic 1910 fire season. I developed a network of 12 lake-sediment records to reconstruct a landscape-scale fire history over the past 2500 years and quantify the historical range of variability. This perspective reveals that contemporary burning, including the 1910 fires, remains within the historical range of fire activity in subalpine forests in this region. My findings imply that northern Rocky Mountain subalpine forests are currently experiencing fire activity and ecological dynamics broadly consistent with historical variability. However, each chapter also highlights the sensitivity of multiple forest ecosystem processes to climate conditions and climate variability. Given the rapid rate of ongoing climatic change, subalpine forests will become increasingly vulnerable to widespread shifts in composition and structure. Future research could focus on identifying thresholds to change and early warning signals

Reflections on SoTL in a Graduate Health Professions Course Sequence

Facilitating learning in graduate programs that prepare students to enter a health profession presents unique challenges since students in these programs have completed undergraduate degrees, but are entering graduate studies in a new field. This paper describes the SoTL process used by two faculty members to facilitate independent learning and critical thinking in a course sequence in a graduate physical therapy program. Design, implementation, and outcomes of modifications to the course sequence are described. The paper includes our reflections on the SoTL process and lessons learned about strategies for facilitating learning in this student population

Controlling the Precision-Recall Tradeoff in Differential Dependency Network Analysis

Graphical models have gained a lot of attention recently as a tool for learning and representing dependencies among variables in multivariate data. Often, domain scientists are looking specifically for differences among the dependency networks of different conditions or populations (e.g. differences between regulatory networks of different species, or differences between dependency networks of diseased versus healthy populations). The standard method for finding these differences is to learn the dependency networks for each condition independently and compare them. We show that this approach is prone to high false discovery rates (low precision) that can render the analysis useless. We then show that by imposing a bias towards learning similar dependency networks for each condition the false discovery rates can be reduced to acceptable levels, at the cost of finding a reduced number of differences. Algorithms developed in the transfer learning literature can be used to vary the strength of the imposed similarity bias and provide a natural mechanism to smoothly adjust this differential precision-recall tradeoff to cater to the requirements of the analysis conducted. We present real case studies (oncological and neurological) where domain experts use the proposed technique to extract useful differential networks that shed light on the biological processes involved in cancer and brain function

L2/Ln Sign Language Tests and Assessment Procedures and Evaluation

The purpose of this review is to investigate sign language assessments in use as a tool for evaluating the linguistic abilities for job related requirements for bilingual professionals. Each corresponding sign language assessment will be discussed in terms of its original purpose, content, how it is used today, followed by a discussion of its psychometric properties via strengths and weaknesses. In some cases, when available, a discussion of the background in regards to test development will be given. Psychometrically sound assessments will allow a more consistent evaluation of the professionals who support the Deaf community. In terms of research, having normed measures will lead to an increase in research to improve pedagogical practices and the delivery of educational services

A Bridge to the Future: Cultivating Academic Leadership Today for Better Communities Tomorrow

The purpose of this project is to develop a plan for expanding and funding the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute (GEHLI). Currently, teams of leadership scholars selected from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) develop projects relating to the academic community in addition to studying the dynamics of effective leadership. Consistent with VCU\u27s vision of partnering with and service to metropolitan Richmond, we propose that future teams of leadership scholars develop outreach projects that involve and benefit the local community. The training in which scholars would participate would include learning about the Richmond community, its needs and goals, as well as the dynamics of leadership. Project teams would collaborate with community groups or leaders, thereby strengthening the bonds between VCU and the community, and providing public service, in accordance with VCU\u27s mission. Projects might include education, outreach, fundraising, mentoring, or research that would benefit Richmond and provide scholars with opportunities to network with local leaders. Financial and philanthropic resources will be investigated and a list of potential funding organizations will be generated

Adaptation to externally driven Change: The Impact of political Change on Job Satisfaction in the Public Sector

We use a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the adaptation of job satisfaction to externally driven political change in the public sector. This is important because democratic government bureaucracies often experience changes in leadership after elections. Our analyses are based on data drawn from a large longitudinal dataset, the British Household Panel Survey. We find that the impact of political elections is largely weak and temporary, and is only present for men. For women the internal processes of the organization tend to be more important. These findings suggest that changes in political leadership may not be associated with fundamental changes in policy