Leadership for Inter-organization Collaboration

This work related project implemented strategies of leadership behavior designed to assist representatives from organizations that represent state and local government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and industry make advancements to develop a sustainable collaboration among these organizations. The representatives voluntarily convene to improve the nutritional wellness of low income people in Minnesota. The dynamics of strategic leadership theory as it was applied to this project are illustrated. The purpose of this project was to identify ways to assist them inter-organization collaboration (IOC) achieve the goal: to develop and sustain a cohesive, visible, inclusive, and productive collaboration among member organizations. The objective was to understand and use specific strategic leadership behavior that can encourage representatives from member organizations to sustain the collaboration through their commitment and action. The recommendation is that the coordinator of the IOC continue this approach to advance actions that achieve the stated goal

Is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Worth it? A Pragmatic Analysis For Clinicians

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing is a treatment developed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that combines the cognitive processing of trauma with bilateral eye movements (EMs). Research has demonstrated that EMDR can be an efficacious treatment for PTSD. Other common treatments for PTSD include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy (ET). Research has demonstrated that both CBT and ET are efficacious in the treatment of PTSD. EMDR is a controversial treatment, with critics stating that it is very similar to ET and that the novel component, EMs, are irrelevant to treatment outcomes. EMDR has additional time and financial costs, including mandatory training sessions and certification to be allowed to administer the treatment. These factors make it difficult for a clinician to decide if investing in EMDR is worth it. While EMDR has demonstrated that it is efficacious to use with adults, the research on children and other populations is significantly more limited, making the use of EMDR in such populations questionable. Research demonstrates that the role of EMs in EMDR is poorly understood, with many competing explanations needing more investigation. The highest quality evidence indicates that the EMs in EMDR are irrelevant to treatment outcomes, with EMDR without any EMs performing just as well as EMDR with EMs in the treatment of PTSD. CBT and ET do not have the additional costs of EMDR, requiring only standard mental health provider licensing to administer. CBT and ET have more ample, higher quality evidence for their efficacy than EMDR. CBT and ET have also demonstrated that they are efficacious to use with children and other populations. These factors make it difficult to recommend a clinician invest in and administer EMDR. Overall, CBT and ET can be more easily administered and have greater evidence for their use than EMDR

Concentration Levels of PM2.S and PM 10 Paper Dust in a Book Production Facility

Concentration levels of PM2.5 and PM10 paper dust were measured in a book production facility using a quantitative single subject study. Dust concentration data was collected in three processes of a book manufacturing facility; paper recycling, the digital pressroom and the digital bindery. Data was collected using the DustTrak DRX 8533 Aerosol Monitor, focusing on particulate sizes of PM2.5 and PM10. The data was used to determine if paper dust in the book production industry reached concentration levels that could have negative respiratory health effects on surrounding employees and to determine which process within the studied facility had the highest concentrations of paper dust. The study revealed that the paper recycling warehouse had the highest concentrations of paper dust. It was also determined that the paper recycling warehouse could cause negative respiratory health effects on surrounding employees. Further research is needed to determine the extent of those effects and potential remediation

Distinguishing Hope and Optimism: Two Sides of a Coin, or Two Separate Coins?

Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses about (a) the dimensionality of measures of dispositional hope (the Adult Hope Scale, AHS) and dispositional optimism (the Life Orientation Test, LOT), (b) the extent and source of conceptual overlap and divergence between hope and optimism, and (c) patterns of discriminant validity for each trait. Separate two-factor models best fit the hope (Agency and Pathways, r = .68) and optimism (Optimism and Pessimism, r = -.63) data. Analyzing the combined AHS and LOT data, a measurement model with separate, correlated second-order factors of Hope and Optimism ( r = .80) provided a better fit than did a higher-order model with a single second-order factor. Optimism correlated equally with both Agency and Pathways, whereas Pessimism was more strongly correlated with Agency than with Pathways. Confirming hypotheses, second-order Optimism had a stronger influence on the use of positive reappraisal as a coping strategy than did second-order Hope, whereas second-order Hope had a stronger influence on level of general self-efficacy than did second-order Optimism. We suggest that hope focuses more directly on the personal attainment of specific goals, whereas optimism focuses more broadly on the expected quality of future outcomes in general

Blast noise classification with common sound level meter metrics

A common set of signal features measurable by a basic sound level meter are analyzed, and the quality of information carried in subsets of these features are examined for their ability to discriminate military blast and non-blast sounds. The analysis is based on over 120 000 human classified signals compiled from seven different datasets. The study implements linear and Gaussian radial basis function (RBF) support vector machines (SVM) to classify blast sounds. Using the orthogonal centroid dimension reduction technique, intuition is developed about the distribution of blast and non-blast feature vectors in high dimensional space. Recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) is then used to eliminate features containing redundant information and rank features according to their ability to separate blasts from non-blasts. Finally, the accuracy of the linear and RBF SVM classifiers is listed for each of the experiments in the dataset, and the weights are given for the linear SVM classifier. © 2012 Acoustical Society of America

Variation of density and flash point in acid degummed waste cooking oil

Recycling of waste cooking oil represents a source of convenient raw materials for industry. Within the large number of products derived from the treatment of waste cooking oil, eco-friendly lubricants grown in importance during the last years. Recycling process for such application consists usually of acid or basic degumming followed by a filtration step. The effect of the specific type of acid degumming on the density and on the flash point of the recycled oil was evaluated employing full factorial design. Two mathematical equations were derived which allow to estimate respectively the density and the flash point of the recycled oil, depending on the: (a) pH of the washing solution, (b) oil/water ratio, (c) temperature of the system, and (d) the stirring time