A Qualitative Study of Patients’ Perceptions of Guided Self-Help for Anxiety

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Attitudes Towards Climate Change and Sustainability

Climate change is an important issue in the world today and the University of Richmond has the ability to make a difference. The purpose of this project was to gain information about University of Richmond students’ awareness, attitudes, and behaviors related to climate change and sustainability on campus. A short survey was composed and sent to students via email. Over the course of two weeks, 274 students completed the survey. The data from the survey was composed and analyzed. Based on the data, for the most part our community’s behaviors have stayed consistent. Student awareness has slightly increased but they do not appear to be changing their behaviors based on that. Looking forward we need to engage our community in order to make necessary changes. Recommendations were made in three main areas: transportation, waste management, and education and outreach

Attitudes Towards Climate Change and Sustainability

The University of Richmond has made great strides as a community to decrease our carbon emissions and live in a more sustainable way. In November of 2007 President Ayers signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which resolves Richmond to mitigate climate change. In response to this action, the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar of 2008 created a report outlining the view of our community about these issues, as well as, offer recommendations for our campus. We, the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Class of 2014 have chosen to focus our capstone on climate change. We recognize that climate change is an imminent threat and that our community can make a difference in climate change mitigation. As a class, we have come to the conclusion that the key to prompting climate action on an individual and global scale is communication. We need to find the best way to communicate complex issues surrounding climate change to the general public. To that end, we chose to conduct another survey of the student body to assess student knowledge and concern regarding climate change and to determine how best to communicate with UR students. This particular project had three goals: 1) reissue the 2008 survey to see how UR\u27s campus attitudes have changed 2) compare our data to other schools 3) recommend new programs and options addressing climate change to UR

The Potential Impact Of Introduced Commensal Rodents On Island Flora

The impact of introduced commensal rodents on island flora has been relatively little studied compared with their impact on the fauna. The effects on vegetation composition, regeneration, and decomposition are largely unknown, but potentially great. Preliminary studies were carried out in the Galapagos Islands between 1993 and 1994 on the diet of introduced rats, Rattus spp. and feral house mice, Mus musculus, seed recovery rates and subsequent germination rates of seeds. R. rattus diet was primarily vegetation and 48% of rats had seeds in their stomachs. Significant differences were found between body size and overall contribution of both vegetable and animal foods, larger rats eating proportionately more animal foods and less vegetable. There was no significant difference between the sexes in terms of main dietary components. There was no significant difference in the selection of food types between R. rattus and R. norvegicus, both species tended to prefer banana and avocado, and only rats from the Miconia zones showed a preference for Miconia berries. No intact seeds were found in the stomachs of feral house mice from the same sites. Recovered seeds of two native and two introduced plant species were successfully germinated under laboratory conditions. R. norvegicus is potentially a better dispersal agent for seeds as it has a greater tendency to ingest them intact. The implications of these findings for the conservation of island flora are discussed

Fire behaviour of pultruded composites

This thesis describes the development of a model to predict the failure response of loaded pultruded composites in fire. The model takes an existing thermal model [1- 9] capable of describing temperature evolution and residual resin content as functions of time through a pultrusion for fires with heat-fluxes up to and including 125kWmý. Experiments were developed to determine how tensile and compressive strength (aT and ac), and longitudinal and transverse stiffhess (Ei and E2) of the composites varied with temperature. This required specialised equipment to be designed and fabricated. The mechanical property data were recorded as functions of temperature and combined with the thermal model and classical laminate theory. The resulting failure model, outputs tensile and compressive strength of the pultrusion as a function of time for fires with heat- fluxes up to and including 125kWm-2. A, B, D matrix evolution as a function of time is also produced. The modelling procedure was carried out for polyester and phenolic glass fibrereinforced pultrusions subjected to a 5OkWm-2 heat-flux and verified by a series of propane burner tests. The modelled tensile and compressive results match the data from the propane burner tests to a reasonable degree of accuracy. It was shown that the materials were more susceptible to compressive failure rather than tensile failure, when subjected to a fire. Work on the model was supplemented by a series of larger scale fire tests on box and T sections, including flexure tests in a pool fire and temperature controlled furnace. In both tests it was found that failure occurred on the compressive side of the section, with a failure time in the order of 100 seconds. Compression tests were also carried out on short box columns to investigate the effect various fire protections systems had on failure time of the columns, when surrounded by a heat-flux of 50k)V2. It was found that protecting the loaded section inside an insulating sleeve proved the most successful approach.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEPSRC : Fiberline CompositesGBUnited Kingdo

Perceptions Of Fraternity And Sorority Advisors On Alumni Chapter Advisors

Greek letter organizations are unique student organizations because they are supported, not only by student affairs professionals, but also by alumni chapter advisors. These advisors can influence organizational culture unconsciously through their underlying assumptions and beliefs. The purpose of this study was to examine how Fraternity and Sorority Advisors (FSA) perceive the influence of alumni chapter advisors. A survey instrument collected data from 289 respondents on eight separate constructs based on current literature. Through data reduction the survey items became five factors: high-risk behaviors, leadership development and mentorship, diversity equity and inclusion, philanthropy and service, and persistence and retention. Multiple regression analysis indicated FSAs who advise NIC organizations perceive alumni chapter advisors as promoting high-risk behaviors. The data also indicated FSAs perceive alumni chapter advisors as more accepting of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Northeast when compared with the South. Qualitative data collected information from FSAs about the “pressing issues” associated when working with alumni chapter advisors. Additionally, FSAs perceived differences when working with the alumni chapter advisors from different organizations. National headquarters and campus leaders can utilize the findings of this study to enact policy changes or explore creating better curriculum for alumni chapter advisors. However, this study is only the first step in understanding the role of alumni chapter advisors on the culture of undergraduate Greek letter organizations

Prognostic model to predict postoperative acute kidney injury in patients undergoing major gastrointestinal surgery based on a national prospective observational cohort study.

Background: Acute illness, existing co-morbidities and surgical stress response can all contribute to postoperative acute kidney injury (AKI) in patients undergoing major gastrointestinal surgery. The aim of this study was prospectively to develop a pragmatic prognostic model to stratify patients according to risk of developing AKI after major gastrointestinal surgery. Methods: This prospective multicentre cohort study included consecutive adults undergoing elective or emergency gastrointestinal resection, liver resection or stoma reversal in 2-week blocks over a continuous 3-month period. The primary outcome was the rate of AKI within 7 days of surgery. Bootstrap stability was used to select clinically plausible risk factors into the model. Internal model validation was carried out by bootstrap validation. Results: A total of 4544 patients were included across 173 centres in the UK and Ireland. The overall rate of AKI was 14·2 per cent (646 of 4544) and the 30-day mortality rate was 1·8 per cent (84 of 4544). Stage 1 AKI was significantly associated with 30-day mortality (unadjusted odds ratio 7·61, 95 per cent c.i. 4·49 to 12·90; P < 0·001), with increasing odds of death with each AKI stage. Six variables were selected for inclusion in the prognostic model: age, sex, ASA grade, preoperative estimated glomerular filtration rate, planned open surgery and preoperative use of either an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker. Internal validation demonstrated good model discrimination (c-statistic 0·65). Discussion: Following major gastrointestinal surgery, AKI occurred in one in seven patients. This preoperative prognostic model identified patients at high risk of postoperative AKI. Validation in an independent data set is required to ensure generalizability