The effect of different paddock rotation strategies for organic sows on behaviour, welfare and the environment

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference. Two alternative paddock rotations for dry sows were established on an organic farm: Rotational (40 x 40m moved three times per year) and Set Stocked (120 x 40m in place for one year). Sows showed distinct preferences in the location of dunging and urination within the paddocks (p<0.001), but no differences between the paddocks. Vegetation cover under the sows was similar overall in the two paddock systems, but showed differences over the year. Work to model the potential for nutrient leaching in the two paddock systems is ongoing

Librarians Leading Open Textbook Efforts

A case study of how one regional comprehensive university leveraged its institutional repository infrastructure and faculty relationships to develop the first open textbook in the field of African American Studies. This was used as a springboard to open wider discussions across the entire campus about adopting Open Educational Resources (OERs) across all disciplines in order to save students money, increase student success, provide faculty with publishing opportunities, and to provide marketing and recruitment potential for individual programs and the university as a whole. Ongoing initiatives include: an ad hoc faculty senate committee on OERs; a grant proposal to fund incentives for faculty to adopt OERs in their courses; discussions with the bookstore on encouraging OERs; and hosting workshops for faculty on OERs

Moderated Mediation Analysis: A Review and Application to School Climate Research

Moderated mediation analysis is a valuable technique for assessing whether an indirect effect is conditional on values of a moderating variable. We review the basis of moderation and mediation and their integration into a combined model of moderated mediation within a regression framework. Thereafter, an analytic and interpretive illustration of the technique is provided in the context of a substantive school climate research question. The illustration is based on a sample of 318 high schools that examines whether school-wide student engagement mediates the association between the prevalence of teasing and bullying (PTB) and academic achievement on a state-mandated reading exam; and whether this indirect effect was moderated by student perceptions of teacher support

Publishing Open Access e-Journals: Leveraging an Outreach Opportunity

Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) Libraries began exploring the institutional repository (IR) landscape in 2009 with the intention of publishing electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), journals, special collections, images, videos, sound files, or anything else that would fit a need for us. The hosted systems we examined were effective as either platforms for displaying special collections or platforms for managing publishing processes. However, we didn’t find a system that did both of those things well

Motor Symptoms as a Prodrome to Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia occurs in 1% of the population and is severely impairing to those afflicted. Thereby, it is of the utmost importance to recognize and treat the disorder as early as possible. For the last several decades research has attempted to elucidate a variety of predictive factors in order to aid in the identification of patients at high risk of developing a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. These factors have included premorbid or prodromal movement symptoms. The literature has identified motor aberrations beginning early in life, in some cases even in infancy, ranging from neonatal hypotonicity to facial and upper body dyskinesia. These motor symptoms have not only been demonstrated to aid in predicting conversion to schizophrenia but carry prognostic importance for other outcomes as well. We present the case of a 34-year-old male who developed abnormal motor symptoms several years prior to the onset of psychosis. Our case builds upon the current body of literature by demonstrating the importance of spontaneous dyskinesia in the evaluation of populations at high risk for the development of a schizophrenia spectrum illnesses

Instruments to measure the inpatient hospital experience: A literature review

Healthcare professionals worldwide are increasingly broadening their focus to include the experiences of patients and their family members as a means of assessing quality patient centered care. This paper seeks to identify and discuss instruments specifically designed to measure the inpatient hospital experience. A literature search focusing on pre-identified instruments as per the Health Foundation’s Helping Measuring Patient Centered Care database of measurement instruments (de Silva, 2014) and additional health databases (CINAHL, ERIC, EBSCO, HaPI, MEDLINE, PubMed and Psych INFO) was undertaken. Thirteen relevant instruments and seventeen associated studies (regarding instrument development and or validation) were identified. These instruments provide generalizable but less descriptive experience data, are predominantly based on post hospital discharge data and do not have identified feedback to staff mechanisms. Further research is warranted to co-develop an inpatient hospital experience instrument, designed to capture real time descriptive data with a corresponding feedback process to frontline clinicians. Ideally such an instrument could be designed using a participatory research methodology, whereby patients, friends, family and healthcare clinicians are equal co-developers