An isolated epizootic of hemorrhagic-like fever in cats caused by a novel and highly virulent strain of feline calicivirus.

An isolated epizootic of a highly fatal feline calicivirus (FCV) infection, manifested in its severest form by a systemic hemorrhagic-like fever, occurred over a 1-month period among six cats owned by two different employees and a client of a private veterinary practice. The infection may have started with an unowned shelter kitten that was hospitalized during this same period for a severe atypical upper respiratory infection. The causative agent was isolated from blood and nasal swabs from two cats; the electron microscopic appearance was typical for FCV and capsid gene sequencing showed it to be genetically similar to other less pathogenic field strains. An identical disease syndrome was recreated in laboratory cats through oral inoculation with tissue culture grown virus. During the course of transmission studies in experimental cats, the agent was inadvertently spread by caretakers to an adjoining room containing a group of four normal adult cats. One of the four older cats was found dead and a second was moribund within 48-72h in spite of symptomatic treatment; lesions in these animals were similar to those of the field cats but with the added feature of severe pancreatitis. The mortality in field cats, deliberately infected laboratory cats, and inadvertently infected laboratory cats ranged from 33-50%. This new isolate of calicivirus, named FCV-Ari, was neutralized at negligible to low titer by antiserum against the universal FCV-F9 vaccine strain. Cats orally immunized with FCV-F9, and then challenge-exposed shortly thereafter with FCV-Ari, developed a milder self-limiting form of disease, indicating partial protection. However, all of the field cats, including the three that died, had been previously immunized with parenteral FCV-F9 vaccine. FCV-Ari caused a disease that was reminiscent of Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease, a highly fatal calicivirus infection of older rabbits

Servant first : a multicase study exploring servant leadership in community college instructional administrators

The purpose of this study was to explore the application of servant leadership principles to community college instructional administration. The study conducted was a multicase research design. The conceptual framework for the study was based on Greenleaf’s work in servant leadership as expressed in 10 characteristics of servant leaders defined by Spears: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Three community college chief academic officers were selected through a nomination process. Chief academic officer participants were selected because they were identified by their presidents and peers as displaying characteristics that appeared to be consistent with servant leadership. The three chief academic officers participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews, observation, and document analysis. In addition, five or six direct reports of each chief academic officer participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews regarding their supervisor’s leadership. The major findings of the study affirmed that all three chief academic officers displayed all 10 characteristics of a servant leader identified by Spears, with three of those characteristics being identified more frequently than the others and one characteristic being identified less frequently than the others. The varied strengths were reflective of the chief academic officers’ diverse backgrounds, interests, and passions. Characteristics displayed by the three chief academic officers in addition to the 10 characteristics identified by Spears included honesty, courage, commitment to family, dedication, flexibility, and informality. The study also revealed that the direct reports attributed many positive experiences to their supervisor’s leadership philosophy and behaviors. One criticism was the amount of time consumed by the collaborative effort that is a hallmark of the three CAOs’ leadership. The study concluded that there are servant leaders who occupy positions as community college chief academic officers. It was further concluded that those who report to servant leaders who occupy positions as community college chief academic officers have very positive and satisfying work experiences that largely stem from their supervisor’s leadership style. The study concluded with recommendations for community college administrators, servant leaders, and future researchers

Cognitive Intervention For Individuals With Probable MCI: A Pilot Study

The dementia population has accumulated to 47 million people, creating an $818 billion global expense. Approximately 20% of people 65 and older are living with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a pre-dementia stage of Alzheimer's disease. Cognitive intervention strategies have the potential to reduce the prevalence of dementia due to their ability to slow the conversion to dementia. Speech-language pathologists are uniquely positioned to identify and treat cognitive impairments. If intervention strategies could delay the onset of dementia by five years, there could be a 57% decrease in the dementia population. A single group, pre/post-test design was used. Thirty-six elders at-risk for cognitive decline participated. Eight weeks of group-based, cognitive-linguistic intervention was administered, implementing language stimulation, social engagement, and person-centered memory strategies. Measures of verbal episodic memory, linguistic comprehension and expression, mental status, and visuospatial skills were administered pre- and post-intervention. Data was analyzed using paired samples t-tests. Significant differences were found of assessment measures of linguistic comprehension, linguistic expression, and visuospatial construction following the intervention. Results nearing significance were found on assessment measures of verbal episodic memory. These results support the hypothesis that group-based, cognitive-linguistic intervention programs have the potential to improve cognition and language. Additional research is merited

Johnson, nature, and women : the early years

Critics enamoured of James Boswell's Life of Johnson have too frequently overlooked the empathy Samuel Johnson's work reveals toward women and other creatures of nature caught in the patriarchal web of eighteenth century domination. This dissertation focuses on Johnson's youthful poetry beginning with his earliest verse, "On a Daffodill," and concluding with London, his first major poem. These selections reveal his inability to resolve his role as a functioning male in a repressive society which discourages his desire for direct and nurturing relationships with women and nature that deal, not with heroic abstractions, but with personal involvement

Body knowledge and repetition: re-conceiving ability through students' visual narratives of sport, physical education and fitness

The purpose of this dissertation study was to investigate how students enrolled in two different undergraduate core kinesiology courses conceived knowledge of the body through visual storytelling, a mode of writing that uses visual elements, like photographs, to tell a story. For the purposes of the study, body knowledge (Evans and Davies, 2004) was constrained to sport, physical education and fitness. This dissertation study had three research questions and one practical purpose. One, how did students chose to tell their stories, what images and storylines were included and which were left out? In other words, what repetitive or reoccurring themes about the body in the contexts of exercise, physical education and sport emerged from these visual narratives? Two, how did these repetitions (Kumashiro, 2003) construct knowledge of active body and what were the obstacles to addressing them? In other words, did the students select images or themes that overemphasized particular gender, racial, or economic groups, or body sizes, and if so what are potential road blocks to remedying them? Three, why are these repetitions of body knowledge needed? After addressing these three questions, this study aimed to provide kinesiology and HPE educators with practical pedagogical strategies for addressing (visual) repetitions of body knowledge within the curriculum. Following Norman Fairclough's (2005) critical discourse analysis (CDA) methodology, this study analyzed 18 visual narratives and found that gender and physical ability was an overarching theme in the students' narratives

Nonnegative solutions of nonlinear fractional Laplacian equations

The study of reaction-diffusion equations involving nonlocal diffusion operators has recently flourished. The fractional Laplacian is an example of a nonlocal diffusion operator which allows long-range interactions in space, and it is therefore important from the application point of view. The fractional Laplacian operator plays a similar role in the study of nonlocal diffusion operators as the Laplacian operator does in the local case. Therefore, the goal of this dissertation is a systematic treatment of steady state reaction-diffusion problems involving the fractional Laplacian as the diffusion operator on a bounded domain and to investigate existence (and nonexistence) results with respect to a bifurcation parameter. In particular, we establish existence results for positive solutions depending on the behavior of a nonlinear reaction term near the origin and at infinity. We use topological degree theory as well as the method of sub- and supersolutions to prove our existence results. In addition, using a moving plane argument, we establish that, for a class of steady state reaction-diffusion problems involving the fractional Laplacian, any nonnegative nontrivial solution in a ball must be positive, and hence radially symmetric and radially decreasing. Finally, we provide numerical bifurcation diagrams and the profiles of numerical positive solutions, corresponding to theoretical results, using finite element methods in one and two dimensions

A framework linking discipline-based art education and visualization to a social studies curriculum

The purpose of this study was to correlate discipline-based art education with visualization and to propose a framework by which this correlation might be used to integrate the art curriculum with the social studies curriculum. The procedure was to research the critical concepts drawn from discipline-based art education and the operative concepts drawn from visualization. The concepts were integrated with the art education curriculum and the social studies curriculum. Components of the curriculum framework integrating art and social studies are: First, identification of the theories which are basic to the framework; associative recall, visualization, mental imagery, and discipline-based art education. Second, identification of the concepts from the art curriculum and the social studies curriculum which are appropriate to both curricula. Third, development of a statement using one or more of the theories and concepts to help teachers organize the subject matter. Finally, choosing content samples from the art and social studies curriculum to provide for application of the framework

A mathematical approach to an optimal strategy for the dice game pig

It was the purpose of this study to investigate various pure strategies for the dice game Pig. Two basic approaches were considered for formulating an optimal strategy: the maximum number of rolls per turn that a player should take and the maximum number of points per turn that a player should attempt to accumulate. Basically, an optimal strategy for Pig will be one which allows a player to accumulate a maximum number of points in a minimum number of turns in order to achieve a goal of 100 or more points. Computer simulation of the game was used to verify the results and to attempt to distinguish subtle differences among the competing strategies which could not be determined through a purely theoretical formulation of the game. It was found that an optimal roll-per-turn strategy will be for a player to toss no less than two times per turn and no more than three times per turn. The optimal point-per-turn strategy from initial position of zero points is to attempt to accumulate at least 25 points. Through the computer simulation of the game, it was found that optimally a player should attempt to accumulate from 22 to 26 points on any turn if he is to attempt to accumulate the same number on each turn

Declamation and dismemberment: rhetoric, the body, and disarticulation in four Victorian horror novels

The fundamental question this dissertation seeks to answer is how late-Victorian horror fiction produced fear for its contemporary audiences. This study argues that the answer to this question lies in the areas of rhetoric—more specifically, oratory—and the body. This may seem unremarkable, but the notion of a rhetorical body was problematic for Victorians due to suspicion of eloquence and anxiety over the instability of bodies. This ambiguity is expressed through recurring images in horror fiction of the destruction of the monstrous body—typically through cutting—in relation to rhetorical performance and display. This study appropriates a medical term to refer to this phenomenon, disarticulation, which means amputation. Disarticulation, then, becomes a form of control of the transgressing body. It is expressed in society and literature in three forms, either as allusions or direct representations: public execution, including torture and dismemberment; anatomical dissection and its suggestion of vivisection; and aestheticization, which refashions death as life. Proponents of these practices claimed that they produced social order, scientific knowledge, and art. In the larger culture, however, they produced horror. But disarticulation is just one explanation for the fear produced by late Victorian horror fiction. This study also speculates that dread is produced by epideictic, which seems peculiarly present alongside other Classically-inspired rhetorical performances and displays in the five primary texts selected for examination: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Dracula by Bram Stoker; The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson; and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Art reshaping space

In the attempt to create interactive architectural space, biomorphic design principles and theories have been applied to develop forms derived from nature. The experience of a space is developed through the use of patterns and surfaces, which have historical importance in architecture and design. Patterns have created unique identities for space throughout history, contributing to the perception and interactive nature of space. Therefore, this use of pattern develops a variety of different applications in the field of architecture; in this case it is the design and development of a wall used for the creation of boundaries within a space through the pattern's articulation of surfaces. These surfaces create a physical entity within a space, primarily forming the perception of limits that make up the wall system by defining two or more distinct spaces within the area. The biomorphic design of the wall system integrates the uses of forms and patterns found in nature with the inherent human attraction to natural elements. Evidence supporting human affinity for nature uncovers features of natural forms that are both stimulating and beneficial to the user. The visually interactive qualities of the wall system will provide spatial cues that influence the perception and resulting behavior within the environment