Linguistic Politics: Creating a Communication Canon Post World War II

What does it mean to communicate and how “best” can this action be accomplished? Perhaps the second part of this question, rather than the first, describes the history of approaches to ideas of communication and their practices. The first “official” textbook providing a window on this history reveals a remarkable consensus on what “communication” and related terms should mean, if not directly in models, then in their assumptions and, especially, their orientations—both of which grew out of World War II and migrated quickly into the 1950’s. The field of communication was nascent when, in 1954, The Process and Effects of Mass Communication was published as educational content for budding scholars. The relevance of this “first” literature for the social sciences of communication is the variety of linearity growing out of that literature’s veiled militaristic language. This paper looks behind the veil

Psychophysiology of respiratory disease : clinical considerations for the advanced practice nurse

The purpose of this article is to describe the psychophysiology of dyspnea in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), identify the unique impact of respiratory disease on the female patient, and discuss the relationship of anxiety and depression in disease manifestation. Current COPD assessment and treatment guidelines published by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization as well as the National Institute for Health and Care Experience (NICE) will be presented along with implications for the Advanced Practice Nurse (APN). Practitioners treat COPD patients with advanced physiological complications along with psychological comorbidities that worsen the disease perception and progression. Therefore, a recommendation will be made to integrate assessment and evaluation of psychological comorbidities in COPD patients, with particular consideration given to the female patient. Utilizing a holistic, int egrated treatment plan will serve to enhance patient care, alleviate disease burden and impact overall quality of life in the patient with COPD.peer-reviewe

An evaluation of freezing and soil presence on volatile organic compounds emitted by decomposing pig tissues using SPME GC/MS

The ability to quickly and efficiently locate concealed human remains is crucial in forensic investigations and when locating disaster victims. On occasions when human remains are recovered, correctly assigning a postmortem interval (PMI) may become necessary to corroborate statements or make an identification. While Human Remains Detection canines (HRD canines) provide rapid and sensitive searches, the mechanisms behind their sense of smell remain poorly understood. Over the past ten years, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been investigated in an effort to address questions concerning PMI, optimization of training aids, and portable 'sniffing' devices. The approaches taken for investigating VOCs emitted from decomposing tissues buried or otherwise have been diverse. They range from burying entire human bodies and sampling the above-ground volatiles using triple-sorbent traps (TSTs) to isolating small amounts of tissue into glass vials whereby the volatiles are sampled by Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME). The resulting studies have led to large quantities of data that are difficult to interpret and compare between studies. Furthermore, the restrictions surrounding access to human remains have caused many studies to use other animals, (pigs, chickens, cows, and deer) in particular the domestic pig, due to its similarities in hair coverage and tissue ratios. There have been several studies that attempt to address the effects that burial has on the resulting VOCs. However, the addition of a complex matrix to a process that already has many variables has caused difficulty in data interpretation. The purpose of this study was to identify how freezing and the presence of soil affect the VOC profiles of various tissue types (blood, bone, fat, small intestine, muscle, and skin) obtained over six weeks of decomposition. In order to accomplish this, the study was performed in three parts. The first part used fresh pig samples obtained only hours after euthanization, the second part utilized tissues from the same areas of the pig after the samples had been frozen for 6 weeks and the third part combined soil with three of the tissue types (blood, bone, muscle). SPME was employed at room temperature using a 65 µm PDMS/DVB coated fiber as the adsorbent material to extract the VOCs from the headspace. The use of SPME as the extraction method allowed for direct desorption and subsequent analysis into the injection port of the GC/MS. User-defined integration parameters were applied to each resulting chromatogram in an effort to identify what impact, if any, freezing and soil had on the resulting VOC profiles. The results obtained in this study suggest that the freezing and thawing of tissue samples have varying effects on the resulting chromatograms based on the complexity of the tissue-type. This implies that prolonged use and storage of some, commonly utilized, training aids may not be providing the most reliable scent profile for the HRD canines. Results obtained from the soil study were complex, but several overall trends were observed in the release and production of different compound classes. Comparisons to previous studies using similar extraction procedures demonstrate the need for a standardized protocol for future decomposition studies

Individualism in Portraiture: Accounting for the People in our Lives in Identity Representation

This joint research and creative honors project challenges the traditional painted portrait of Western culture. I do this through a study of the history of portraiture compared to construction of identity in the contemporary world. I argue that the traditional portrait of a single and serious individual doesn’t truly express what it means to be human today. Instead, I propose that a “sociological portrait” may be more accurate because it accounts for both the large, societal constructs that shape our identity as well as our more personal and emotional states. I argue that the most accurate way to unite those tensions within each person is through relationships—that the way our family interacts with us shapes what our gender is, that the religious beliefs of my best friend shape my own, that the racial experiences of my non-white friends shape the way I view my whiteness. In this paper, I explain in greater depth what I mean by this kind of portrait. I also reference my body of artwork based on this theory, called Being Me Because of You

The capture rate of prey in orb, sheet, and tangle spider webs.

Arthropods are the most abundant phylum but the order Araneus (spiders) is one of the most abundant species. Spiders have a silk gland called spinnerets, which they use to create their webs; but not all spiders use their silk to make a web. The three main classifications of spider webs are sheet, orb, and tangle. Since there is a diversity of webs, I wanted to see if the web type has any correlation to the type of prey captured and the number of prey that are captured. Therefore, I hypothesize that the height and web type are two factors that influence the number of prey caught and the type of prey captured. Small prey, flying prey, crawling prey, other spiders being captured were all statistically significant based on web type. There was a correlation between crawling prey and surface area of webs and a trend between other spiders being captured and surface area of webs. Also, there was a correlation between the surface area of the web and the total amount of prey captured. The height, angle, and surface area were signficantly based on the web type. In result, my hypothesis was supported that the height and web type did affect the amount of prey and what type of prey was captured.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/54943/1/3384.pd

Differences in foraging habits during the day and night time in the green frog, Rana clamitans.

There are three types of foragers: sit-and-wait predators, hunting predators, and optimal foragers. While these foragers look for their food, do they show exploitative or interference competition? I did my study on green frogs, Rana clamitans, at UMBS in Pellston, Michigan. I wanted to see if green frogs forage more actively during the daytime or at nighttime. I also wanted to see what type of foraging method did the frogs convey and why? I also wanted to see if the frogs portrayed any type of competition, and if they did if it was exploitative or interference competition. I hypothesized that the green frogs wil hunt for their food during the daytime and display exploitative competition. I found out that the green frogs are sit-and-wait predators during the day but hunting predators at night. Therefore, they are more active during the night. During both day and night, the frogs showed the less aggressive act of exploitative competition. The results supported by hypothesis that the frogs are hunting predators and show exploitative competition; but refuted that the frogs forage during the day.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/54942/1/3383.pd