The Relationship Between Community Dwelling Older Adult’s Fall Risk and Beliefs of Risk for Falling in Northwest Arkansas and Bolgatanga, Ghana.

Title: The Relationship Between Community Dwelling Older Adult’s Fall Risk and Beliefs of Risk for Falling in Northwest Arkansas and Bolgatanga, Ghana. Gohman, N., Patton, S., Smith-Blair, N., Agana, C.: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR Background: Older adults worldwide live with comorbidities, physical and psychological changes associated with aging. Statistically, however, older adults are more likely to die as a result of falling. As the worldwide population of individuals over 65 rises, so will the possibility for injuries from falls. Much research has been published concerning fall risk prevention, but minimal research surrounding protocols and practices for protecting against falls in developing countries has been published. Purpose: Evaluate and compare the relationship between community dwelling older adult’s fall risk and their perceived risk of falling in a developed and a developing country. Methodology: The study sample consisted of 35 participants, selected at random. A mixed method approach was used. Semi-structured interviews based on constructs of the Health Belief Model measured perceived fall risk. Risk factors for falls were determined using the Center for Disease Control (CDC) STEADI fall risk assessment tool. Results: The average age of all participants was 73 years, with 30% from NW Arkansas and 70% from Ghana. Eight subjects reported falling within the past year. The majority of subjects reported their chance of falling as low. When asked about confidence level to prevent falling, mixed reactions ranging from laughing, being concerned, to being serious were documented. Many older adults realized the complications falling would have on their physical well being, as well as the increase in burden and negative emotional effect on the caregiver. There was an overall lack of knowledge by the general population of what to do to prevent falling. The biggest barrier reported by participants to prevent falling was the layout of homes and buildings, the physical outside environment, and lack of lighting to see. There was a lack of knowledge to knowing prevention strategies, as the only benefit stated was the individual would not fall. Discussion/Results: According to the results of the STEADI assessment, only 1 out of 35 participants actually passed the fall risk assessment. There is a lack of knowledge about falling, therefore individuals were confident that they could prevent falling despite results showing their high fall risk. More people were confident in Northewst Arkansas that they could prevent falls compared to Ghana. By 2050, the global population of adults over the age of 60 is expected to reach nearly 2.1 billion, with two thirds residing in developing countries. Results from this study indicate that many older adults believe that they have low chance of falling even when their risk is high. Global awareness is needed about the seriousness of falls in this population and for prevention that will reduce injury and hospital admissions

Kindergarten Teachers\u27 Perceptions about the Language and Literacy Skills of Their Students

In the United States, 68 percent of four-year-old children and 86 percent of five-year-old children were enrolled in a preprimary program in 2017 (Institute of Education Sciences [IES], 2019). Preprimary programs are defined as programs that provide educational instruction and childcare, which includes both preschool and kindergarten. Because children entering kindergarten have a diverse array of experiences due to their home environments and previous experience in childcare, they have varying abilities when it comes to skills in language and literacy. Language can be defined as the words that are used to share information and how they are used to communicate, whereas literacy refers to the use and understanding of written language (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], n.d.a). Kindergarten teachers are tasked with the evaluation and teaching of language and literacy skills each year. In order to understand the experience of kindergarten teachers in evaluating and teaching language and literacy skills, as well as how expectations and performance of children have changed over time, the researcher conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with kindergarten teachers who have been teaching for five years or longer. Results revealed that kindergarten teachers’ expectations for language and literacy skills upon entrance to kindergarten have increased over the last 10 years, and teachers perceive that their students, particularly students of the 2019-2020 school year, have a wide range in skills and abilities when it comes to language and literacy, causing milestones to be met inconsistently

Kinetic Landscape and Unalloyed Potential: Rethinking the Extractive Landscape of Michigan\u27s Native Mass Copper Mining Industry

This dissertation examines the extractive landscape and persistent lifespan of native mass copper mining in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The historic native copper mining industry of Michigan lasted for over a century, though its impacts on the landscape can be broken into two distinct, though overlapping, phases of extractive practice: mass mining and disseminated lode mining. Each mined specific native copper deposits, utilized related but specialized technologies, and relied upon different sources of energy to power its practices. A first, formative phase of mass mining exploited fissures of pure metallic copper using traditional technology and organic sources of fuel. A second phase of disseminated lode mining persisted longer and produced more copper than mass mining using industrial-scale technologies powered by fossil fuel. Lode mining eclipsed then replaced mass mining, though in some cases the practices of lode mining were transferred to mass mining locations in an attempt to prolong their extractive lifespans. This dissertation uses the Cliff mine, the most successful and influential of the formative period’s mass copper mines, as a case study in three interrelated papers to explore the lifespan of these unique extractive landscapes: first as a formative landscape, then as a landscape reborn thanks to the technological changes linked to lode mining, and finally as a site for the interpretation of industrial waste residues. The first chapter adopts a concept of workscape to illuminate the unique activities associated with the extraction of mass native copper in Michigan’s Keweenaw peninsula, 1845-c.1880. These activities mark the formative stage of what would become the Lake copper district. Mass mining workscapes were the earliest manifestations of potential for the Keweenaw, and they set the stage for lode mining’s long and fruitful success. Deciphering these early workscapes relies on the use of two dimensional maps of the period to recreate not only the envisioned potential for the Keweenaw, but how those visions were enacted upon the landscape. The second chapter focuses on twentieth century activities at the Cliff mine to expand the notion of the mining district’s lifespan by focusing on the certain, but not sudden, decline and closure of the mine. The chapter concludes that the Cliff’s extractive history was not confined to a few decades of financially significant activity in the mid-nineteenth century, but rather that extraction continued on through the twentieth and even into the twenty-first centuries. The methods and intents of that extraction changed over time, but its continued use meant the Cliff mine site endures as a living landscape. The third chapter details a survey of over 350 separate sites of native copper mining waste in Michigan’s Copper Country. This work resulted in the development of a classification and scoring rubric designed to identify waste sites of greatest historical significance, authenticity, and integrity. This chapter provides an overview of the survey and its findings, then uses the collective waste of the Cliff mine as a narrative device in the telling of its extractive history. These findings offer insight into understanding and appreciating the residues of extractive practice that in this case, due to the benign nature of the unalloyed copper mined there, pose a lesser threat to the environment compared with most hard rock mining activities

An analysis of international corporate tax reform

This research paper will focus on the current discussion in Washington D.C. regarding the reform of international taxation by the U.S. government. In recent years, multinational companies have been accumulating an ever-increasing amount of undistributed foreign earnings. Critics see this as a loophole to avoid U.S. taxation. Corporations view this as purely a smart business decision since it increases their bottom lines. The primary reason for this trend of not repatriating for foreign earnings is that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Therefore, with fewer foreign earnings making their way back into the U.S., the government doesn’t collect as much potential tax revenue as it could. As a result, the overall U.S. economy suffers

Fast plants and gene x environment interactions for the Biology 202 laboratory

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability for a single genotype to produce multiple phenotypes in response to environmental variation. The phenotypic plasticity of a genotype is described by its norm of reaction, and norms of reaction for different genotypes might suggest that each is favored by a different environment. In this experiment, we established a fertility gradient and produced norms of reaction for a variety of measures of plant performance using two strains of Wisconsin Fast Plants (“Astro” and “Dwarf”). The Dwarf variety performed best at low fertility levels, while the Astro variety performed best at high fertility levels. Using these results, we predicted that if Dwarf and Astro varieties were allowed to compete, their relative success would correspond to the differences in their norms of reaction. This prediction seemed to be supported when competition involved one plant of each variety, but when two plants of each variety competed, Astro generally performed best across the fertility gradient. With further improvement, this system can provide an opportunity for students to generate and test predictions regarding phenotypic plasticity in introductory biology laboratories

Analysis of potential archaeal NER endonuclease homologs using Saccharomyces cervisiae

The nuclease proteins involved in eukaryotic nucleotide excision repair (NER) have been identified and are ubiquitous for most eukaryotes, including XPF (3’ endonuclease) and XPG (5’ endonuclease). Proteins with similar structures have been identified in archaeal genomes and have been shown to exhibit endonuclease activity, but their overall cellular functions have not been elucidated. The proteins Hef1 and Bax1 in archaea are two of such proteins that are candidates for homology with the XPF (Rad1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae) nuclease. By inserting plasmids containing archaeal genes coding for these possible homologous nucleases into Saccharomyces cerevisiae without Rad1 gene (ΔRad1) and then exposing the cells to Ultraviolet (UV) light, NER function can be analyzed using survival rates. These experiments aim to investigate the function of these potential homologous XPF nucleases present in archaea

Activation Level and Probabilities of Electromagnetic γ-transitions in the Reaction 77Se(γ,γ’)77mSe

The dependence of the absolute yield from energies for reaction (γ,γ’)m on the nucleus 77Se was approximated by fit dependences (lines). Due to the visually detected fracture of the reaction yield, the energy interval 5.75-8.0 MeV is conventionally divided into two parts. For the transition step as one experimental point, the left part was approximated to 6.6 MeV, and the right part - from 6.26 MeV. There approximations were eight for both intervals. Given the features of the calculation and the minimum values for χ2, the "best" two fits are approximation dependences in the neighborhood of the intersection point x0 for the left and right arrays of energies. The energy for the activation level (the intersection point for these functions) is Ea≈6.35 MeV. The scheme of electromagnetic γ- transitions for nucleus 77Se are constructed and analyzed. Possible transitions to the isomeric level from higher levels are indicated. Weiskopf model was used to estimate the values of the reduced probabilities of electric EJ- and magnetic MJ- transitions, the probabilities of transitions per unit time and half-life. The theoretical values of the half-lives T1/2 are compared with the experimental data. Prospects for further use of the obtained results for topical problems of nuclear physics are discussed

Analysis of sediment reveals an ecological regime change in Lake Hilary

Lake sediments contain excellent records of both fossils and component minerals that can be used to reconstruct regional ecological history. To complement ongoing studies of Lake Hilary’s pollen and macrofossils, we constructed a high-resolution record of the organic matter, carbonate, and non-carbonate mineral fractions of the lake’s sediment. The organic fraction is a proxy for the biological productivity of the pelagic, littoral, and shoreline of the lake. Non-carbonate minerals can evince erosion and subsequent aerial or fluvial deposition. Carbonate deposition can be related to lake productivity and chemical weathering in the surrounding watershed. We sought to compare our sediment record to existing records for pollen and charcoal from Lake Hilary and find evidence for linkages between vegetation change and sediment composition

The Heat of Fusion of Ice

Students have learned that when heat energy is added to any substance the temperature of this substance increases and, conversely, when heat energy escapes from the substance the temperature decreases. Based upon this concept, the idea of the heat of fusion of ice does not make sense. The idea that each gram of ice a 0° C can absorb 80 calories of heat energy and become a gram of water with the temperature still 0°C does not seem logical. The student may accept the “if you say so approach, but some meaningful laboratory data will be more convincing. The usual laboratory procedure for measuring the heat of fusion involves starting with a measured quantity of water in a double walled calorimeter. Pieces of ice are dried with a paper towel and, hopefully before more of the ice can melt, are added to the water in the calorimeter. These pieces of ice are all owed to melt in the calorimeter. I have found that with this procedure the students become lost in the maze of measurements and calculations. When the investigation has been completed, they are not sure what they have discovered. Also, the results are usually so poor that the experiment becomes a discouraging experience. My physics students have obtained surprisingly good results with the ice calorimeter procedure for measuring the heat of fusion of ice. The results are usually within one or two calories per gram when compared with the accepted value. Also, the simplicity of the measurements and calculations make it possible for the students to understand what they are doing. The results are meaningful to the students