Social Work at an Area Learning Center

This is a thesis for Augsburg College of Social Work. It presents a social work model and a research design for an Area Learning Center. The model emphasizes systems theory, Murrey Bowen\u27s theory and task-centered social work. The task-centered social worker could provide at-risk students with community and school resource linkage. At-risk students will benefit from support services provided by the Area Learning Center task-oriented school social worker. The proposal includes, and independent and dependent variable, the conceptualization of at-risk, benefit, and task-centered social worker, and the characteristics of the study population, possible data analysis and protection of subjects. The proposal also includes a section on the limitations of the research design

Molecular Analysis of Sputum for Lung Cancer Diagnosis

Meijer, G.A. [Promotor]Smit, E.F. [Promotor]Thunnissen, F.B.J.M. [Copromotor]Heideman, D.A.M. [Copromotor

Indispensable Homes in Third World Countries: Constructing a Home in Tijuana, Mexico

This project was created to explore a way in which poverty around the world could ultimately be reduced. The way in which this project intends to demonstrate a method used to reduce poverty is by building a home for a specific family in Tijuana, Mexico. In doing so, this home will act as a model home for a manual, comprised of steps that should be taken to construct similar homes throughout any third world country. The goal of this project is to highlight the importance of poverty in the world while also creating a buildable solution in order to reduce poverty rates on a global level. In order to make an accurate and usable guide for constructing homes for third world countries, creating this manual during the building process will minimize error within the project manual. This project manual will include in depth procedures in constructing the foundation, framing, roofing, exterior and interior of the building. Along with these detailed procedures this project manual will include detailed plans, a cut list, and an estimate of costs for this project. Furthermore, the project will incorporate an in depth analysis within this paper

Telling Fisk’s Story

Pliny Fisk (1792-1825) was one of two missionaries sent in 1819 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to the Ottoman Empire. This made them not only the first American missionaries in the Muslim majority world, but two of the first Americans to make a permanent move to the Middle East. Hubers’ book explores what it meant for Pliny and his companion Levi Parsons to make that trip, exploring in particular the impact this had on their perceptions of the religious other. What makes this an interesting study is noting that Fisk never met a Middle Easterner in person--Christian, Muslim or Jew--before he went, developing his perceptions of the people among whom he would be working on a purely theoretical basis. The assumption in this case is that these initial perceptions would be significantly altered by an existential encounter. The reality turned out to be something different. The following excerpt sets the stage for Hubers’ exploration into the mind and ministry of this pioneering missionary

IgG4-related disease of the biliary tract and pancreas:Catching a great mimicker

The biliary tract and pancreas are most frequently affected. IgG4-RD is notoriously difficult to distinguish from other biliary/pancreatic diseases, including primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and biliary/pancreatic malignancies. As a consequence, misdiagnosis and incorrect treatments are common. The first part of this thesis focuses on the diagnostic dilemma in IgG4-RD. In a retrospective study, we showed that a remarkable 15% of the 320 patients that underwent surgery for a presumed malignancy of the extra-hepatic biliary tract in the Amsterdam UMC (location AMC) in the past 30 years, were post-operatively proven to have benign disease and not cancer. Of this group, almost half of the patients showed features of IgG4-RD. Furthermore, we investigated the diagnostic accuracy of the IgG4/IgG RNA ratio among patients with a presumed biliary/pancreatic malignancy in a prospective trial. However, this test was unable to distinguish IgG4-RD from true malignancies. The second part of this thesis discusses the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying IgG4-RD. We performed a literature study on IgG4 in inflammatory conditions unrelated to IgG4-RD to get a better understanding of its biological properties and its function in disease. Also, we searched for auto-antigens, that may be responsible for the clonally expanded IgG4-producing B cells, which we had identified previously in patients with IgG4-RD. We identified Annexin A11 as the first IgG4-target antigen in a proportion of the patients, while patients with PSC and cholangiocarcinoma did not show reactivity against this antigen. Finally, we could confirm our hypothesis that ‘blue-collar work’ is an independent risk factor for developing biliary/pancreatic IgG4-RD, which may explain the male predominance among patients

Using an Evidence-Informed Approach to Improve Students’ Higher Order Thinking Skills

This study aimed to determine why university students performed relatively low on a writing assignment. In phase 1, questionnaire and performance data were collected and analyzed. This evidence-informed approach revealed that students’ relatively low performance was caused by their relatively underdeveloped higher order thinking skills. A six-step research-informed procedure was designed to assist students’ development of these skills. In turn, questionnaire data, performance data and observational data were collected in phase 2 to determine the effectiveness of the design and the quality of the implementation. The results indicated that students improved their higher order thinking skills. Alternative explanations did not play a role; the designed procedure was implemented with high fidelity and positively rated by the students. This study can aid university teachers in designing course materials for the development of students’ higher order thinking skills.</p

An X-ray visualization facility for large-scale multiphase flows

Multiphase flows exist in several industries throughout the world. In 1998 in the United States alone, the economic value of multiphase flows was estimated to b