The marketing of textbooks in New England: A program of regional distribution... Its significance for projecting and evaluating the progress of a new educational publishing company

Thesis (M.B.A.)—Boston Universit

Occurrence of the Old World bug Megacopta cribraria (Fabricius) (Heteroptera: Plataspidae) in Georgia: a serious home invader and potential legume pest

Specimens of Megacopta cribraria (Fabricius) were collected in northern Georgia in late October 2009, where they were invading homes in large numbers. This is the first known occurrence of this species and the family Plataspidae in the New World. Megacopta cribraria was previously known from Asia and Australia. A key is provided to separate Plataspidae from other families of Pentatomoidea in America North of Mexico. A diagnosis and figures are provided to facilitate recognition of M. cribraria. Reported host plants and other aspects of the biology of this species are reviewed. Megacopta cribraria is considered a pest of numerous legumes in Asia, has the potential to provide biological control of kudzu, Pueraria montana var. lobata (Willd.) Ohwi, (Fabaceae) and likely will continue to be a household pest in the vicinity of kudzu fields as well as become a pest of North American legume crops

Shifting Organizational Cultures: Developing Leaders in Humanistic Interprofessional Education

Organizational cultures significantly influence faculty and clinician well-being, trainees’ professional identity formation, and the care of patients and families. The ability of interprofessional healthcare teams to work collaboratively is important for safe, high quality, relationship-centered care. A multi-site project, Faculty Development for the Interprofessional Teaching of Humanism,* was initiated to create a national curriculum in humanism and professionalism designed to train interprofessional education (IPE) faculty leaders. Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School (BCH/HMS) is the first pediatric site selected to design and implement this curriculum. Our objectives were to: 1) develop a national curriculum in humanism and professionalism for IPE faculty leaders; 2) adapt the curriculum for pediatrics; and 3) create and sustain a faculty fellowship for IPE leaders at BCH/HMS that promotes humanistic values in organizational culture and learning and care environments. We designed and implemented the curriculum at nine national sites. Topics focus on collaboration, communication, and relationships and include: highly functioning teams; advanced team formation; patients’ perspectives; empathy; well-being, resilience, renewal; diversity & inclusion; appreciative inquiry; values; IPE and others. To achieve sustainability at BCH/HMS, we created a unique Faculty Fellowship for Leaders in Humanistic Interprofessional Education. To increase impact, we recruited co-sponsors from departments across BCH. Fellows participate in 1½-hour, twice-monthly small-group sessions for 8 months and design and implement a group project. Twenty-one faculty applied. The first cohort included 11 faculty representing medicine, social work, nursing, and psychology. The Faculty Fellowship provides opportunities for IPE faculty leaders to enhance teaching skills, collaboration, relationships, reflective capacities, and role modeling in humanism and professionalism, and to work together to foster humanistic values within organizational culture. *Supported by a multi-institutional grant from the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation (Dr. Branch as national PI; Dr. Rider as site PI) 

Training interprofessional faculty in humanism and professionalism: a qualitative analysis of what is most important

Introduction: The capacity of healthcare professionals to work collaboratively influences faculty and trainees’ professional identity formation, well-being, and care quality. Part of a multi-institutional project*, we created the Faculty Fellowship for Leaders in Humanistic Interprofessional Education at Boston Children’s Hospital/ Harvard Medical School. We aimed to foster trusting relationships, reflective abilities, collaboration skills, and work together to promote humanistic values within learning environments. Objective: To examine the impact of the faculty fellowship from participants’ reports of “the most important thing learned”. Methods: We studied participants’ reflections after each of 16 1½ hour fellowship sessions. Curriculum content included: highly functioning teams, advanced team formation, diversity/inclusion, values, wellbeing/renewal/burnout, appreciative inquiry, narrative reflection, and others. Responses to “What was the most important thing you learned?” were analyzed qualitatively using a positivistic deductive approach. Results: Participants completed 136 reflections over 16 sessions–77% response rate (136/176). Cohort was 91% female; mean age 52.6 (range 32-65); mean years since completion of highest degree 21.4; 64% held doctorates, 36% master’s degrees. 46% were physicians, 27% nurses, 18% social workers, 9% psychologists. 27% participated previously in a learning experience focusing on interprofessional education, collaboration or practice. Most important learning included: Relational capacities/ Use of self in relationships 96/131 (73%); Attention to values 46/131 (35%); Reflection/ Self-awareness 44/131 (34%); Fostering humanistic learning environments 21/131 (16%). Discussion: Results revealed the importance of enhancing relational capacities and use of self in relationships including handling emotions; attention to values; reflection/self-awareness and recognition of assumptions; and fostering humanistic learning environments. These topics should receive more emphasis in interprofessional faculty development programs and may help identify teaching priorities. *Supported in part by a multi-institutional grant from the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation (Dr. Branch as PI; Dr. Rider as site PI)

Beyond Resilience and Burnout: The Need for Organizational Change to Promote Humanistic Practice and Teaching in Healthcare

Rapid changes in healthcare organization and practice environments, increasingly driven by business models and commercial interests, are associated with widespread burnout and dissatisfaction among healthcare professionals and pose barriers to humanistic relationship-centered quality care. Studies show burnout and significant stress currently affect over half of US physicians and nurses. Clinicians’ ability to provide compassionate care is significantly challenged. Most solutions to date have included individual interventions designed to enhance well-being and promote resilience. We examined organizational factors that inhibit or promote humanistic practice by faculty physicians in today’s healthcare environment. In this qualitative study, physician faculty who completed a one-year faculty development program in humanism at eight US academic medical centers provided written answers to two open-ended questions: a) What institutional or specific organizational unit-related factors promote humanism for you and others? b) What institutional or specific organizational unit-related factors inhibit or pose barriers, to humanism for you and others? 74% (68/92) of the physicians participated. The constant comparative method was used to analyze responses. We found that organizational culture was the central theme. Motivators of humanism included leadership supportive of humanistic practice, responsibility to role model humanism, organized activities promoting humanism, and practice structures that facilitate humanism. Factors that inhibited humanism included “top down” organizational culture, non-supportive leadership, time and bureaucratic pressures, and non-facilitative practice structures. Our findings suggest that organizational culture is, at a minimum, equally important as individual interventions. We describe features of organizational culture that reinforce humanistic practice and care in healthcare institutions and offer recommendations for organizational change that support the primacy of humanistic, compassionate, high quality patient care. 

Developing a collaborative, humanistic interprofessional healthcare culture: a multi-site study

Introduction:Developing a collaborative, humanistic interprofessional healthcare culture requires optimal relational skills, respect, interpersonal cohesion, and role clarity. We developed a longitudinal curriculum to engender these skills and values in institutional leaders. We report results of a qualitative study at seven US-based academic health centers to identify participants’ learning. Methods:At each institution, participants from at least three different professions met in small group sessions twice-monthly over nine months. Sessions focused on relational capacities to enhance leadership and professionalism, and utilized critical reflection and experiential learning to promote teamwork, self-knowledge, communication skills, and address challenges encountered by a healthcare team. Participants completed reflective responses to open-ended questions asking what knowledge, insights, or skills they gained by working in this interprofessional group and applications of their learning. Five investigators analyzed the anonymized responses using the constant comparative method. Results:Overarching themes centered on relationships and the strength of the relational nature of the learning. We observed learning on three levels: a) Intrapersonal learning included self-awareness, mindfulness, and empathy for self that translated to reflections on application of these to teamwork and teaching; b) Interpersonal learning concerned relational skills and teaching about listening, understanding others’ perspectives, appreciation/respect for colleagues, and empathy for others; c) Systems level learning included teaching skills about resilience, conflict management, team dynamics and cultural norms, and appreciation of resources from interprofessional colleagues. Discussion:A curriculum focusing on humanistic teaching for leaders led to new insights and positive changes in relational perspectives. Learning occurred on multiple levels. Many learners reported revising previous assumptions, a marker for transformative learning. Humanistic faculty development can facilitate deep bonds between professions. &nbsp

Structural Optimization and Thermal Modeling of Flux Switching Machine

The point of this study was to model a lumped parameter thermal network for flux switching machine. The model could be utilized to outline new cooling systems and as a developer for this sort of machines. The model developed is a thermal framework having segments essentially focused around existing literature. The losses in various machine sections were thought to have already found from the electromagnetic model. The elemental model can then be utilized to carry out simulations regarding cyclic loading as well as transient activities. The thermal model examined here is partitioned into different sectors, thereby empowering analysis of this machine. The model under investigation has been acknowledged by utilizing a COMSOL Multi-physics simulator and Matlab ® programming software. The heat exchange coefficients are characterized from information gathered from the comparative kind of machines. The developed framework also considers sensitivity analysis in terms of parametric effects on the behavior of the machine thermally. The developed model needs no substantial computing and can simply be run on a personal computer. The model can later be modified and connected to diverse machine developments. Structural topology optimization approach is adopted to find the optimal geometry. As a basic study, two optimization techniques i.e., genetic and simulated annealing algorithms have been adopted with the former based on the process of natural selection and the latter on the process of annealing (heating and cooling of metals). The design goal is to minimize the total dissipated losses to improve the overall efficiency and hence to achieve optimal design results

A Survey of Open Clusters in the u'g'r'i'z' Filter System: I. Results for NGC2548 (M48)

We present initial results of a photometric survey of open star clusters, primarily in the southern hemisphere, taken in the u'g'r'i'z' filter system. While our entire observed sample covers more than 100 clusters, here we present data for NGC2548 (M48) which is a cluster characterized in the UBV and DDO photometric systems. We compare our results to the published values from other observers and to the Padova theoretical isochrones and metallicity curves. These observations demonstrate that the u'g'r'i'z' filters can play an important role in determining the metallicity of stars and clusters. We begin this series of papers with a study of NGC2548 because we have obtained data of this cluster not only with our main program telescope, the CTIO Curtis-Schmidt, but also with the US Naval Observatory (USNO) 1.0m telescope (the telescope used to define the u'g'r'i'z' system), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) 0.5m Photometric Telescope (the photometric monitoring telescope used to calibrate the SDSS 2.5m telescope imaging data). We have used the data from this study to validate our ability to transform measurements obtained on other telescopes to the standard USNO 1.0m u'g'r'i'z' system. This validation is particularly important for very red stars, for which the original u'g'r'i'z' standard star network is poorly constrained.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures. Complete, machine-readable versions of Tables 4-6 available at http://home.fnal.gov/~dtucker/OpenClusters/NGC2548/ . Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Therapeutics

Currently there are relatively few antiviral therapeutics, and most which do exist are highly pathogen-specific or have other disadvantages. We have developed a new broad-spectrum antiviral approach, dubbed Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) Activated Caspase Oligomerizer (DRACO) that selectively induces apoptosis in cells containing viral dsRNA, rapidly killing infected cells without harming uninfected cells. We have created DRACOs and shown that they are nontoxic in 11 mammalian cell types and effective against 15 different viruses, including dengue flavivirus, Amapari and Tacaribe arenaviruses, Guama bunyavirus, and H1N1 influenza. We have also demonstrated that DRACOs can rescue mice challenged with H1N1 influenza. DRACOs have the potential to be effective therapeutics or prophylactics for numerous clinical and priority viruses, due to the broad-spectrum sensitivity of the dsRNA detection domain, the potent activity of the apoptosis induction domain, and the novel direct linkage between the two which viruses have never encountered.National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (U.S.) (grant AI057159)New England Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious DiseasesUnited States. Dept. of Defense (Director of Defense Research & Engineering)United States. Defense Threat Reduction AgencyUnited States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agenc