Hazardous Drinkers and Drug Users in HMO Primary Care: Prevalence, Medical Conditions and Costs

Summarizes a study of the links between frequent heavy drinking and drug use and medical conditions, the frequency of hazardous drinkers' and drug users' primary care and psychiatry visits, and the resulting costs of their health care

Werewolves: A Three-Dimensional Content Analysis of Films from 1980-2014

WEREWOLVES: A THREE-DIMENSIONAL CONTENT ANALYSIS OF FILMS FROM 1980 – 2014 revolves around how monsters function in stories. Monsters represent fears and teach social norms. They are often portrayed as “other”, but more recently the werewolf has appeared in media as more sympathetic (Brannon 2016, 21; Gilmore 2008, 362; Hughes 2009, 97). Limited research has systematically studied how werewolves are represented in the media. This content analysis focuses on how major werewolf characters are represented in 20 films. The analysis showcases werewolf characters in today’s culture and what it means to be a monster by analyzing hybridity. This study presents a three-dimensional analysis of werewolves to conceptualize the core ways monsters exhibit human and monstrous traits. It will allow us to better understand the werewolf’s relationship to humanity. The dimensions: physical states, location and social integration, and relationships and emotional competency can be utilized in future studies to examine more closely how monsters, even those not so hybrid, may have hybrid traits. Through hybridity, werewolves are malleable, serving different functions in films. Some werewolves in this study fit stereotypes of dangerous beings by wreaking havoc on humanity. Yet this study confirms the changing representation of the werewolf. Many werewolves analyzed for this study lived amongst humans, exhibited hybrid physicality, part human and never fully wolf, retained human cognition, and formed consensual non-violent romantic relationships with humans. Therefore, the findings suggest werewolves serve some of the same mythical functions as they did centuries ago but have taken on new functions as well

Printing living tissues

The ability to pattern biomaterials in planar and three-dimensional forms is of critical importance for several applications, including drug safety screening, tissue engineering and repair. 3D printing enables one to rapidly design and fabricate soft materials in arbitrary patterns without the need for expensive tooling, dies, or lithographic masks. In this talk, our efforts to creating vascularized living tissues via 3D bioprinting will be described. I will present recent advances in the design of cell-laden inks, extracellular matrices and fugitive (vascular) inks for 3D bioprinting of vascularized, heterogeneous cell-laden tissue constructs with as well as ongoing efforts to characterize these 3D living tissues

By How Much Does a College Degree Affect Earnings?

The purpose of this research is to understand how a college degree will affect an individual’s earnings. I use data from the American Community Survey and a human capital model to investigate the question. Earnings increase around 60 percent when an individual earns any form of college degree. There are other factors that influence both income and an individual’s decision to continue education after high school, but this model suggests that furthering education should lead to higher earnings

Memory for frequency of complex sounds

This study examined whether different testing conditions hamper or enhance the ability to remember frequency of events. Subjects were presented a series of computerized sounds during the acquisition phase and estimated during the testing phase how many times they had heard each sound. Subjects were placed into one of four conditions: (a) no labeling, subjects simply listened to the stimuli; (b) labeling, subjects devised a description for each sound; (c) continuous distractor, subjects performed a simple mathematical task for the entire acquisition periods; and (d) intermittent distractor, subjects performed the mathematical task between the sounding of stimuli. Results indicated that subjects were able to estimate frequency of events fairly well; the more times a sound was played, the higher the subjects\u27 estimates, F(4, 304) = 139.27, p = .000. The distractor conditions, however, did reduce the subjects\u27 abilities to estimate stimulus frequency

Flexibility in graduate careers: An exploratory study of the work careers of a sample of 1970 graduates

This thesis describes a three stage research project that explored flexibility in the career development of British graduates. Particular , attention was paid to people's subjective perceptions of their own flexibility. First, the rationale for the study is described, i. e. that the area was under researched yet new technology has created an urgent need for people to become more flexible in their careers. Then the Literature of occupational choice, career change and career development is reviewed and used to derive a typology of occupational change. The decision to use a mixture of research methods is defended. Next Stages One and Two, the Contact Survey and the Interviews, are described. 148 1970 graduates in science, techno Logy and engineering who had made voluntary occupational changes (a sub-sample from a national survey) were sent postal questionnaires, and 38 of these were subsequently I interviewed in depth about their work histories. A model was derived from the interview data of how flexibility in career development depends on a career anchor, or a set of values that a person gradually discovers that they will not give up when changing jobs. An anchor is idiosyncratic to the individual and cannot necessarily be predicted by an outsider examining work histories. It depends on experience and increasing self awareness. Stage Three involved testing some of the ideas arising from this model of a career anchor on a second sample of 1970 graduates. These respondents had recalled two of their earlier career decisions using computer programmes that elicited their values at those times. Comparisons between their earlier (pre-anchored) decisions and their Later (anchored) decisions showed support for the career anchors model. The findings and conclusions of the project are discussed in terms of five research questions: (1) How much change did they think their careers had undergone? (2) What form did any changes take? (3) Were these changes perceived as unusual in any way? (4) How far could people's views and experiences of flexibility be explained by existing psycho Logical theories about careers? (5) Any explanations of the ability to show flexibility in career development have implications for the careers counselling of adults; what would these implications be? It is concluded that the career anchors model shows promise as a supplement to existing theories of careers, and may be useful to careers counselors who deal with adults contemplating or undergoing career transitions

How farmers in West Virginia are using value-added processing to increase annual income

The purpose of this study was to describe methods of value-added processing being employed by farmers in West Virginia, the amount of interest in value-added processing as expressed by agriculture extension agents and farmers, and identified the number of value-added producers in West Virginia. The population targeted with the initial survey consisted of 28 agriculture extension agents in West Virginia representing 55 counties. The second telephone survey was directed to value-added producers within the state. From this data, four farms, Thistledew Farm, Kelly Smith, Headwater Farms and Higson\u27s Farm, were chosen to participate in case studies. Value-added producers were identified in 21 counties for a total of 209 producers. It was found that agents were interested in increasing value-added processing in their counties and would like more information on advising farmers in value-added ventures. The majority of agents surveyed, 25 of 27, reported that some interest in value-added processing had been expressed to them by farmers in their areas