Conversations: The commitment to breastfeed among low-income women in East Tennessee

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of low-income breastfeeding women in East Tennessee. Participants were recruited from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and from a birth registry housed at the university. Eligibility criteria included women who were currently breastfeeding infants less than 9 months of age and were income-eligible for WIC. Data were collected through audiorecorded in-depth telephone interviews. Eighteen interviews were conducted. Recording error led to only 16 interviews being available for analysis. However, saturation was still achieved. Transcripts were coded by a coding team, using standard coding techniques. Using grounded theory and cluster analysis, major themes emerged including aversions to formula-feeding, commitment to overcome the challenges of breastfeeding, desire for additional support, and assessing abilities through comparison with others‟ experiences. In conclusion, results of this qualitative work indicate that low-income women who choose to breastfeed recognize the differences of others‟ breastfeeding experiences and are aware of difficulties that can arise with either breastfeeding or formula-feeding

Constructions of national identity and the nation: the case of New Zealand/Aotearoa

This thesis analyses discourses of national identity and the nation, using the case study of New Zealand. The main empirical data are 'ordinary talk', from 41 New Zealanders interviewed in London in late 1994 and early 1995. The thesis investigates the work which is done in participants' talk by constructions of national identity and the nation. The first major focus is how national identity is used in the construction of self-identity. The analysis includes different ways of understanding the 'self', the interpretative resources available for the construction of an identity as a New Zealander, including alternative categories and positive and negative stereotypes, and the way that speakers position themselves in relation to New Zealand and other New Zealanders. A second focus is how constructions of nation and the national do ideological work around contentious issues, that is, work which has implications for relationships of power and authority in a broad socio-economic context and which tends to silence and delegitimise certain voices and identities, especially by establishing and reinforcing certain practices and relationships as 'normal' and therefore invisible and/or uncontentious. Finally the thesis considers how such constructions accommodate changes which are frequently associated with globalization and a decline in the relevance of the nation state. These changes include the reduced state provision of services, resulting from the reduction or abandonment of 'welfare state' policies; challenges from new migrants and from an indigenous minority to the status of the dominant population group; and the opening of national borders to both investment and migration. The analysis shows the continuing salience and ideological relevance of national identit

Utilizing Students Employees as an Alternative Means of Providing Library Instruction

In tough financial times, library administrators want to keep expenditures down while offering outstanding services to and maintaining good public relations with patrons. In order to accommodate requests for tours and library instruction from non-university groups, we have Reference Public Support student assistants provide such services. Our presentation will outline the procedures we use to prepare the student employees to do this work, as well as the skills our students gain through it. We will also discuss the benefits for high school and community college students. Having veteran student assistants conduct tours and library instruction sessions for non-CMU students extends the “low-level” reference assistance our students provide on an individual basis at the Reference Desk. Student employees earn far less than librarians and professional staff, so by utilizing their skills, we can provide services to the public that we would otherwise might not be able to afford or have a large enough staff to do. Visiting students enjoy seeing someone close to their ages leading their group. Our student employees serve as role models because they tend to be excellent students and represent a positive college experience. They have campus jobs they gain practical skills from and enjoy a great deal. Our practice also helps recruit top library student assistants for the profession. In the past few years, a number of student employees have gone to library school, and many others have strongly considered library and information science as a profession

Four Weeks of Minimalist Style Running Training Reduced Lumbar Paraspinal Muscle Activation during Shod Running

Background and Purpose: Research has shown that the risk of low back dysfunctions in runners is related to the increased mileage of distance running. Repetitive shock loading of the spinal structures during running has been indicated as one of the important biomechanical mechanisms underlying such injury. Acute changes in foot strike pattern, like those seen during minimalist style running, have been shown to lead to modifications in lumbar range of motion. Minimalist style running could lead to changes in lumbar biomechanics and muscle activation, potentially reducing the loading on the musculoskeletal structures of the lower back. However, the long term effects of minimalist style running on lumbar biomechanics have not been evaluated. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects a 4-week training program aimed at transitioning recreational runners to minimalist style footwear would have on lower back kinematics and lumbar paraspinal muscle activation. Subjects: 17 volunteers between the ages of 18-45 years who were habitually shod runners and averaged running 10-50 km per week participated in the study. Data from 15 volunteers was used in the analysis of the biomechanics. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to determine the appropriateness of each volunteer for this study. Methods: Subjects participated in three data collection sessions at the beginning, during (2-week), and at the end of a 4-week training program. The training consists of progressively increasing the distance each runner ran in the minimalist shoes up to 30-50% of their regular running distance while maintaining the overall distance (minimalist + normal shoes) comparable to before training. Running trials were collected with the subject wearing their normal running shoes. Subjects were asked to run at a prescribed speed (11.2 km/h), and a blinded self-selected speed. During running, kinematics of the lower back in the sagittal plane was recorded using an electro-goniometer. Surface EMG was used to monitor the activation of the lower back (L3 level) paraspinal muscles. Data collected during 10 stance phases were averaged and used for analysis. One-way repeated measures ANOVA tests were used to analyze the effect of training on lumbar kinematics and lumbar paraspinal muscle activation. Results: For the 11.2 km/h running speed, statistically significant differences were found in mean lower back posture (PRE = 1.9 ± 15.3 degrees, MID = 0.4 ± 13.0 degrees, POST = -6.0 ± 13.3 degrees, p = 0.001) and contralateral lumbar paraspinal muscle activation (PRE = 47.0 ± 34.0%, MID = 24.9 ± 8.2%, POST = 29.4 ± 11.3%, p = 0.039) after training. For the self-selected running speed, statistically significant differences were found in mean lower back posture (PRE = 2.3 ± 15.5 degrees, MID = 0.9 ± 13.9 degrees, POST = -5.7 ± 14.2 degrees, p = 0.002) and contralateral lumbar paraspinal muscle activation (PRE = 41.6 ± 28.6%, MID = 23.4 ± 6.2%, POST = 30.3 ± 11.6%, p = 0.047) after training. During both speeds, lower back posture became more extended and contralateral lumbar paraspinal muscle activation decreased. No significant differences were noted in overall lower back range of motion or ipsilateral paraspinal muscle activation over the training period at either speed. Conclusions: Including minimalist running shoes and barefoot exercises into a runners’ training regime can alter the lumbar spinal kinematics and muscle activation. Specifically the runners adapted a more extended lumbar posture and reduced the lumbar paraspinal muscle activation after training. This effect carried over to shod running

Making the most of multiple worlds: Multiple organizational identities as resources in the formation of an integrated health care delivery system

Thesis advisor: Michael G. PrattIn spite of an undeniably vast and multidisciplinary body of research on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) spanning more than 50 years, extant scholarship provides little insight into how two organizations that have struggled to integrate rebound from failure in their relationship. This dissertation examines two organizations—AMC Hospital and Community Hospital—that achieved this outcome nearly 16 years after they legally merged. To understand this phenomenon, I conducted an inductive, longitudinal qualitative study of these two organizations and their members using interviews, archival data, and observations as my data sources and grounded theory techniques to analyze the data and build theory. Extending prior research on M&As, multiple organizational identity management, and identities as resources in organizations, I advance the notion of multiple identity resourcing by examining how the negotiation of multiple organizational identities fostered greater resource sharing and generation during post-merger integration. Additionally, I elaborate prior research on meaning construction during strategic change by examining how managers’ interpretations of the power and intimacy dynamics in the merger relationship influenced their strategizing, which affected organizational-level episodes of success and failure during the integration process. More broadly, I demonstrate how practices at both the level of the merger relationship and the level of strategy implementation enable successful performance during post-merger integration.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015.Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management.Discipline: Management and Organization

Deconstructing and Expanding Gender Roles: Theological Reflections on Women and Local Disaster Response

The situation of women during and after local disasters may, at first, seem unrelated to feminist theology, but this article argues that a critical reflectionon the matter helps the Church further understand the relationship between men, women, and the rest of creation. In the context of two Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) documents entitled “What is Happening to Our Beautiful Land?” (1988) and “Upholding the Sanctity of Life” (2008), this article will analyze and articulate the gender ideologies that seem to underpin how women and nature are understood, using the reflections on the situation of women in disasters as well as a reconstructionist feminist liberationist framework. From there, recommendations will also be given as to what the Church can do further foreveryone, given this article’s analysis and reflection

SeeCucumbers: using deep learning and drone iagery to detect sea cucumbers on coral reef flats

Sea cucumbers (Holothuroidea or holothurians) are a valuable fishery and are also crucial nutrient recyclers, bioturbation agents, and hosts for many biotic associates. Their ecological impacts could be substantial given their high abundance in some reef locations and thus monitoring their populations and spatial distribution is of research interest. Traditional in situ surveys are laborious and only cover small areas but drones offer an opportunity to scale observations more broadly, especially if the holothurians can be automatically detected in drone imagery using deep learning algorithms. We adapted the object detection algorithm YOLOv3 to detect holothurians from drone imagery at Hideaway Bay, Queensland, Australia. We successfully detected 11,462 of 12,956 individuals over 2.7ha with an average density of 0.5 individual/m2. We tested a range of hyperparameters to determine the optimal detector performance and achieved 0.855 mAP, 0.82 precision, 0.83 recall, and 0.82 F1 score. We found as few as ten labelled drone images was sufficient to train an acceptable detection model (0.799 mAP). Our results illustrate the potential of using small, affordable drones with direct implementation of open-source object detection models to survey holothurians and other shallow water sessile species

Mucocutaneous Horn in Dog

Background: Cutaneous horn is a circumscribed exophytic lesion composed of dense, compact keratin with hyperplastic epidermis, which is primarily orthokeratotic and may include foci of parakeratosis. The hyperkeratotic protuberance resembles a horn but lack bone. In humans, it is well-documented with a wide range of primary epidermal lesions identified. In dogs, the reports are rare and brief. The diagnosis is based on its appearance and excisional biopsy reveals the triggering lesion. The objective of the present work is to describe the clinical presentation, predictive benignancy finds, treatment and follow-up of a case of cutaneous horns that arose from anal mucocutaneous boundary in a dog.Case: A 6-month-old male Pug presented two tumors in the anus noted in the early months of life. Complete blood count, serum chemistry profile, surgery, histopathological analysis and postoperative outcome were performed. Possible relapses were follow-up until 11 months after surgery. On physical examination, the dog was otherwise healthy. The two horn-like tumors were protruding from the mucocutaneous junction of the external anal sphincter in a sun-protected area. Both were higher than wide in base or, in other words, they had a high height-to-base ratio. During surgery, the masses were excised using an electronic scalpel and sent to histopathological analysis. The post-operative care consisted of cephalexin and meloxicam prescriptions. Also, it was recommended 0.9% NaCl solution wound flushing followed by topical chlorhexidine digluconate solution (1%) whenever dirt or defecation were noticed. The surgical wound healed after two weeks by second intention. Histopathology found well-delimited masses that covers the epidermis and dermis and displaces the cutaneous appendages towards the underlying musculature with an aggregate of lymphoplasmohistiocytic inflammatory infiltrate in the adjacent dermis. These finds and the presence of orthokeratotic hyperkeratosis and epidermis hyperplasia confirmed the clinical diagnosis of cutaneous horns. There were no signs of malignance. After surgery, no relapse occurred.Discussion: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first confirmed case of cutaneous horns in mucocutaneous junction. Furthermore, the tumors were found in a region with little exposure to sunlight which is unusual. The tumor’s narrow bases and the absence of continuous and dense inflammatory infiltrate shown to be predictive of benignancy as occurs in human beings. During surgical planning, it was decided not to establish wide margins around the masses. The decision considered the morphological signs of benignancy of the tumors described for human beings as no surveys about prevalence of benignity or malignancy associated with cutaneous horns were found in dogs. In addition, a more extensive excision could promote anal sphincter dysfunction. There was no tumors recurrence suggesting that the primary underlying lesions have been healed and confirming that predictive benignancy morphological characteristics applied in human patients can be useful for small animals. Veterinary clinicians and surgeons must be in constant vigil of cutaneous horns uncommon presentations and report them to create a solid database that can be useful for prognosis and surgical planning. The morphological predictive factors can be applied to avoid unnecessary extensive surgical excisions that could lead to functional or cosmetic impairment

Dietary shifts in vertebrates: factors affecting seed selection in desert rodents

This study uses foraging theory to predict that small vertebrates forage to maximize their net rate of energy gain or minimize risk of starvation. It focuses on an Australian desert rodent, the sandy inland mouse (Pseudomys hermannsburgensis), due its abundance and tractability for hypothesis testing, and because it provides an opportunity to compare its foraging with other desert rodents. My experiments on foraging and seed selection focused on diet shifts under the risk of predation, diet choice in relation to seed characteristics and the background seed base, and the foraging characteristics of animals when seed access was manipulated by burying seeds at different depths and with added moisture. Pseudomys hermannsburgensis is omnivorous, but seeds dominate the diet as shown by observations of foraging animals and analysis of stomach contents. Giving-up density and cafeteria trials with different seeds showed animals to be risk-averse and less active in open compared with sheltered areas. Under low predation risk animals selected preferred seeds and under high risk they were less choosy and quickly took any seeds they encountered. Mice used olfaction to detect seeds buried at depths up to 5 cm, but preferred seeds on the soil surface; adding moisture did not affect seed detection or consumption. Familiar seeds were preferred compared with rare seeds, although other factors such as seed quality are also important. Experimental exclusion of rodents from plots showed that seed predation reduces seed species diversity and abundance, but these effects became clear only after a major rainfall event that triggered an eruption in rodent numbers and predation impact. My research is the first detailed study of the diet and foraging behaviour of an Australian desert rodent. It uncovers a range of novel strategies that allow P. hermannsburgensis to persist in its variable desert environment, and contrasts these strategies with those used by rodents in other world deserts