Personal Growth in Couples Caring for a Child with a Life-Threatening Illness

Little is known about the potential for positive outcomes in couples who have a child with a life-threatening illness. The current study was a secondary analysis of demographics and personal growth data of 34 couples actively caring for children with various life-threatening conditions. There were three overarching goals in this research: (a) to examine differences in Posttraumatic Growth Inventory scores (PTGI) of mothers and fathers, (b) to examine the relationship between demographic variables and PTGI scores of mothers and fathers, and (c) to measure level of congruency in couple-dyad scores and test if partners’ growth scores are predictive of one another. Findings showed significant differences between the Total Growth scores of mothers and fathers, with mothers having significantly higher scores. Of all areas examined, interpersonal growth appears to be the most sensitive to demographic factors. A number of significant relationships were found between demographics and scores on the Relating to Others scale of mothers and fathers. Fathers’ personal growth was related to age, age of child, time since diagnosis, how well income meets needs, and importance of religion. The growth of mothers was related to community size, how well income meets needs, importance of religion, and diagnostic category of child’s condition. Congruency testing showed that couple-dyads were no more likely to report similar degrees of growth than they were to report opposite degrees of growth. However, interpersonal growth and spiritual change scores of one partner were highly predictive of those reported by his or her partner. Implications for social workers and other professionals to recognize the potential for positive outcomes and factors that may influence personal growth in couples caring for a child with a life-threatening illness are addressed

God\u27s Recurring Dream: Assessing the New Monastic Movement through a Historical Comparison

In April of 1208, Francis of Assisi came to Rome with a handful of his followers, seeking papal permission to found a new religious order. Innocent III had other issues on his mind at the time. But tradition holds that a dream changed the pope’s mind, and he gave his qualified approval to the order of the Friars Minor that day. His gamble was vindicated by history. Twenty years later, Francis of Assisi was canonized, beloved by all Christendom as the founder of the Franciscan mendicant order. His order and others like it constituted a revolutionary departure from traditional monasticism. Today, St. Francis’ life and example has found a new champion within the American Protestant tradition. Promoters of the popular “new monasticism” movement have often invoked St. Francis and his friars specifically as a guiding historical example for what they seek to accomplish. This young movement, consisting of small groups engaging in communal living and radical activism across the country, has begun to consciously rehabilitate the practice of monasticism within the evangelical Protestant fold. Their efforts and vision, as articulated by movement leaders like Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson, have received a great deal of attention and admiration from the mainstream Christian public, along with significant criticism. In this project, I aim to assess the possibilities, limitations, character, and meaning of the new monastic movement through a historical comparison with the 13th century mendicant movement. The similarities between the two movements are many, and the leaders of the new monastic movement are consciously aware of these similarities and interested in modeling themselves further on the example of the St. Francis and his counterparts. My study will seek to assess the historical reality of the comparison and its implications for the young new monastic movement

Fanbinding and a Community-Generated Information Environment

Fanbinding is the practice of printing and binding fanfiction and other fanworks in codex form either by hand or using online print services. In June 2020, fanbinder ArmoredSuperHeavy created Renegade Bindery, a Discord server for fanbinders of any experience to gather, discuss, and exchange resources, advice, and files to support one another’s artistic object-making. The foundation of Renegade Bindery generated an increase in community-oriented practices in online spaces that support fanbound work creation. In the last two years, the bindery has grown to over 900 members and offers an increasing number of channels dedicated to databases, exchanges, and community events, nurturing the circulation of fanbound works and encouraging fan creators to produce works (in number and scope) beyond what they might achieve on their own. This paper examines these communal elements of the discord server and how it sustains an information environment of fanbound work creation, circulation, and dissemination and how that circuit crosses digital and material boundaries

Optimizing the Research Administrative Infrastructure to Support an Increase of Clinical Trials at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

In late 2017, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (WFBMC) created a Clinical Trials Task Force to identify ways of increasing their volume of industry-sponsored clinical trials. Increasing the number of industry-sponsored clinical trials provides many benefits, including: (1) offering more cutting-edge treatment options to its patients, (2) growing its research portfolio, (3) expanding the reach of its research across the entire WFBMC network, and (4) providing additional opportunities for revenue. The author is a member of this task force and capitalized on the opportunity to use this capstone project to help generate information and ideas that were presented to WFMBC leadership in March of 2018. In order for WFBMC to build capacity to increase its volume of clinical trials, workflows must be improved in order to have a research infrastructure capable of facilitating clinical trial agreements (CTAs) in a timely manner. For this capstone project, the author examined a new improvement initiative, the 60-Day Challenge, and conducted a literature search to determine what other institutions consider best practices in this area. The author also conducted interviews with senior leadership to identify potential research infrastructure improvement strategies that could be implemented at WFBMC. The research done for this capstone project led the author to make ten recommendations from the findings. These recommendations included continuing the 60-Day Challenge to allow for parallel submission and review of the budget, contract, and regulatory documents; incorporating previously approved contract language and master agreements whenever possible to help facilitate faster contract negotiations; and creating a focused pool of dedicated CTA processing staff. These recommendations can help WFBMC become more efficient at processing CTAs and become more attractive to sponsors, which will promote and support an increase in clinical trials

Is Low Health Literacy Associated with Increased Emergency Department Utilization and Recidivism?

OBJECTIVES: The objective was to determine whether patients with low health literacy have higher emergency department (ED) utilization and higher ED recidivism than patients with adequate health literacy. METHODS: The study was conducted at an urban academic ED with more than 95,000 annual visits that is part of a 13-hospital health system, using electronic records that are captured in a central data repository. As part of a larger, cross-sectional, convenience sample study, health literacy testing was performed using the short test of functional health literacy in adults (S-TOFHLA) and standard test thresholds identifying those with inadequate, marginal, and adequate health literacy. The authors collected patients' demographic and clinical data, including items known to affect recidivism. This was a structured electronic record review directed at determining 1) the median number of total ED visits in this health system within a 2-year period and 2) the proportion of patients with each level of health literacy who had return visits within 3, 7, and 14 days of index visits. Descriptive data for demographics and ED returns are reported, stratified by health literacy level. The Mantel-Haenszel chi-square was used to test whether there is an association between health literacy and ED recidivism. A negative binomial multivariable model was performed to examine whether health literacy affects ED use, including variables significant at the 0.1 alpha level on bivariate analysis and retaining those significant at an alpha of 0.05 in the final model. RESULTS: Among 431 patients evaluated, 13.2% had inadequate, 10% had marginal, and 76.3% had adequate health literacy as identified by S-TOFHLA. Patients with inadequate health literacy had higher ED utilization compared to those with adequate health literacy (p = 0.03). Variables retained in the final model included S-TOFHLA score, number of medications, having a personal doctor, being a property owner, race, insurance, age, and simple comorbidity score. During the study period, 118 unique patients each made at least one return ED visit within a 14-day period. The proportion of patients with inadequate health literacy making at least one return visit was higher than that of patients with adequate health literacy at 14 days, but was not significantly higher within 3 or 7 days. CONCLUSIONS: In this single-center study, higher utilization of the ED by patients with inadequate health literacy when compared to those with adequate health literacy was observed. Patients with inadequate health literacy made a higher number of return visits at 14 days but not at 3 or 7 days

A new narrow-beam, multi-frequency, scanning radiometer and its application to in-flight icing detection

AbstractA one degree beamwidth, multi-frequency (20 to 30 and 89GHz), dual-polarization radiometer with full azimuth and elevation scanning capabilities was built with the purpose of improving the detection of in-flight icing hazards to aircraft in the near airport environment. This goal was achieved by collocating the radiometer with Colorado State University's CHILL polarized Doppler radar and leveraging the similar beamwidth and volume scan regiments of the two instruments. The collocated instruments allowed for the liquid water path and water vapor measurements derived from the radiometer to be merged with the radar moment fields to determine microphysical and water phase characteristics aloft. The radiometer was field tested at Colorado State University's CHILL radar site near Greeley, Colorado during the summer of 2009. Instrument design, calibration, and initial field testing results are discussed in this paper

Primary Corrosion Processes for Polymer-Embedded Free-Standing or Substrate-Supported Silicon Microwire Arrays in Aqueous Alkaline Electrolytes

Solar fuel devices have shown promise as a sustainable source of chemical fuels. However, long-term stability of light absorbing materials remains a substantial barrier to practical devices. Herein, multiple corrosion pathways in 1 M KOH(aq) have been defined for TiO₂-protected Si microwire arrays in a polymer membrane either attached to a substrate or free-standing. Top-down corrosion was observed in both morphologies through defects in the TiO₂ coating. For the substrate-based samples, bottom-up corrosion was observed through the substrate and up the adjacent wires. In the free-standing samples, uniform bottom-up corrosion was observed through the membrane with all wire material corroded within 10 days of immersion in the dark in 1 M KOH(aq)

Extending Comprehensive Maritime Awareness to Disconnected Vessels and Users

After the attacks of 9/11, increased security became a national priority that resulted in a focus on National Maritime Security. Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) is an initiative developed by the Coast Guard, in partnership with the U.S. Navy and other agencies to increase awareness in the maritime domain in support of maritime security [Morgan and Wimmer, 2005]. The purpose of MDA is to generate actionable intelligence obtained via the collection, fusion and dissemination of information from U.S. joint forces, U.S. government agencies, international coalition partners and commercial entities. This actionable intelligence is the cornerstone of successful counterterrorist and maritime law enforcement operations and is critical to Maritime Security [Morgan and Wimmer, 2005]. The U.S. Navy, as a partner in the development and creation of MDA, has tasked its subordinate commands to identify and define capabilities to support this program. One effort sponsored is the Comprehensive Maritime Awareness (CMA) Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration (JCTD) [CMA Architecture Team, 2007]. This project supports the CMA JCTD efforts by proposing a deployable system to enable a disconnected vessel to connect to the CMA network. A disconnected user can be seen as a merchant ship, hospital ship or any vessel that is not currently connected to the CMA network. This project's proposed deployable system, as a subset to the CMA network, facilitates information sharing in support of humanitarian efforts worldwide.http://archive.org/details/extendingcompreh109456932N

Insure Me Cancer Free: An Intervention Utilizing a Dynamic Communication Model

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a pilot insurance company-based intervention guided by a Dynamic Communication Model to increase breast and colorectal cancer screening in Appalachian WV, a medically-underserved population with low screening rates. Our team and key informants developed letters and a website to promote cancer screening, and these were mailed to patients needing screening (breast: n = 232; colorectal: n = 324). After 6 months, a sample of women (n = 22) and men (n = 27) continuing to need screening received telephonic case management counseling. Screening rates were assessed at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. A final telephone interview was conducted at 12 months with a subset of participants. Key informants (n = 21) provided feedback on the letter/website, resulting in improved readability, organization, and informational content. The letter/website had minimal impact on screening (breast: n = 8; colon: n = 5). The final telephone interview of plan members (n = 12) found they liked the personalized approach and appreciated learning more about cancer, and that you need to “catch it early for good treatment.” All understood the counseling and believed the information was correct. Nearly all intended to get screened. Following counseling, screening numbers increased (total breast: n = 39; total colon: n = 18). Our theoretically-driven, case management counseling intervention was well received and has the potential to increase cancer screening rates, particularly in a rural, medically-underserved populations